Church Tech Today shares "Instagram's 90-Minute Videos: What It Means for Sermons" (6-minute read), on Features, a horizontal format for videos up to 90 minutes that Instagram began testing October 26 with a limited group of creators. A companion tool, Clips as Reels, links up to 8 short clips back to the full video. To prepare now, export the message without the countdown or announcements, make a transcript, pick clips that stand alone, and keep the pastor centered.

Editor's note: Instagram has given no date for wider access. The piece suggests keeping your full sermon archive on your website and YouTube, deciding now who approves full-length uploads, and offering a reading plan or prayer guide so viewers can leave an email address.

This Week in AI shares "Use AI to edit your videos (free)" (8-minute watch), a demo of Shorts Studio, a free plugin for Claude Code that turns one long recording into short clips. It handles four kinds of shorts, from a screen demo to a podcast's best 30 seconds, and adds captions and graphics. Each clip passes 13 checks, such as cuts landing on silence, and every note you give it becomes a new check. It needs a paid Claude plan (Pro is $20 a month).

Editor's note: A sermon recording is a natural long video to try it on. Setup installs several free tools and runs on a Mac or Linux computer, not Windows, so it suits your most technical volunteer. The video also carries a sponsor message from PayPal.

The Pro Church Tools Show shares "Your Church Is Training People to Tune Out" (43-minute watch), a listener Q&A. The core answer: nobody remembers details, dates or deadlines read from the stage, and repeating them trains people to stop listening. Instead, keep one scannable weekly bulletin online as the record of everything, and point to it from a single QR code. Email can then link to it, round up three to five items, or carry it all.

Editor's note: Other answers: track attendance in a spreadsheet rather than new software, and skip AI-voice announcements. The hosts offer a free communications report and a free website makeover; their company sells Nucleus church websites from $65 a month.

Church Production shares "What Is Your Microphone Seeing?" (6-minute read), in which studio engineer Eric Myers says to ask what sound you want before asking which microphone to buy. Start with the source: tune drums, replace worn heads and strings, and check for a mic that has fallen or rotated. Then move the instrument or the mic a few feet and listen again. Aim at the first reflection off a piano lid or a plexiglass drum shield.

Editor's note: On electric guitar, he moves the mic from the speaker's center, which sounds brighter, toward its edge, which sounds darker, before touching the mixing console. His closing advice: the best microphone may be the one you already own, positioned differently.

Church Tech Today shares "Gen Z Is Back in Church. Is Your Discipleship Tech Built for Them?" (5-minute read), on Lifeway Research findings that Gen Z churchgoers averaged 6.2 worship services a month, more than any other generation, while many say their faith does not change their weekday lives. It suggests a 30-minute staff audit: what young adults receive from you Monday through Saturday, and whether your system shows who is in a group.

Editor's note: If an audit answer is "nothing" or "we don't know," start there and test one fix through the end of the year. When a young adult drops out of a group, the piece says a call within a week shows them someone noticed.

YouVersion shares "Discover these Bible apps during Global Bible Month…" (1-minute read), introducing its family of apps. Bible Loop, the newest, is built for teens, with activities and games for memorizing Scripture. Bible App for Kids offers interactive stories, the Bible App carries more than 3,500 translations, and Bible App Lite works offline in select regions. Starting November 1, anyone who opens the Bible App 30 days in a row earns a Global Bible Month badge.

Editor's note: For the church side, Church Tech Today's ICYMI Global Bible Month 2026 guide says to sign up at globalbiblemonth.com and launch the 30-Day Bible Challenge today. A reading plan tied to your sermon series pairs well with the Gen Z item above.

Pushpay shares "How Planning Center, Tithely, and Pushpay handle giving reports" (21-minute read), comparing Planning Center, Tithely and Pushpay on donor reports, year-end statements and accounting exports. Its most useful part is six reports to run in any demo, including giving by fund against your books, one deposit broken into its gifts, and a joint household's statement. It also advises merging duplicate donor profiles and waiting until mid-January to generate statements.

Editor's note: Pushpay wrote this and ranks itself the best fit for several needs. It closes by asking you to book a demo; its pricing is quoted after that demo. The six-report test works on any platform, including the one you already use.

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Correction: our Oct 25 issue named Apple without a Disclosures entry. We use a MacBook, iPhone, iPad and AirPods.

In the interest of “shunning the appearance of evil” resulting from undisclosed relationships and/or potential conflicts of interest, we disclose our relationship(s) with the providers mentioned.

We also disclose our own use of AI. This newsletter is researched and drafted with Claude, an Anthropic product. Every issue — the summaries and the editor's notes alike — is reviewed, edited and approved by a human editor before it is sent, and the selections are made by a person, not a model. We are stating this plainly because a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in August ran without such a note and the omission became the story.