In this day and age, technology is an integral part of many of our daily lives. Jason Caston noticed that this was true for several church-goers, so he created The iChurch Method — a program that brings church to worshipers via streaming, social media, and other online means. But the content developer’s personal use of tech resources is what keeps him on his tech-savvy toes.
Caston has served about 2,500 churches with iChurch and has a wide demographic of users. Dedicated church members, sporadic worshipers, and those who would typically stay away from church altogether have found great use in catching service or other elements of their faith via technology.
“We’re showing how there’s such an increase in how the Black church is gravitating toward utilizing technology in their base experience,” Caston says.
He also serves as the digital lead for T.D. Jakes Ministries. His duty there is to make sure the 50,000 to 100,000 ‘e-members’ — or those who enjoy digital worship methods — have a plethora of options to stay connected, whether it be through streaming, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Internet TV, or the mobile app.
Caston continues to stay up-to-date on the latest online platforms because of what he calls the difference between “the method and the message.” This means a pastor’s message generally does not change, but the method through which he gets his message heard changes constantly.
“We know the pastor’s not preaching from stone tablets or parchments or scrolls and stuff,” he says. “Now we’re talking about the new platforms of social media, mobile apps and now there’s Periscope. Facebook Live just launched three weeks ago, Meerkat is another one, and Snapchat, Vine … all these different platforms.”
Of course, as a content developer, Caston uses web-based methods himself to remain an ahead-of-the-game techie.
“When I start my morning off, it’s going to be Instagram, Facebook and Twitter — those are the top three,” he names as his go-to apps. “Then I’m looking at Snapchat and Spotify, because I got my music going.
“I’m looking at different ways I’m going to push out content for the day, so with that, I use an app called Feedly. That just takes all the information I’m trying to look at for the day and tells me what’s new, what’s the hot thing, and I start pushing that out to all my different platforms and all the different people that follow me on Facebook, Twitter, etc.,” he adds.
And those are just the top six apps the businessman views before he brushes his teeth in the morning.
To learn more, visit www.ichurchmethod.com.
