WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.980 Jeff here. We'll get back to the podcast in a second, but I wanted to let you know of an 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:13.180 opportunity to help you further develop your church online. Here at The Church Digital, 00:00:13.360 --> 00:00:18.320 we found some of the best ways for churches to grow their ministry online is to work alongside 00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:25.080 other churches. To that end, The Church Digital is opening up some coaching cohorts in January 2020. 00:00:25.080 --> 00:00:29.540 Through our cohorts, you'll be connected with churches with similar goals in place in ministry, 00:00:29.740 --> 00:00:34.040 and work through these goals together over the six months under the guidance of the crew 00:00:34.040 --> 00:00:40.000 here at The Church Digital. In 2020, invest in your church online. Invest in you. For more 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:47.380 information and to find out how you can save 20%, visit thechurch.digital slash cohort. 00:00:50.760 --> 00:00:56.920 So it's confession hour here for episode 36 of The Church Digital podcast, and I'm going to confess 00:00:56.920 --> 00:01:03.880 something right here for you guys. For many years of my online ministry life, I never really saw the 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:10.160 purpose and the point to chat hosts. Yes, I've told many of you that I felt it was necessary 00:01:10.160 --> 00:01:17.480 and that to model the behavior, and it takes time, and only 10% of people engage in chat, 00:01:17.980 --> 00:01:24.940 but maybe while it was right years ago, maybe that was, or maybe I was wrong all along. I really don't 00:01:24.940 --> 00:01:30.900 know. But in today's day and age, I'm discovering more and more the necessity of having chat hosts 00:01:30.900 --> 00:01:37.400 engaging in these conversations. And my culture shift, my paradigm shift in view has really come 00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:43.900 from conversations like this that you're about to experience with Evan Conley. So Evan is a combination 00:01:43.900 --> 00:01:51.280 of IT and online ministry over with Lighthouse Church, but he has a phenomenal viewpoint and strategy when it 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:59.320 comes to doing chat hosts and how that's the front door really to engaging in online community. And so 00:01:59.320 --> 00:02:04.960 I talked with him on the phone about the Church IT Conference maybe a couple months ago, and was blown 00:02:04.960 --> 00:02:11.200 away by the strategies that he had had in place and got with him. And I was like, hey, let's do a podcast 00:02:11.200 --> 00:02:16.520 on this. But even in addition to the podcast, let's share some of the resources that you're talking 00:02:16.520 --> 00:02:22.400 about that you're using at your church, and let's get it out there for others. And he happily obliged to 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:27.420 that. And so also, in addition to listening to this podcast, be sure to check out the show notes, 00:02:27.440 --> 00:02:33.400 because a lot of the policies and process and strategies that he has in place at Lighthouse for 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:38.840 his church, he's got written up and we're making it available on the show notes for you right now. 00:02:38.840 --> 00:02:44.600 So for this conversation, I am bringing in Evan Conley, IT and online ministry over at Lighthouse 00:02:44.600 --> 00:02:51.300 Church, as well as Ray DeArmis, who's the online pastor at Christ Fellowship Miami, and myself, Jeff in the 00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:58.820 Church Digital, for a conversation on fine tuning chat hosts and community. Hey, everybody, here you go. 00:02:58.820 --> 00:03:06.200 So we have two different roles with online chat. We have one person who is operating under our brand, 00:03:06.480 --> 00:03:11.220 essentially. So they're going to be commenting as Lighthouse Church with our logo on them on Facebook, 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:19.500 YouTube, that kind of thing. And they're going to be doing bigger questions, pulling from a preset list of 00:03:19.500 --> 00:03:26.640 questions. So things like where are you watching from? How can we pray for you? Let's take a poll. How many 00:03:26.640 --> 00:03:31.680 people attend in person versus online? How many people have watched before? How many people is this the first time 00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:37.800 watching? Just things that get people pulled in. We do a lot with emojis in that one. So like using 00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:43.240 emojis to kind of vote and say like, you know, this message is speaking to you, put your hand up and 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:49.100 you'll see little emoji hands pop up, which is really cool. And even with altar calls. So if we have an altar 00:03:49.100 --> 00:03:54.860 call in person, we do an altar call online. And so that person in that role is going to post a question 00:03:54.860 --> 00:03:58.980 saying, if you just decided to follow Jesus for the first time today, raise your hand or comment yes. 00:03:59.500 --> 00:04:04.660 And I remember the first time we did that, I was just blown away when I was staring at the screen and 00:04:04.660 --> 00:04:08.940 I saw these little emoji hands go out. I think it was like three or four the first time. And I just 00:04:08.940 --> 00:04:12.660 beautiful, I think I almost cried. I was just like, I can't believe this is working. 00:04:13.160 --> 00:04:17.320 People just got saved online and they raised little emoji hands to show that they got saved. 00:04:17.800 --> 00:04:18.200 It's good. 00:04:18.840 --> 00:04:25.440 So that's what that role does. And then we also have an online engagement team. So this is the 00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:31.180 team that's more open. Obviously with our team, if you're serving under our logo, that's a pretty 00:04:31.180 --> 00:04:35.880 selective team. We're going to have to know you for a while. And as far as volunteers who serve in that 00:04:35.880 --> 00:04:40.000 role, there's not a whole lot of people who are going to do that. But then we have online engagement, 00:04:40.500 --> 00:04:46.080 which is a much wider team and not just in who can do it, but from where. So we have a volunteer in 00:04:46.080 --> 00:04:52.600 Texas. We have a volunteer in Florida because you can do this one from anywhere. And so that role, 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:57.900 they're commenting under their own names. They don't currently do anything to kind of designate 00:04:57.900 --> 00:05:02.840 themselves as volunteers, which I prefer because it just feels like, Hey, I'm going to have a person 00:05:02.840 --> 00:05:07.760 watching this service with you. And so whenever they're answering the questions, responding to the 00:05:07.760 --> 00:05:13.240 prompts that we're posting under our main account, or maybe they're posting something on their own, 00:05:13.280 --> 00:05:16.580 just like, Hey, you know, this point here that really hit home with me. And then obviously with 00:05:16.580 --> 00:05:21.400 prayer as well, they do a lot of that. So if we'd see a prayer request pop in part of their thought 00:05:21.400 --> 00:05:24.800 process and what they've been instructed to do is try to really make a point of praying for any of 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:30.480 those requests that they see come in. That's good. Evan, are you guys leveraging shop as your primary 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:35.180 tool or are you guys leveraging other networks for your, for your hosts, like Facebook live or 00:05:35.180 --> 00:05:40.040 anything else like that? Yeah, sure. So we are using shop, but that's actually new. We started 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:45.220 it entirely on Facebook and YouTube. And then just in the last few months, we decided to add in shop, 00:05:45.340 --> 00:05:50.880 which we like, and I think we're still figuring out the best ways to use, but I would say the 00:05:50.880 --> 00:05:55.220 majority, definitely the majority of our viewers are still coming from Facebook and YouTube. And I like 00:05:55.220 --> 00:06:00.880 that we started with those platforms first because it really let us build those platforms. And on 00:06:00.880 --> 00:06:04.760 YouTube, for example, we went from around a thousand subscribers to a little over 4,000 now, 00:06:04.760 --> 00:06:09.500 and it's about a year, year and a half from constantly pushing people to that network. 00:06:09.940 --> 00:06:10.260 Right. 00:06:10.940 --> 00:06:17.260 So we've had great results there. And the chat features, especially with Facebook are amazing. 00:06:17.400 --> 00:06:24.760 Facebook by far is the best at integrating a chat with a live video. Easy for you to uninterrupted to 00:06:24.760 --> 00:06:30.520 just watch, especially on mobile. And so honestly, in my opinion, when it comes to live chat, 00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:37.280 while watching the message, the best way to do that would be on Facebook. And so we see the most 00:06:37.280 --> 00:06:43.720 interactive chat on Facebook. And then Facebook or YouTube and chop are probably evenly split between 00:06:43.720 --> 00:06:48.460 the discussion we see there. If anything, we probably see more of a discussion on YouTube, 00:06:48.460 --> 00:06:50.980 but part of that's probably because chops still new. 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:57.420 Right. That's good. That's real good. And, you know, keeping in line with that. So the prayer requests 00:06:57.420 --> 00:07:02.620 that come in, do your hosts document them? Like, how does that get back to you guys so that it doesn't 00:07:02.620 --> 00:07:06.460 just die there in the chat so that the church can be made aware of some of this stuff? 00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:14.220 Yeah. So that depends on how it comes in. Usually that's going to be from the person who's working 00:07:14.220 --> 00:07:21.040 off of the brand account. And so we have a prayer team that, not just even for online, but a team 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:23.620 that's praying for any requests that come in throughout the week. 00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:28.700 And so if it's a really serious request, especially that's something that we'll forward on to that team. 00:07:29.520 --> 00:07:34.840 I try to make a point of going through all the chat logs, whether it's CHOP or Facebook or YouTube, 00:07:35.460 --> 00:07:41.040 and if there's anything that hadn't already been prayed for, if it's, you know, just it really depends 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:47.600 on the severity of it. If it's already had a few people comment on it and pray for it, sometimes it might 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:53.560 not warrant anything else after that. If it's a really serious situation, maybe that requires a follow-up 00:07:53.560 --> 00:07:57.620 or passing it on to our prayer team to have people continue to pray for that throughout the week. 00:07:58.340 --> 00:08:03.600 And something new I'm looking at, I haven't started it just quite yet, but actually going through and 00:08:03.600 --> 00:08:08.700 grabbing pretty much all of those requests. And then we have a Facebook group for our online chat team 00:08:08.700 --> 00:08:14.160 and posting those in there so that throughout the week they can take part in something, not just on Sunday, 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:18.760 but part of that role can also be throughout the week to be praying for requests that come up on the weekend. 00:08:19.340 --> 00:08:19.940 That's good. 00:08:21.160 --> 00:08:28.600 That's good. How do you guys continue in community with folks? How do you guys keep walking with them with that, 00:08:28.700 --> 00:08:33.080 with your chat volunteers? Do your chat volunteers also lead online communities like small groups? 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:38.560 You would definitely push online small groups for them. And then that Facebook group is a big way. 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:43.800 I'm still trying to work out the best ways to use that and learning a lot about Facebook groups and how to keep a 00:08:43.800 --> 00:08:49.680 discussion going. It started off really strong. And then the last few months it's been dying down a little 00:08:49.680 --> 00:08:53.980 bit. So I'm trying new strategies there, trying to figure out the best way to pick that back up. 00:08:54.340 --> 00:08:58.760 But the Facebook group would probably be the biggest way that we stay in touch. And really the thought 00:08:58.760 --> 00:09:02.800 process with that is just to be able to have a place to share the wins. Because I think when you're 00:09:02.800 --> 00:09:07.800 talking about like what you each individually saw as you're serving, that's a real good way to show the 00:09:07.800 --> 00:09:13.480 value in what's happening here, how it's bigger than just that individual time slot that you're serving at, 00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:17.000 but how it's connecting to the bigger picture in the mission. 00:09:17.880 --> 00:09:22.220 So you've got a Facebook, you've got one Facebook group that basically is for your entire 00:09:22.220 --> 00:09:24.180 online environment. 00:09:24.860 --> 00:09:29.360 Yeah, for that team. So that's not like an online campus wide one, but just for those who are 00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:29.660 serving. 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:31.500 Yeah, just for that volunteer team. 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:40.100 That's good. So keeping that in mind, how do you keep chat engaged? Do you have two chat hosts at the 00:09:40.100 --> 00:09:46.560 same service just to make sure that things don't die down? Or do you have one person, you know, even if 00:09:46.560 --> 00:09:49.880 things are dying down, they're still throwing positivity out there or questions to try and get 00:09:49.880 --> 00:09:51.880 people engaged? Like what's the strategy there? 00:09:52.340 --> 00:09:56.460 Yeah, sure. So we have a lot of prompts that we're posting, like I talked about from our brand 00:09:56.460 --> 00:10:02.360 account. And those are going to be a lot of discussion starters. So like, where are you watching 00:10:02.360 --> 00:10:06.200 from is one of the first ones we do. And we've found that that's a great icebreaker because people love, 00:10:06.200 --> 00:10:10.860 or even if they're just across the street, it's really easy, low barrier to entry. It's not too 00:10:10.860 --> 00:10:16.020 personal. So we see a lot of people do that. And then we've found that once they comment once, 00:10:16.020 --> 00:10:20.960 it seems like they tend to comment more. So once you break the ice that first time and get them in 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:25.100 the chat, they're much more likely to continue. So we try to start off with easy questions like that, 00:10:25.140 --> 00:10:30.460 where it's just super easy to make that first comment and break the ice. And then throughout the 00:10:30.460 --> 00:10:35.820 service, we'll do things like I talked about with, you know, if this message is speaking to you, 00:10:35.920 --> 00:10:41.500 let us know that or let's take a poll, maybe something like how often do you watch? Do you 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:46.120 normally watch at one of our in-person campuses? Or do you watch primarily on that line? Things like 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:51.060 that. And then depending on the message too, like maybe we'll say, you know, the pastor just made this 00:10:51.060 --> 00:10:55.200 point, hey, who can relate, put your hands up and you can relate to what you just said, that kind of 00:10:55.200 --> 00:11:00.220 thing. And so a lot of that's coming from the brand account. But then we also do have those 00:11:00.220 --> 00:11:05.200 individuals who will also do things on their own. Very similar to that, really. Like, you know, 00:11:05.220 --> 00:11:10.260 if there's a point that just hit home with them, they'll say, man, that just really stuck out to 00:11:10.260 --> 00:11:16.320 me. Who else here feels like that? Or definitely with prayer, praying for other people. And that 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:22.780 naturally keeps the chat going. That too has been really cool, not just with our team, but we've seen 00:11:22.780 --> 00:11:27.520 with these prayer requests to come in. A lot of times we'll get like five plus people who 00:11:27.520 --> 00:11:32.240 join and praying for someone who aren't on our team. Just they see, oh, hey, you know what? I see 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:35.780 someone praying for this person. I can do that too. And now you've got someone who would have just been 00:11:35.780 --> 00:11:40.300 watching. But because we have that chat that's active and you've got a few people who are breaking 00:11:40.300 --> 00:11:45.220 the ice and that barrier of entry there, now they see that I can do this too. And not only did they 00:11:45.220 --> 00:11:49.060 just watch service, but they just joined someone in prayer from wherever they're watching from. 00:11:49.420 --> 00:11:54.680 It's good. How are you guys recruiting folks for this? And I know you said that it's kind of a 00:11:54.680 --> 00:11:59.100 select group that comes into this, but where are you pulling from? You're pulling from within the 00:11:59.100 --> 00:12:03.200 chat. Like, hey, this person's real active. They could be a potential volunteer or what's going on 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:07.980 there? That's definitely one way. We have had that where we see someone is pretty much already on the 00:12:07.980 --> 00:12:11.560 team in a way and that they're doing everything that we ask someone who's on the team. And so it's 00:12:11.560 --> 00:12:15.900 like, hey, do you want to just keep doing what you're doing? And also maybe talk to us a little bit 00:12:15.900 --> 00:12:21.160 more throughout the week. And that's actually a great way to find people because naturally you do 00:12:21.160 --> 00:12:26.800 get some people like that who are just really interested in being a part of the chat and they're 00:12:26.800 --> 00:12:31.220 going to do it regardless. Might as well coach them up and pull them into that kind of thing. And that's 00:12:31.220 --> 00:12:36.640 been one way. The biggest way has been our online connect card. So in person, we have volunteer 00:12:36.640 --> 00:12:41.200 opportunities and you can check that you want to serve when you fill out a connect card. And we didn't have 00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:45.680 that option for online before we had this role. That just felt like a real loss to me. And it was really 00:12:45.680 --> 00:12:51.360 the reason that this team came about was I was thinking, like, how can we create a way for people who 00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:56.340 are outside, especially outside of our physical community and too far away to serve in person? Like, how can 00:12:56.340 --> 00:13:03.160 they serve here? I didn't want it to just be a role for the sake of having a role so they can feel like they're on 00:13:03.160 --> 00:13:08.220 the team. But I wanted them to have a real purpose and to really be able to be part of our mission. And so 00:13:08.220 --> 00:13:14.300 that's good. The chat host just seemed like the right way to do that. And that's how that came 00:13:14.300 --> 00:13:18.840 about there. So the online connect card, I would say, is the biggest way that we get people for that 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:23.560 role in particular. It's actually pretty wide net. Anyone can do that. You get a decent number of 00:13:23.560 --> 00:13:28.580 signups from people who fill out the online connect cards. The brand account would be the more selective 00:13:28.580 --> 00:13:33.040 one. And we don't give out any sort of password or access to that. So you're going to be in person 00:13:33.040 --> 00:13:38.640 doing that on a church device. But that's good. Overall is pretty wide. That's good. And it's 00:13:38.640 --> 00:13:42.500 encouraging that you guys would at least be willing to empower people on the brand account because 00:13:42.500 --> 00:13:47.860 that for a lot of folks would be, and I understand you guys are very protective of the keys, 00:13:48.300 --> 00:13:52.520 but even to kind of exit outside of yourselves, there's still a little tension and a little fear 00:13:52.520 --> 00:13:57.740 there. Totally. Yeah. And that, honestly, that came about really out of just a need. So 00:13:57.740 --> 00:14:04.040 I was traveling, I forget where it might've been to a conference. And at the time, we didn't really 00:14:04.040 --> 00:14:08.400 have anyone else on staff. We were especially back then a little smaller on staff. So we didn't have 00:14:08.400 --> 00:14:13.660 someone else on staff who could fill in for me and do what I was doing. So I realized I had to appoint 00:14:13.660 --> 00:14:18.420 a volunteer who at the time, we have a number role, which is broadcast operator. It's just getting 00:14:18.420 --> 00:14:22.260 stuff started on the different networks, making sure the string's running, talking to audio if there's 00:14:22.260 --> 00:14:26.080 an issue. So that's more of a technical role. But we had one person in particular who I knew 00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:31.780 could do more. And so I trained that person over the course of a couple of weeks and got them to 00:14:31.780 --> 00:14:37.020 cover for me while I was away. And that just led to discovery, hey, you can empower other people and 00:14:37.020 --> 00:14:40.140 they don't even have to be on staff necessarily, as long as you've had some time to know them, 00:14:40.620 --> 00:14:45.960 train them. And so that's how that came about. How do you guys, well, how do you guys manage 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:51.140 the tension of the connect card? Because obviously it takes them out of the chat. And so how and when do 00:14:51.140 --> 00:14:54.720 you introduce that in the service? Because if you're going to throw a new link in a Facebook live, 00:14:54.720 --> 00:14:57.760 or if you're going to throw a new link in a YouTube live, obviously it's going to exit them 00:14:57.760 --> 00:15:02.560 out of the experience for the moment. Is it distracting? And I know you found some success 00:15:02.560 --> 00:15:05.900 with that, but then kind of walk us through that as far as their engagement, their continual 00:15:05.900 --> 00:15:11.200 engagement. Sure. Yeah, we don't necessarily even put that in the chat every week. But what we do is 00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:15.940 it's in the video description on Facebook and YouTube. It's the first link they see 00:15:15.940 --> 00:15:20.680 towards the top of the description of that video. So before or after they watch, 00:15:20.740 --> 00:15:26.360 it's pretty visible that it's there. And now they're getting to it in a time that is not pulling 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:30.780 them outside of the chat. Now we do have other links we post occasionally. If we're doing a 00:15:30.780 --> 00:15:34.760 communion service, we post a link to instructions on how you can do communion in your home. 00:15:35.580 --> 00:15:39.740 We post links to small group signups when they open so that you can see what groups we have in 00:15:39.740 --> 00:15:45.080 person and online, that kind of thing. So we do post them occasionally. But I would say we don't do 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:49.460 them that often. Even some weeks, we probably don't post a link that takes you outside of the video. 00:15:49.460 --> 00:15:55.860 You mentioned Florida. I think you mentioned Texas. So other states. How do you vet? How do you verify? 00:15:56.100 --> 00:16:02.580 How do you train? So like some person in a different time zone wants to serve at your church. 00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:11.080 What do you do to verify that they're legit and that they're okay? Like what does that process look 00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:16.740 for you? So right now, because they're doing this under their own name, they're not even 00:16:16.740 --> 00:16:20.680 getting into it. I mean, especially on Facebook and YouTube, it's pretty hard to give them any sort 00:16:20.680 --> 00:16:25.140 of like identifier. I know it's a little easier with CHOP that they're volunteers. So they're pretty much 00:16:25.140 --> 00:16:31.100 under their own name. And so we don't feel like we have to be incredibly restrictive. It's not like a 00:16:31.100 --> 00:16:35.460 small group leader where we're going to do a background check or anything like that. There's an initial 00:16:35.460 --> 00:16:42.200 discussion, just like any of our serve teams, just over email, or maybe a phone call or text, depending on their 00:16:42.200 --> 00:16:47.000 preference. But when you first sign up for a team, just like, hey, this is what we do. Tell me a little bit about 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:50.740 yourself. What's your background? Does it seem like a good fit? And that naturally has a little bit of a discussion 00:16:50.740 --> 00:16:57.280 that goes about to get to know them. And I have a training document that I put together. It's pretty simple, but it just 00:16:57.280 --> 00:17:01.340 walks them through what the role looks like, different ways that they can get involved, some 00:17:01.340 --> 00:17:05.820 suggestions on how they can comment and wording and that kind of thing for different parts of the 00:17:05.820 --> 00:17:11.060 service. And we make it real clear in that too, that as you're doing this, you're just talking to 00:17:11.060 --> 00:17:15.060 them as another person who's in this service. You're not representing the brand. So you're not saying 00:17:15.060 --> 00:17:20.500 like, hey, welcome. We're so glad you're here. It's like, hey, I'm so glad you're here. That kind of 00:17:20.500 --> 00:17:24.520 thing where it's not on the brand, but they're just doing this personally under their own name. 00:17:25.260 --> 00:17:33.960 That's good. And has that been well-received? Are they okay doing that where somebody in Texas is 00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:40.540 speaking for themselves and not on the brand? Do they struggle with that? How has that been received? 00:17:41.520 --> 00:17:45.600 As far as I can tell, it's been received well. I've yet to have someone say that they were 00:17:45.600 --> 00:17:51.120 uncomfortable with that or that they didn't want to do that. So as far as the people who've said that 00:17:51.120 --> 00:17:54.740 they want to be a part of this team, everyone seems to be perfectly comfortable with that. I think they 00:17:54.740 --> 00:17:59.900 enjoy it. I think when I'm talking to people who are new, I compare it to in person. We have 00:17:59.900 --> 00:18:04.640 greeters, we have a response team that stands in front of the stage for prayer after service, 00:18:04.700 --> 00:18:08.780 that kind of thing. And so it's very similar to that where you're kind of in your own skin, 00:18:09.140 --> 00:18:12.660 they see who you are, and you're just doing that under your own name and your own identity, 00:18:12.760 --> 00:18:14.860 a lot like you would be doing in person. 00:18:14.860 --> 00:18:20.560 How are you helping chat hosts navigate their online persona? Because obviously being in Facebook 00:18:20.560 --> 00:18:23.920 Live and all this stuff, they're not just connected on Sundays during the service. 00:18:24.220 --> 00:18:31.140 Hey, man, when I post my thoughts on Johnny's Pizza Place, it's all out there. And some of those folks may 00:18:31.140 --> 00:18:36.600 interact. In fact, Johnny may have attended service and he didn't like your post. So how does all that work out? 00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:44.140 So we talk to all of our volunteers in person online. We talk about, among other things, social media and how 00:18:44.360 --> 00:18:49.460 you should be representing your testimony in a way that you interact online so that you don't want to be 00:18:49.460 --> 00:18:54.100 posting things that are negative or critical or that just come across the wrong way on social media. 00:18:54.360 --> 00:19:01.280 Yeah, that's just something with any of our teams. Even if you don't serve online, we just want to make sure that you know you're reflecting 00:19:01.280 --> 00:19:06.540 your testimony online and you need to be very careful about what you post and how that might come across to people. 00:19:06.540 --> 00:19:19.640 Yeah, I mean, and this is always a tough attention to navigate because, you know, and especially when it's not, quote unquote, staff, like staff, you know, we feel, I don't know, a little more ease to like lean in on a lot of that stuff. 00:19:20.200 --> 00:19:32.900 The volunteer, they understand, but they don't completely understand. Not a lot of that. I'm sure that's just got to be a challenge. Man, do you have an example of, man, we definitely had to like step in and we had to help this person navigate that kind of tension. 00:19:32.900 --> 00:19:47.380 I've yet to have to do that with something outside of the Sunday chat, although it's fairly normal when people are new to the team to have to just chat a little bit about the type of comments that they're using during the chat. 00:19:47.660 --> 00:19:53.900 And, you know, it'd be helpful if you talk about it this way and not want to say that, or maybe avoid this verbiage and not say that kind of thing. 00:19:54.520 --> 00:19:54.680 It's good. 00:19:55.580 --> 00:20:05.380 It's pretty normal to have coaching with that. But thankfully, I've yet to have a situation where I see someone who's posting something and I'm like, that's not representing us well. 00:20:05.560 --> 00:20:09.960 Sorry, not to say that that won't happen, but just thank you so far it hasn't. 00:20:10.140 --> 00:20:19.760 With your church, how your church is structured with church online, the chat host, what's the goal of the chat host? 00:20:20.500 --> 00:20:30.340 To get the person to stay connected to the service for the entire service, to invite them back to next week, to get them connected into a small group. 00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:39.980 Like, when you empower a chat host to do something, what's a successful, what's a win for a chat host, for a volunteer chat host? 00:20:39.980 --> 00:20:46.480 So ultimately, what they're trying to do is to create a sense of community. And so what a win would look like, a few of the things that you just listed. 00:20:47.040 --> 00:20:53.220 We have small groups. And so sometimes they'll just post a link to a small group if they see that someone's going through something. 00:20:53.300 --> 00:20:56.520 Like, just this past weekend, we had someone who just said that they felt really lonely. 00:20:57.060 --> 00:21:04.840 And so someone shared how much that a small group would help them and shared a link to small groups and just said that that could be something that would help that person through what they're going through. 00:21:04.960 --> 00:21:08.800 So connecting them in small groups would be an option. Praying for people is huge. 00:21:09.800 --> 00:21:16.420 I've been blown away recently, just in person and online, seeing how it moves people to have someone pray for you. 00:21:16.420 --> 00:21:27.760 I think there's a lot of people who aren't used to people praying for them. If you're not inside of the church world, which I think you get a lot of online, people who don't normally come to church, people aren't used to having someone pray for you. 00:21:27.800 --> 00:21:33.420 And when you share a prayer request and someone actually takes the time to pray for you, I think that really touches people. 00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:42.780 And so that seems like it really pulls them into the service and makes them want to come back because they see that sense of community as people that care about them that would take the time to pray for them. 00:21:44.040 --> 00:21:53.000 And then just other next steps, like our connect card, that's not something the engagement team would necessarily do, but questions would be a good one too. 00:21:54.300 --> 00:22:04.460 Whether they're creating their own kind of question that gets a discussion going or being one of the first people to respond to a church question, so that kind of breaks that ice there too and they see there's people commenting. 00:22:04.460 --> 00:22:08.640 Because sometimes, just like in an in-person discussion, no one wants to be the first one to speak. 00:22:09.120 --> 00:22:12.860 So when you see someone else breaking that ice, then you're more likely to share as well. 00:22:13.280 --> 00:22:15.120 So it just all comes together to create community. 00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:20.860 You know, and I'm actually going to quote Ray's boss here, which is awesome. 00:22:20.940 --> 00:22:25.740 We had Ben Stapley on the podcast and we were talking about chat hosts with him on. 00:22:25.740 --> 00:22:31.000 And one thing that he said that I loved, and it's, you have to model what you want to see. 00:22:31.560 --> 00:22:39.000 And he was talking about, you know, almost having like ringers in the room, often engaging and talking. 00:22:39.120 --> 00:22:49.780 And so you'd have volunteer A talking and just even positioning volunteer B and C, just talking like normal people, responding and engaging. 00:22:50.180 --> 00:22:55.040 And it's because, to your point, no, and he even said it, a very eloquent story. 00:22:55.040 --> 00:23:08.400 And so a lot of times, if you want to create that culture, create that environment, you have to show the people what it looks like and how to respond. 00:23:08.840 --> 00:23:10.360 And then it carries on from there. 00:23:10.500 --> 00:23:13.460 And so, you know, I love that idea. 00:23:13.620 --> 00:23:18.680 Have you gone through model seasons like that where you've had to model what it looks like? 00:23:18.760 --> 00:23:20.140 How have you done things like that? 00:23:20.620 --> 00:23:24.660 Yeah, I think that's definitely one of the things that this team has brought about. 00:23:24.840 --> 00:23:27.680 And I think, you know, like you were saying, this is something other people do. 00:23:27.740 --> 00:23:29.320 I don't think it's even specific to online. 00:23:29.900 --> 00:23:36.260 I know Eldation, I've heard they ask their staff to sit in the front in the sanctuary, especially at their broadcast location, 00:23:36.260 --> 00:23:41.780 because they want to know that people who are that visible, people who are pulled into the service, who are engaging with the service, 00:23:42.200 --> 00:23:44.900 who are going to be standing up, who are going to have their hands up and clapping. 00:23:45.220 --> 00:23:47.540 And I think it's very similar with online. 00:23:47.680 --> 00:23:50.360 You want to have some people that you know are going to model that behavior. 00:23:50.580 --> 00:23:56.180 And so that's part of that training for that team is just responding to that message, 00:23:56.180 --> 00:24:01.480 whether it's a question that the church posted or they hear a point that the pastor made and they're just like, 00:24:01.560 --> 00:24:02.860 amen, that really hit home with me. 00:24:03.360 --> 00:24:08.840 Those kind of things where you're showing other people who are new, there's an active chat going on here. 00:24:08.980 --> 00:24:11.620 This is what it looks like to be involved in a part of that. 00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:15.560 And I think that just creates a sense that something's happening there. 00:24:15.660 --> 00:24:20.640 Whereas if you just have a video feed without that chat, I really feel like there's a different feel there. 00:24:20.780 --> 00:24:27.660 I feel like you don't have that sense of community without seeing those individual names and people and the stories they share and the prayer requests. 00:24:28.700 --> 00:24:34.780 That doesn't, to me, I would say that that online chat makes it feel more like church, seeing the different people there. 00:24:34.860 --> 00:24:36.440 That's kind of like your foyer. 00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:43.920 You can't do it exactly in the same way unless you're like a church home and you build that custom app where you can have a lobby before service. 00:24:44.560 --> 00:24:50.620 But for the most part, with a lot of the existing technology like Facebook or YouTube, you don't have much of a lobby before and after service. 00:24:51.040 --> 00:24:53.240 I don't think that happens naturally during your chat. 00:24:53.600 --> 00:24:59.840 So how are you guys dealing with the trolls, however they may come in in terms of the chat? 00:25:00.220 --> 00:25:01.400 It doesn't matter if it's shop. 00:25:01.500 --> 00:25:02.860 You have people find their way to your site. 00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:08.240 And definitely on Facebook and YouTube Live, you'll occasionally get somebody to pop in who has an agenda. 00:25:09.060 --> 00:25:09.360 Totally. 00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:10.620 Yeah, and that has happened. 00:25:11.060 --> 00:25:20.380 First of all, though, I would say, especially to a church that might be considering doing more enabling live chat, that it's probably not as bad as you think it is. 00:25:20.900 --> 00:25:21.000 Right. 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:24.700 I've heard a lot of questions, especially some of the different conferences I've been seeing. 00:25:24.860 --> 00:25:27.360 They'll have a Q&A time and they'll hear, well, what about this? 00:25:27.360 --> 00:25:30.380 Or what happens if someone says this or you get this one person who's doing that? 00:25:31.060 --> 00:25:39.680 I'll say, at least from my experience and what I've heard from other people who've shared about doing online chat, I don't think it's really as common as a lot of people would expect it to be. 00:25:40.220 --> 00:25:41.560 We do have trolls on the internet. 00:25:41.780 --> 00:25:44.560 We have run into them, but they're far and few between. 00:25:44.560 --> 00:25:50.320 With two or so years of doing online chat, I can only think of a handful of instances where that's happened. 00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:53.680 And even fewer times where I've actually had to block someone. 00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:56.660 So we try to give people a chance. 00:25:56.680 --> 00:26:09.280 If they're not totally out of line, if they're not using foul language, if they're being a little critical, but not to the point where they're attacking individuals or tearing anyone apart, we'll try to give them a chance. 00:26:09.280 --> 00:26:13.140 Because sometimes they're just hurting and they need to be there just as much as anyone else. 00:26:13.700 --> 00:26:15.060 And we don't want to drive them away. 00:26:15.780 --> 00:26:17.560 So we'll try to give them a chance. 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:19.460 And it just depends on the severity. 00:26:19.820 --> 00:26:26.420 If you only think of one time where we've had to block someone outright, for the most part, it looks like. 00:26:27.120 --> 00:26:30.920 Giving them a couple chances or strikes before we go ahead and block them. 00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:32.160 We might hide their messages. 00:26:32.380 --> 00:26:34.180 And it varies platform to platform. 00:26:34.340 --> 00:26:37.880 Like Facebook is great because you can hide their message and they don't even know that you did it. 00:26:38.440 --> 00:26:42.680 And so they're just going along ranting, but they don't know that their comment's gone. 00:26:42.860 --> 00:26:44.820 Whereas YouTube, I think it notifies them. 00:26:44.900 --> 00:26:46.000 It's more clear that that happened. 00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:49.160 And so you might have to address that a little differently. 00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:52.940 And then CHOP has a direct message feature, which I really like. 00:26:53.260 --> 00:26:55.000 I used that just a couple weeks ago. 00:26:55.060 --> 00:26:59.080 We had someone who was being a little critical about the message, but not terribly so. 00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:02.320 And so I wanted to have a conversation with that person and just walk through. 00:27:02.380 --> 00:27:04.900 Hey, I'd love to talk through any feedback you have on this message. 00:27:05.380 --> 00:27:07.680 And I tried to sort it out with that person. 00:27:07.720 --> 00:27:10.980 I'd love to say that we came to a resolution and that person decided to stay. 00:27:11.100 --> 00:27:14.380 But that person made a couple more public comments and that person did have to be blocked. 00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:16.140 But that was rare. 00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:17.980 That doesn't happen most weekends. 00:27:19.060 --> 00:27:22.420 I wouldn't even say that happens once a month where we have to block someone or hide comments. 00:27:22.660 --> 00:27:26.540 And the other thing we've noticed is that we have a very positive online community. 00:27:27.240 --> 00:27:31.800 And I don't know if we've done anything to build this or if it just naturally came about. 00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:35.080 But when we have a negative comment come in, for any one negative comment, 00:27:35.140 --> 00:27:39.380 we'll probably have three, five people who come back positively and say, 00:27:39.580 --> 00:27:43.720 well, you know, defensively or just to count it out with positivity. 00:27:44.320 --> 00:27:46.340 And that kind of brings the discussion back. 00:27:46.520 --> 00:27:50.480 Sometimes you have to throw that too, because if it gets too defensive and not just positive, 00:27:50.480 --> 00:27:52.660 then now it becomes a distraction. 00:27:52.660 --> 00:27:58.840 And then we're going to try to hide all that and take that offline so that it doesn't come about that and stays on the message. 00:27:58.960 --> 00:28:04.240 But a lot of times they just come back with positivity, not even directed at exactly what that person said. 00:28:04.720 --> 00:28:06.600 And then that just brings the discussion back. 00:28:06.820 --> 00:28:10.140 And it's interesting too, we've found among the different platforms. 00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:15.480 So starting with Facebook and YouTube and now CHOP, the more anonymous you can get. 00:28:15.700 --> 00:28:18.140 So obviously YouTube is somewhat in between. 00:28:18.220 --> 00:28:19.320 They're starting to push real names. 00:28:19.480 --> 00:28:20.860 Facebook is entirely real names. 00:28:20.940 --> 00:28:22.540 They'll probably block you if you don't have a real name. 00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:24.120 And then CHOP is totally anonymous. 00:28:24.120 --> 00:28:25.040 Like you just enter a nickname. 00:28:26.040 --> 00:28:30.580 It's incredibly rare to have to block somewhere to hide something on Facebook. 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:32.860 It's a little more common on YouTube. 00:28:33.320 --> 00:28:36.820 And then in a few months we've been doing CHOP, we've found that's the most common there. 00:28:37.260 --> 00:28:41.500 So I think the more anonymous that people can get, the more that they can open up and good things as well. 00:28:41.500 --> 00:28:45.300 Because I've seen prayer requests on CHOP that no one would probably ever share on Facebook. 00:28:46.540 --> 00:28:51.880 But you also, I think the more anonymous your platform is, the more likely you're going to see a troll. 00:28:52.900 --> 00:28:53.220 It's fair. 00:28:54.140 --> 00:29:02.900 Your broadcasts, we've talked about this before through the podcast, but there's basically there's three different types of people that watch online services. 00:29:03.360 --> 00:29:05.100 So your first is the front door. 00:29:05.260 --> 00:29:12.440 These are people who are watching your online service and they will eventually visit for the first time one of your physical campuses. 00:29:13.080 --> 00:29:15.500 Second is types of person is a side door. 00:29:15.740 --> 00:29:19.580 This is somebody who is already active in your church. 00:29:19.680 --> 00:29:20.460 They're just traveling. 00:29:20.940 --> 00:29:24.500 And so they may not be available or maybe they just want to stay at home one Sunday. 00:29:25.040 --> 00:29:29.440 They may not like, they're engaged in your church, already part of it. 00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:33.560 They're just attending the online service in order to stay in touch. 00:29:34.160 --> 00:29:40.640 And then the third service would be, third type of person, would be someone who basically it's the digital door. 00:29:40.740 --> 00:29:41.540 It's the only door. 00:29:41.980 --> 00:29:44.060 They're never setting foot in a physical campus. 00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:49.940 They're not engaged, nor will they be because it's somebody in Florida or in Texas. 00:29:51.260 --> 00:29:56.140 Somebody who, for whatever reason, they're engaging with you spiritually, looking for spiritual guidance, 00:29:56.360 --> 00:30:00.740 but not necessarily wanting to do it in a physical environment. 00:30:01.220 --> 00:30:01.340 Sure. 00:30:01.660 --> 00:30:08.980 Do you know with your online audience, would you rank those three, like front door, side door, digital door, 00:30:09.400 --> 00:30:12.800 which ones is more active than the other with your broadcast? 00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:13.120 Yeah. 00:30:13.240 --> 00:30:16.280 So we don't have really detailed metrics on that. 00:30:16.360 --> 00:30:17.880 We don't have a good way to capture that right now. 00:30:18.040 --> 00:30:21.980 But based off of what I see weekly with the chat, especially getting to see people check 00:30:21.980 --> 00:30:26.220 in with their locations and how they're watching, we see a pretty good mix. 00:30:26.680 --> 00:30:30.600 I would say it's probably close to evenly split among all three of those. 00:30:30.940 --> 00:30:35.040 We get people who normally attend in line and they'll say, I'm on vacation in Puerto Rico, 00:30:35.220 --> 00:30:37.380 so I'm tuning in from vacation. 00:30:37.520 --> 00:30:40.500 We get people who are local and say they're sick. 00:30:40.700 --> 00:30:45.080 We get people, I've seen comments that, you know, I live out of state, but we're going 00:30:45.080 --> 00:30:45.680 to be moving here. 00:30:45.740 --> 00:30:49.680 So we've been watching for a few weeks now and we can't wait to move down there and watch 00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:50.860 in person for the first time. 00:30:50.860 --> 00:30:54.860 Or I haven't attended church in a long time and I'm really loving this message. 00:30:54.960 --> 00:30:55.500 I live locally. 00:30:55.600 --> 00:30:56.860 I'm thinking about coming next week. 00:30:57.240 --> 00:31:02.400 And then we see other people who just live an extended distance away. 00:31:03.120 --> 00:31:07.820 And a lot of times I see those same people checking on a frequent basis and they're definitely 00:31:07.820 --> 00:31:08.900 doing church with us. 00:31:08.940 --> 00:31:13.000 I just kicked off an online small group this small group semester and we've got someone 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:17.800 in our group from Virginia Beach who originally lived here and now is part of our online community 00:31:17.800 --> 00:31:21.440 and watches pretty regularly and is taking part in an online group. 00:31:21.620 --> 00:31:23.900 So we definitely have people in all those categories. 00:31:23.900 --> 00:31:29.340 And just based on the feel I have for it from our online chat, I'd say it's fairly evenly 00:31:29.340 --> 00:31:30.380 split among all those. 00:31:30.860 --> 00:31:31.380 That's really good. 00:31:31.520 --> 00:31:34.420 It's tough to navigate that sense of community. 00:31:35.260 --> 00:31:41.640 And it's really hard to navigate how a lot of people are going to engage in some of these 00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:42.460 different platforms. 00:31:42.760 --> 00:31:44.600 Those are things that we've talked about with some other folks. 00:31:45.420 --> 00:31:52.860 So tell us, how else is the ability to be known or the ability to stay unknown impacting 00:31:52.860 --> 00:31:56.360 the way that people are interacting with, not just with the chat, but with your church in 00:31:56.360 --> 00:31:56.740 general? 00:31:57.300 --> 00:31:57.440 Yeah. 00:31:57.560 --> 00:32:02.620 So this is coming from an online small group, this previous meeting, but I think it, we see 00:32:02.620 --> 00:32:03.880 the same thing with online too. 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:09.380 So we had someone who started off camera off, wasn't really talking. 00:32:10.280 --> 00:32:13.880 And then in this, I've seen this transformed through an entire semester, but with this person 00:32:13.880 --> 00:32:16.140 it was all at once and throughout the course of one meeting. 00:32:16.680 --> 00:32:21.880 And then as we got into our discussion, the camera came on for like a minute and then turned 00:32:21.880 --> 00:32:22.420 back off. 00:32:23.080 --> 00:32:26.240 And then the camera came on for a few more minutes and turned off. 00:32:26.300 --> 00:32:30.240 And then towards the end of the group, the camera stayed on and this person opened up and 00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:33.000 shared that they're dealing with so much anxiety right now. 00:32:33.180 --> 00:32:38.020 But they were just so thankful for this online group because it got them to take part in something 00:32:38.020 --> 00:32:39.680 they probably wouldn't have normally done. 00:32:40.540 --> 00:32:44.320 And I just shared how powerful it was to be meeting with these other people online right 00:32:44.320 --> 00:32:45.320 now and to be part of this. 00:32:45.840 --> 00:32:50.320 And so throughout the course of that one meeting time, that person went from, you know, kind 00:32:50.320 --> 00:32:53.320 of hiding in a sense with the camera off to feeling comfortable enough for a minute 00:32:53.320 --> 00:32:57.560 to turn it on, to leaving it on, and then to even speaking and joining the discussion. 00:32:57.700 --> 00:33:01.760 And I think we see the same thing with the chat where people probably are watching for 00:33:01.760 --> 00:33:03.680 a few weeks before they take part in the chat at all. 00:33:03.980 --> 00:33:05.680 And then they start commenting a little bit. 00:33:05.780 --> 00:33:08.900 And then I have noticed that you see people who occasionally comment and then I'll start 00:33:08.900 --> 00:33:12.660 to recognize those names and all of a sudden this person's commenting a lot and they just 00:33:12.660 --> 00:33:14.320 become more part of that community. 00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:17.200 I think for some people, it's just a natural progression that happens. 00:33:17.680 --> 00:33:18.520 And I agree. 00:33:18.520 --> 00:33:24.620 I think it's difficult in church in general, as far as folks wanting to go from being unknown 00:33:24.620 --> 00:33:28.840 to known, especially in a megachurch, which is, you know, many of the environments that 00:33:28.840 --> 00:33:31.760 we're operating in, in terms of folks want to come into a service either because they've 00:33:31.760 --> 00:33:35.920 been burnt at another church or coming in and they're fresh and they just want to sit down 00:33:35.920 --> 00:33:38.100 and just be for a moment. 00:33:38.240 --> 00:33:39.300 They don't really want to connect yet. 00:33:39.360 --> 00:33:40.680 They don't want to be part of the community yet. 00:33:40.740 --> 00:33:42.180 They just want to kind of soak in. 00:33:42.380 --> 00:33:42.740 Totally. 00:33:43.300 --> 00:33:45.140 And especially in the online environment. 00:33:45.260 --> 00:33:48.120 I mean, they're trying before they buy, right? 00:33:48.140 --> 00:33:53.280 Like they're there to engage in that kind of experience before they really partake in the 00:33:53.280 --> 00:33:55.300 community because they're still trying to build trust. 00:33:55.740 --> 00:33:55.860 Right. 00:33:56.600 --> 00:33:56.900 Yep. 00:33:57.080 --> 00:34:01.060 And I think online can meet them where they're at in a really good way in both of those, 00:34:01.140 --> 00:34:05.080 because if they want to be anonymous, you can't be more anonymous than on your computer 00:34:05.080 --> 00:34:06.260 without taking part in the chat. 00:34:06.380 --> 00:34:09.500 Like you can literally just watch that video and no one's going to know you're there. 00:34:09.600 --> 00:34:12.740 So if that's what you want right now, where you just want to hear that message, but you're 00:34:12.740 --> 00:34:16.360 not ready to be known, then online does that really well. 00:34:16.420 --> 00:34:21.080 But I think online you can be known better than in person in a way when it comes to a larger 00:34:21.080 --> 00:34:26.660 venue, because if you've got 1000 people in a room, you might not notice that new person. 00:34:26.760 --> 00:34:30.240 You can certainly greet them and say hi to them, but you don't, you can't ask someone 00:34:30.240 --> 00:34:33.120 when you've got 1000 people in a room, is this your first time? 00:34:33.120 --> 00:34:35.700 Because that can come across wrong to someone who's been there for a year. 00:34:36.700 --> 00:34:41.700 Whereas online, I think it's a lot easier to have those discussions and to get to know 00:34:41.700 --> 00:34:46.200 people in the chat because you can talk to all those people individually if they choose 00:34:46.200 --> 00:34:50.160 to start commenting and I think you get to know them better than you might in an in-person 00:34:50.160 --> 00:34:54.440 service, because you don't have that kind of interaction generally in a larger environment. 00:34:55.640 --> 00:35:01.880 You know, one thing that I've seen several churches start to experiment and start to move well 00:35:01.880 --> 00:35:06.840 as like a next step beyond that service broadcast that the chat host can push to 00:35:06.840 --> 00:35:11.100 is is a churchwide Facebook group. 00:35:11.340 --> 00:35:15.300 Yeah, you know, talking about having like anonymity. 00:35:15.500 --> 00:35:16.380 It's a softer cell. 00:35:16.460 --> 00:35:17.680 It's it's less intimidating. 00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:20.180 They're coming in as their person. 00:35:20.320 --> 00:35:27.100 It's not they're not hiding behind a nickname or something or, you know, invisible with with 00:35:27.100 --> 00:35:28.340 YouTube or chop. 00:35:28.480 --> 00:35:33.660 And so but it's it's there's hundreds of people in this group and you're you to hunt 00:35:33.660 --> 00:35:35.240 maybe thousands of people in this group. 00:35:35.240 --> 00:35:41.720 But you're utilizing the group to ask questions, to push ideas, to meet people, to engage with 00:35:41.720 --> 00:35:46.840 people and to route them into into a small group and so or into a community or whatever 00:35:46.840 --> 00:35:47.840 your next step is. 00:35:48.080 --> 00:35:51.620 And so it's it's really seems the churches that have done it well. 00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:57.780 You know, it was L Elevation, I think it talked a lot about that, about how they had had a huge 00:35:57.780 --> 00:36:05.200 success with that Facebook group and pushing it over there designed for the online campus 00:36:05.200 --> 00:36:11.800 and and then using that to route people effectively down the road to really get to know them. 00:36:12.440 --> 00:36:17.380 And the thing that I love about it is it's it's not tied to that one hour on Sunday. 00:36:17.540 --> 00:36:19.940 You can have a conversation with them on Tuesday or Wednesday. 00:36:20.480 --> 00:36:25.120 You get to know people in that space and engage with them on a on a regular basis. 00:36:25.120 --> 00:36:31.180 It's it's not just when that service is being broadcast and even ask your chat host to help 00:36:31.180 --> 00:36:36.260 engage the community in that space where they're not just doing that one hour on Sunday, but 00:36:36.260 --> 00:36:40.360 they're actively meeting and talking with people in that in that Facebook group as well. 00:36:40.360 --> 00:36:44.900 Like there's there I think there's an opportunity there for for churches to really use. 00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.480 You mentioned before there's no lobby and that's been like the biggest problem, I think, 00:36:49.540 --> 00:36:54.900 with church online is you get people connected to ministry into those next steps in the lobbies of 00:36:54.900 --> 00:36:59.440 our physical buildings. We don't have a physical building online. And for some churches that are 00:36:59.440 --> 00:37:06.720 experimenting with it, that that Facebook group for the entire online service really does become the 00:37:06.720 --> 00:37:13.440 lobby of the church. So, man, I would check that out. I'd kick those tires. Ray, you guys you guys have 00:37:13.440 --> 00:37:17.660 experimented a little bit with the Facebook group for the entire church, right? How'd that work for you? 00:37:17.660 --> 00:37:23.020 We are. And, you know, it's one of those things where it's it's doing good. It's not as good as I would want it to be 00:37:23.020 --> 00:37:28.600 because it's not something we promote very heavily outside of CF online. And I think we will continue to as we find 00:37:28.600 --> 00:37:33.620 more power here, especially as Facebook favors algorithmically the groups, right? Like they're putting more of an 00:37:33.620 --> 00:37:42.060 emphasis on community. So Nona Jones, I was talking about how Facebook is favoring community and favoring groups and how we want to 00:37:42.060 --> 00:37:47.900 put more of an emphasis on that. But then Brady Shearer came up with a great strategy that that was like, hey, listen, 00:37:47.980 --> 00:37:54.640 even just kind of posing a question a day to just keep people engaged on the Facebook on the Facebook group or, 00:37:54.900 --> 00:37:59.420 you know, and that's the strategy just to get them. And it's been a good way to kind of get the ball rolling in terms of 00:37:59.420 --> 00:38:03.720 getting people involved, getting people praying for one another, finding different ways to have them connect, 00:38:04.220 --> 00:38:09.180 creating that lobby experience, because there's got to be some kind of strategy behind it. We can't just 00:38:09.180 --> 00:38:13.880 have a Facebook group for the sake of having a group, but really trying to continue exactly what 00:38:13.880 --> 00:38:18.640 Evan's doing, trying to continue that conversation. Yeah, it's funny you guys bring that up because 00:38:18.640 --> 00:38:24.700 just an hour or so ago before this, I was talking to our arts director about our strategy of online 00:38:24.700 --> 00:38:28.760 groups or Facebook groups and what we're thinking about how we're going to roll that out. So that's 00:38:28.760 --> 00:38:33.560 something we're not doing currently, but we're talking through our process and looking to roll that 00:38:33.560 --> 00:38:38.100 out fairly soon. We want to have an online one like you guys are talking about. We also want to do that 00:38:38.100 --> 00:38:42.560 for our in-person campuses to create those people to stay in touch throughout the week. And even some 00:38:42.560 --> 00:38:47.300 other groups like that, we're trying to figure out how we can do that to tie them into small groups and 00:38:47.300 --> 00:38:52.960 maybe link them to individual small groups that are going on. Right. That's something that we're 00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:59.100 looking at as well. And I'm part of a few online groups from other churches. I'm on the Elevation one, 00:38:59.640 --> 00:39:05.840 Life Church, I think Rock Church. I've been blown away by the amount of community that I see happen in 00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:10.300 these groups. It's just like you said, those questions, like you see a question like that get 00:39:10.300 --> 00:39:17.180 posted and so many people will open up about that. Or I love it when you see someone ask a personal 00:39:17.180 --> 00:39:21.580 question, like they're trying to work through something or I'm not really clear on this text. 00:39:21.640 --> 00:39:26.080 What do you think this guy, this means? And you have people who just, just like church, I mean, 00:39:26.140 --> 00:39:30.160 they're coming together and they're wrestling through that together. They're praying for one 00:39:30.160 --> 00:39:36.400 and ever. I think you really see a lot of church happen in those groups. We do have a Facebook 00:39:36.400 --> 00:39:41.260 group for our men's ministry right now. And I see a lot of that happening there where people open up 00:39:41.260 --> 00:39:45.280 about what they're going through. They have a question and you just naturally see that community 00:39:45.280 --> 00:39:48.240 created. They do church with one another in a Facebook group. 00:39:48.640 --> 00:39:52.900 Ray, you ready for my hot take? Here's a hot take. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say 00:39:52.900 --> 00:39:57.180 this before. It's coming right here. I think I would rather somebody join a Facebook group, 00:39:57.280 --> 00:40:04.020 a private Facebook, a campus Facebook group. I would rather someone join a Facebook campus group 00:40:04.020 --> 00:40:05.740 than fill out a connection card. 00:40:06.220 --> 00:40:06.820 I could see that. 00:40:07.240 --> 00:40:12.900 Because if they're in the group, I now have a relational connection to get whatever information 00:40:12.900 --> 00:40:17.160 I want out of them in a one-on-one engagement. 00:40:18.160 --> 00:40:23.160 So I would rather them identify themselves as part of a Facebook group, giving me an opportunity to 00:40:23.160 --> 00:40:29.740 dialogue rather than them filling out a card, feeling like that I'm coldly trying to peel 00:40:29.740 --> 00:40:33.480 information out of them that I'm going to utilize in some other way. 00:40:33.700 --> 00:40:37.520 I think Facebook needs to offer more tools to help integrate people into groups. 00:40:37.960 --> 00:40:43.120 Because for instance, whenever we're doing live chat on Facebook Live and when we've pushed the 00:40:43.120 --> 00:40:48.760 group, whenever we copy the link over, it's this massive, disgusting link that gets dropped in the 00:40:48.760 --> 00:40:52.940 middle of the chat as opposed to having a button or something a little more simple that's attached. 00:40:53.340 --> 00:40:54.680 It should be integrated well into Facebook. 00:40:55.020 --> 00:40:57.560 And so I know that Zuckerberg is listening to this podcast. 00:40:57.680 --> 00:41:00.660 And so if you're listening, Mark, you know, go ahead and get on that. 00:41:00.660 --> 00:41:08.500 But in the meantime, you know, it is, Jeff, it is proving to be one of the best things to get 00:41:08.500 --> 00:41:11.260 people to do because they're going to engage in it on a regular basis. 00:41:11.800 --> 00:41:15.780 It does provide opportunity in a more expressive place. 00:41:15.880 --> 00:41:17.380 You know, they could drop GIFs into it. 00:41:17.420 --> 00:41:22.500 They can drop a whole bunch of things into it that you can get some fun responses and keep 00:41:22.500 --> 00:41:26.760 people engaged in the fun side of the community of Facebook, which is what it originally was 00:41:26.760 --> 00:41:28.820 before it became ads and all this other stuff. 00:41:29.500 --> 00:41:34.520 And so, and it's so niche and internal in that, you know, you have people who are there who 00:41:34.520 --> 00:41:35.420 want to be there. 00:41:35.960 --> 00:41:37.740 They weren't advertised into it. 00:41:37.840 --> 00:41:38.880 It wasn't anything else. 00:41:39.160 --> 00:41:43.140 You have people who are part of your community that want to be there, that want to take part 00:41:43.140 --> 00:41:43.760 in community. 00:41:44.220 --> 00:41:45.460 I agree with you 100%. 00:41:45.460 --> 00:41:49.340 I think more and more there needs to be ways to connect with people through your Facebook 00:41:49.340 --> 00:41:53.100 group and not just in some, in some kind of way and just receiving data. 00:41:53.720 --> 00:41:54.080 Yeah. 00:41:54.180 --> 00:41:55.540 I'm in agreement with you, Jeff. 00:41:55.700 --> 00:41:58.660 I mean, it just, it seems like it's so much more relational. 00:41:59.920 --> 00:42:03.280 When you fill out a connect card, especially at a larger church, like what does that process 00:42:03.280 --> 00:42:04.120 usually look like? 00:42:04.440 --> 00:42:09.400 You might get like a generic template email, which I think more and more people are starting 00:42:09.400 --> 00:42:10.100 to recognize that. 00:42:10.180 --> 00:42:13.660 Even if you auto fill their name in there, they can kind of tell, okay, this is the exact 00:42:13.660 --> 00:42:15.060 same email everybody else gets. 00:42:15.300 --> 00:42:18.360 Maybe you even send them a letter in the mail, but it's probably just going to be something 00:42:18.360 --> 00:42:20.800 pre-printed, like not super personal. 00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:25.520 If you're at a larger size where you probably can't handwrite a card for each person, but 00:42:25.520 --> 00:42:29.280 if they, you know, when you join a Facebook group, like it tells you that you're new, you 00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:30.120 can see who's new. 00:42:30.240 --> 00:42:34.080 And if you have a one-to-one chat with them there, that's very specific. 00:42:34.080 --> 00:42:40.000 It's very personal way that I don't think you can really do with more traditional new 00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:41.220 guest processes. 00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:42.020 That's good. 00:42:42.180 --> 00:42:46.560 Well, and relational really is the answer to online ministry, right? 00:42:47.820 --> 00:42:53.940 Because, and especially as cold and as distant as technology is, we're trying to prevent people 00:42:53.940 --> 00:42:55.820 from not doing church in isolation. 00:42:56.280 --> 00:43:02.280 And years of my life, I honestly, just transparently, I didn't understand this, which is one of the 00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:05.980 reasons why I've been so distant on chat hosts. 00:43:05.980 --> 00:43:13.440 Because chat hosts is really the vehicle that you get people to not watch church in isolation, 00:43:13.620 --> 00:43:14.820 to not experience that. 00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:16.460 They're that front line. 00:43:16.560 --> 00:43:20.100 I used to equate them to guest services and I'm like, eh, who cares about guest services? 00:43:20.360 --> 00:43:21.100 You don't need them. 00:43:21.600 --> 00:43:26.060 But, but it's, it's, it's more than that because you've got people who are watching on 00:43:26.060 --> 00:43:31.620 devices not engaging in an effective chat host ministry is really going to engage that and 00:43:31.620 --> 00:43:37.120 get them connected into a more relational thing with a Facebook group or, or into a, into a 00:43:37.120 --> 00:43:38.440 small group or something like that. 00:43:38.440 --> 00:43:41.100 And you're starting to build this discipleship pathway. 00:43:41.100 --> 00:43:48.740 And, and the, as much as probably earlier in my online ministry years, I was really, um, not 00:43:48.740 --> 00:43:49.640 neg, okay, negative. 00:43:49.780 --> 00:43:51.220 I was more negative on the chat host. 00:43:51.300 --> 00:43:55.120 And I was like, it's not, it's not really necessary in the grand scheme of things today. 00:43:55.120 --> 00:43:56.100 It's, it's vital. 00:43:56.100 --> 00:44:02.020 It's essential towards that because it's the first line of defense from discovering front 00:44:02.020 --> 00:44:05.420 first line of defense to discover who these people are. 00:44:05.420 --> 00:44:10.940 Um, and so, and, and Evan, man, you've, you've done a great job of putting together a program 00:44:10.940 --> 00:44:16.120 and, and talking through not only, you know, discovering these people who they are, building 00:44:16.120 --> 00:44:21.780 these relationships, funneling them into, um, you, some sort of a community to engage in, 00:44:21.780 --> 00:44:27.380 uh, man, I'm excited to see, uh, what else is going on down the road with, uh, with Lighthouse 00:44:27.380 --> 00:44:30.220 and, and how this, this continues to, to grow. 00:44:30.500 --> 00:44:31.180 Hey, okay. 00:44:31.180 --> 00:44:32.860 So let's, let's land the plane here. 00:44:32.860 --> 00:44:35.300 Uh, it's been great, but, but let's, let's call it a day. 00:44:35.300 --> 00:44:36.460 So Ray, what do you got? 00:44:36.520 --> 00:44:37.200 Anything to land? 00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:38.840 Evan, great job. 00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:42.540 Um, talking through and helping guiding us through as far as some of the chat stuff. 00:44:42.720 --> 00:44:47.160 Um, uh, man, I hope to learn from some of the things that you guys have done. 00:44:47.320 --> 00:44:51.280 And, uh, man, if you guys have any, anything, any kind of resources that we could throw in 00:44:51.280 --> 00:44:53.900 the show notes just to help some of our listeners, that'd be great too. 00:44:54.320 --> 00:44:58.440 Just because I know that for us, and we're still experimenting, we're still working with 00:44:58.440 --> 00:45:02.840 us here at Chrysler Ship Miami, where I'm at, um, chat hosts have definitely improved the 00:45:02.840 --> 00:45:04.280 community of where it's been. 00:45:04.600 --> 00:45:07.880 And like you said, it's definitely helped people take that next step. 00:45:08.100 --> 00:45:12.380 And so for everybody who's listening to the podcast today, that's just kind of, if you're 00:45:12.380 --> 00:45:15.940 just broadcasting your online service, but not necessarily creating community around it, 00:45:15.940 --> 00:45:17.600 let me encourage you to take that next step. 00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:21.740 Even if it's you yourself as a staff member, find a way to create community around getting 00:45:21.740 --> 00:45:23.660 a conversation started during the service. 00:45:24.120 --> 00:45:26.820 I just want to have resources that people can steal and make their own. 00:45:27.260 --> 00:45:32.020 Um, I know as we've been growing, that's been really helpful for us to be able to find people 00:45:32.020 --> 00:45:35.480 who are already doing something and just be able to learn from that and grab some of what they're 00:45:35.480 --> 00:45:36.720 doing and apply it to what we're doing. 00:45:37.080 --> 00:45:42.420 So I intend to have some resources that are just easy to take hold of and make your own. 00:45:42.420 --> 00:45:45.900 And so I can definitely get those to you guys by the time this goes public. 00:45:46.200 --> 00:45:46.280 Yeah. 00:45:46.400 --> 00:45:49.900 So we'll, we'll put it, we'll put that on, on the show notes, um, as well. 00:45:49.980 --> 00:45:51.980 We'll link to it, make, make it public to everybody. 00:45:51.980 --> 00:45:53.820 So I know that'll be a huge asset. 00:45:53.940 --> 00:45:58.200 So man, Evan, for you, as we're landing the plane, anything, um, anything specific? 00:45:58.360 --> 00:45:59.400 I just want to thank you guys. 00:45:59.420 --> 00:46:01.100 It's been great to talk through this. 00:46:01.240 --> 00:46:03.300 Um, I've listened to several of your episodes now. 00:46:03.340 --> 00:46:07.460 I love what you're doing in the podcast and I just really think it's a great resource for 00:46:07.460 --> 00:46:09.940 church leaders, especially in the online space. 00:46:09.940 --> 00:46:11.440 So I'm just thankful for what you guys are doing. 00:46:12.200 --> 00:46:15.480 That's good, Evan, because it's you, my mom and Jeff's mom, they're listening to the 00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:18.180 podcast and we're fired up just to know, man. 00:46:18.220 --> 00:46:18.720 It's good. 00:46:20.060 --> 00:46:21.720 Your mom still listens? 00:46:22.640 --> 00:46:25.160 I don't, uh, what I, I'm kidding. 00:46:25.460 --> 00:46:27.180 I mean, it's the only podcast she knows about. 00:46:27.360 --> 00:46:32.700 So she can't, just to get her to open Apple music on her phone is a win. 00:46:32.780 --> 00:46:33.360 You know what I'm saying? 00:46:33.760 --> 00:46:38.220 So it's, it certainly has been fun. 00:46:38.220 --> 00:46:44.900 And, and, you know, having conversations like this, like yours, Evan, guys who are doing 00:46:44.900 --> 00:46:50.620 a piece of church online and maybe experimenting with things one way or another way, or even 00:46:50.620 --> 00:46:54.720 being willing to experiment, nobody really has the answer to church online yet. 00:46:54.720 --> 00:47:02.100 There's not a solid answer and how elevation or how Saddleback or how North Point's going 00:47:02.100 --> 00:47:07.620 going to execute church online is going to look different than how Lighthouse in Maryland is 00:47:07.620 --> 00:47:11.680 going to execute church online, which is going to look different than the church plant that's 00:47:11.680 --> 00:47:13.280 going to do church online. 00:47:13.280 --> 00:47:21.460 And so how we all can utilize this online tool to not only broadcast services, but to engage 00:47:21.460 --> 00:47:23.420 with people and to create disciples. 00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:27.800 That's really the answer to this in the heart behind everything that we're doing here. 00:47:28.020 --> 00:47:34.400 And, and chat hosts I'm learning is a, is a essential part of that. 00:47:34.720 --> 00:47:39.840 And, and it's something that, that we as the church need to engage with specifically in 00:47:39.840 --> 00:47:40.720 the online environment. 00:47:40.720 --> 00:47:46.800 So man, Evan, thanks for the time here, jumping on this and, and Ray, once again, it's always 00:47:46.800 --> 00:47:49.960 great to hang out with you, but I am Jeff with the church digital. 00:47:50.120 --> 00:47:51.120 We're going to wrap here. 00:47:51.300 --> 00:47:54.060 This has been great and hope to see you next time. 00:47:54.180 --> 00:47:55.600 Thanks for joining in. 00:47:55.800 --> 00:47:56.020 Bye.