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The book

Broadcasting the Gospel

Rethinking the Parable of the Sower

When Jesus told the parable of the sower, a single sower could manage a few acres. With today’s technology a single sower manages thousands of acres alone. This book is not about changing the meaning of the parable but advocating to apply it with the technology we have today.

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Cover of Broadcasting the Gospel: Rethinking the Parable of the Sower, by Ryan Scott

The argument

Broadcasting was a farming word before it was a media word

To broadcast is to reach into a bag and throw seed with abandon, without knowing where any of it lands. Radio and television borrowed the word because it fit. And it is exactly what the sower is doing in Matthew 13. We usually teach that parable as four kinds of soil, which is true, and in doing so we walk straight past the man. He was not selective. He was not efficient. He was prolific, and only a quarter of what he threw found ground that produced.

That ratio is not a failure rate. It is the cost of covering the good ground. The seed that landed on the path was the price paid for the seed that did not. Which means the lesson is not to be more careful about where we plant. It is to plant so much that the good ground gets covered.

Meanwhile we hold ourselves accountable for the wrong number. At every conference the question is how many are you running — a question about increase, which Scripture is plain about being God’s to give. Nobody asks how much seed went into the ground, and that is the only part any of us controls. This book proposes a different question, and a plain way to answer it.

Then it gets practical. Part Two walks the platforms one at a time, and each chapter covers the same four things: how to set the account up properly, the kind of content that reaches someone who has never been to church, what to expect so you are not discouraged by week two, and a weekly workflow that does not consume your life. They are primers, not encyclopedias. The bar is getting you into the field.

Who it is for

Three ministers we kept in mind

  • The pastor who has never posted

    You have preached for years and you have never once looked into a phone camera. It feels exposed, and a little beneath the work. Start at the chapter about the boy in the field, then record sixty seconds this week.

  • The church with a website nobody visits

    You pay every month for a site with a sermon archive on it. The sermons are real and nobody outside the church has ever seen one. There is a chapter about where that content should actually live.

  • The minister who handed it all off

    Someone in the church runs the accounts, the graphics look good, and none of it is aimed at anyone who has not already been to church. The gap you feel is your own voice, and it is the one that cannot be delegated.

What is covered

Nineteen chapters, in two halves

Part One, chapters one through ten, is the conviction. Chapter eleven turns the corner. Part Two takes the platforms one at a time — read the one you need and come back for the rest.

  1. 01Going Viral
  2. 02Missing the Point
  3. 03How Many Are You Running?
  4. 04The Broadcasting Mindset
  5. 05The Law of the Harvest
  6. 06What Is a Seed?
  7. 07The Field Is Ready
  8. 08Systems Reward Harvest
  9. 09You're Already Doing the Hard Part
  10. 10Observe Not the Wind
  11. 11Part Two: how to use these chapters
  12. 12Church Websites
  13. 13Podcasting
  14. 14YouTube
  15. 15Instagram
  16. 16TikTok
  17. 17Facebook
  18. 18Google Business Profile
  19. 19When the Seeds Sprout

The author

Ryan Scott

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Church planter, Bible college instructor, and digital marketing executive

In 2012, Ryan and his wife Brittani moved to Seattle to start a church with no support, no backing, and no team — an SUV, what they owned, and a dog named Hollister. They stayed thirteen years. The outreach that worked was never the thing he expected: videos on YouTube and writing on the church website. People found the church online, called about baptism, and came.

He had the background for it. He was raised in a pastor’s home and has been in digital marketing since he was building web pages as a teenager — marketing at Jackson College of Ministries, director of promotions at Texas Bible College, and later more than a decade at the executive level, up to chief marketing officer of a HubSpot agency.

He also stopped. The videos tapered off, then ended, while he chased programs and tried to keep people. He writes about that plainly: it is the failure the book is built on, and the reason he is asking other ministers not to repeat it.

Getting a copy

Where to buy it

The book is available now on Amazon.

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Questions

The things people ask first

The book mentions SowerStack. What is that?
SowerStack was our name before UNmuted. Everything the book points to under that name — the community, the courses, the Cast Count dashboard, the podcast — lives here now.
Is this a social media course?
No. Half the book never mentions a platform. It is about the parable, the funnel, and what we are actually accountable for. The platform chapters exist so that the conviction has somewhere to go, and they are primers — enough to get you planting, not a tour of every menu.
I do not like these platforms.
Neither does the author, and he says so. This is not a call to become a consumer of them. It is a call to be a voice on them. Paul walked onto Mars Hill, which was built for everything he preached against, and opened his mouth anyway. Having a presence and joining in are two different postures.
How much time does this take each week?
Every platform chapter answers that three ways: if it is just you, if you have one willing volunteer, and if you have a small team. At the first tier the numbers are small — thirty minutes a week on one platform, two to three hours if you are running a podcast. The Google listing chapter asks for ten minutes.
Does any of this work for a small church?
It was written for one. Every platform in the book now judges a post on its own merits rather than on who published it, which means a church of thirty has the same reach as a church of three thousand. And your field is your field — a pastor covering a town of five thousand is not behind a pastor covering a metro area.
What has the parable of the sower got to do with it?
Everything. Broadcasting is a farming term before it is a media term: reaching into the bag and throwing seed with abandon. That is what the sower in Matthew 13 was doing, and it is the argument the whole book rests on — plant enough that the good ground gets covered, and leave the increase to God.
Which platform should I start with?
One. The one you are least intimidated by, or the one where you know your community already spends time. One platform done consistently beats six done poorly, and you can add the second when the first feels ordinary. If you want the quickest return for the least effort, read the Google Business Profile chapter first.
Where can I buy it?
The current retailers are listed above. If your preferred store is not there yet, tell us and we will look into it.
Can I ask a question that is not covered here?
Yes. Write to hello@unmuted.is, or bring it to the community — someone there has probably hit the same thing already.

You do not have to figure this out alone

The book makes the case and gets you started. The community is the people already planting, in fields the size of yours.

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