SYNC Ministries

The future of Sunday School in your pocket
How many teens in your church have a cell phone? Or how about Facebook? Twitter? Teens are surrounded by technology and a virtual world of connections and learning. SYNC Ministries developed a Sunday School curriculum that engages the youth in their modern world without sacrificing biblical learning and discipleship. We make learning fun and engaging through the entire week.

SYNC Ministries, a subset of FuZion Videos, seeks to bring the truth of the Bible to teens’ phones and tablets. This program is an interactive Sunday School curriculum with biblically centered videos, daily devotional plans, earnable prizes and ranks, discussion forums, social media collaboration, and more all designed for mobile devices and computers with optional printable material.

The SYNC program emphasizes exciting, thought-provoking videos and an interactive app as tools for Biblical teaching. We offer recommended social media posts so the teacher can interact with his or her students throughout the week through social media networks. These tools do not replace the message of the Gospel and Biblical truth but engage the students with its teaching.

Lessons
App
Devotionals
Class Discussions

Lessons

Every SYNC lesson is designed to initiate questions and discussions. The number one reason for youth leaving the church is “The church didn’t answer my questions.” But many students do not voice the questions and confusions on their hearts. SYNC seeks to help initiate those difficult, but much needed discussions. This leaves a lot on the teacher to be prepared to answer questions. We know you can do it.

Videos

Every lesson comes with discussion provoking video(s) to engage the class from the start. A variety of video formats and styles are used to keep the class’ engagement every time you meet. These videos vary from modern renditions of biblical allegories to interviews with experts in theological fields.

Customizable Lesson Plan

Traditional lesson plans are static and determined by the material producer. At times this can be good, but there are times when one may want to change the order of lessons or even pull a completely different topic into the series. For example a tragic accident may have happened in the youth group, in which case it would be good to switch to a lesson on “Is God Still Loving when Things Go Wrong?” To help the youth see God’s love even in the hard times.

App

The SYNC program comes with an app to integrate all the benefits of SYNC on one platform for both students and professors. Easily manage the class through the intuitive design and powerful tools.

Teacher Tools

Some teachers may be afraid of using technology, so SYNC developed a substitute/assistant position that a student can fill to help the teacher with the technology. The assistant cannot see any private messages or respond as a teacher but can manage some backend settings. The substitute can come in and teach the class and have access to the backend settings.

Social Media Suggestions

Today’s youth are on social media seemingly constantly. The social media suggestions are designed to remind the students of the week’s lesson, upcoming lesson, and extra learning materials.

Earnable Ranks

Every student is given a rank based on their devotional “score.” Every time they have a devotion and complete the quiz, they earn points. As they earn more points, they rank up. The ranks are based on Roman military ranks from the time of Christ.

Earmable Achievements

Consistency in devotions can be difficult, so SYNC developed achievements. Since Christians are in the Lord’s Army, the achievements are designed as weapons for our spiritual warfare. It can be discouraging when one forgets or “fails” in their devotions, so the achievements are designed to encourage the students to start back up and continue if they miss a day. Varying levels of achievements can be earned based on consistency. Earnable achievements consist of weekly prizes (copper sword (3 devotions a week), bronze sword (4 devotions a week), iron sword (5 devotions a week), and steel sword (perfect 7 devotions in a week)), series prizes, specialty prizes, and many more. If one misses a devotion, they can go back and view previous day’s devotions but only earn achievements for the current and previous day’s devotions.

Devotions

Devotions are written to reenforce the lessons in class.

Daily Devotionals and Quizzes

Over 70% of surveyed youth said they would be more likely to have their devotions if it was synced with their Sunday school material on an app. SYNC believes every Christian should be in the Bible daily. In today’s modern, fast-paced life, it is easy to put daily devotions aside, so we created a 7 day devotional set for each week’s lesson. They are strategically designed to incorporate the week’s lesson into their daily lives, remind them what they’ve learned, and prepare them for the next week’s lessons. Each devotional comes with a short quiz to help them check their comprehension.

Devotional Monitor

It is always beneficial to know where your students stand on the topic you are teaching, so we’ve added a devotional monitor to the app. The teacher cannot see who has done their devotions, but they can monitor the percentage of completed devotionals from the registered students. This gives powerful insight into the starting knowledge of the students and what to teaches.

Class Discussion forums

When questions come up through the week from the student devotions or from life in general, the students can ask questions to the teacher or the rest of the class straight through the app. This encourages students to engage with fellow Christians daily and ask questions instead of sitting on their questions then feeling their questions are ignored by the church. Sometimes questions that “good Christians don’t have” come up, and the student may be embarrassed to ask. SYNC set up the forums to make it easier for those questions to be asked by adding an “anonymous” question setting to protect the student.

Pricing

The pricing for SYNC Ministries program varies per size of the church.

Meet the SYNC Ministries Team
Luke Mielke - CEO, Director, Producer
Having grown up in a pastor’s family, Luke has a heart for ministry and discipling. His vision to create SYNC developed while finishing his college career at Maranatha Baptist Bible College. Upon completing his degree, he began working at Maranatha as the videographer and soon added teaching media classes to his load. In 2016 he completed his MFA degree in film directing. Creating high quality productions with a biblical emphasis is his desire.
Krista Mielke - Writer, Sound Engineer
Meeting Luke while working as stage crew at Marantha Baptist Bible College, she and Luke fell in love and a few weeks after graduating they married. Her emphasis is in counseling. Although a stay at home mother, she is the head writer of the materials including the devotionals and class notes. She wants to see the next generation use the technology around them to grow in Christ instead of being distracted by it.
Blaine Landowski - Special Projects Director
Having met Luke in college, they quickly became great friends. He has an exceptional mind of problem solving and making Luke’s crazy ideas reality on the web and in the app. He is actively involved in his local church and desires to see the youth see Christianity as exciting and not just for the old “boring” generation. He also heads up staging and props for the SYNC films.
Rebekah Landowski - Writer
Wife of Blaine who also met most of the SYNC team while working on stage crew at Maranatha Baptist Bible College. She is another writer. Although spending much of her time raising their two children, she is a great asset to the team. Her degree is biblical counseling from Maranatha Baptist University.
Leah Warren – Writer, Researcher

She has been writing since she was a small girl. Though most of her personal work is creative prose, she loves all kinds of writing. She is fascinated by the stories of history which makes research a joy for her. She graduated from Maranatha Baptist University with a degree in Humanities, beleiving a well-rounded education contributes to being a well-rounded indvidual. She desires to use the skills God has given her to reach her community through the arts.

Tanner Jotblad – Web Developer
An incredibly gifted young man in solving coding problems, he works with Blaine on making the SYNC app functional. After completing degrees at a technical college in coding, he went on to graduate from Maranatha Baptist University with a degree in pastoral studies and currently pursuing a MDiv at Maranatha Baptist Seminary.

SYNC Ministries Team Philosophy

Our entire SYNC team is actively involved in their local churches and posses education from bible colleges, universities, and seminaries. We also have several pastors and theological professors who look over our materials for docitricinal accuracy. We do videos with different pastors and professors of Bible who are experts in the topics they present for SYNC, so they look over the materials to ensure accuracy.
Meet the SYNC Ministries Review Team
Marlon Mielke – Pastor
A pastor since the early 1980s, he graduated from Pillsbury Baptist Bible College and Central Seminary. He is the father of Luke and strongly influential on Luke’s desire to live a life of ministry. He spent many years studying and giving practical application of doctrines. His areas of specialty are breaking down biblical doctrines and concepts into easily understandable chunks and developing comprehensive series on often ignored or controversial topics.
Dan Mielke - Pastor
A pastor who specializes in apologetics and counseling. His approach is fresh and unique. He currently is pursuing his doctoral degree in appologetics with an emphasis proving God’s existence through humor. Dan has worked with SYNC since the beginning as he is the older brother of Luke. He helps with reviewing the materials, creating content, giving ideas, presenting for videos, and encouraging the team.