WEBVTT

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 Hey, we're going to get you to that podcast in one second, but before we get there, I,

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 Jeff Reed, the Church Digital, Stadia Church Planning, I wanted to have a conversation with

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 you, churches that are out there. One of the greatest things I arguably think that I've done

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 in my life, other than married and kids, okay, that aside, one of the greatest ministry things

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 I've ever done is this idea of the fidgetal learning communities that we are offering

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 through Stadia Church Planning. We want to help you. We want to help your church learn to thrive,

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 grow, and multiply digitally, physically, as well as digitally. We've seen about 200 churches go

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 through this already, and it's been a phenomenal result of it. Culture is changing within these

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 churches. They're understanding what it is to thrive. They're understanding how to grow people,

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 how to grow their church, even in the midst of this COVID, not COVID, wherever we are in the season,

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 and they're even starting to understand what it means to multiply in fidgetal space. There's no secret

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 sauce to doing a digital strategy. There's no secret sauce to doing a fidgetal strategy. There's no

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 secret sauce to making your church thrive, grow, and multiply. It takes work. I'm not going to lie,

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 but through the framework, through the questions, through the learning communities,

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 we connect you with churches. We give you some content. We coach you along the way to help you

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 make the decisions that you need to make so that your church's strategy can thrive, grow, and multiply

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 your church along the way. This is a great opportunity for your church. We would love to have you be a part

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 of it. For more information, check out stadiacchurchplanning.org

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 slash fidgetal. Stadiachurchplanning.org

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 slash fidgetal. P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L. All right. Hey, that's it. We're going to get you back to that

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 episode right now. Hey, my name is Jeff Reed, and I'm excited about this conversation

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 here. The goal of what we wanted to talk about with this clubhouse conversation

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 is really getting to the heart of what the future of physical church services could look like, or maybe

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 what should it look like today? Now, I don't know. Maybe this is crazy thinking, and I wanted to bring

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 some other people into the conversation, because sometimes when I get crazy, it really comes down

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 to this. Can I get other people to agree with me to see the way that I'm thinking, or maybe even

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 challenge me and take me in a whole different direction? But if we're saying that COVID was

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 an accelerator, it was basically the fast-forward button on the virtual VCR player, and it sped

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 culture up and escalated us maybe, and from a technological standpoint, I would suggest maybe

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 a decade away from where we were even in 2020. Like, that 12 months was almost a decade worth of

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 tech and culture shifting. Well, if that's where we are, and we're seeing more adoption in the digital

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 space, not saying digital. Thank you, Ben. What are we looking at in the physical space? You know, some of

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 the services that I've attended, you know, it's felt similar. You know, it's felt like it did in 2020,

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 and maybe that's the way that it should be. And when I talk with churches, you know, and I say, "Hey,

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 what's changed physically?" I hear things like, "Oh, our masks." Like, we are definitely, like,

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 there's a culture of masks, and so our physical services, let's definitely have to deal with the

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 obstacle of the mask." Or social distancing is a problem. And so, yeah, okay, social distancing is an

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 issue. It is an obstacle for us, the church, to deal with. Masks is an issue for us, the church, to deal with. But I'm

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 wondering, like, what else is happening? What else do we need to maybe consider? Where do we need to grow

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 to, maybe to take advantage or to recognize culture has escalated? And if we're driven by the physical

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 church model, which does have a place even in 2021 and beyond, what do we need to do there? What do we

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 need to start considering to adjust? And so I brought in, I started asking others, like, this question,

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 and I was able to get just a ridiculous panel to come in and be a part of this. So I'm really excited

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 about this. In no particular order, we've got Craig Dockery, Creative Director from Crossroads Church.

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 Now, Craig, as I remember, was creative with the emphasis on weekend services. Is that right?

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 Craig Dockery: Yeah, that's correct. Awesome. Now, this is,

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 Craig, this is literally your first time on Clubhouse. So welcome for that.

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 Craig Dockery: Hey, thank you. You guys all have,

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 like, way better photos. Mine looks stupid. I'm going to fix that for next time.

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 Awesome. Yeah, I mean, you look great in the hat. So feel free to keep the hat.

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 Kid, get that. What does the hat even say? It's really tiny on my screen.

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 Craig Dockery: It says, it says, can't please them all. It's the truest hat I am,

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 especially the more kids I have, you know? Awesome. And as a creative director,

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 I think that's actually a very fitting hat to wear. Can't please them all. Absolutely.

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 So well done. And so Craig is with Crossroads up in Cincinnati and so has been doing, you know,

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 incredible work. And I've actually seen more experience with it digitally. Even this past week,

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 my family, we worshipped with Crossroads online. I can honestly say I've never been to a physical

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 service. So interesting to see where the conversation goes. Also coming in, there's another Craig here.

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 We've got Craig Dobson. Now Craig is an architect with the Aspen Group. So we've got a creative

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 director and we've got an architect. The Aspen Group literally designs physical church buildings

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 pre-COVID and doing some of that construction work or design work for churches. So Craig,

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 maybe just tell us a little bit about what you do on a regular basis, even mid-post-COVID.

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 Yeah, we work with churches and just try to find how we can help them use their buildings as ministry

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 tools. And so, you know, COVID, we went into a whole series of trying to do what ifs. What if you could do

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 this? What if you could do this? And now we're kind of trying to gather data of like what worked,

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 what didn't work and just trying to see out there. I mean, there's a lot of it's churches have done the

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 full gamut from not even meeting or still not meeting to almost meeting fully. And so it's an interesting

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 kind of mix match of things. And I'm interested to see, too, how everybody how this discussion goes,

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 because there's a lot of questions still, I think, out there.

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 Love it. Yeah. And this is definitely going to be a learning experience. Next up,

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 we've got Ben Stapley, Weekend Experience Director at Christ Fellowship Miami, a good friend jumping on

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 here. And just as a guy whose literal responsibility, the worship, the production, the creative, the

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 communications in the physical realm, as well as carrying over into the digital realm. If I want to talk

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 crazy and I want to have somebody coming along and dreaming crazy with me, Ben Stapley is always on

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 that list. So Ben, maybe even just walking into this, have you guys at Christ Fellowship, have you

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 wrestled with much of this or like what does some of this even look like for you from the get-go?

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 Yes. So going back into our reopening phase, we were looking to that August postponed it because

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 Florida got a second wave of COVID cases. And then going in October, we

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 we were trying to just execute what we were doing in the past. But we said, let's not just do what we did,

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 but let's get the plan off the runway. And then after we do, let's continue to re-envision what it

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 looks like because we cannot go to business, cannot go back to business as normal. We've learned a lot of

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 lessons in these past 12 months, and they need to be integrated for the next 12 years and beyond.

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 And so we're still in that journey of retooling what our physical services look like. But it is a journey

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 for us and we know we're not done it yet. Love it, love it. And wrapping up the conversation here,

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 at least the panel is going to be John Crabtree. John is with Subsplash, I think if not the top, one of the top

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 mobile app makers in America. And if we're talking for churches, one of the top mobile app makers designed

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 that churches. And so Subsplash has been creating quality product for a number of years. And if we're

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 talking, you know, some of the questions I really want to dig into is what could second screen even look

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 like, how can we engage in digital space when we're in physical, I'm not saying the word digital Ben

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 Stapley, but something like that. Yeah. And so, John, man, thanks for jumping into this conversation.

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 John Crabtree: Yeah, I'm super excited, Jeff. I, you know, the future of physical church services,

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 and now you got this guy who works at, you know, digital technology company, but I think there's going

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 to be some really cool things that we've seen a lot of our church partners doing or other churches out

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 there, you know, around just to, to help connect, you know, their, their full gathering. And so,

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 whether you want to call that digital, Jeff, I'll use that term. I know Ben has kind of prevented you

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 from using it, but whether it's that or, or anything else. Yeah. Excited to dive in.

00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:17.880
 Awesome. Love, love every second of this. This is going to be a great, I don't know if you can tell,

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 I'm excited. None of you can see me. Thank you very much. Clubhouse for that. Hey, so let me say a couple

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 things up front. We are going to, we are recording this conversation. We are broadcasting this

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 conversation live on, on social. So if you're watching this on another platform other than

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 Clubhouse and you want to be part of the conversation, come on over in the, in the Clubhouse, follow the

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 URL link that's on the screen and you'll get here. We are recording in here. We'll turn this into a

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 podcast later as well. I do, the reason I love Clubhouse so much really comes down to this dialoguing,

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 the two-way conversations, not only just among the panelists, but also getting into the people

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 and letting some of the audience speak into it. So I'm a big proponent of the hand raised feature

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 that is within Clubhouse. Feel free to smash that button, raise your hand. We'll bring you up into it

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 and let you ask questions and speak your piece and dialogue into it. I was a former talk radio host.

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 No, I'm kidding. I wasn't talk radio, but I was a radio DJ. And so like, I just, I love talking to

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 audience. So let's feel free to engage with that as we get later into this. Now I want to maybe,

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 I was really struggling with how to even start this conversation. And so Craig from Crossroads,

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 Craig Dockery, I want to start with you, sir. Now I was watching this service this past week. And

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 if you've never watched, if anyone has never watched a Crossroads service online, it is phenomenal. Like

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 the amount of creativity, the amount of effort they do to create that exclusive online piece. I think

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 you guys are starting a new sermon series. Forgive me, I'm blanking on the name, but

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 Unbreakable. Yeah.

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 Yeah. Unbreakable this weekend.

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 Yeah.

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 They're literally, they're teaching teams out in the middle of nowhere. I'm watching the two of the three

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 teachers that rotate in. They're trying to build a tent in the middle of this like wind thing. The lead

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 pastor is preaching, Brian Tome. He's walking in the middle of a valley and you can barely hear him

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 because of the wind, but that's intentionally by design because that's what he's trying to emphasize

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 and talk about. It is this uberly creative visual, I don't want to use the word masterpiece, but it was a

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 freaking incredible service. Now I'm curious because I even, there was jokes about trying to cook

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 a quail and it's like, there was lots of creativity in what I'm seeing. And that was in a digital

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 environment. What, what do things look like physically? Like the quail joke that where I'm

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 seeing two people try to like cook a quail that's live. Like does any of this carry over? Have, have you

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 guys ported and brought anything from these creative online environments back into the digital, into the

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 physical space? Well, some weeks we do and some weeks, some weeks we don't. And it,

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 we're really trying to figure it out because we've spent this entire last year mostly focused on

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 online because there were, you know, a good six months where that was the only expression of church

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 that we, we could really do. And so we've taken a lot of steps there, but for example, this weekend,

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 I don't think, I mean, the message was the same. So it's a series called Unbreakable. It's basically

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 telling the Exodus story. And, um, I think this week was, Brian was teaching about Moses and the

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 burning bush and, um, Moses kind of calling, you know, and, and so this week, I don't think we used

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 any of the same pieces from the online episode because we're realizing more and more the online

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 stuff is truly a different audience than the people who are going to walk into a building. And if we're

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 trying to, we're trying to get at the same thing, but we have so many different mechanisms to go about

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 it, you know, so, so online, the teachers were dropped in the middle of the desert and had to

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 do some survival tactics. And that was kind of a fun thing. And that, and it reinforced the teaching

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 of like how to get out of the desert, get to the promised land, which is what we're trying to teach.

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 And I guess the thing that we did is, you know, we called it the series called Unbreakable. So we just

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 went really literal at sites. And I think we have seven or eight sites open right now. We have some

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 different ones that are in various states of reopening. And one of the things we had was just

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 that we had the, the community pastor, like the main, main guy at each site, just see like what is

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 breakable and tried dropping things from a different, you know, different ladder heights or whatever,

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 you know, so just literally taking the Unbreakable series language and making, kind of having a fun

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 moment in that. And then Brian, our senior pastor, who, whoever gives the message online will also give it

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 typically in the rooms. And we had him in the catwalk, just throwing stuff from the catwalk to see what

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 would break. And it also ended up being like frosted flakes. We just kind of dumped them all over the

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 audience to kind of tell the story of mana and all that. So really totally different executions that

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 are still meant to try and surprise and delight or engage people or get them to ask questions or build

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 some tension, but using really different mechanisms to do it right now. And we really honestly, we're just

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 taking it a week at a time.

00:14:27.640 --> 00:14:34.520
 David Vogelpohl: So like weekly and we're, is this a different level of creativity or more

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 intentional? Because I mean, you were a creative church, Crossroads was a creative church before

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 COVID. So like, is there a more intentionality, more focus, like talk, talk to me, maybe some of that

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 creative relationship pre versus where we are now?

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 David Vogelpohl: Well, I think the focus, the issue is that we are trying to focus in both places. And

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 a year ago to say we can make basically a TV show every week for an online audience and, you know,

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 specifically, we said, No way can we do that. And then six months ago, when we were making one,

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 we're like, Yeah, but we also need you to make the thing in the room for all these different sites.

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 We're like, I don't know how we would do that. But we've, you know, you keep you keep finding a way

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 and you keep asking and you have really tough process conversations as well as, as well as just

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 assigning focus to people. We fortunately have enough, enough folks on the team that we can have,

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 a majority of folks are either assigned to online or live within kind of the central creative team.

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 And there's still some places where we're, we're trying to leverage both like our video team is

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 still getting pulled in both directions. And we're trying to solve for that. But

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 the real, the real answer is we're trying to take, take ground in both places. And we,

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 and I think focus is the answer for that. So,

00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:55.560
 David Vogelpohl: So in context of the actual service flow, what's happening,

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 have you guys at Crossroads, have you made any, any shifts, any adjustments to, to what the,

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 the physical service looks like format, style change, anything like what, what does this look like?

00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:10.520
 Maybe in recent months, what are you experimenting with?

00:16:10.520 --> 00:16:14.040
 David Vogelpohl: Um, well, I think it varies, it varies some week by week. Like we said,

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 I think we'll, what we're coming back down to one of the things that Brian, our senior pastor has been

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 pushing on. He says every, you know, he starts every year and, you know, has this little solitude

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 time with God and says, okay, I started this church 25 years ago with a group of people. And if I were to

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 David Vogelpohl: restart this church now with the resources that I have with seven or eight or 11

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 buildings and this 400 staff and this amount of resources and, you know, these people or whatever,

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 would I start a church? Heck yeah, I would. I totally would. And so he said that given COVID and

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 everything when his big push to us this year was, um, we, it's not a rhetorical question. It's, we are

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 restarting. Like we've had a lot of people leave and we've had new people come. And as rooms get filled

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 back up again, I think it's some new folks coming in again, you know? And so, uh, the big thing that

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 we're trying to do is really, uh, one, give a little bit more leeway to the sites and say, rather than

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 just being like, do the exact plan, you know, trying to give freedom, get everyone to think more

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 entrepreneurially. Um, that's the whole idea of like the restarting kind of this founders mentality type

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 thing. And, uh, and I think it's also like, we're a little more open to like playing with the liturgy,

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 so to speak. You know, I mean, everyone likes to think of contemporary churches like, oh, no,

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 we do it. Cool. But it's like, no, you do two songs, you do three songs, you do community life,

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 and then you do a message like, no, let's just chop it up and let's play with it. And so it really,

00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:46.600
 we, we do feel like we're way more in experimentation mode right now than we've been. It feels like

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 there is as tight as it is resource wise. It feels like there's a new level of freedom that we're stepping

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 into. Yeah. Now, Brian preached, um, I want to say three, eight to 10 minutes sermons. Uh, what I saw,

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 like it was, it was kind of even broken up in the teaching in the digital space, um, in the physical

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 space. Is that something that you guys do as well, or is, is, does he modify his message for, for the

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 physical environment? Now he, uh, typically we'll go like run the whole thing all the way through.

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 Um, it's, uh, uh, you know, but like I said, it, it, it just depends. Like we're, we're talking

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 about for Easter this coming, this coming week. Um, he's, I think he's got like three segments of

00:18:28.680 --> 00:18:32.600
 teaching for the online version, but it might be two, or it might just be one. I mean, we're playing

00:18:32.600 --> 00:18:36.920
 with it and it, you know, sometimes that ends up even becoming a game time decision. We're always

00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:42.840
 moving. It's way easier to move stuff around in a live environment than, than in a, you know, an online

00:18:42.840 --> 00:18:47.240
 environment, you know, as far as trying to build a 30 minute episode or something like that. So yeah,

00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:48.840
 it's, it definitely, it definitely shifts.

00:18:48.840 --> 00:18:54.600
 Um, and, and let's even open up to Ben Stapley would love to talk in through Christ fellowship

00:18:54.600 --> 00:18:59.160
 Miami as well, as well as crossroads with, uh, with Craig. Uh, I'm just curious with the two of

00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:05.800
 you, like worship wise have, have things changed within the physical space? Um, song titles,

00:19:05.800 --> 00:19:12.200
 song selection, uh, number of songs length, like what are you experimenting or testing in different

00:19:12.200 --> 00:19:17.800
 things, uh, with both of you musically, uh, what is this looking, uh, like for you? Um, maybe Ben,

00:19:17.800 --> 00:19:24.280
 let's start with you. Sure. For us, the worship has changed in terms of adding more of it. So for,

00:19:24.280 --> 00:19:29.080
 I guess an overarching principle for us that we've learned going as we've reopened is that we're

00:19:29.080 --> 00:19:33.960
 trying to make our physical experiences more transcendent. And some of you might be listening.

00:19:33.960 --> 00:19:39.080
 So yeah, like that, that was always a goal, but I guess my background is, uh, non-denominational,

00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:43.080
 highly attractional churches. That's where I've done ministry for the past 15 years. So frankly

00:19:43.080 --> 00:19:49.480
 speaking, like almost the goal for me was to make a seamless experience where the transitions are tight

00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:53.720
 and there are no distractions. And that was, that was the bar. And if you did that,

00:19:53.720 --> 00:19:59.640
 that was a great service, not distracting people and having production flawless. And

00:20:00.600 --> 00:20:05.640
 as we're trying to re-engage people at our physical services, we're looking at it from an advantage

00:20:05.640 --> 00:20:09.800
 point of saying, why would they bother? Why would they come? Why would they drive out? If they are,

00:20:09.800 --> 00:20:15.000
 if they can experience it online, what is different? What can we provide for them? And we're pushing

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:21.240
 into that word with transcendent. So, um, where, where is that moment where they encounter God in a very

00:20:21.240 --> 00:20:26.920
 profound way? I'm not saying that doesn't happen from an intellectual standpoint in a 45 minute message,

00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:32.280
 but I am saying there's something unique to that corporate worship experience, which unless you have

00:20:32.280 --> 00:20:38.680
 a family member who's gifted, um, with an acoustic guitar, you're not getting that at home. Me singing off

00:20:38.680 --> 00:20:44.360
 key in my home is, is not that moment for me, me coming along other people in a room where we're

00:20:44.360 --> 00:20:50.040
 all lifting our voices. I'm now experiencing that. And like, and it gets, it gets really granular for us.

00:20:50.040 --> 00:20:55.320
 We're even like, how do, how do, how does the worship leaders back off the mic more? And we, we actually,

00:20:55.320 --> 00:21:00.040
 yeah, we got that nice line array sound system up there, but how do we actually pull that back a

00:21:00.040 --> 00:21:05.480
 little bit? And so that our voices ring out a little bit more and we feel that it's not a produced

00:21:05.480 --> 00:21:12.200
 experience washing over me, but that I am joined in it with my voice. Again, this is my own experience.

00:21:12.200 --> 00:21:16.760
 And that's where I'm coming from. A lot of churches, a lot of traditions do this phenomenally

00:21:16.760 --> 00:21:23.320
 every weekend. That is not my case. And so I'm, I'm learning this aspect, um, of Christendom and

00:21:23.320 --> 00:21:29.400
 trying to apply it in my context and pushing into that transcendence with more, more worship and more

00:21:29.400 --> 00:21:32.600
 corporate worship by pulling back some of those production bells and whistles.

00:21:34.120 --> 00:21:40.120
 Love it as, and with Christ fellowship by doing more worship, like at a time schedule. Cause I

00:21:40.120 --> 00:21:45.560
 remember you guys used to be pretty tight, 70 minutes has something given that allows that more

00:21:46.120 --> 00:21:51.960
 musical worship to be part. Yes. Or believe, believe it or not, the teaching team is on the

00:21:51.960 --> 00:21:55.560
 same page and they're saying, Hey, we're going to do, we're going to do that barter. I'm going to,

00:21:55.560 --> 00:21:59.880
 I'm going to pass you five, five of my minutes from my message. I'm going to give you eight,

00:21:59.880 --> 00:22:05.240
 I'm going to give you 10. So we're playing around with that. Uh, we've still, because there's so

00:22:05.240 --> 00:22:10.840
 many new normals are, are hosting the amount of time in which we're vision casting, helping people

00:22:10.840 --> 00:22:16.200
 get integrated into the next step. All those components that hasn't gone away. We, we, we actually

00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:20.920
 kind of stepped up some of that communication just because we have new people or there are new

00:22:20.920 --> 00:22:25.160
 normals. We need to spend more time on that, but if there's anything we shaved off to give more time

00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:31.000
 for worship, it is from the message. Yeah. Wow. Um, uh, being involved with Christ fellowship

00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:38.200
 historically, I totally understand the impact, um, uh, and the, the power of like that move. That's,

00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:42.680
 that's impressive that the teaching team's willing to, to release some of that. So, uh, that's,

00:22:42.680 --> 00:22:48.200
 that's an awesome example. Uh, Craig, what, what is that like worship musical worship,

00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:52.360
 at least walking into this, are you guys experimenting with doing anything different?

00:22:52.360 --> 00:22:56.440
 Like what's, what does this look like? Well, you know, I think I totally agree with you,

00:22:56.440 --> 00:23:00.920
 Ben, and it's good to meet you. We should hang out some other time, um, versus just the club,

00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:05.160
 whatever clubhouses. Uh, you totally should, by the way, that would be awesome.

00:23:05.160 --> 00:23:11.480
 Yeah. Um, so yeah, I, I totally agree with what Ben is saying in the sense of the ability to have a

00:23:11.480 --> 00:23:17.400
 transcendent moment just by the fact that they're, I don't know, there's just human souls in proximity

00:23:17.400 --> 00:23:22.840
 to each other. There's such an opportunity there for us just to all connect on this spiritual level

00:23:22.840 --> 00:23:28.280
 with something that's far beyond what we can see. And I, you know, I think we're, we're experimenting

00:23:28.280 --> 00:23:33.160
 with it. Uh, it's, it's tough because we're just, we're just like short on volunteers sometimes,

00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:39.160
 you know? So just, I know that like the core thing is you get a killer band who is there to worship.

00:23:39.160 --> 00:23:43.800
 And, um, and that's, that is the thing beyond lighting or any of the other productions. And so

00:23:43.800 --> 00:23:48.680
 we're continuing to just try and push and have healthy worship cultures within kind of the volunteers

00:23:48.680 --> 00:23:53.480
 that we have. I've also seen, you know, like to the point I was saying, uh, like the founder's

00:23:53.480 --> 00:24:00.280
 mentality of giving, uh, given like the, the campus pastors a little bit more of a role in

00:24:00.280 --> 00:24:04.200
 it. You know, I'm, I'm always looking at this from like, how can we make it great across all

00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:09.240
 our sites, not just have one or two moments that, that, that felt special and the other ones were a

00:24:09.240 --> 00:24:13.960
 little clunky or whatever, but given those guys a chance to kind of break the fourth wall in the

00:24:13.960 --> 00:24:19.080
 midst of a song. And I don't know, it's, it's so basic, but I feel it's so meaningful when you're

00:24:19.080 --> 00:24:22.840
 singing a song that's got great thought out words, but it just becomes wrote after a while,

00:24:22.840 --> 00:24:27.880
 even if it's a new song, but to have a guy or a girl step out and say, you know what, here's,

00:24:27.880 --> 00:24:33.880
 here's the story in 90 seconds of me. Here's why my hair fell out when I was 18, because I,

00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:39.000
 I just believed in anxiety more than I believed in anything else. And let me tell you that the

00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:42.920
 journey I've taken now, let's get back to singing the song about how Jesus is greater than fear.

00:24:43.560 --> 00:24:49.160
 It's really simple stuff like that, that I'm just like, dang it. Like, let's just have people tell

00:24:49.160 --> 00:24:53.560
 their, you know, share their, share their stories. And then we all sing together as loud as we can.

00:24:53.560 --> 00:24:59.720
 And it's funny, like let get production out of the way sometimes. And yeah, it totally is. It reaps

00:24:59.720 --> 00:25:00.360
 fruit for sure.

00:25:00.360 --> 00:25:06.840
 Beautiful. Talk to me a little bit and we're going to segue off, but by the way, if you've got questions,

00:25:06.840 --> 00:25:11.640
 raise your hand. I've got eyes on the screen and we'd love to bring somebody up. We'll talk about some

00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:15.560
 of the other elements here in a second and then just go crazy. But talk, talk to me a little bit,

00:25:15.560 --> 00:25:21.240
 maybe you're hinted a little bit right there, right? So somebody may be talking a personal testimony,

00:25:21.960 --> 00:25:26.840
 a guy or a gal from, from the worship team, kind of speaking into that. What has been the role of,

00:25:26.840 --> 00:25:34.440
 of non-musical worship in, in, in the physical environments, maybe, maybe spoken words. Have you

00:25:34.440 --> 00:25:41.320
 seen, or have you experimented, done more of that testimony, story videos? What have you seen,

00:25:41.320 --> 00:25:44.200
 kind of be effective in, in this new season?

00:25:47.240 --> 00:25:48.280
 You're asking me or you're asking them?

00:25:48.280 --> 00:25:49.160
 Either of you guys.

00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:54.120
 Well, I think one of the issues that we've had is it's, some of it comes down to

00:25:55.320 --> 00:26:01.480
 basic resources. I hate to say like, man, it's like, it sounds so unspiritual, right? But it's like,

00:26:01.480 --> 00:26:05.400
 the team that used to help make, you know, tell people's stories and craft things. And

00:26:06.200 --> 00:26:09.400
 you know, the video team, a lot of the stuff they're doing is focused on online right now. So

00:26:09.960 --> 00:26:14.440
 our in-room folks have been, had to be way more scrappy in terms of what they pull, what they pull

00:26:14.440 --> 00:26:18.840
 in. And, you know, and so they've made some great experience, some more like performance song type

00:26:18.840 --> 00:26:24.920
 things or, or yeah, there's been a couple of spoken word pieces. We have one for Easter that is unique

00:26:24.920 --> 00:26:30.680
 to unique to the thing, but to in-room, but it's, yeah, it's been just kind of tough. And so in some

00:26:30.680 --> 00:26:36.600
 ways that has actually yielded maybe a little bit more ingenuity, but I would, I would say it feels

00:26:36.600 --> 00:26:42.680
 tough right now. Sure. Before I go to Ben, I want to ask one follow-up, just curious. This is not even

00:26:42.680 --> 00:26:47.640
 the point of the conversation, but you just brought this thought to my mind. Within context of creative

00:26:47.640 --> 00:26:54.040
 resources, how much would you say is poured into physical weekend? How much of it's poured into

00:26:54.040 --> 00:27:00.920
 digital weekend? And how much of it is poured into miscellaneous ministries or things outside of

00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:05.160
 adult weekend services? Well, I would say a year ago, I would have said it's like 98%

00:27:05.880 --> 00:27:12.840
 sites and live physical. And then it pretty instantly became all online. And right now we're starting to

00:27:12.840 --> 00:27:20.840
 finally shift that needle to where we can get 50, 50 at least. And there's a lot of things we don't

00:27:20.840 --> 00:27:26.520
 know about online. So it's really hard to say, well, even physical. So it's really hard to say exactly

00:27:26.520 --> 00:27:31.480
 what we're going to spend on each one. But I will say, as we get to 50, 50 and try and steer the team,

00:27:31.480 --> 00:27:37.160
 the ship that way, it feels way more like 75, 75, you know, just because of the change and the difficulty

00:27:37.160 --> 00:27:42.520
 of doing new things. So that's, that's as much the challenge as anything is just, how do we get all

00:27:42.520 --> 00:27:48.520
 these great, great ideas done that we have? Beautiful. Ben, any thoughts?

00:27:49.800 --> 00:27:55.080
 Yeah, we've, we've incorporated, you talk about additional elements outside of worship, we've

00:27:55.080 --> 00:28:01.000
 incorporated more storytelling in our hosting. We felt the need, just in terms of when we went to the

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:07.560
 pandemic, that we are all experiencing this together. We, your, your pain is our pain, our pain is your pain.

00:28:07.560 --> 00:28:12.040
 And we tried to do that through storytelling, through a connection that, that storytelling

00:28:13.160 --> 00:28:18.840
 dovetailed and worked its way into our messages as well. And that's where we've seen additional

00:28:18.840 --> 00:28:24.360
 changes from the pandemic, how our message content has changed. I don't know if you want to push into

00:28:24.360 --> 00:28:29.160
 that now or later, but I think, I think that's a big change for the physical environments, what we've

00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:34.440
 learned from the digital environment this past year as well. How the message has changed as a result of

00:28:34.440 --> 00:28:38.760
 that? Yeah. In major ways. Yes. Yeah. Give me a, give me a synopsis.

00:28:40.520 --> 00:28:46.520
 The three quick ways I'd say is conversational, practical, and then, and then I think cultural

00:28:46.520 --> 00:28:52.840
 as well. So conversational, we benefited, right? I like this online thing. I can actually, I can give

00:28:52.840 --> 00:28:59.480
 feedback and editorial comments and, and smash that like in that chair while the experience is going on,

00:28:59.480 --> 00:29:04.200
 unless I'm in a very vocal and charismatic church and I'm allowed to say, "Amen," there's not

00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:10.840
 much else I could do and making it conversational during the message. I think that our type of

00:29:10.840 --> 00:29:16.040
 content has changed because of it now. It's less, I'm, I'm talking at you and I'm trying to talk with

00:29:16.040 --> 00:29:20.440
 you because we've benefited from that model from the past year. So that's conversational, practical.

00:29:21.800 --> 00:29:27.960
 Again, I think we all, after, after the Easter message series, we all did a fear or anxiety

00:29:27.960 --> 00:29:33.960
 series, right? We all said, "Oh my goodness, everyone's at home. What are they wrestling with? How do I connect to that

00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:38.360
 person who's no longer sitting in my pew but sitting on their couch? What are they going through?"

00:29:38.360 --> 00:29:45.960
 And every church did a anxiety series back in April 2020. And so we made it very practical. Well, now

00:29:47.080 --> 00:29:53.080
 that doesn't end just because someone's in your pew and in front of you doesn't negate the need to

00:29:53.080 --> 00:29:57.880
 create practical content. So we're taking that with us down the road as well. And then the last thing is

00:29:57.880 --> 00:30:10.600
 cultural. So with recording last minute, seeing things happen, responding to political riots, racial

00:30:10.600 --> 00:30:17.720
 marches, mass shootings, we, we did that very well this past year. And I think you're seeing that

00:30:17.720 --> 00:30:25.080
 being, I've seen teaching pastors dovetail, shoehorn, craft moments to respond to what happened that past

00:30:25.080 --> 00:30:30.760
 week in their physical environments as well. And I, and I would love to personally see that continue

00:30:31.320 --> 00:30:39.240
 instead of us planning out our preaching calendar a year in advance and being handcuffed to it regardless

00:30:39.240 --> 00:30:43.960
 of what is happening cultural right outside our doors. Yeah, there definitely feels like there's a

00:30:43.960 --> 00:30:49.480
 tension of, you know, needing to be reactionary. I remember there was a stretch there, I think summer,

00:30:49.480 --> 00:30:56.760
 fall 2020, it felt like almost week to week, the world was recreating themselves. And so, whether it

00:30:56.760 --> 00:31:03.800
 went from, you know, race issues to, to masks and back to race and other things, and even today, you know,

00:31:03.800 --> 00:31:09.880
 we're seeing the, the mass shootings that have popped up multiple times. And so culturally needing

00:31:09.880 --> 00:31:16.120
 to be flexible and having opportunities. Hey, I need to speak into this. Hey, we need to address this.

00:31:16.120 --> 00:31:23.160
 Uh, Asian issues in race now where maybe, uh, African-American was, was more of the, uh, the catch

00:31:23.160 --> 00:31:29.080
 within the past, you know, three, six months. Uh, I, I definitely see where needing to be flexible is

00:31:29.080 --> 00:31:34.440
 helpful even moving forward. Hey, let's, um, let's, let's shift gears because I want to hit some other

00:31:34.440 --> 00:31:38.120
 things. We'll come back to some of the worship. I see some of those questions, but, but let me hit the

00:31:38.120 --> 00:31:43.400
 other two briefly before we move on respectfully before we move on. Uh, so we've, we've got John.

00:31:43.400 --> 00:31:50.680
 And so John Crabtree is with subsplash. Now I, for me, I see huge opportunities in, in the coming

00:31:50.680 --> 00:31:57.960
 season to move, uh, more towards a second screen, utilizing the mobile phones within our physical

00:31:57.960 --> 00:32:04.840
 buildings, even small things like, um, giving online. So you don't have to pass the plate, uh, utilizing a

00:32:04.840 --> 00:32:10.600
 connection card in, in different ways. And so, I mean, I would love to just hear, Hey John, um,

00:32:10.600 --> 00:32:15.160
 what are you guys, what is subsplash thinking about? Uh, what are maybe some of the experiments?

00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:20.680
 What, what are you seeing being successful, uh, with churches right now when it comes towards maybe

00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:27.800
 assisting, complimenting, adding things that to make the physical environments, uh, better, new, or different?

00:32:27.800 --> 00:32:37.320
 Oh yeah. I'm, excuse me. I'm so excited to talk about, about this, Jeff. And, um, I think theology

00:32:37.320 --> 00:32:43.880
 is kind of big enough to encompass all of the smaller ologies technology included. So maybe kind of

00:32:43.880 --> 00:32:50.200
 starting off with just a theology of technology and where we tend to approach it from at subsplash,

00:32:50.200 --> 00:32:56.360
 just as a, as a company overall. And of course we have almost 200 people working at, at subsplash. It

00:32:56.360 --> 00:33:03.080
 might be over that by now. Um, we we've gone kind of remote distributed. So, um, it's not as easy to

00:33:03.080 --> 00:33:11.640
 count that, uh, any longer. Um, but at the same time, uh, technology, the, the Greek kind of two base words are,

00:33:12.200 --> 00:33:19.080
 um, techne, which is Greek for art and craft for skill, cunning of hand, uh, and then logia, which,

00:33:19.080 --> 00:33:25.880
 you know, stems from logos, which, um, John uses, uh, you know, for, for Jesus is the word of God in John

00:33:25.880 --> 00:33:31.800
 one, but also, uh, in the Greek, that's kind of the study over the explanation or branch of knowledge.

00:33:31.800 --> 00:33:38.760
 And so what's really interesting is lately I have been influenced quite a bit by, um, the, the artist

00:33:38.760 --> 00:33:44.120
 and theologian Makoto Fujimura. He, he came out with a book recently called art and faith, a theology of

00:33:44.120 --> 00:33:51.880
 making. And specifically he talks about how artists, uh, represent kind of the true artist of, you know,

00:33:51.880 --> 00:34:00.120
 which is, uh, God, the father and, and God actually, uh, you know, creating the new creation post-resurrection

00:34:00.120 --> 00:34:07.560
 artists join, uh, in that. And so there's this theology of making that, uh, Mr. Fujimura talks about that

00:34:07.560 --> 00:34:14.680
 cultivates and creates culture and cares for it. And, and as technology begins with art and craft,

00:34:15.240 --> 00:34:20.760
 even modern day digital technology, like what we're doing at SubSplash, I really like to think of

00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:27.320
 technology from a net positive starting point. Um, and so how, how do we utilize that? So now let's talk

00:34:27.320 --> 00:34:32.840
 about the power of technology, you know, two, two things that kind of stem, come to mind for me,

00:34:32.840 --> 00:34:37.560
 especially digital technology, but this also applies to Craig, Craig, and Ben, because you know,

00:34:37.560 --> 00:34:43.160
 there's building technology, there's kind of the technology of the theater and that sort of thing.

00:34:43.160 --> 00:34:48.280
 Um, in my case, in, in digital technology, it creates abundance at almost little to no cost

00:34:48.920 --> 00:34:55.880
 in a way that physical can potentially never be able to. So think about Slack, you know, you have, or any of

00:34:55.880 --> 00:35:02.120
 these other kind of, um, chat applications of just an abundance of communications that can be created

00:35:02.120 --> 00:35:08.360
 that don't take up physical space. So it creates these massive amounts of connection points and

00:35:08.360 --> 00:35:14.840
 knowledge without, without wasting space. Uh, and then on the other hand too, it allows someone to cut

00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:21.320
 through time and space and gain kind of instant access to someone or a group of people or something,

00:35:21.320 --> 00:35:28.360
 some, some community or content separated by, by large distance. Um, I was listening to Reed Hoffman.

00:35:28.360 --> 00:35:35.320
 He, he was the co-founder of LinkedIn. Uh, he's got a podcast called masters of scale and he had on the,

00:35:35.320 --> 00:35:43.560
 um, the, the founder, her name's Katarina fake of, um, Flickr, uh, the kind of the original social media,

00:35:44.440 --> 00:35:51.720
 pre-social media. And she talked about how she reached this community in, in Denmark in the eighties

00:35:51.720 --> 00:35:58.040
 via the internet. She was a very early, um, adopter because they all loved this Argentine author and

00:35:58.040 --> 00:36:03.880
 she couldn't find anyone in her little town in New Jersey that liked that. But here it is late eighties,

00:36:03.880 --> 00:36:09.640
 early nineties. She finds this, this other group. And so I think from that standpoint,

00:36:10.200 --> 00:36:15.080
 we approached it at subsplash, getting to kind of how, how we think about it, kind of going to

00:36:15.080 --> 00:36:20.520
 first principles is that the best uses of digital within the physical gathering will really plug holes

00:36:20.520 --> 00:36:26.920
 in what the, the physical can't provide alone. So here's an example, probably the biggest one that

00:36:26.920 --> 00:36:33.560
 I can think of is uniting the people who aren't present with you, uh, in person with those

00:36:34.040 --> 00:36:41.560
 who are. And, um, so, so for instance, uh, one thing that subsplash has tried to do, and I think

00:36:41.560 --> 00:36:48.120
 in a way, this is also what other platforms, um, from church online platform to, to any other one like

00:36:48.120 --> 00:36:55.080
 YouTube, Facebook, you know, the chat experience, trying to unite, um, those people, uh, you know,

00:36:55.080 --> 00:37:02.040
 who are not with you with those, with those who are. And, um, and so that second screen experience,

00:37:02.040 --> 00:37:08.360
 whether you're, you're on your phone taking notes or, or chatting, let's say in subsplash messaging in

00:37:08.360 --> 00:37:14.520
 person, well, that's, you know, there could be another person who's tuned in from the area who

00:37:14.520 --> 00:37:20.760
 can't make it, or maybe they're, you know, uh, miles away, states away, countries away, potentially,

00:37:21.480 --> 00:37:25.720
 and they're on their couch with their laptop in front of them or their tablet in their hand,

00:37:25.720 --> 00:37:31.800
 and they're watching on TV. Um, just that ability to cut through time and space, uh, makes

00:37:32.360 --> 00:37:39.960
 this digital, uh, avenue, uh, really helpful. Um, I think it also can bring abundance, whether that's

00:37:39.960 --> 00:37:45.720
 of connections or knowledge or, um, or anything where, where there might have been scarcity before.

00:37:46.280 --> 00:37:53.720
 If you're just in a physical space, uh, you know, you, you don't necessarily have, um, uh, the ability,

00:37:53.720 --> 00:37:59.480
 like, like I mentioned, to connect with those who aren't there. Um, and so, so it provides just an

00:37:59.480 --> 00:38:05.800
 abundance of outreach opportunities where beforehand it would require people, uh, to, you know, to come to

00:38:05.800 --> 00:38:13.960
 you. Um, and then probably the last one is just making multiple information sources and, and, you know,

00:38:14.600 --> 00:38:22.040
 connection inputs available in super easy, uh, order. So, you, you know, you think about, um, having a second

00:38:22.040 --> 00:38:27.720
 screen in front of you that not only has your chat, but the Bible, um, and those sorts of things, uh, that

00:38:27.720 --> 00:38:32.520
 are available. So those are some of the things, uh, that we've been thinking through at Subsplash that

00:38:32.520 --> 00:38:39.400
 we've seen a lot of churches, uh, start to use, um, and, and in a way that allows them to connect with,

00:38:39.400 --> 00:38:44.280
 like, a larger audience or just their own particular small group, uh,

00:38:44.280 --> 00:38:47.560
 uh, as a result, you know, of, of the way it's, it's built out.

00:38:49.320 --> 00:38:53.480
 That's awesome. I've, I've often thought, you know, talk, talking about complimenting,

00:38:53.480 --> 00:38:58.920
 uh, what's, what's happening in the physical, like, um, you know, and it's a bad example,

00:38:58.920 --> 00:39:05.720
 maybe VH1 pop-up video providing complimentary information while the sermon's going on, something

00:39:05.720 --> 00:39:12.920
 like that. Um, you know, like, Hey, here's, uh, here's a book, here's a resource, here's two points

00:39:12.920 --> 00:39:18.120
 that got cut out of the message. Here's a link to a YouTube video where he tells the, the six-minute

00:39:18.120 --> 00:39:24.120
 story instead of the 30-second story that he only had time for, or she had time for it. Like, just

00:39:24.120 --> 00:39:32.600
 providing that kind of external extra information that provides more value for what's happening.

00:39:32.600 --> 00:39:40.040
 And then even going back to your, your first point, I would love to see, um, a church or maybe even a

00:39:40.040 --> 00:39:46.440
 vendor provide this, uh, a unified chat. And I know there's major technological hurdles. I would love to see a

00:39:46.440 --> 00:39:52.760
 unified chat between physical and digital. Um, I, I just even some of the physical church services I'm

00:39:52.760 --> 00:39:59.640
 in, I have a, I have a text thread open and I'm, and I'm texting other people in the room or friends

00:39:59.640 --> 00:40:06.040
 and I'm not being overly social and ignoring the service. I'm actually talking about a point that's

00:40:06.040 --> 00:40:11.240
 in the service or a scripture point or something that is complimentary, a thought that goes with

00:40:11.240 --> 00:40:19.000
 what I'm hearing. And, and so like, for me, it just, I process that way. And so even doing that in the

00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:24.440
 physical space, it's not for everybody, but, but I think there's an opportunity to see some more of

00:40:24.440 --> 00:40:31.160
 that expand as we're trying to connect that digital and the physical assets together. So, so that's,

00:40:31.160 --> 00:40:35.800
 that's great. Hey, thanks John, uh, for sharing that. And so let's, let's get to Craig, uh, Craig

00:40:35.800 --> 00:40:42.760
 Dobbins from Aspen, excited to hear, uh, what's, what's going on here. Now this is, this is radical

00:40:42.760 --> 00:40:49.240
 like here. Hey, let's revisit the service. Hey, let's utilize technology and, and, and connect it

00:40:49.240 --> 00:40:53.960
 together to create more of a fidgetal, sorry, Ben Stapley experience. But, but what we're talking

00:40:53.960 --> 00:41:03.240
 about with Craig is really back to this, this place of let's reimagine even the physical building and, and, and

00:41:03.240 --> 00:41:09.320
 how we're designing and how we're utilizing this space. And so love the fact that Aspen's even,

00:41:09.320 --> 00:41:14.360
 you know, thinking about re-imagining some of this stuff. So I'm excited to hear. Craig, what, what

00:41:14.360 --> 00:41:19.080
 are you guys dreaming about? Well, we, you know, I think we, it's interesting, like everybody that's

00:41:19.080 --> 00:41:23.800
 talked, you know, in my head, I'm kind of imagining how that would change the building. You know, I think

00:41:23.800 --> 00:41:31.320
 we, um, even just now the talk of, of having, uh, you know, digital and physical together where you're

00:41:31.320 --> 00:41:35.640
 texting somebody, you know, how does that, we, we looked at when, when everybody had to be social

00:41:35.640 --> 00:41:41.160
 distance and looked at coming back, we started to look at, well, do we have to just have chairs in

00:41:41.160 --> 00:41:46.600
 rows to watch a worship service, or can we have tables and chairs and can we have, maybe the church

00:41:46.600 --> 00:41:51.560
 service can be in the round and, and what are other ways that you can kind of connect in different,

00:41:52.280 --> 00:41:57.240
 you know, different seating arrangements, you know, go back to our theatrical kind of layouts,

00:41:57.240 --> 00:42:02.040
 um, to kind of see how does that engage everybody around them in the, in the space.

00:42:02.760 --> 00:42:09.640
 Um, you know, we've also looked a lot at, at the size of the space. Um, before COVID happened,

00:42:09.640 --> 00:42:16.120
 we started seeing that these worship spaces were, were getting smaller anyway. And I think COVID is

00:42:16.120 --> 00:42:23.240
 probably going to increase that kind of move. And, and, and when I say smaller, it might not now be,

00:42:23.240 --> 00:42:34.040
 um, smaller in, in size, but in comfort, you know, as, as we come back a 60% full service might not feel,

00:42:34.680 --> 00:42:41.640
 might feel full compared to before COVID when it might need to be 80% or more to really feel full.

00:42:41.640 --> 00:42:49.320
 Um, and then I think what Ben was talking about, you know, liturg, liturgical service and kind of

00:42:49.880 --> 00:42:55.640
 bringing that out. And we've talked a lot about that too. And we've had some studies even before COVID

00:42:55.640 --> 00:43:04.680
 about, you know, bringing certain groups into spaces that are, you know, very kind of, um, you know, might

00:43:04.680 --> 00:43:10.680
 have a lot of glass, a lot of, you know, natural light, you know, soaring kind of spaces and, and their

00:43:10.680 --> 00:43:17.080
 mood really changes and they, um, they come, become more quiet, more reverent. And so how does that,

00:43:17.080 --> 00:43:22.840
 how do we need to look at, we've, we've designed a lot of black box kind of spaces and how do we need

00:43:22.840 --> 00:43:28.920
 to change that? How do we need to bring natural light into the space to really kind of bring that

00:43:28.920 --> 00:43:33.960
 feel that, that, that reverence back into the space? You know, is it natural light? Is it, is it the

00:43:33.960 --> 00:43:39.160
 positioning of things? Is it how you enter? Um, and we also have looked a lot too at, um,

00:43:40.200 --> 00:43:46.280
 at just engagement, you know, not just the service, but what happens either before or after it, like,

00:43:46.280 --> 00:43:50.920
 where, where do you have space to engage? You know, is it just inside or is it outside? Do you need to

00:43:50.920 --> 00:43:58.200
 start creating these outdoor spaces that really connect, um, connect folks? Um, and to that end too,

00:43:58.200 --> 00:44:03.640
 it's a friend of mine, they're, they're service, they're in a small town in South Carolina and they

00:44:03.640 --> 00:44:08.440
 had to, they didn't really have the technology to kind of broadcast as much. So they shifted totally

00:44:08.440 --> 00:44:15.320
 outside. And what was neat about that is he said he had people coming to their service that would have

00:44:15.320 --> 00:44:21.960
 never come inside and he wanted just to stay outside. He almost wanted, I don't, the cold forced him in

00:44:22.760 --> 00:44:27.160
 to his building, but he wanted to stay. And, and so those are some of the things that kind of, you know,

00:44:27.160 --> 00:44:33.800
 outdoor space and kind of the size of spaces and even this kind of bringing natural light into,

00:44:33.800 --> 00:44:37.160
 into back into the worship space are things that we're looking at.

00:44:38.440 --> 00:44:42.360
 That's, that's amazing. The production guy in me just cringed when you're, you're, you're talking

00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:49.320
 about natural light. Uh, but what, what's interesting is, is that, you know, culturally people that, and

00:44:49.320 --> 00:44:54.200
 this is what's interesting, people that are cold to Christ and cold to the church automatically have,

00:44:54.200 --> 00:44:59.640
 uh, what I would say is maybe a distrust and mistrust of what's happening within those buildings. I've had

00:44:59.640 --> 00:45:06.120
 these conversations with people that are cold to church that are throwing spitfire towards the church

00:45:06.120 --> 00:45:11.560
 building because they don't trust what's happening in there. And so maybe inadvertently these black

00:45:11.560 --> 00:45:17.800
 boxes we're building are possibly working against us a little bit here. If we're trying to reach people

00:45:17.800 --> 00:45:23.720
 that are cold to Christ within the building. Now there's even challenges, uh, with evangelism happening,

00:45:23.720 --> 00:45:29.560
 uh, in these buildings. And maybe we're, Barna talks about how we're maybe coming into a season where

00:45:30.120 --> 00:45:35.720
 people cold to Christ aren't as interested in these services as we would like them to be. And so maybe

00:45:35.720 --> 00:45:41.800
 the building itself is losing that, uh, evangelical push. Uh, and so there's really this interesting

00:45:41.800 --> 00:45:48.040
 thing with our physical of, of maybe, Hey, let's, let's re-imagine let's reanalyze psychologically

00:45:48.040 --> 00:45:53.160
 what's happening within these buildings and even small things like, Hey, let that door, that external

00:45:53.160 --> 00:45:59.400
 door be glass. So at least people can see at that point what they're walking into and can at least

00:45:59.960 --> 00:46:05.560
 build that level of trust, even for those first steps. And, and so that's, that's, go ahead.

00:46:05.560 --> 00:46:10.760
 We talked about transparency too. And just that, like, if it's the front door, that's glass, but,

00:46:11.400 --> 00:46:17.480
 but we have some wonderful, wonderful technology where you can, you can create a video of how you

00:46:17.480 --> 00:46:22.440
 enter into worship and you can explain to somebody even before they get there, what is it, what they're

00:46:22.440 --> 00:46:27.320
 going to experience. And so that reduces transparency, that provides transparency in what you're trying

00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:31.560
 to do. And I think we have to remember too, that we're not only providing that for people that have

00:46:31.560 --> 00:46:37.000
 never been there, but for, for the people that have not been back and are starting to come back

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:40.680
 because things might be different and it might be different than what they're expecting it to be.

00:46:42.200 --> 00:46:47.240
 Hey, Jeff, um, go for it. Craig, I think that I love how you're thinking through the actual,

00:46:47.240 --> 00:46:52.680
 the actual environment and how it has, um, psychological or emotional or spiritual

00:46:52.680 --> 00:46:58.200
 implications towards it. Even what you're using to design with for us, we've wrestled with which

00:46:58.200 --> 00:47:03.800
 type of building do we go with? Do we go with permanent or portable? And again, to use that offline

00:47:03.800 --> 00:47:11.000
 comparison for us, um, there's the old adage, right? Like be careful, which, um, be careful of using other

00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:17.320
 people's online platforms because they may change the rules on you. And so in other words, Facebook

00:47:17.320 --> 00:47:21.640
 is great. You don't know how the, it's not your platform and they may change the rules and they

00:47:21.640 --> 00:47:26.280
 always are and have, and the church could be in the lurch because of that. And you know, you have some

00:47:26.840 --> 00:47:31.880
 social media platforms are trying to actually trying to engage churches particularly because of that.

00:47:31.880 --> 00:47:39.400
 So for us, we took that to onsite with our portable. In the past, I used to love portable locations because

00:47:39.400 --> 00:47:45.080
 they were a fraction of the cost and the investment in a, in a permanent location. But when COVID hit,

00:47:45.080 --> 00:47:49.240
 um, obviously the school, the schools that we were in and the theaters that we were in

00:47:49.240 --> 00:47:55.320
 had their own rules and their own safety precautions and were, uh, more strict with us coming back than

00:47:55.320 --> 00:48:00.600
 we would have been at a permanent locations. And so because of that, we actually kind of reverse course

00:48:00.600 --> 00:48:06.520
 and say, Hey, maybe we shouldn't over-invest in these portable locations that are not ours and the rules

00:48:06.520 --> 00:48:12.440
 could change on us. Should we, should we reconsider investing more in permanent locations down the

00:48:12.440 --> 00:48:16.840
 road? That's one of the things that we've wrestled with coming out of COVID as well for our physical

00:48:16.840 --> 00:48:22.280
 sites. Yeah. I would love to find a stat and there's probably somebody who knows, but the number of

00:48:22.280 --> 00:48:28.920
 multi-site campuses and church plants that, that are, that are shut down and are only physical at this

00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:34.200
 point because of, um, you know, leases that have been ripped up, you know, even, uh, there are multiple

00:48:34.200 --> 00:48:40.040
 churches that I know in church plants that, that are homeless or, and I call it digital next for the next

00:48:40.040 --> 00:48:45.320
 unknown season. Um, you know, there are churches that are having to only lean on digital because they've lost

00:48:45.320 --> 00:48:50.040
 that, that physical footprint for, for whatever reason. Hey, Grace, we've, we've got some questions

00:48:50.040 --> 00:48:54.840
 and I'm going to go ahead and move Brian up in, in context of people that are listening. Hey, Brian,

00:48:54.840 --> 00:48:59.240
 give me a second. In context of anybody who's listening on social, come on over to Clubhouse. Join

00:48:59.240 --> 00:49:05.640
 the conversation. If there's anybody else in the room that has, uh, questions, uh, go and raise your

00:49:05.640 --> 00:49:11.640
 hand and would love to bring you up at some point. Brian has been like the most patient person in,

00:49:11.640 --> 00:49:16.120
 in the room waiting with his hand raised for a number of times. So, uh, Brian, what, what are you thinking?

00:49:16.120 --> 00:49:24.440
 Hey, this is such a great conversation. I have a random hour and it just happened to be this one. And, uh,

00:49:24.440 --> 00:49:30.200
 this is right up my lane. I'm here in Southern California at, uh, at a church in Rancho Cucamonga

00:49:30.200 --> 00:49:34.920
 and have the privilege of leading our creative area at the church. And so this is just such a,

00:49:35.480 --> 00:49:40.840
 an amazing conversation because even as we think towards Easter, we are requiring an RSVP for

00:49:40.840 --> 00:49:46.760
 Easter and we're seeing thousands of people letting us know they're coming back on Easter weekend. And so

00:49:46.760 --> 00:49:51.000
 we're thinking through a whole bunch of these things. And so just like, I actually have notes

00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:55.640
 open. I'm taking notes. Clubhouse is the new awesome. Um, so thanks for all of your input

00:49:55.640 --> 00:50:00.200
 and insights on this. And, you know, I was, uh, as you guys were talking, thinking through a few

00:50:00.200 --> 00:50:05.080
 things where, uh, I would, we're a large church, uh, pre COVID a little over 3000 on a weekend.

00:50:05.080 --> 00:50:11.000
 Um, and so I, I think I probably resonate with a lot of what you all are talking about,

00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:14.760
 but it was really challenged. I don't know how many of you guys caught John Mark Comer's

00:50:14.760 --> 00:50:17.960
 conversation with Kerry Newhoff on church pulse weekly a couple of weeks ago. And

00:50:18.440 --> 00:50:25.240
 I've just been chewing on some of his thoughts, um, on, on what the future of physical looks like.

00:50:25.240 --> 00:50:30.280
 And even as we were sitting here talking, I was, uh, thinking about some of the things you all were

00:50:30.280 --> 00:50:36.120
 talking about, but also looking at the state of mental health in America in 2021, put out by the,

00:50:36.120 --> 00:50:41.320
 by the mental health in America, um, organization. And one of the things they were talking about in this

00:50:41.320 --> 00:50:46.760
 article that I was reading is that the number of people looking for, uh, looking for help with

00:50:46.760 --> 00:50:52.680
 anxiety and depression is skyrocketed. Um, this article states that from January to September of 2020,

00:50:52.680 --> 00:51:02.120
 um, a 93% increase over the 2019 numbers in total number of anxiety screens. Um, on the depression

00:51:02.120 --> 00:51:08.920
 side, it was a 62% increase from 2019. So I'm thinking a lot about this conversation. Uh, and then

00:51:08.920 --> 00:51:13.720
 really challenged, challenged by John Mark's thoughts a couple of weeks ago, and then just challenged like

00:51:13.720 --> 00:51:20.520
 20 years in large church ministry and a chance to rebuild. And like, I think this is such an important

00:51:20.520 --> 00:51:25.720
 time for us as church leaders, as we're moving into the future to look at, are we going to go back to

00:51:25.720 --> 00:51:30.520
 what we did or what we've continued to do through COVID, uh, in our physical locations, or will there

00:51:30.520 --> 00:51:36.280
 be new ways that we can create and think through how we meet culture where it's actually at? If those

00:51:36.280 --> 00:51:42.200
 statistics are true in my community, like, man, I'm not sure the four songs to Craig's point earlier,

00:51:42.200 --> 00:51:48.120
 um, like the four song, you know, the, the two songs announcements, a song, a message and a song.

00:51:48.120 --> 00:51:53.800
 Uh, I'm not sure it's meeting our culture where it's at. And so I'm just wondering where you guys

00:51:53.800 --> 00:51:57.640
 are at, what you're thinking. Uh, one of the examples he used was, you know, just creating

00:51:57.640 --> 00:52:03.480
 more space in our gatherings for solitude, silence, and stillness. It's like in mega church culture,

00:52:04.360 --> 00:52:08.680
 you know, depending on where you're coming from, it may be more accustomed to your denominational

00:52:08.680 --> 00:52:15.320
 style. But in my context, like, we're pretty, like, we're pretty programmed, like the TV show program

00:52:15.320 --> 00:52:20.760
 vibe, you know? Um, so like, what's the production look like moving forward? Uh, is it less haze,

00:52:20.760 --> 00:52:26.520
 moving lights, minute to minute cues with, with no space for reflection? Um, or is it more guided

00:52:26.520 --> 00:52:33.240
 prayer, sitting in some quiet together, still having times for, for joyful celebration, for actual praise,

00:52:33.240 --> 00:52:39.400
 but also times for worship and lament and recognizing like what we've just come through in 2020 has been

00:52:39.400 --> 00:52:44.600
 so hard and there's been so much loss. And are we creating spaces in our churches for people to do

00:52:44.600 --> 00:52:50.600
 that while also trying to, you know, I think to your point, Jeff, um, figure out what is the, the way

00:52:50.600 --> 00:52:55.080
 forward in evangelizing our culture? Um, but our programming, particularly in large churches has,

00:52:55.080 --> 00:53:00.200
 has really, at least in my context, has been about the energy, excellence with tight transition and

00:53:00.200 --> 00:53:05.160
 precision, precision, and a polished message that really connects with people that are looking for God.

00:53:05.160 --> 00:53:11.320
 Um, and a really predictable arc, honestly, over the last couple decades. Um, so my question,

00:53:11.320 --> 00:53:16.440
 all that to say, uh, set up in, in some response to kind of what you guys are all talking about, but

00:53:16.440 --> 00:53:21.880
 you know, how, how does this, this kind of information challenge, repulse, or resonate with you all,

00:53:21.880 --> 00:53:24.280
 uh, in the season of rebuilding our physical locations?

00:53:26.600 --> 00:53:30.360
 Well, I'll jump in and make it quick, but I would love to hear from the rest of the panelists as well.

00:53:30.360 --> 00:53:35.240
 I think, I, I, Brian, I resonate with what you're saying. We've done a great job, um, as churches in

00:53:35.240 --> 00:53:40.760
 the past with rejoicing with those who rejoice, but we don't do the best job of weeping with those who weep.

00:53:40.760 --> 00:53:45.560
 I remember coming alongside the church pre-COVID and helping them plan the Memorial Day service,

00:53:45.560 --> 00:53:50.440
 and we had a minute of silence, and the lead pastor said, "That kind of feels like a downer."

00:53:50.440 --> 00:53:57.160
 And it's like, we are remembering the fallen soldiers. It is kind of a bit of a down moment.

00:53:57.160 --> 00:54:05.000
 And, and can we not, can we not, our church calendar for one minute, have a down moment? And so that,

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:11.080
 and I just, you know, and I, I program these moments. So I, that challenge comes back to me as well.

00:54:11.080 --> 00:54:17.080
 I think meeting people where they're at in their full scope of their humanity, and not just the crash

00:54:17.080 --> 00:54:22.760
 outs and the high moments and the hype, but saying we are struggling, and we can be honest, is, uh,

00:54:22.760 --> 00:54:28.760
 uh, frankly speaking, it's something I need. I, I need that from my church because I am there as well.

00:54:28.760 --> 00:54:31.080
 So I'm looking forward towards that change.

00:54:31.080 --> 00:54:40.280
 Yeah. And, and Brian, I think, I think along those lines, um, from the vantage point of working at a

00:54:40.280 --> 00:54:46.120
 company like SubSplash, I mean, we're, we're serving a ton of, of churches. I mean, in the tens of thousands,

00:54:46.120 --> 00:54:51.880
 and, and that also gives us a deeper insight into trends amongst different denominations. And we've

00:54:51.880 --> 00:55:00.680
 seen a pretty significant move at the millennial and Gen Z, um, uh, generations towards the Anglican

00:55:00.680 --> 00:55:09.560
 church in North America, and some of these more, um, deeper liturgical, uh, uh, groups and denominations.

00:55:10.360 --> 00:55:18.280
 And I think there's many reasons for that, but I think a lot of it comes down to the intimacy of the

00:55:18.280 --> 00:55:27.640
 litur, uh, of the liturgy, the, um, the, um, order of service. And if I could sum it up in one,

00:55:27.640 --> 00:55:33.640
 it's more of like an intimate community, if I can think of it. And I think a lot of denominations and a

00:55:33.640 --> 00:55:40.760
 lot of churches are, are trying to, um, I mean, every church has a liturgy. And so the question is,

00:55:40.760 --> 00:55:47.240
 um, you know, how can you create that space? One way, when you look at the future, um, in a former

00:55:47.240 --> 00:55:53.240
 life, I lived in Los Angeles and my, my former church down there was a small, very small church that

00:55:53.880 --> 00:56:01.560
 ended up because, um, they expected people to, to come to them in the past. And in an area like Santa

00:56:01.560 --> 00:56:07.880
 Monica, which is post post-Christian, um, you know, it's probably the least churched three or

00:56:07.880 --> 00:56:14.840
 four square mile section in the United States. Um, they had to develop a new strategy. And so

00:56:15.480 --> 00:56:21.000
 Ben and Craig were just talking about what does space look like? Well, they, they bought this old,

00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:28.520
 old building, um, made the bottom, uh, it's two, two stories. The bottom is a coffee house. The upstairs,

00:56:28.520 --> 00:56:35.320
 they turned into a collaborative workspace, um, that helps kind of pay some of the bills, but downstairs

00:56:35.880 --> 00:56:42.280
 they added a ton, a ton of windows so that people who are walking by could see what was going on

00:56:42.280 --> 00:56:51.160
 inside. And so from Monday to Saturday, this is a coffee shop collaborative space. And, um, on Saturdays,

00:56:51.160 --> 00:56:57.480
 they even have like kind of community discussions. And then on Sunday, what they've done is they've gone

00:56:57.480 --> 00:57:05.400
 to, um, the needs of that particular area, which is, you know, everyone loves their coffee. Everyone's

00:57:05.400 --> 00:57:12.680
 now co-working and, um, they're connecting, you know, with, with people. Um, and then those people end up

00:57:12.680 --> 00:57:17.800
 coming on Sunday. And so it's very intimate. It doesn't work for everyone. Uh, they're not a huge church,

00:57:18.600 --> 00:57:25.960
 but in that particular neighborhood, they found out what the buzz was in culture and they invited people

00:57:25.960 --> 00:57:31.640
 into that Monday through Saturday. And it made the Sunday invitation just an absolute knockout of the

00:57:31.640 --> 00:57:40.200
 park. So that, that, uh, is, is an interesting model that I think as we continue to move forward in the

00:57:40.200 --> 00:57:47.000
 future, you're going to see more and more and more of. Well, we've also talked about too, just how art

00:57:47.000 --> 00:57:53.880
 intersects with, with the building and, and how we have performance art and, and, and all of this,

00:57:53.880 --> 00:57:58.840
 but also to physical, you know, art, you know, how, you know, the church in the past, you know, has really

00:58:00.600 --> 00:58:04.120
 been the supporter of that. And, and should that happen again, you know, do you need to

00:58:05.080 --> 00:58:09.960
 bring that up so that emotion of the time can be expressed through that art and people can experience

00:58:09.960 --> 00:58:13.640
 it. And, and when you're in a space like that, when you're in an art museum, you're, you're a little

00:58:13.640 --> 00:58:18.040
 more quiet, a little more contemplative. And, and so how can you incorporate that into your building,

00:58:18.040 --> 00:58:23.800
 into your site? You know, I think the community we found is, has been at home and we're kind of

00:58:23.800 --> 00:58:28.280
 questioning how many people are going to go back. And so how does your, also, how does your building and

00:58:28.280 --> 00:58:34.200
 your site open up to the community after Sunday, you know, the rest of the week? So those are some

00:58:34.200 --> 00:58:40.840
 questions too, of how you can reach out. Hey, I'll go. I'm excited. I just keep listening to all these

00:58:40.840 --> 00:58:47.560
 guys, but I'm so slow to hit my unmute button. Brian, it's a great question. The, you know, I think

00:58:47.560 --> 00:58:53.000
 about a couple of things, one inside the room and one outside the room to your point about like a moment

00:58:53.000 --> 00:58:57.080
 of silence or whatever. I was just talking with a friend who works at a church on the east coast.

00:58:57.080 --> 00:59:03.000
 He was asking me like, do you have any, any ideas for a song to like open the Easter message? I was

00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:07.720
 like, well, what's the theme? And he's like, it's a broken people. And I'm like, well, I can only give

00:59:07.720 --> 00:59:13.000
 you like a thousand sad songs to think about, you know? And so I sent him some options. He's like, yeah,

00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:18.680
 they want something kind of like peppy though. And I'm like, then why did you pick broken people as

00:59:18.680 --> 00:59:25.800
 your theme? You know? So I think there's a huge thing in there about being willing to just be

00:59:25.800 --> 00:59:31.560
 sad, especially in this kind of modern, everything is awesome church environment that we've kind of

00:59:31.560 --> 00:59:36.520
 gotten used to. Like one of you guys said it was, it's kind of become predictable. Absolutely. It has.

00:59:36.520 --> 00:59:43.400
 And if we're really using creativity to reflect who God is and what he wants for people, creativity is

00:59:43.400 --> 00:59:47.560
 meant to do that. The creative pieces we make are either two things. They're either meant to provoke

00:59:47.560 --> 00:59:52.840
 somebody to the emotion that we want them to feel, to get in the right place, to hear what the good

00:59:52.840 --> 00:59:58.440
 news is, or we want to empathize with the emotion they already have. And we have to be willing for

00:59:58.440 --> 01:00:04.040
 that emotion to be a pretty crappy, pretty sad, pretty devastating one. So I totally agree with you

01:00:04.040 --> 01:00:10.440
 in terms of just what we can do in the room, be willing to like use the full breadth and the full

01:00:10.440 --> 01:00:15.880
 contrast of darkness to also to bring out the light to make it shine even brighter.

01:00:15.880 --> 01:00:19.800
 The other thing I'd say is for all the stuff that we've done last year at Crossroads, and we haven't

01:00:19.800 --> 01:00:25.160
 done everything perfectly or even well, but we've worked hard and we and I think we've had a good

01:00:25.160 --> 01:00:30.360
 heart for it. I think one of the most effective things we did is when the sites all close and we're

01:00:30.360 --> 01:00:33.560
 trying to figure out what the heck are we going to do, and we're making a couple online things,

01:00:34.520 --> 01:00:41.560
 we had everybody on staff call the community so that everybody who called Crossroads home got at

01:00:41.560 --> 01:00:47.000
 least one phone call from a staff member just saying, "How are you? Can I pray for you?" And I tell

01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:52.120
 you, for all of these big ideas and these big productions and these big things, world-changing

01:00:52.120 --> 01:00:56.920
 things that we want to do, just people feeling like they were cared for is maybe the most important

01:00:56.920 --> 01:01:01.880
 thing we could have done, maybe some of the most effective ministry. So I think outside the room,

01:01:01.880 --> 01:01:06.280
 especially the bigger church you are, the more you can just empathize with people and connect with

01:01:06.280 --> 01:01:13.160
 them and remember that what we're doing is ministry, that maybe solves mostly everything, you know.

01:01:13.160 --> 01:01:21.320
 Love that. Talking all the advances in digital technology and sometimes simply picking up the

01:01:21.320 --> 01:01:26.840
 phone, calling someone and saying, "Hey, how are you? How can I pray for you? What's going on in your

01:01:26.840 --> 01:01:33.320
 life? Let's talk." Engaging, and yeah, I think you can use the word engaging in a two-way conversation,

01:01:33.320 --> 01:01:39.880
 even on a cell phone call or a landline call, is so crucial and important in that. Edward,

01:01:39.880 --> 01:01:46.680
 I see you, sir. I'm bringing you up in two. We'll get to your question here in a second. The heart of

01:01:46.680 --> 01:01:57.160
 this, you know, really, Brian, I think is the importance for us. Hey, Johan, I think it's the importance

01:01:57.160 --> 01:02:06.680
 us to recognize lament, maybe even giving space that's not overly programmed and as a guy who's produced

01:02:06.680 --> 01:02:14.600
 tens of thousands of worship services in his lifetime, don't produce God out of the equation. And maybe, just

01:02:14.600 --> 01:02:20.440
 maybe give God an opportunity to move in our physical services, as well as our digital services, as well

01:02:20.440 --> 01:02:28.680
 as, you know, within our church overall. So Brian, sir, I am very happy with this question. That was a

01:02:28.680 --> 01:02:33.480
 great one. Johan. Thanks so much. I appreciate you hosting the call, too, and thanks for bringing me

01:02:33.480 --> 01:02:39.480
 up. And great insight, guys. Really appreciate you all and gave you guys all a follow, too. So thanks so much.

01:02:39.480 --> 01:02:46.040
 Awesome. Thank you, sir. Johan, you had a question. And so wanted to give you an opportunity. What are

01:02:46.040 --> 01:02:56.680
 you thinking? Yeah, great to be here. First of all, I'm a Dutch church blender in Germany. And I'm very

01:02:56.680 --> 01:03:04.920
 happy to be with you and to hear from you. We also in Germany, maybe it's a cultural thing here. But

01:03:05.480 --> 01:03:13.240
 what I see is something very different in the range of children's and teens ministry.

01:03:14.680 --> 01:03:22.520
 I want to hear your opinion about it because here in Germany, lots of people and special children are

01:03:22.520 --> 01:03:32.760
 in at home and over Zoom educated. And most of the children and teenagers are more now anti-digital.

01:03:32.760 --> 01:03:40.920
 When we do something digital in the church now, in church service, when we show a little film, they say,

01:03:40.920 --> 01:03:52.120
 oh, no, not again, digital. And we found in the basement some old children ministries, things like the flannel

01:03:52.760 --> 01:03:57.320
 pictures. And we use that now. And they are very, very happy about it.

01:03:59.160 --> 01:04:09.720
 So it's more back in the 80s, 70, 80s now with us. What do you think will this corona,

01:04:11.240 --> 01:04:20.040
 COVID time, change also the children who are now in this age and also the teenagers, 17 now? Children

01:04:20.040 --> 01:04:27.800
 don't want to communicate over digital media. They don't react on questions, but only when they are

01:04:27.800 --> 01:04:35.240
 coming together with restrictions, of course, and do not digital things, they're only happy about it. And

01:04:35.240 --> 01:04:43.400
 the digital things, they are more like, oh, no, not again. So it's, it's, yeah, it's a little bit

01:04:43.400 --> 01:04:49.320
 changing here. I want to hear your opinion about it in the future, maybe in your cultural context.

01:04:50.040 --> 01:04:57.960
 Sure, love to open it up. Kids, students, zoom fatigue, digital fatigue, what are you guys thinking?

01:05:01.000 --> 01:05:03.960
 Anybody have experience with the kids or the students? I mean, I can gladly go,

01:05:03.960 --> 01:05:05.880
 but would love somebody else to speak into it first.

01:05:07.480 --> 01:05:12.600
 Yeah, I think just overall digital trend, trend wise, I mean, you are starting to see

01:05:14.120 --> 01:05:16.920
 oh, I forget what that, that phone is called, but I was just

01:05:19.160 --> 01:05:24.120
 talking with someone who had it, but it basically only does calls and texts, you know, and so he,

01:05:24.920 --> 01:05:33.720
 a flip phone kind of, well, yeah, right. But there's a specific brand where it, it went back and it's

01:05:33.720 --> 01:05:41.640
 literally just calls and texts, like the flip phone, but it's, it's experiencing a resurgence. I mean,

01:05:41.640 --> 01:05:46.760
 I think you have, when the pendulum swings so much, you look at now and in the States, and this is very

01:05:46.760 --> 01:05:52.680
 similar, pretty much world, you know, worldwide, in some places more so than the United States, you have

01:05:53.720 --> 01:05:59.880
 hours upon hours upon hours of screen time. And when the pendulum swings that far in one direction,

01:06:01.160 --> 01:06:06.360
 it's not a surprise to see in certain places that the pendulum is swinging back in the other. So,

01:06:06.360 --> 01:06:11.640
 you know, that would be, that would be kind of my initial reaction.

01:06:13.560 --> 01:06:19.160
 Yeah, I think that, that makes sense to me too. I would say for my kids who are seven, nine, and

01:06:19.880 --> 01:06:26.440
 four, they're still super addicted to screens. I wish they were sick of them, but I know that the,

01:06:26.440 --> 01:06:32.360
 the strategy that we've been trying to employ with student ministry in particular, as we, we've trying to,

01:06:32.360 --> 01:06:36.600
 we're trying to, you know, reboot it is realizing like, we just haven't figured it out how to make it

01:06:36.600 --> 01:06:45.320
 great online. And a lot of the research I've seen about Gen Z is, is just how much they, how much live

01:06:45.320 --> 01:06:50.200
 experiences resonate with them, where, you know, Gen, Gen Z is actually, there's a few adults in that

01:06:50.200 --> 01:06:55.960
 generation, I guess now, as it comes of age, and they're more likely to want to spend their money on

01:06:55.960 --> 01:07:00.680
 things like concerts versus millennials who stereotypically, they want to spend on experiences,

01:07:00.680 --> 01:07:06.360
 but more like big mountaintop, you know, like a big trip to an exotic city or something versus

01:07:07.400 --> 01:07:11.640
 I just want to hang out with people and see an experience. And I, and we're, we're trying to

01:07:12.280 --> 01:07:17.080
 steer that way for student ministry in particular, I would say we don't have a great answer for it.

01:07:17.080 --> 01:07:20.680
 We're just, I think I resonate with the direction that you're seeing.

01:07:20.680 --> 01:07:28.760
 Yeah. I think it's an opportunity to think different. My son, my son spends, well, honestly,

01:07:28.760 --> 01:07:36.760
 right now it's six o'clock Eastern. And so he's probably on his laptop playing Roblox for probably

01:07:36.760 --> 01:07:42.840
 the second hour straight, all of his homework's done. And he's probably has his iPad on zoom, hanging out

01:07:42.840 --> 01:07:49.000
 with five or six friends playing in real time, talking, chatting, and goofing around in Roblox.

01:07:49.000 --> 01:07:56.520
 So I think, I think they're still addicted to their screens. But, but I think the idea of doing church,

01:07:56.520 --> 01:08:00.680
 at least a physical church form in digital space, I think that's a, that's an obstacle.

01:08:01.480 --> 01:08:07.320
 Even last night, I saw just real quick, sorry. Even last night, we had a stadia, we planted,

01:08:07.320 --> 01:08:14.600
 we launched a digital only expression of church. It was called Lux, Lux digital church. It was a Twitch

01:08:14.600 --> 01:08:20.280
 church aimed at video gamers. They had 160 people over the span of the first service,

01:08:20.280 --> 01:08:27.160
 the hour service, they had a hundred some engaged the entire time, 110 chatters during the, during this

01:08:27.160 --> 01:08:32.760
 Twitch service. And it's aimed at video gamers. It was immensely successful for a launch and looking

01:08:32.760 --> 01:08:40.040
 forward to it. But what happened was this reinvention of what church was more towards that community.

01:08:40.040 --> 01:08:44.760
 It wasn't necessarily what video game community, wasn't necessarily physical service done digitally.

01:08:44.760 --> 01:08:51.800
 It's a re-imagination almost entirely from digital. My daughter, and forgive me, Craig, this, this may

01:08:51.800 --> 01:08:55.640
 have been you with Crossroads. It may have been somebody else. So I don't, I don't want to put this on

01:08:55.640 --> 01:09:01.160
 you if it wasn't your, or your student guys. But my daughter the other day watched, I want to say,

01:09:01.960 --> 01:09:09.720
 90 minutes to two hours of student ministry people at a church playing Mario Kart. She's literally on

01:09:09.720 --> 01:09:16.600
 YouTube chatting up with whoever it is on whatever chat board it is, but engaging with people in the

01:09:16.600 --> 01:09:23.160
 church, building relationships while they're playing with Mario Kart, running around a, you know, a track,

01:09:23.160 --> 01:09:29.640
 driving around a track in, uh, on Nintendo. And so I think, I think if you want to be effective in

01:09:29.640 --> 01:09:35.400
 students and kids, it's not doing what you're doing in students and kids, uh, typically in the physical

01:09:35.400 --> 01:09:41.880
 space. I think it's more doing what students and kids do when they're on digital space and using that

01:09:41.880 --> 01:09:47.720
 to build relationships. Things like Twitch, things like TikTok. Now you may not be native Twitch or TikTok.

01:09:47.720 --> 01:09:53.320
 That's cool. Find people that are, uh, and start to equip them, disciple them to, to really start to

01:09:53.320 --> 01:09:59.560
 engage in that space. I've seen churches be very successful with that unique approach when it comes

01:09:59.560 --> 01:10:04.840
 towards reaching kids and students. I cut somebody off earlier. I'm sorry. Go ahead. That's all right.

01:10:04.840 --> 01:10:09.080
 I was, I was almost cutting you off. So I'm sorry, but I was just, some of the, some of the things we've

01:10:09.080 --> 01:10:15.400
 seen and I've even seen with my kids who were on, on the Xbox and their laptops way too much too. Um,

01:10:16.120 --> 01:10:22.600
 but it's just when they connect to intergenerationally, you know, and anytime you can create a space that,

01:10:22.600 --> 01:10:28.680
 that allows for that to happen. I think, I see my kids kind of come alive when, when we kind of are

01:10:28.680 --> 01:10:33.720
 finally out talking with other folks and they can kind of engage, not just kids, but adults too. And,

01:10:33.720 --> 01:10:39.000
 and I think that might be an opportunity if, if there are ways where you have spaces where they

01:10:39.000 --> 01:10:44.840
 can come together at certain times that, that might help kind of engage them in, in the church.

01:10:46.920 --> 01:10:54.280
 Love it. Johan, I'm curious, just briefly, you're a church planner from Germany. How'd you end up in

01:10:54.280 --> 01:11:00.520
 here? Do you, how'd you hear about this? Uh, I looked it up and in the list and I found it very

01:11:00.520 --> 01:11:06.760
 interesting. Oh, so just through Clubhouse. That's awesome. Yes. I, I, I, I appreciate that. I, I

01:11:06.760 --> 01:11:14.280
 follow the hashtag, uh, digital Kirsch, which I think is digital church in Germany. Uh, I've, I follow

01:11:14.280 --> 01:11:19.560
 that and connect on Twitter a lot with, with people that are doing digital. I have no idea if I pronounced

01:11:19.560 --> 01:11:23.960
 that right. So I'm sorry if I offended your culture, but I do follow, um, you know, some of the

01:11:23.960 --> 01:11:28.760
 the guys that, that are doing this in the German space translate on Twitter is awesome, by the way.

01:11:28.760 --> 01:11:35.320
 I just want to say that publicly. Uh, but Hey, thanks for jumping on this. I, I hope I'm intrigued.

01:11:35.320 --> 01:11:41.080
 Like the idea of the, oh man, I forget what you call it, but the felt board, like there was a whole

01:11:41.080 --> 01:11:46.200
 industry around that in the seventies and eighties. Um, and it's intriguing to me that maybe it's

01:11:46.200 --> 01:11:53.000
 reverting back to that because of the simplicity sake. I do think there's going to be, here's the reality.

01:11:53.000 --> 01:11:57.800
 It's, it's going to take different types of churches to reach different types of people.

01:11:57.800 --> 01:12:01.720
 There are people that are going to engage with a physical church. There are going to be

01:12:02.360 --> 01:12:08.600
 technological. Um, you know, um, I forget the word, but people who don't want the technology,

01:12:08.600 --> 01:12:12.760
 they're going to revert back. Maybe not to the level of Quaker or something like that within

01:12:12.760 --> 01:12:16.520
 American history, but they're going to be phobic where they just, Hey, you know what? Give me the

01:12:16.520 --> 01:12:21.800
 felt board. Let's, let's just sit around a table and talk at Starbucks. There are going to be people that are going to be,

01:12:21.800 --> 01:12:27.640
 Hey, yeah, let's go full on video game church. I think this is really maybe one of the lessons of,

01:12:27.640 --> 01:12:33.800
 of 2021 and beyond is that I don't think there's any one model that's going to be effective to reach

01:12:33.800 --> 01:12:40.040
 everyone. Uh, I think if anything, the whole fast forwarding of, of COVID and the culture,

01:12:40.040 --> 01:12:44.840
 the acceleration that's there, I think it's really breaking down to where, Hey, we need multiple

01:12:44.840 --> 01:12:50.680
 models to really effectively reach people. Cause some people will work with this. Some people are

01:12:50.680 --> 01:12:54.040
 going to connect better with this. Some people, honestly, there's probably models of church.

01:12:54.040 --> 01:12:58.440
 We've not even figured out yet. They're going to be effective. So it's, I think really going to be

01:12:58.440 --> 01:13:03.720
 interesting, uh, for the future. So, Hey, within the room, or if there's any other questions,

01:13:03.720 --> 01:13:07.800
 go ahead and raise your hand. Uh, would love to bring in, if you're out there in the social media

01:13:07.800 --> 01:13:13.880
 interwebs, uh, would love to Matt Delp, sir, you asked, you wanted to ask a question earlier,

01:13:13.880 --> 01:13:19.000
 and I guess you had to step away and we just kind of went on and on. So thank you for being patient as

01:13:19.000 --> 01:13:24.920
 the system hopefully tries to bring you in and we see you come in at some point. I'm stalling once

01:13:24.920 --> 01:13:32.040
 again here and there he is. So Matt, uh, Hey, thanks for, uh, your patience, uh, jumping in here.

01:13:32.040 --> 01:13:35.960
 What are you thinking? No, not a problem. I'm sorry. I had to jump out for a minute.

01:13:35.960 --> 01:13:41.960
 Um, one of the questions I was wondering is what are you, as far as the services, do you guys add any

01:13:41.960 --> 01:13:48.680
 elements that add for the kids or for students and maybe what, what does that look like?

01:13:48.680 --> 01:13:54.040
 And does that expand to what are your creative elements? Do you have for their student ministry

01:13:54.040 --> 01:14:01.720
 or kids ministry? Great question. I know Ben had to step out. He had a family thing. Craig.

01:14:01.720 --> 01:14:10.200
 Yeah. Um, what are you thinking? We, we're not doing anything specifically for kids within our main

01:14:10.200 --> 01:14:17.720
 weekends or really even for students. We're, we're focused way more on kind of a young, a young adult type

01:14:17.720 --> 01:14:24.520
 guy, you know, um, who is, uh, open to open to God, but is, you know, not necessarily has a lot

01:14:24.520 --> 01:14:30.040
 of church background or anything like that. It's enough just to focus on him. So we, we don't really

01:14:30.040 --> 01:14:35.320
 make anything specifically for students or kids typically outside of maybe a Christmas or an Easter

01:14:35.320 --> 01:14:39.800
 service where we know there's going to be more families in there. We make a lot of stuff specifically

01:14:39.800 --> 01:14:46.920
 for them separately, but, um, yeah, we, we don't do anything for, for students. I would say we are

01:14:47.720 --> 01:14:53.720
 like, I, I kind of alluded to where we're launching a whole new approach to student ministry that is way

01:14:53.720 --> 01:14:59.560
 more, um, big and invitational. You know, you, you kind of go back and forth between, is it evangelism or

01:14:59.560 --> 01:15:05.080
 discipleship? What's the, what's the leader, you know, here? And, um, and I think we're, we're running

01:15:05.080 --> 01:15:11.800
 down a more evangelism path with just like, let's just make stuff super sweet for kids and speak to

01:15:11.800 --> 01:15:17.240
 them well. And, um, you just put more resources into that, like have our main weekend teams help

01:15:17.240 --> 01:15:22.120
 execute it and everything with the leadership of kids, folks that are focused on students. So we're

01:15:22.120 --> 01:15:27.640
 launching that in March or relaunching it with everything with the pilot, but yeah, I'm excited

01:15:27.640 --> 01:15:31.800
 for what it could be, but we don't, in our regular weekends, we don't typically do that.

01:15:31.800 --> 01:15:38.120
 Hey, let me pull a thread on something. I'm just curious, organizational structure within Crossroads.

01:15:38.120 --> 01:15:44.280
 So you're, as I recall, unless something's changed since last time we talked, you're more the weekend

01:15:44.280 --> 01:15:49.560
 type creative lead where you're creating and resourcing those groups. Maybe talk a little bit

01:15:49.560 --> 01:15:56.360
 about kids and students. How is that resourced within, uh, Crossroads? Yeah. Well, it's,

01:15:56.360 --> 01:16:01.960
 it's interesting because it's been, it's changed a little bit over the last year, uh, for a long time,

01:16:01.960 --> 01:16:07.720
 student ministry sat under the whole kids ministry. And then that reported up through kind of a bigger

01:16:07.720 --> 01:16:14.920
 structure. And just in the last six months or so, we said, I think we need to organize student ministry a

01:16:14.920 --> 01:16:19.480
 little bit closer to the main creative engine and the main experience engine, which is

01:16:19.480 --> 01:16:25.160
 my team. And we, we shifted student ministry to be under my team. And now we're shifting it kind

01:16:25.160 --> 01:16:31.240
 of back to it's its own thing, but it's not, it's not under student or kids, uh, ministry anymore,

01:16:31.240 --> 01:16:37.400
 because I think it just aligns more in terms of expectations and the scale of what you need to do

01:16:37.400 --> 01:16:43.640
 with the way that we approach experiences versus the way they approach the educational stuff and

01:16:43.640 --> 01:16:49.080
 experiences for kids. And so we're in progress on it because I would just say, honestly,

01:16:49.080 --> 01:16:54.840
 like, I don't feel like anybody is doing student ministry all that well. I mean, if you're freaking

01:16:54.840 --> 01:16:59.400
 crushing it out there, then please email me and tell me what you're learning. Because I think in general,

01:16:59.400 --> 01:17:04.360
 the American churches has struggled with it. And so that's why we're kind of rebooting it and

01:17:04.360 --> 01:17:07.480
 trying to find a new way to approach it. And that goes all the way down to the org chart.

01:17:07.480 --> 01:17:13.080
 Yeah. It's, I mean, I can tell you a radical story. And once again, this is a crazy think

01:17:13.080 --> 01:17:19.320
 outside of the box thing. Uh, there's, there's a guy named Daniel Heron. Uh, he runs the Robloxian

01:17:19.320 --> 01:17:27.160
 Christian, uh, church. He literally built a church on Roblox. Uh, he, he built it nine years ago when he

01:17:27.160 --> 01:17:31.720
 was 11 years old. Actually, it was 10 years ago. Now he's 21. So literally 10 years ago,

01:17:31.720 --> 01:17:38.760
 he started a church on Roblox as a, as an 11 year old. Uh, he's reached, I don't know, maybe 40,000

01:17:38.760 --> 01:17:45.480
 people impacted 40,000 people. They do small groups. They do Bible studies. They're integrated between

01:17:45.480 --> 01:17:51.400
 Twitch or I'm sorry, not Twitch, uh, Roblox and discord. Uh, yeah, discord. Yeah. They do most of their

01:17:51.400 --> 01:17:57.400
 discipleship in the discord space. And once again, it's a radical concept. Uh, but I've, I've often

01:17:57.400 --> 01:18:03.240
 wondered like, just as my kid, once again, is probably playing for the 10th hour today on this

01:18:03.240 --> 01:18:08.680
 Thursday or at least 10th hour this week, man, what if we actually did church? What if churches would,

01:18:08.680 --> 01:18:13.960
 would not like do their physical church thing, but what if, what if somebody built a Roblox church

01:18:13.960 --> 01:18:19.240
 and, and just did a completely different approach towards that? So I think that's fascinating. And,

01:18:19.240 --> 01:18:23.960
 and it's the idea of just going to where people are. That's, I love it. And it's okay. If your

01:18:23.960 --> 01:18:27.960
 kid has been on it for 10 hours today, you know, if there's no shame in that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

01:18:27.960 --> 01:18:34.440
 it's 20, 20, 21, what, what's he going to do? Like what is, yeah. What is time for, for what it's

01:18:34.440 --> 01:18:37.720
 worth, I'm going to have to break here in a couple of minutes and take him to Taekwondo where he's going

01:18:37.720 --> 01:18:43.400
 to try to kick some kid in the head. So it all, it all balances out at some level, I guess. Hey, um,

01:18:43.400 --> 01:18:47.880
 Matt, just, man, thanks. Thanks for this question on, on kids and students. Interesting. It's been a

01:18:47.880 --> 01:18:53.880
 couple of questions on that theme. Um, well, I'll tell you what, let's, let's take one more question,

01:18:53.880 --> 01:18:58.200
 uh, either from the room. If you've got a question, feel free to raise your hand. Um,

01:18:59.240 --> 01:19:03.800
 if not, Matt, you got another question, uh, as, as we're wrapping up here.

01:19:06.600 --> 01:19:11.560
 Matt's like, no, I think I'm done. No, yeah, yeah. No, um, uh, no, we're, yeah,

01:19:11.560 --> 01:19:15.720
 we're just at the beginning stages of really trying to figure this out. And I know when at the beginning

01:19:15.720 --> 01:19:21.000
 of the conversation, you all talked about trying to make the shift from, um, creative spaces and,

01:19:21.000 --> 01:19:28.760
 and dividing them from, uh, attention of the, uh, technology side from the service

01:19:29.400 --> 01:19:37.720
 to online and online back to the service. Um, what is one strategy that you all give to people that are

01:19:38.520 --> 01:19:45.240
 probably doesn't have that many people that are running the technology side in the church to help

01:19:45.240 --> 01:19:51.560
 actively make that shift. Like for me, I'm a recovery pastor or recovery minister that's

01:19:52.440 --> 01:19:57.160
 jumping into the online sphere. So I'm trying to figure out how to make that shift at our church.

01:19:59.000 --> 01:20:02.920
 Yeah. So basically you don't have a culture, you're a small church, you're starting out,

01:20:02.920 --> 01:20:08.200
 you're trying to create that culture. Um, I, I'm going to be honest with you. I've, I've had a church

01:20:08.200 --> 01:20:14.840
 in this COVID season, pre COVID, they were 20,000 plus in attendance. So this is a, this is a giga

01:20:14.840 --> 01:20:22.040
 church is a very large physical church pre-COVID. The digital pastor said to me, Jeff, I really wish

01:20:22.040 --> 01:20:28.200
 I was at a small church. I really wish I was at a church plant right now, actually doing physical or

01:20:28.840 --> 01:20:37.800
 tangible digital ministry, relational ministry. Uh, and so in, in many ways, and I'm a guy who has done

01:20:37.800 --> 01:20:44.280
 ministry at the giga church level, at the multi-site level, uh, at the church plant level, uh, small

01:20:44.280 --> 01:20:49.640
 churches have a major advantage, uh, because they know people's names. Uh, and so I wouldn't be

01:20:49.640 --> 01:20:56.520
 discouraged by being at a small church. Uh, what I would do is I would probably look at it more like

01:20:56.520 --> 01:21:01.720
 it's going to look different. The ministry of Christ fellowship, Miami mega giga here in South Florida,

01:21:01.720 --> 01:21:07.960
 the ministry of, of what Craig's doing, uh, up in Cincinnati is going to, and surrounding areas is

01:21:07.960 --> 01:21:13.240
 going to look very different than what a small church is towards it. Uh, I would make it about

01:21:13.800 --> 01:21:19.720
 individuals. Uh, I would make it about reaching friends, circle of influence. I'd make it about

01:21:19.720 --> 01:21:26.360
 evangelism. I'd make it about disciple making. Uh, I would take the opportunity to, and actually I was

01:21:26.360 --> 01:21:31.480
 just speaking at a webinar right before this call, cast vision. Chances are your church,

01:21:32.280 --> 01:21:36.920
 like the majority of churches, you are, your volunteers are down. You've got a percentage

01:21:36.920 --> 01:21:41.240
 of people, maybe a large percentage of people that aren't re-engaging, even if they're willing to

01:21:41.240 --> 01:21:46.760
 serve. I'm hearing where churches even willing to attend physically, people who are willing to attend

01:21:46.760 --> 01:21:52.680
 physically, but they're not ready to engage by serving again. And even Craig mentioned that in

01:21:52.680 --> 01:21:57.640
 passing about at some of the campuses, some of their locations, man, it's just about getting a, a basic

01:21:57.640 --> 01:22:03.960
 service out because the numbers are low. I think this is an opportunity for even small churches to

01:22:03.960 --> 01:22:09.880
 cast new vision and to maybe try to do something different. Now you may not know what that is. Uh,

01:22:09.880 --> 01:22:15.800
 honestly, Matt, and that that's cool. You experiment, you try something, Hey, let's get 10 people. Uh,

01:22:15.800 --> 01:22:20.440
 let's get five people. Let's, let's get a couple of staff, people, a couple of elders and a couple of

01:22:20.440 --> 01:22:26.760
 high-level volunteers and just do an experiment, try something, see if it works and iterate and try again.

01:22:27.160 --> 01:22:32.920
 Uh, and, and through some of that learning experiences, you, you grow, you, you try something

01:22:32.920 --> 01:22:38.280
 different, you bring in some other people into that. And, and slowly what you find yourself doing is, is

01:22:38.280 --> 01:22:44.920
 creating that new culture. And the good news is by doing it slowly, by experimenting, by bringing others in,

01:22:45.800 --> 01:22:50.360
 there are people that are buying into that culture at the beginning, instead of trying to force

01:22:50.360 --> 01:22:57.560
 a new culture or a new idea from the outside. And so don't, don't try to compete. And, and I say this

01:22:57.560 --> 01:23:02.600
 because once again, I used to be a giga church guy, don't compete with the giga. Don't even look at the

01:23:02.600 --> 01:23:10.600
 giga. You've got to do you and, and for a small church, for a potentially growing church, uh, man,

01:23:10.600 --> 01:23:16.200
 there's plenty of opportunities for success at that level without trying to go toe to toe with whatever

01:23:16.200 --> 01:23:22.200
 the Brian Tomes and, and, and, and the rest of the mega giga pastors are doing. It just, it looks

01:23:22.200 --> 01:23:27.560
 different, but you have an incredible opportunity to succeed, uh, in the days and the weeks and the

01:23:27.560 --> 01:23:33.080
 months ahead. So I just kind of monologue there. I'm sorry. Did anybody else have any thoughts on that?

01:23:36.040 --> 01:23:41.480
 I keep hitting the wrong button. I totally agree with you. I would say, um, you find what your strengths

01:23:41.480 --> 01:23:44.520
 are. And if your strengths are that, you know, everybody's name and you have their number and

01:23:44.520 --> 01:23:49.320
 you can text them, then make, make use of that. We, we talk about that at some of the smaller sites

01:23:49.320 --> 01:23:53.240
 that we have, they're like, there are things you can do that the big sites cannot. And that's

01:23:53.240 --> 01:23:58.040
 personal connection, which is one of the main things beyond any other thing anyway. So yeah,

01:23:58.040 --> 01:24:04.120
 I just, I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. That's personal connection is the thing that Matt, that you have

01:24:04.840 --> 01:24:10.280
 that the, that the crossroads at the Christ fellowships at the elevations, they don't. Uh,

01:24:10.280 --> 01:24:16.440
 and so play that to the advantage, know people, meet people, build those relationships that that's how,

01:24:16.440 --> 01:24:22.120
 that's how the gospel wins. Um, in this, in a digital format for, for churches like yours, I would say,

01:24:22.120 --> 01:24:27.560
 by the way, I would love to follow up on, on that. Uh, if you want to hit my, hit my bio,

01:24:27.560 --> 01:24:31.880
 uh, if there's a meeting link, uh, and there's a bunch of resources through the church digital,

01:24:31.880 --> 01:24:36.040
 where we're helping big churches, small churches, we're dialoguing through situations like that.

01:24:36.600 --> 01:24:41.000
 And so feel free to hit me up, follow up or check some of the resources out, uh, there with the

01:24:41.000 --> 01:24:46.840
 church digital. And there's plenty of opportunities to, to help guys like you kind of figure out some of

01:24:46.840 --> 01:24:51.720
 these next steps, um, to go digital. Hey, Ben's not even here. And I finally said the word. Okay.

01:24:52.440 --> 01:24:56.920
 Um, Hey, so Matt, thanks for this. Hey guys, thank you for this panel. This was a great conversation.

01:24:57.400 --> 01:25:03.480
 Um, let's go ahead and, and, and land the plane here. Uh, maybe closing thoughts. Uh, John, let's,

01:25:03.480 --> 01:25:06.600
 let's start with you as, as we're wrapping up here in anything you'd like to add.

01:25:06.600 --> 01:25:13.560
 Yeah, Jeff, I think, uh, something I've been itching to say since you, um, uh, since my original one,

01:25:13.560 --> 01:25:19.240
 and you were like, I would love to see a, uh, the unified chat between like the physical and the

01:25:19.240 --> 01:25:24.040
 non-physical, you know, the people that are tuning in digital, um, subsplash has something like that.

01:25:24.040 --> 01:25:28.920
 So I will show it to you at some point after this conversation and anyone else who's interested,

01:25:29.400 --> 01:25:36.040
 um, check it out, you know, online and, um, we, we can help with that. But I, so far as I know,

01:25:36.040 --> 01:25:43.960
 it's kind of the first, uh, kind of ability to do that more kind of chat inside your church's own

01:25:43.960 --> 01:25:50.680
 kind of home, digital home, um, that's scalable and, and basically any church can use it. Uh,

01:25:50.680 --> 01:25:57.320
 so in any case, just wanted to kind of land with that, um, not leave that, that, uh, unopened.

01:25:57.800 --> 01:26:06.040
 Yeah. So you can't see me because this is clubhouse and, and not like zoom. I'm grinning ear to ear. I

01:26:06.040 --> 01:26:09.800
 did not realize, I know we had this conversation about the unified chat. I can't, I didn't know you

01:26:09.800 --> 01:26:14.440
 guys had, had rolled that out. So yeah, let's, let's definitely talk, uh, off air towards that.

01:26:14.440 --> 01:26:19.000
 Uh, awesome. Hey, uh, Craig, man, any closing thoughts for, for you?

01:26:21.800 --> 01:26:26.920
 Which Craig? I'll do. Oh man, I'm sorry. Uh, Craig Dobbins. There's two Craigs. That was awkward.

01:26:26.920 --> 01:26:33.000
 Yeah. Craig Dobbins. Let's go there, sir. I would just say, you know, look at how your,

01:26:33.000 --> 01:26:38.440
 your facility is, is interacting with the community seven days a week. Um, and that might just open up

01:26:38.440 --> 01:26:45.080
 a lot of doors, um, to, to future ministry and to just the way the community around is experiencing

01:26:45.080 --> 01:26:50.920
 your church. That's, that's beautiful. Some, some of the insight I'm excited about what's happening

01:26:50.920 --> 01:26:57.080
 with Aspen group and psychologically analyzing the, the room, uh, the buildings with that,

01:26:57.080 --> 01:27:01.720
 like, this is a thing, a lot of churches I think are going to have to do, um, in the near future,

01:27:01.720 --> 01:27:07.560
 even starting today and how we're utilizing the space and what it's saying about us. So keep pulling

01:27:07.560 --> 01:27:13.720
 that thread, sir. Thank you for that. Craig Dockery, the other one from, from Crossroads,

01:27:13.720 --> 01:27:18.840
 sir. What are you thinking here to land the plane? Uh, my, my two main thoughts. Uh, the first one is,

01:27:19.400 --> 01:27:23.800
 uh, no matter what we're doing, as we come out of COVID, you got to push forward. Don't ever try

01:27:23.800 --> 01:27:29.080
 and think about what was it and how do we get back to where we were. What we're doing is a totally new

01:27:29.080 --> 01:27:35.240
 thing. And then two that goes with that. Um, nobody knows what they're doing. We're all pretending.

01:27:35.240 --> 01:27:39.880
 We're all trying to figure it out. We're all taking it a week at a time and ministry is just

01:27:39.880 --> 01:27:45.400
 by its nature hard. And, um, and I, hopefully that's all encouraging because so, you know,

01:27:45.400 --> 01:27:49.240
 you're not in it alone. Everybody else is just trying to figure this out just like you.

01:27:49.240 --> 01:27:57.800
 Awesome. Hey, yeah. So everybody, thanks for jumping on this. Uh, Craig, Craig, Ben, John,

01:27:57.800 --> 01:28:02.280
 anybody else, the questions that came up, this has been a really fun conversation, but for these guys,

01:28:02.920 --> 01:28:06.760
 I'm Jeff Reed with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning. Thanks for jumping

01:28:06.760 --> 01:28:11.960
 on this clubhouse. We'll do it again next Thursday, 5:00 PM Eastern. I think we're talking about,

01:28:12.520 --> 01:28:19.960
 uh, team building and, and how to be effectively recruiting, developing volunteers in the season.

01:28:19.960 --> 01:28:23.960
 We touched on a little bit today. We're going to dig into it deep next Thursday,

01:28:23.960 --> 01:28:29.160
 5:00 PM Eastern. So, so for everybody else, thank you for being here and we'll see you next time.

01:28:29.160 --> 01:28:59.140
 Thank you.