WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.260 Hey, welcome to the beta show episode eight here. I'm Jeff with the church digital podcast 00:00:07.260 --> 00:00:12.260 in Stadia Church Planting. I'm normally introducing Ray DeArmis, digital pastor of 00:00:12.260 --> 00:00:16.280 Christ Fellowship Miami. For whatever reason, he's not going to join us today. Let's just 00:00:16.280 --> 00:00:21.380 pretend that he is ba-la-la-ing at la-la-la. So it's going to be me, it's going to be solo, 00:00:21.520 --> 00:00:27.140 and it's going to be awesome. Hey, so we normally do these on Wednesday. We actually had, I wanted 00:00:27.140 --> 00:00:32.520 to take a break from doing the beta show. I just got so excited on this topic. It's like, 00:00:32.600 --> 00:00:38.020 let's do a broadcast anyway, just me. But tomorrow, Wednesday, we're doing the Cray Show. We're going 00:00:38.020 --> 00:00:43.220 to have some fun, kind of like trying to offer some levity in this holiday season. Tomorrow, 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:49.660 Wednesday, we're doing the top five, unofficial top five ranking of geek Christmas movies. So yeah, 00:00:49.760 --> 00:00:54.860 it's the holidays. I'm having fun. We can do it tomorrow, Wednesday. But I was so motivated by 00:00:54.860 --> 00:01:00.180 this topic. I had so many questions in such a short amount of time dealing on this one topic. It's like, 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:05.700 hey, we got to do a special episode just for this. Let me clear my calendar. It's crazy. Yeah, 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:09.260 it's the holidays. Yeah, there's so many other things to do. Yeah. But we got to talk about this 00:01:09.260 --> 00:01:16.220 beta episode eight here. Here's the challenge. Top five options better than the connection card. 00:01:16.600 --> 00:01:21.180 Top five options better than the connection card. All right, let's drill in some detail here. Let me 00:01:21.180 --> 00:01:25.080 make sure we're talking about the same thing. The what and the why of the connection card. When I'm 00:01:25.080 --> 00:01:30.320 literally talking about the connection card, in physical space, it's usually it's that form that's 00:01:30.320 --> 00:01:36.180 in the worship folder or it's in the chair backs where your visitors are filling out things like 00:01:36.180 --> 00:01:43.940 their name, their email address. They're signing up for a service option or signing up for a small group. 00:01:44.020 --> 00:01:49.620 They're giving a prayer request. It's that point of engagement in physical space where you are trying 00:01:49.620 --> 00:01:56.020 to get people information physically to get them engaged into your engagement pathway, discipleship 00:01:56.020 --> 00:02:01.760 process, anything other than the one hour on Sunday. So that's what a connection card is. And it's brutally 00:02:01.760 --> 00:02:06.680 important. It is so important because church is more than the one hour on Sunday, right? We know that. I don't need 00:02:06.680 --> 00:02:12.600 to beat that up, but we want to do more ministry than just that one hour on Sunday. The goal, the great 00:02:12.600 --> 00:02:17.540 commission is to go and make disciples. And that disciple making process is more than just the one 00:02:17.540 --> 00:02:23.480 hour on Sunday. So we know what the connection card is. We're looking at it right here. Let's talk about 00:02:23.480 --> 00:02:31.260 why it doesn't work. And maybe if you're interested, what do we do to fix it? Okay, so here we go. 00:02:31.260 --> 00:02:37.060 Let's look at number one here, the first point of why it doesn't work. And simply put, it's you're 00:02:37.060 --> 00:02:42.920 asking way too much personal information. Okay, look, I'm cold to the church. I'm cold to your 00:02:42.920 --> 00:02:49.020 organization. I'm cold to Christ. I see some random video pop up on my Facebook feed and I'm engaging 00:02:49.020 --> 00:02:54.600 and I'm watching this video. I do not want to give you my cell phone number. I do not want to give you 00:02:54.600 --> 00:02:59.840 my email address. I don't want to get spam emails from you. I don't want you to blow up my inbox. 00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:06.500 And I don't want calls. I don't like talking to people. I don't like getting texts from people 00:03:06.500 --> 00:03:12.780 that I don't know. And so all of these personal information that you're trying to engage you, 00:03:12.880 --> 00:03:18.120 the church, you're trying to engage with people that are cold to Christ. Well, frankly put, 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:21.840 they're not interested in connecting with you in those platforms because they don't know what 00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:26.940 you're going to do with the information. How much are you going to spam them, to blow them up? How 00:03:26.940 --> 00:03:31.720 much of a harassment is going to be? Personal information like the cell phone and like the 00:03:31.720 --> 00:03:37.080 email address, while it's very popular for you, easy for you, the church to engage with, 00:03:37.340 --> 00:03:42.040 it's not going to work well for people who are cold to Christ. And that's different, I would suggest, 00:03:42.200 --> 00:03:47.100 than physical. Because at physical, people trust you enough to go to your property, pre-COVID, 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:53.480 even mid-COVID. I think there's a trust level with physical people. You're reaching a broader 00:03:53.600 --> 00:03:58.040 reach of people digitally. And so some of that personal information, yeah, you want to give it 00:03:58.040 --> 00:04:03.520 for the database, but it's not going to connect well with it. People don't want to give it to you. 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:09.680 In addition to that, oftentimes the connection card's requesting too much information. I swear I 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:16.180 clicked on that and it didn't go. Too much information too soon. I don't want to give you, 00:04:16.420 --> 00:04:20.240 I, person cold to Christ, cold to church, cold to your organization, 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:25.940 I don't want to give you all my kids' birthdays. I don't want to give you my anniversary. I'm not 00:04:25.940 --> 00:04:30.300 interested in all of this information. So often churches use that connection card, 00:04:30.740 --> 00:04:35.340 tie it into like the database for the church. And here are the 47 fields that have to be filled out 00:04:35.340 --> 00:04:40.920 in order to effectively create a database record in the church management system. Okay, look, 00:04:41.060 --> 00:04:46.160 online's different. You're going to reach a lot of people. And those lots of people aren't 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:53.060 interested in giving you 47 records of data to put into the system. You may need to consider doing 00:04:53.060 --> 00:04:58.520 another strategy here. And the third part, the connection card is not easily accessible on all 00:04:58.520 --> 00:05:04.960 platforms. How do you connect to the connection card on Facebook, on Instagram Live, on YouTube? 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:11.220 Where is that information available? It's oftentimes it's not. Connection card strongly featured in church 00:05:11.220 --> 00:05:15.940 online platform. But a lot of these other areas, it's difficult to get to. You've got to read through 00:05:15.940 --> 00:05:21.380 the comments on Facebook to find the appropriate time to go to it. And so just for whatever reason, 00:05:21.380 --> 00:05:28.480 you're not seeing a lot of engagement when it comes to the connection card. If you're honest, 00:05:28.940 --> 00:05:34.680 look at yourself and evaluate for your church, you're probably not feeling it. Now let's keep pulling 00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:41.960 that honesty thread. And this honestly may not be the answer that we want to hear. Online services are 00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:48.660 struggling in context of reaching people cold to Christ. Now there is reach towards it, but is it 00:05:48.660 --> 00:05:55.120 effective in engaging in getting those connection cards and some of that? Honestly, there's a movement 00:05:55.120 --> 00:06:01.480 here where we're discovering, looking at data that's coming back in, that the online services overall may not 00:06:01.480 --> 00:06:10.240 be as effective in reaching people digitally as we had hoped. Just even this week, Barna has released a 00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:18.000 digital evangelism report partnering with Alpha. And so digital evangelism, what does it look like 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:23.460 interviewing 1,300, 1,500 Americans today, Christians, non-Christians, some of the stuff that's come out of 00:06:23.460 --> 00:06:30.660 it. 70% of non-Christians are not interested in online church services. Like that's a fact. American 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:38.660 non-Christians are not, 70%, okay, 30% is, 70%, the majority is not. They're not interested in online 00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:44.280 church services. This is a fascinating stat to me. This is also in that same Barna digital evangelism 00:06:44.280 --> 00:06:51.440 report here. 90% of non-Christians after having a conversation about faith with a Christian within the 00:06:51.440 --> 00:06:58.000 past year. So I talked about faith, a lost person, cold to Christ, had a conversation with a Christian, 00:06:58.460 --> 00:07:04.700 physically or digitally. 90% of the non-Christians reported that the conversation went well. I think 00:07:04.700 --> 00:07:10.540 sometimes we as Christians were afraid of the wrath of the Twitter sphere and saying something and 00:07:10.540 --> 00:07:19.580 offending. 90% have reported that the conversation went well. So the fear that we have in not sharing 00:07:19.580 --> 00:07:24.340 our faith online, honestly, from the non-Christian perspective, we're learning from Barna, they're 00:07:24.340 --> 00:07:31.960 not feeling it. So, hey, maybe there is a better opportunity for us to not do the services for 00:07:31.960 --> 00:07:38.880 evangelism, but to do something different and start to take personal relationships and through those 00:07:38.880 --> 00:07:44.680 relationships, connect people to Christ. So that's a whole other conversation. By the way, if you want to 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:53.780 read that Barna report, it's on Barna.com. There's a short link at Barna.com slash Stadia, S-T-A-D-I-A. 00:07:54.180 --> 00:07:58.740 And so you can get Barna's report there towards hybrid church that they did with Stadia, 00:07:59.240 --> 00:08:03.980 the Alpha. It's Barna, the Alpha evangelism. Both reports are phenomenal. Super exciting 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:09.280 to see real life stats coming in real time. Well, hey, I've stalled a lot here. Let's get to the meat of 00:08:09.280 --> 00:08:15.760 it. Five things that we can do better than the connection card. Five things that work better 00:08:15.760 --> 00:08:22.260 than the connection card. All right, look, here we go. Number one, text connect to whatever. The 00:08:22.260 --> 00:08:28.380 reason this is better is if I'm on Facebook, if I'm on YouTube, if I'm on all these platforms, 00:08:28.960 --> 00:08:34.440 the connection card's not easily accessible. And now if I'm on Facebook on a mobile phone, 00:08:34.620 --> 00:08:40.320 it's full screen and I've got to scroll around to try to find the connection card. I made like 00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:45.640 disconnect from the video entirely because iOS, the video goes full screen and you can't connect 00:08:45.640 --> 00:08:51.580 with it always and firmware and blah, blah, blah. Look, sometimes it's just easier to have a 00:08:51.580 --> 00:09:00.240 completely separate option. So the text connect to whatever, or here's the church address.org slash 00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:06.100 connect, make it easily accessible for people to get to the connection card, regardless of whatever 00:09:06.100 --> 00:09:10.700 platform you're on. Now it's an interesting challenge, even here with the text to connect. 00:09:11.260 --> 00:09:16.680 Look, I just said, I don't want to give you my cell phone number. And now you want me to use my cell 00:09:16.680 --> 00:09:22.960 phone number to text you what I want. And so people are going to be hesitant. Cold people to Christ are 00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:27.880 going to be hesitant to go this route. Maybe it's worth doing, but there's going to be some hesitancy 00:09:27.880 --> 00:09:35.420 towards it. So, so know that, that going in Facebook groups to me, this is a huge win organizationally 00:09:35.420 --> 00:09:41.340 because while I person called to Christ, I don't want to give you my cell phone because I don't want 00:09:41.340 --> 00:09:47.160 you constantly harassing me. And there's really no way easy way for me to block you. And I don't want 00:09:47.160 --> 00:09:51.220 to give you my email address because you're going to constantly harass me with things that I'm not 00:09:51.220 --> 00:09:56.440 interested in. And you, you may or may not unsubscribe correctly when I, when I click unsubscribe to the 00:09:56.440 --> 00:10:03.880 email, Facebook gives me person called to Christ user. It gives me complete power to say, I never 00:10:03.880 --> 00:10:11.080 want to hear from you again. A couple of simple mouse clicks can block. So for a situation of dialoguing 00:10:11.080 --> 00:10:17.600 with somebody doing this via a Facebook group, doing it via the Facebook platform is incredibly easy. 00:10:17.680 --> 00:10:22.420 So even things like, Hey, you know what? Jump in this Facebook group. Uh, and when they jump in the 00:10:22.420 --> 00:10:27.960 Facebook group, you get the handle automatically on Facebook. Similarly dialoguing on the Facebook 00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:36.140 platform right now, some churches have reported 40%, um, uh, engagement response using Facebook 00:10:36.140 --> 00:10:41.340 messenger. So in other words, a person called to Christ, I reach out to them directly via Facebook 00:10:41.340 --> 00:10:47.620 messenger. Churches are reporting back as high as 40% of those response of those requests of those 00:10:47.620 --> 00:10:53.660 dialogues come back 40% of the time. The person you're Facebook messaging is going to reply back 00:10:53.660 --> 00:11:00.060 to you. That is an incredibly high response. If you look at email, you're lucky. If you get 40% of 00:11:00.060 --> 00:11:08.260 opens, much less 40% of responses, try, try calling people and see if you get 40% of, of responses back. 00:11:08.260 --> 00:11:13.160 Facebook messenger is very high. I've actually had industry standard. Tell me outside of the church 00:11:13.160 --> 00:11:21.620 as high as 80% of people are responding to Facebook messenger. And so getting that Facebook address 00:11:21.620 --> 00:11:27.480 and then dialoguing with them, getting their Facebook profile and dialoguing them through the groups, 00:11:27.480 --> 00:11:34.520 through the messenger is a big way to build relationships. If you get people fed into a group, 00:11:34.920 --> 00:11:40.520 now you have access to that group to continually build relationships, create content that gets 00:11:40.520 --> 00:11:45.100 engagement, that gets them warm to the idea of Christ or warm to the idea of who you are. 00:11:45.160 --> 00:11:50.640 And through those relationships, continually funnel them up. Here's another one talking about Facebook 00:11:50.640 --> 00:11:57.480 and social media, follow up individually, like one-on-one on anyone who likes comments or shares your 00:11:57.480 --> 00:12:03.820 social media posts or online service. Once again, utilizing that Facebook messenger method or Instagram 00:12:03.820 --> 00:12:11.280 direct service, do whatever you've got to do to engage with those people, um, directly. So if they like it, 00:12:11.280 --> 00:12:15.920 that gives you permission to reach out, ask questions like, Hey, how can I serve you? How can I pray for 00:12:15.920 --> 00:12:19.940 you? What, what can I do for you in ministry? How can I, how can I care for you? How can I help you 00:12:19.940 --> 00:12:26.320 spiritually? Start to really dialogue through these things and give them an option, give them an 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:32.540 opportunity to engage in, and follow up. Don't be afraid just because they like something that gives 00:12:32.540 --> 00:12:38.000 you permission to reach out. They don't like you. They won't reply. They don't like you. They'll block 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:43.040 you. But the fact that they liked what you said means that they're already a little bit warmer 00:12:43.040 --> 00:12:49.160 because they, they, they digested a smaller piece of content, which is giving you an opportunity to move 00:12:49.160 --> 00:12:55.080 forward. I've had a couple of churches tell this one to me. I'm, I'm intrigued by it. And so I would 00:12:55.080 --> 00:13:00.680 suggest maybe some of you guys experiment with this rather than, you know, filling out a connection 00:13:00.680 --> 00:13:07.280 card. That means now I have to pick up the phone, email, follow up with that person directly. And 00:13:07.280 --> 00:13:12.860 which means like, there's nothing accountable towards it. They can just ignore. I've had a couple 00:13:12.860 --> 00:13:18.340 churches tell me they've had report, uh, success with this instead of just filling out a form that goes to 00:13:18.340 --> 00:13:23.540 some email list that, you know, the mayor may not have replied to. Have them fill out the form, which plugs 00:13:23.540 --> 00:13:29.780 them in immediately into a next steps class and to learn about the church into a one-on-one where there's 00:13:29.780 --> 00:13:35.620 like immediate application towards it. So they're not just filling out the card to do nothing. They're filling 00:13:35.620 --> 00:13:41.100 out the card to sign up for something. And the flip side of this, which I could see this working as a one-two 00:13:41.100 --> 00:13:47.460 punch. If you're going to sign up for something, you need to do it frequently and regularly enough that there's a 00:13:47.520 --> 00:13:52.060 payoff towards it. Instead of doing that membership once a month, maybe you do it, not membership, 00:13:52.220 --> 00:13:56.620 that next steps class. Instead of doing that once a month, maybe you're doing it every week for the, 00:13:56.680 --> 00:14:02.760 for the month of January and just regularly offering those, those steps. So as people in this Christmas 00:14:02.760 --> 00:14:09.440 season are, are getting, maybe watching services, getting connected, there's an immediate step to get 00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:17.160 them to sign up for these, these new next steps, new member type classes on line where they're engaging 00:14:17.160 --> 00:14:22.200 with it in immediate time. I've had, I've had churches tell me they've, they've had a huge, 00:14:22.300 --> 00:14:26.460 now listen, there's an opportunity here for the people, just like they're going to blow off that 00:14:26.460 --> 00:14:31.360 email. They're going to blow off that next steps class. You will have a percentage. I had a church 00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:39.220 tell me, Hey, 80% blew us off. And another church that's 60% of people signed up blew us off. The, the, 00:14:39.220 --> 00:14:44.260 the fact though, there is okay, but you got 20% that showed up. You got 40% that, that actually 00:14:44.260 --> 00:14:51.540 followed through correctly with it. Would you have gotten that 40% if you tried to reach them via email, 00:14:51.820 --> 00:14:56.700 build the relationships? It's, it's kind of the microwave approach. You kind of skipping a couple 00:14:56.700 --> 00:15:01.800 steps to get it in. It's not going to work for everybody. Uh, but it's, I think it's better than 00:15:01.800 --> 00:15:07.020 just getting, asking a whole bunch of information and then not being able to follow up. Let me give 00:15:07.020 --> 00:15:12.340 you a number five here, man. We're flying through this, right? I missed the follow-up comments from 00:15:12.340 --> 00:15:16.600 you, man. Uh, I could really use a drink of water, but let me get to number five here. Number five, 00:15:16.760 --> 00:15:22.100 shareable content with the asterisk of, oh, by the way, train people to personally follow up 00:15:22.100 --> 00:15:27.840 on the digital invite. So as a church, and we, we see this also with, with the Barna report. I don't 00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:35.240 have the exact number in my head, but P I think was 50, 50% of people are looking to be, uh, to be 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:40.400 trained to share their faith. And they're looking for 50% of Christians are looking for the church 00:15:40.400 --> 00:15:46.380 to equip them with tools to, to share their faith and digital tools to, to share about, about the 00:15:46.380 --> 00:15:53.160 church. They want resources given to them. Barna, look at it. Uh, the barna.com stadium has got the 00:15:53.160 --> 00:15:59.440 link. They're looking for resources, give them resources, give them graphics, give them video 00:15:59.440 --> 00:16:07.040 clips, let them share this stuff on social media. 52% of people said in that same Barna report, 00:16:07.480 --> 00:16:14.780 52% of people said it is important for them in their faith to share information about their faith 00:16:14.780 --> 00:16:21.740 on their social media channels. They see value in that. And for us, it's funny. I say that I don't 00:16:21.740 --> 00:16:26.160 want to give out my cell phone number. I just got a spam call on my cell phone number while I'm doing 00:16:26.160 --> 00:16:32.680 this. 52% of people want to share their faith digitally church, give them assets that, that look 00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:39.060 good, that are effective in connecting the people that are seeing them to, to your church, to your 00:16:39.060 --> 00:16:47.220 services online. But what's interesting at the same time, let's train people. Let's train the people 00:16:47.220 --> 00:16:53.840 who have these digital assets to follow up. Hey, you had 10 people who liked that social media graphic 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:58.920 about your Christmas church service coming up. Personally invite them to watch one of the online 00:16:58.920 --> 00:17:07.680 services with you. People are cold to the idea of church services largely because they don't like 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:13.500 the church. They don't like what the institution has become, some of the stances, and I don't want 00:17:13.500 --> 00:17:18.160 to get into the political things, but at the end of this, I don't know that people are really cold to 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:24.800 Christ as much as maybe they're turned off by what they perceive the church is. You know, Gandhi actually 00:17:24.800 --> 00:17:31.620 said this, I love Jesus. It's the Christians that I don't like. They're so unlike Christ. And so sometimes, 00:17:31.720 --> 00:17:36.560 unfortunately in this season, I think we're seeing that people are perceiving some negativity towards 00:17:36.560 --> 00:17:44.740 the church when in fact, um, the church maybe has an opportunity to recover from that and how we recover 00:17:44.740 --> 00:17:51.280 from that is through individuals. So Susie sharing a graphic about a Christmas service is one thing. 00:17:51.280 --> 00:17:56.720 That's awesome. People will see it. Susie then following up with everybody who engaged on that 00:17:56.720 --> 00:18:02.740 social media post or Susie using that, not to put it just on social media, but to text it directly 00:18:02.740 --> 00:18:09.720 to 10 of her friends within her circle of influence. And then personally invite via text, Hey, come be 00:18:09.720 --> 00:18:14.920 part of a church service with me. Well, those people who are cold to Christ and cold to your organization 00:18:14.920 --> 00:18:21.540 are suddenly warming up because they like Susie. They're not telling your, your organization who 00:18:21.540 --> 00:18:27.300 they don't know. No, they're telling their friends Susie. No, by the way, we talked earlier through 00:18:27.300 --> 00:18:34.420 this, that 90% of unsaved people of lost people, people who are cold to Christ aren't offended in 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:40.340 these conversations with people like Susie. If we want to win in this season, the future of the church is 00:18:40.340 --> 00:18:46.760 one where we're equipping people, where we're equipping Susie and we're releasing Susie digitally 00:18:46.760 --> 00:18:52.300 to engage with her people and point them to Christ. And so as effective as it is for the connection 00:18:52.300 --> 00:18:59.160 cards to possibly engage people to our organization, things like this honestly are another step towards 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:07.000 how we should be empowering the Susies of our church, the 99, the people who are already engaged 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:17.260 into our church and getting them connected to, um, the church to Christ. So, Hey, this has been great. 00:19:17.360 --> 00:19:22.180 So we're going to post all this on, on YouTube. We're going to post it over at the church digital. 00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:29.040 Obviously look in this Christmas season, we want to see, we stated church planning, we, the church 00:19:29.040 --> 00:19:35.120 digital, me, we want to see churches thrive. We want to see disciples made. We want to see people 00:19:35.120 --> 00:19:44.120 take a step closer than a greater understanding of Christ. And, and all of those steps work through 00:19:44.120 --> 00:19:49.400 relationships. So whether the connection card works, whether it doesn't, whether some of these other 00:19:49.400 --> 00:19:55.440 things that we talk about work or don't, these next steps for your church, for it to be effective 00:19:55.440 --> 00:20:03.500 2021 and beyond all center around building these relationships. So we'll listen, we are, 00:20:03.500 --> 00:20:07.340 we're going to wrap here. This has been a great time. Thank you for this. Hey, we're going to be back 00:20:07.340 --> 00:20:12.220 tomorrow with the Cray show goofing off with Ray, special guest host, Tyler Sansom from church 00:20:12.220 --> 00:20:18.300 anywhere talking about, listen, how bad is this segue literally going from like relational evangelism to 00:20:18.300 --> 00:20:24.260 the top five unofficial geeky, uh, Christmas movies, but Hey, you know what? It's 2020. We're just 00:20:24.260 --> 00:20:28.360 living a crazy life. So if we're going to wrap, thanks everybody. Uh, y'all have a good day. 00:20:28.500 --> 00:20:58.480 Thank you.