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You know, I’ve always enjoyed Bible studies by all the Lifeway Ladies, who make these fancy videos with all the bells and whistles: Angie Smith teaching as she walks through the fall leaves, Beth Moore teaching from the Holy Land, all the fancy sets and stylish outfits, and all that amazing hair! Surely, this was something that I could replicate on my own, right? (Insert audience laughing sounds here.) If you want a look at the real-deal, here’s your sneak-peak of what it looked like for me to put this Bible study out into the world!
By now I’m sure you know all about my brand new Bible study, “Yes, Lord”. Doesn’t it look so fancy and professional? Haven’t snagged your copy yet?
I took this picture of the cliffs along the eastern shores of Oahu with my very own iPhone and plopped it into the tool that has helped me with every bit of graphic design, canva.com. It isn’t fancy, but it works! I created the whole e-book, all of the study guides listener guides, and discussion questions in Canva! It helps someone like me, who has no graphic design experience or talent at all, create something cool!
The beginning of “Yes, Lord”
I wrote “Yes, Lord” in 2016 when I was teaching a Bible study group in my community. I spent so many late nights poring over Scriptures and commentaries and picking Dr. Irving’s brain about it all. All of us involved in that Bible study ate it up and we grew so much through the study. Not long ago, one of the ladies who participated in that original study told me that “Yes, Lord” was one of the most impactful studies she’d ever done and that she still goes back to the truths she learned through it.
I’ve had “Yes, Lord” saved in a folder on my laptop ever since, waiting to become something. I got tired of waiting for the Lifeway Ladies to come knocking on my door and decided I just needed to get “Yes, Lord” out there on my own! The only problem was that I had no clue how to do that.
I did a lot of googling and watched a million youtube videos to figure out the ins and outs of course creation. The information overload caused me to go silent on The Strong Home for a little while. I felt so overwhelmed by all of the things I needed to fix. Launching this course on my own depended on me figuring out so much technology and that left my head spinning!
And then I just decided to do it.
I found an amazing platform on podia.com to host all the content of my study, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll break the bank. (I’ve already invested quite a bit into getting all the technology up and running, so this was a big deal!) Using Podia, I’m able to upload all of my videos, pdf printables, ebook content and more! I’m also able to take payment through stripe and PayPal right on my site. I figured all those little details out and I’m really pleased with how it looks and how easy it is to access. I love that y’all can order and pay online, get instant access, and complete all of the course content at your own pace. It’s a perfect setup.
Now let’s talk about the filming! I had all the study material written. All of the technology was figured out. I just needed to film! I needed a quiet place, but unfortunately, there is not one single place in this house that is acceptable for that. We live an open-air life here in Hawaii, so the birds alone make enough noise to prevent any kind of acceptable filming, not to mention the neighbor-noise from across the street. I decided to go up to Dr. Irving’s office.
I pulled several of his biggest theology books off the shelf and stacked my daughter’s ring light/tripod/iPhone holder on top. Then I moved piles and stacks of pastor-clutter out of the camera’s view and got ready to film. But before I go on, I have to mention the dire circumstances under which I filmed these sessions.
I had to turn the air conditioner off.
If you’ve spent any time around me here at The Strong Home or in real life, you know that the lack of central air conditioning has been one of the hardest parts of my adjustment to Hawaii life. Chris has a window unit in his office, but it is so LOUD that I couldn’t film my teaching without a lot of background noise if that thing was running. I couldn’t open the windows because his office faces a main street with lots of road noise. So I got the room as cool as I could and got everything ready and then I turned it off. By the time I finished teaching each session, sweat covered me.
And I couldn’t help but picture the Lifeway Ladies with their perfect hair and makeup and super cute outfits, filming in their exotic locations.
If you haven’t already snagged a copy of “Yes, Lord”, you should do it now out of pity. Do you see what I’ve endured to get this into your hands???
Now let’s be real here:
When you’ve done a video-based Bible study, what’s the one thing you look at most on the video? Does the teacher’s worn and loved Bible catch your eye? Is it her eyes and mouth as she’s communicating? Be honest – it’s her outfit and her hair, right? This weighed heavily on me as I tried to figure out what to wear. Each night that I filmed, I took a look at my wardrobe, which includes a couple “new-ish” tops, but mostly stuff from 2014. And let’s be real again – I was totally wearing stretchy workout shorts on the bottom because since COVID began that’s my wardrobe. And if I hadn’t told you, you never would’ve known what’s on bottom, right? Anyway, I swear I picked the best ten tops that could be possibly presentable on camera.
I filmed 3-4 sessions each night, so I came up to the office with a bunch of clothes and a handful of jewelry each night. I knew y’all would want some different earrings to stare at. Perhaps the biggest news of all is that I took a shower and did my hair and makeup three times in one week! This has not happened since pre-Covid days. Some sessions I wore my hair up, sometimes it was down. Sometimes I wore my glasses, sometimes I didn’t. I did everything I could do to try to be interesting for y’all to look at, but I sure hope you’ll spend a little bit of time thinking about what I’m saying and not staring at my earrings!
Voila!
Once I finished all the recording, it was time to get super-creative with iMovie! As I edited, I silenced my inner self-critic as she attempted to convince me that I looked weird in that video or I stumbled over my words in the other one. I inserted a little bit of audio and a intro/outro slide, clipped a few videos and added a few transitions, bought a new external hard-drive and a new brand new laptop to solve my problems and voila! TWENTY FIVE MILLION HOURS LATER, I finished! I uploaded all of the videos to podia and got ready to launch my Bible study.
If you’re still reading up to this point, you must be amazed at how thrilling this whole experience seems! I do hope that one day I’ll look back on this season and laugh as a the Lifeway Ladies team stands poised in the wings waiting for me to come out so they can make me look fancy enough for their standards. For now, I will go on being totally thrilled that SIX whole people bought my Bible study (plus the one I gave my mom for free!). For the record, there’s not a bit of sarcasm there. When my first sale went through, I did a literal happy-dance and all of my kids jumped up and down with me. Whether this study reaches six people or six thousand, I know that the word of God ALWAYS bears fruit and I can’t wait to see how God uses it from here on out.
Also, I’m not giving up because if SIX was this exciting, imagine how SIX THOUSAND will feel!
