WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.620 Welcome to the church digital podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological 00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:10.420 innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper 00:00:10.420 --> 00:00:15.320 questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:20.200 field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse 00:00:20.200 --> 00:00:25.760 and artificial intelligence fit into all of this? Whether you're a big or small church, 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:31.140 an established church, or a startup church plant, the church digital's goal is to help churches like 00:00:31.140 --> 00:00:37.600 yours learn to be a multiplying church digitally and physically. Our heart? That churches like 00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:42.580 yours would discover a new founded focus on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:50.740 And now here's your host, Jeff Reed. All right, we've got episode 279, 279 of the church digital 00:00:50.740 --> 00:00:55.740 podcast. Jeff here. We're going to get into the conversation here with the guest, Evan Connolly, 00:00:55.760 --> 00:01:00.720 in a second. But I, I want to tease you all because, because it's my podcast. I can, I can do what I 00:01:00.720 --> 00:01:05.200 want. Well, technically it's Bernie Mapealy's podcast as he's now CEO of the church digital, 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:11.080 but that that's another conversation. Guys, I am really excited about some things that are coming 00:01:11.080 --> 00:01:16.940 up. There's, there's a couple really cool things that we've been, we've been working on. Um, last week, 00:01:17.140 --> 00:01:23.200 actually, I spent three days out in Dallas, Texas, and boy, was it cold. That aside from the frigid 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:30.140 temperature of, of DFW, I got to spend some time with Resi, uh, and the, the team at Resi and some 00:01:30.140 --> 00:01:37.160 friends over at push pay and really excited about some things coming up here in 2024. I can't tell 00:01:37.160 --> 00:01:43.720 you yet, but I can tease you a little bit and I do enjoy a good tease. So here, look for it coming 00:01:43.720 --> 00:01:50.680 soon. Some interesting information, some big information, some big news coming out at Resi. 00:01:50.680 --> 00:01:55.320 Stay tuned. Oh, and, and don't forget about glue, the church digital and glue. We've, we're still, 00:01:55.440 --> 00:01:59.980 we're still baking on some stuff, working out some, some minor details, but some really big stuff 00:01:59.980 --> 00:02:07.000 coming on glue in February. So really, really exciting season here, uh, for the church digital 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:12.680 overall. Now let's get back to the show. So listen, I'm really excited to have this conversation 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:19.620 with, with my friend, Evan Connolly. Evan is online campus director over at, uh, Lighthouse 00:02:19.620 --> 00:02:25.380 Church, Washington, DC, Maryland kind of area. And, uh, listen, I, I, the first time I met 00:02:25.380 --> 00:02:31.300 Evan, he was an IT director. He wasn't a direct, like he was not an online campus director. He wasn't 00:02:31.300 --> 00:02:37.260 a, uh, wasn't a pastor. Didn't really have any of that, that kind of oversight at, at his church. 00:02:37.260 --> 00:02:42.680 This was pre COVID maybe 2018 or so. And I can actually remember over the, uh, over the 00:02:42.680 --> 00:02:48.240 years, you know, watching him cast vision to his lead pastor to become, uh, a more pastoral 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:52.720 voice and to lead the online campus, casting vision for what that online campus could look 00:02:52.720 --> 00:02:57.580 like. Even before COVID his church buying into it. And now five years later, man, that guy 00:02:57.580 --> 00:03:04.480 is still, uh, being very successful running and casting vision for what digital can do to 00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:11.780 help the physical church. It's interesting. Like he's, he has a very hybrid approach with 00:03:11.780 --> 00:03:18.020 his church. How can digital help our physical campus, our physical operations, which actually 00:03:18.020 --> 00:03:23.180 brings us straight into today's conversation. As we're talking about this new soft, well, it's 00:03:23.180 --> 00:03:28.740 not new software. It's been around for a while, but intercom.io I've said intercom.io and the 00:03:28.740 --> 00:03:34.820 websites, but it's basically at intercom.com. Now it's a, it's a, it's a website, direct messaging. 00:03:34.820 --> 00:03:41.240 Now a lot of businesses use this software, uh, in order to, to get customer service, customer 00:03:41.240 --> 00:03:47.820 success, people direct in touch with the customers, with the clients. Now what's interesting is Evan 00:03:47.820 --> 00:03:55.440 has started using this to help people get in touch with pastors. Uh, this is a very inexpensive, 00:03:55.680 --> 00:04:03.720 very easy way to get people easy, easy access to pastors from, uh, pastoral care, from events, 00:04:03.780 --> 00:04:08.140 some really interesting approaches. And you know, Evan borrowed some of this. We've done a lot of 00:04:08.140 --> 00:04:15.720 podcasts with church home, uh, Jonathan song recently talking about, um, their pastor chat program. 00:04:15.720 --> 00:04:21.500 Jonathan is the director of pastor chat. Well, Evan kind of stole their program from, from that podcast 00:04:21.500 --> 00:04:27.440 and actually created their own approach and their own spin, uh, using a cheaper software at for 00:04:27.440 --> 00:04:32.800 lighthouse church, lighthouse church. And so listen, when I'm hearing Evan talk about this, I'm like, 00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:38.420 my gosh, Evan, jump on the podcast. Let's talk about this. Let's cast vision for what this software 00:04:38.420 --> 00:04:45.640 intercom.com could do for other churches. And so here you go. I'm bringing in Evan Connolly, 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:50.220 online campus director with a lighthouse church, uh, there in Maryland and myself, 00:04:50.320 --> 00:04:57.160 Jeff with the church digital and a conversation that I'm calling intercom.com and chat 2.0 for 00:04:57.160 --> 00:05:02.700 churches. Okay, everybody, here you go. All right. Hey, so we're bringing into the conversation, 00:05:02.700 --> 00:05:08.760 Evan, Evan Connolly online campus director at lighthouse church. Oh man, I forgot to ask what 00:05:08.760 --> 00:05:13.460 state Europe. It's up near DC, right? As I recall. Very good. Yeah. We're in Maryland, 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:17.760 right outside of Baltimore. So you're pretty much spot on. Yeah. So that, that's, uh, that's Tom, 00:05:17.880 --> 00:05:22.320 uh, Tom Pounder stomping ground somewhere up in there as well. Have you, have you actually ever 00:05:22.320 --> 00:05:26.360 met Tom Pounder in person, Evan? I like, we got to just get the, you know what? I actually, 00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:30.940 I don't think I have, I have not. Yeah. Um, yeah. For many years of my life, Tom Pounder was, 00:05:31.020 --> 00:05:36.120 it was a Russian spam bot. Like he was the person that I think is real, but I would never actually 00:05:36.120 --> 00:05:41.180 see him in person. You wouldn't show up at the conferences. And so, um, I now, I now think that 00:05:41.180 --> 00:05:45.060 about other people, but I've seen Tom in person, so I can just, yeah. Now you got to wonder like, 00:05:45.100 --> 00:05:52.280 wait, are you like a chat GPT AI bot or something? Oh yeah. Uh, John Pyle, John Pyle is very 00:05:52.280 --> 00:05:57.580 suspicious. Uh, we, he would put him on the, I don't know that chat GPT is that good at the 00:05:57.580 --> 00:06:03.420 character personifications yet, but, uh, maybe it's close. So on around, we just literally did a 00:06:03.420 --> 00:06:08.720 podcast last week on AI. And so you can go back and listen to Kenny Mage talking about all the 00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:16.460 characterizations and all the future of AI and chat GPT and AGI, which is the next wave and all sorts. 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:22.060 Oh my, so much, so much good, so much bad, and so much potential for our robotic overlords to rule 00:06:22.060 --> 00:06:28.380 over us. Uh, seriously, I have to go back and listen after this. Yeah. And so this is not the 00:06:28.380 --> 00:06:32.680 purpose of this conversation. We're not, I would be surprised if we get much into AI beyond this, 00:06:32.760 --> 00:06:36.400 maybe, maybe Evan's going to surprise me, but really in this conversation, we're going to get 00:06:36.400 --> 00:06:43.340 into the idea of maybe what the next level of chat could be, uh, for your church. And so now, 00:06:43.340 --> 00:06:51.580 ironically, Evan, uh, man, you were on this podcast four years ago, early on at doing a chat 00:06:51.840 --> 00:06:57.240 conversation. Evan, you are the only person to come on this podcast and talk about chat 00:06:57.240 --> 00:07:03.080 hosts. I have not out of 279 episodes. Now that had any other person other than you talk 00:07:03.080 --> 00:07:06.400 about chat hosts. So let's, and here I am talking about a different form of chat. I'm 00:07:06.400 --> 00:07:10.740 just the chat guy, which is ironic because I'm also a huge introvert, but apparently I like 00:07:10.740 --> 00:07:17.460 to chat. Yeah. I, I don't know. I don't know why we earmarked you as, as that, as that 00:07:17.460 --> 00:07:22.300 guy, but, uh, man, thanks, thanks for stepping in. So you, well, let's back up because you, you said 00:07:22.300 --> 00:07:27.600 it, how does it feel to be an introvert, but also in digital ministry, like kind of walk through 00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:34.580 that. Yeah. You know, it's mixed feelings, honestly, in some ways, I think it's possibly 00:07:34.580 --> 00:07:40.420 easier as an introvert to operate, um, in digital ministry. You know, I think some of the ways we 00:07:40.420 --> 00:07:45.460 communicate, whether that's through live chat or even video, I think maybe at least for me as an 00:07:45.460 --> 00:07:52.100 introvert, I feel like I don't, it doesn't, you know, hit me the same way maybe. Um, and so 00:07:52.100 --> 00:07:58.520 personally, I think I can operate better in digital mini ministry maybe than perhaps I could, 00:07:58.980 --> 00:08:02.720 you know, in some ways entirely physical, but it seems to work pretty well for me. 00:08:02.940 --> 00:08:08.340 I'll be honest with you, Evan. I'm, I'm probably, uh, well, no, I'm definitely an introvert. Uh, 00:08:08.340 --> 00:08:14.220 yeah. People who know me like personally and up closer, like, you know, Jeff, like you're always 00:08:14.220 --> 00:08:20.220 talking, you're always all over the place, but it, like my outward is, is actually a defense mechanism, 00:08:20.220 --> 00:08:29.640 honestly, uh, towards being a very introverted self. And, um, I fully agree with you that I do think 00:08:29.640 --> 00:08:37.200 that digital ministry effectively really plays well with, with introverted tendencies that, you know, 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:41.640 I can be in front of a camera, I can talk in a microphone, I can do things like that. And it's a lot 00:08:41.640 --> 00:08:46.860 easier to do that in digital space, um, than it would be to stand up in front of an equal number 00:08:46.860 --> 00:08:51.480 of people physically. And so totally, I mean, even to that point, um, you know, like Sundays are 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:56.300 actually hours wise, my shortest work day. And yet, you know, obviously there is a lot more of the, 00:08:56.340 --> 00:09:00.460 you know, conversations, whatnot. I find myself coming home more drained on Sunday, even maybe 00:09:00.460 --> 00:09:04.940 if my work day is like two hours shorter than it would be on Monday or on Thursday, that kind of thing. 00:09:05.640 --> 00:09:10.840 All right. So we've teased this thing two, three, four, five times now, uh, talking about the idea 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:19.200 of what's next in chat. And so I was hanging out at a church it network in West Palm beach, 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:26.220 November, 2020, December, 2023, somewhere in there. And, uh, I just drove up for like one day and just 00:09:26.220 --> 00:09:31.020 happened to run into my, my friend Evan here told me, Hey, he was speaking at it. And he told me the 00:09:31.020 --> 00:09:36.420 topic and I was really disappointed because I was not able to make his session, but I was really 00:09:36.420 --> 00:09:42.820 excited to hear about what he was working on. And so Evan, you know, I, I mean, I don't, other than 00:09:42.820 --> 00:09:47.220 a drum roll, I don't think I can do anything better for you here to set this up. Why don't you, why don't 00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:50.180 you tell us a little bit about what you guys have been working on over at Lighthouse church? 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:55.380 Yeah. So really this is something that came out, you know, during COVID, we were at that point, 00:09:55.400 --> 00:09:59.240 like everyone where all of a sudden we pivoted, everything is entirely online right now. 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:03.960 And so it was a really cool season of innovation just where, you know, across the board, we're just, 00:10:04.180 --> 00:10:07.840 you know, throwing things at the wall, seeing what sticks and trying to figure out, you know, 00:10:07.840 --> 00:10:13.380 how can we be more available, more accessible online? What can we do differently? And so this 00:10:13.380 --> 00:10:17.620 is something though, um, you know, lots of things we tried, you know, some stuck, some didn't. This 00:10:17.620 --> 00:10:22.500 is one that's stuck really well, even coming out of COVID returning to the new normal. And that is 00:10:22.500 --> 00:10:29.380 what we call LH chat. Um, it's very closely based on something we saw church home doing. Um, huge shout 00:10:29.380 --> 00:10:34.040 out to Sharika Johnson, who was, um, really instrumental over at church home as we were 00:10:34.040 --> 00:10:38.300 getting started, you know, doing a few zoom calls and hearing what they do, they call it pastor chat. 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:44.300 And so it's this idea of, you know, taking a tool for us, it's intercom, which is, you know, 00:10:44.300 --> 00:10:48.320 many people are familiar with that. It's a live chat tool. You can integrate that into a website, 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:53.280 into an app and in a business context where you see it most often, usually that's going 00:10:53.280 --> 00:10:56.980 to be more of a customer service tool, but we wanted to look at it a little differently. 00:10:56.980 --> 00:11:01.740 A lot like that example that we were seeing back then, even with church home as not just, 00:11:01.740 --> 00:11:06.080 you know, support questions of, Hey, how do I log into my, you know, my church account or 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:10.040 how do I, you know, manage this or that, or sign up for an event, but even to make it more 00:11:10.040 --> 00:11:14.700 pastoral where we could take prayer requests, we could, you know, help people find next steps. 00:11:14.700 --> 00:11:22.060 Um, and so really, you know, to be able to access, um, or even connect with our staff and our pastors, 00:11:22.060 --> 00:11:25.740 that it's not, you know, just when you think of like customer support, like someone just reading 00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:31.660 a script or something, but personal conversations, um, you know, in the same way, almost that you'd 00:11:31.660 --> 00:11:37.300 have in the lobby after a service in person or something like that. And so we wanted to do that. 00:11:37.300 --> 00:11:43.220 We started off, um, just kind of in a beta of just on Sundays and then very quickly, just based on the 00:11:43.220 --> 00:11:48.660 response we saw, the engagement we saw there, we expanded that out to now where we offer that Sunday 00:11:48.660 --> 00:11:52.820 through Fridays. So only off day would be Saturday, just when we don't have any staff available to 00:11:52.820 --> 00:11:57.940 support this, but Sunday through Friday, we have, you know, several members of staff on a rotation 00:11:57.940 --> 00:12:03.620 that are available and we'll take conversations, um, as they roll in where on our website, on our app, 00:12:03.620 --> 00:12:09.220 you can start, you know, private conversation, jump in and, um, we're here over again, you know, 00:12:09.220 --> 00:12:14.420 a simple question or, you know, even maybe a prayer request, anything that we can do to support the 00:12:14.420 --> 00:12:18.100 church, to have those conversations. We have the whole team now that's available. 00:12:19.380 --> 00:12:24.500 I love it. So let's, there's so much there. We're going to, we're going to break down a lot of what 00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:29.780 you just said and start to get, give some detail on that. So right up front, uh, it's intercom, 00:12:29.780 --> 00:12:36.740 it's inter, I N T R C O M dot IO, I believe. I believe that's right. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll put 00:12:36.740 --> 00:12:41.860 the link in the show notes. Um, I'm not sure if there's one M or two M's, but thank God for Google. 00:12:41.860 --> 00:12:48.020 And so, but you know, intercom, you know, it's, it's a, uh, uh, it's an applet that runs on your 00:12:48.020 --> 00:12:52.500 website. You know, it's the little talk bubble that's in the lower right-hand corner on the 00:12:52.500 --> 00:12:56.740 church digital. We use HubSpot and something very similar towards that. And there, there's other 00:12:56.740 --> 00:13:03.300 solutions, but, but ultimately by clicking on that you're now, my understanding is that like 00:13:04.100 --> 00:13:12.180 audience people, consumers, people that are on the website have direct access to a pastor via, um, 00:13:12.180 --> 00:13:16.980 direct messaging. Exactly. And so, you know, we wanted to make ourselves accessible, 00:13:16.980 --> 00:13:20.660 almost like in a radical way that you wouldn't expect. And then more and more people are doing 00:13:20.660 --> 00:13:23.780 this. We're certainly not the only ones we weren't even, you know, we found this example 00:13:23.780 --> 00:13:28.180 in something that someone else was doing, but I think, you know, you even see in the business space, 00:13:28.180 --> 00:13:33.540 like, um, you know, one thing that really made me want to do this, um, right before COVID actually, 00:13:33.540 --> 00:13:39.460 I was flying and my wife and I, we went into this airport and we went to the baggage drop-off area 00:13:39.460 --> 00:13:42.820 and like everything was closed and there was no one there. We didn't know like, 00:13:42.820 --> 00:13:46.260 what are we going to do? Where do, how do we handle this? And so I don't know why, 00:13:46.260 --> 00:13:52.020 but I fought to send a Twitter message to Southwest airlines. And within two minutes, 00:13:52.020 --> 00:13:56.660 someone had responded to me and they were like, you know, we're talking to the ground office at this 00:13:56.660 --> 00:13:59.780 airport. Someone said they're going to come out. And I think within like five minutes, 00:13:59.780 --> 00:14:02.740 I was like talking to someone just based on that message that I sent. 00:14:02.740 --> 00:14:03.220 Oh wow. 00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:07.060 And so I did some research on that afterwards. I came back and it turns out they have this 00:14:07.060 --> 00:14:14.420 whole listening center. They have this whole staff that was, um, just dedicated to solving problems 00:14:14.420 --> 00:14:18.980 really quickly. Um, making, you know, through all their different channels, making their team 00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:23.620 really accessible. And so even like pre COVID, this was something I'd been like kicking around in the 00:14:23.620 --> 00:14:28.180 back of my mind. Like, how can we be accessible? Like almost in a way that's like unexpected, 00:14:28.180 --> 00:14:31.620 surprising. Like I didn't expect, you know, to get in touch with someone that quick, 00:14:31.620 --> 00:14:37.140 or I didn't expect a pastor to jump in and like be able to pray with me. And so, um, that was kind of 00:14:37.140 --> 00:14:43.780 the, the goal there was to be able to make ourselves accessible to an extent, to a degree 00:14:43.780 --> 00:14:48.180 that is almost like, um, unexpected. Like, wow, I didn't think they'd be able to get back to me that 00:14:48.180 --> 00:14:57.780 faster in that way. So what types of problems like are people coming to you with on, on direct 00:14:57.780 --> 00:15:03.220 message? Like, is this, what time is your church service? How do I get baptized? I'm thinking of 00:15:03.220 --> 00:15:08.580 killing myself. Like what's the range of issues that people are even willing to talk about? 00:15:08.580 --> 00:15:13.780 And that's the thing. It is a huge range. So one thing, um, and you know, to that point of the range, 00:15:13.780 --> 00:15:18.180 we are very intentionally, and there's different ways of setting this up. We allow anonymous chats. 00:15:18.180 --> 00:15:21.700 We, we, it's the way it's set up. And part of that's just how intercom works. 00:15:21.700 --> 00:15:24.900 It definitely encourages you to share a name and an email, but you don't have to do that. 00:15:25.620 --> 00:15:30.500 And so, I mean, we have had people open up, you know, in prayer requests, just looking for advice 00:15:30.500 --> 00:15:35.380 and guidance, um, you know, based on all kinds of things, um, abuse that they've gone through. 00:15:35.380 --> 00:15:38.900 We have had someone mentioned, Hey, I'm thinking of ending my life. And we've had to, you know, 00:15:38.900 --> 00:15:43.860 talk to someone about how to, you know, have the team prepared in case something like that comes up. 00:15:43.860 --> 00:15:49.220 But, um, really we've seen everything, obviously, you know, we, you do get a whole lot of the same 00:15:49.220 --> 00:15:53.940 repetitive questions. Some things are as simple as what time are your services? You know, I'm looking 00:15:53.940 --> 00:15:58.180 for this event. I can't find it. How do I do such and such on your website? So we get, you know, 00:15:58.180 --> 00:16:03.060 a lot of more of the administrative type questions, what I'd categorize those as. And then we get a 00:16:03.060 --> 00:16:08.340 whole lot of prayer requests. I'd say roughly last time I looked, roughly half of our chats are 00:16:09.060 --> 00:16:14.580 categorized as a prayer request. And so all over the place there, sometimes it's more of like next 00:16:14.580 --> 00:16:18.820 steps oriented, like, Hey, I want to get involved. You know, I'm looking for a small group. Obviously, 00:16:18.820 --> 00:16:23.060 we have a variety of small groups. And sometimes maybe it's, I can't find it, or I'm just looking 00:16:23.060 --> 00:16:28.260 for a recommendation. Like, what do you think would be a good fit? But the cool thing with that is the 00:16:28.260 --> 00:16:33.700 way we've trained our team, we kind of look for opportunities for both of those categories of more 00:16:33.700 --> 00:16:38.820 of, you know, pointing in a certain direction or of prayer. And so whether it's, you know, 00:16:38.820 --> 00:16:43.940 as simple as like, what time are your services, if that's how the chat starts, we always ask the 00:16:43.940 --> 00:16:47.220 same question at the end of service, or maybe it starts with a prayer request at the end of every 00:16:47.220 --> 00:16:51.620 chat, we ask the same question. And that is, is there anything else that I can help you with 00:16:51.620 --> 00:16:56.580 or pray for? And so wherever they started asking about service times or wherever they started, 00:16:56.580 --> 00:16:59.940 you know, opening up about, you know, a prayer request, maybe something really heavy that they're 00:16:59.940 --> 00:17:06.020 going through in life. We want to offer in every chat, the ability or the option of, you know, 00:17:06.020 --> 00:17:10.260 we want, can we point you to a next step? Can we guide you somewhere? And can we pray for you? 00:17:10.260 --> 00:17:16.100 And so we've had people that started off, you know, just asking what time of your services or this kind 00:17:16.100 --> 00:17:21.700 of thing. And then actually, because we asked them, can I pray for you opening up about, you know, 00:17:21.700 --> 00:17:27.060 in some cases, you know, something really deep, something heavy that you wouldn't expect, like, 00:17:27.060 --> 00:17:30.980 I'm just on the website looking for service times that they would have actually shared that, 00:17:30.980 --> 00:17:36.500 but because they were personally asked, you know, can I pray for you? And so we've seen 00:17:36.500 --> 00:17:41.060 a huge variety. And in a lot of cases, you know, it starts one way and it actually goes the other way, 00:17:41.060 --> 00:17:46.660 just because we try to find the ability to do both to kind of point to a next step and to 00:17:47.220 --> 00:17:49.220 provide prayer in any chat where we can. 00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:57.780 This is so good. This is so good. Now, like, have you noticed any demographic patterns? Like, 00:17:57.780 --> 00:18:03.460 who's using this thing? Who's not using this? Men, women, age? Like, what types of people are you 00:18:03.460 --> 00:18:04.100 interacting with? 00:18:04.100 --> 00:18:11.060 Honestly, all over. We've had people, I think it was just this past weekend, I had a chat from 00:18:11.060 --> 00:18:16.100 someone who had mentioned they were watching from a nursing home, I believe 90 some years old. And 00:18:17.540 --> 00:18:21.380 they had previously been attending somewhere closer in person, but they, that wasn't an option 00:18:21.380 --> 00:18:29.860 currently. And so, I mean, you know, all over, certainly younger. And so really, I think just 00:18:29.860 --> 00:18:35.140 about anyone, because we make it very prominent on our website, on our app, I think the demographics 00:18:35.140 --> 00:18:40.180 are pretty representative of who's on our website, on our app, and that is a pretty widespread. 00:18:40.740 --> 00:18:45.140 Because, you know, in a lot of cases, it really is, maybe they weren't even necessarily intending 00:18:45.140 --> 00:18:50.500 to start a chat, but just because we kind of really try to spotlight that, you know, whether it's, 00:18:50.500 --> 00:18:54.500 they couldn't find something or they just see that this is an opportunity they didn't know was there. 00:18:54.500 --> 00:18:57.540 We've seen people from all different demographics chatting with us. 00:18:57.540 --> 00:19:06.580 Yeah. Now, honest disclaimer here, I tried this at Christ Fellowship Miami in 20, let's call it 2015, 00:19:06.580 --> 00:19:14.660 2016. We installed, Intercom wasn't even around back then. The best software that I had available 00:19:14.660 --> 00:19:22.020 at the time was LivePerson. And so I'm not even sure LivePerson is still around. Intercom is by far 00:19:22.020 --> 00:19:28.340 the leader in this space now. But it was interesting to me is that in 2015, 2016, 00:19:30.420 --> 00:19:37.700 80 to 90% of the people that clicked on that were either immediate hangups, because they were shocked 00:19:37.700 --> 00:19:43.380 that somebody actually like answered back, "Hey, how can I help you?" or "How can I pray for you?" or whatever, 00:19:43.380 --> 00:19:48.420 you know, whatever the response was at the moment. Or literally people, like I remember some people 00:19:48.420 --> 00:19:52.420 talking like, "Oh, S, you know, S word, you're real." Yeah. 00:19:52.420 --> 00:19:55.220 And then hanging out, like, because it was just, it was so shocking 00:19:56.100 --> 00:20:02.420 that somebody would be like really interacting via the website. You know, call it five, six, 00:20:02.420 --> 00:20:05.460 seven, eight years later. Are you still getting like that level of 00:20:06.100 --> 00:20:11.460 surprise when, when a pastor's engaging these people? Like, what are their responses? 00:20:12.180 --> 00:20:15.700 Um, it's a mix. Obviously, I think, you know, it's probably, I wouldn't say it's 80%. I would 00:20:15.700 --> 00:20:19.060 say the majority at this point, you know, hey, it's, they're more familiar with it. Obviously, 00:20:19.060 --> 00:20:22.580 like Intercomium, for example, I mean, you see that all over as you use the internet. 00:20:23.220 --> 00:20:28.820 But, um, I would say, you know, maybe not weekly, but certainly on a monthly basis, I do see 00:20:28.820 --> 00:20:33.780 very specifically that, wait, are you a real person? Um, are you, and now you get even like, 00:20:33.780 --> 00:20:40.180 wait, are you an AI? Um, and so there still is that surprise factor of like, I can't believe that, 00:20:40.180 --> 00:20:44.100 especially when it's someone, you know, like I've had where I actually, I do know this person, 00:20:44.100 --> 00:20:48.500 you know, they're really surprised. Wait, like I just, two minutes ago, I just put this in and 00:20:48.500 --> 00:20:53.060 you're here, you're talking to me already. Like, how's that possible? And so we definitely still get 00:20:53.060 --> 00:20:58.180 that surprise factor. Um, I think, um, you know, even knowing that live chat is a thing, you know, 00:20:58.180 --> 00:21:03.780 it's maybe even just a surprise factor of how quickly we try to jump in and I can get to that 00:21:03.780 --> 00:21:08.260 more later, but we actually, we try to answer our first response to a chat. If it's within our active 00:21:08.260 --> 00:21:12.260 hours, we try to have that first response be within two minutes. Cause again, we want it to be like 00:21:12.260 --> 00:21:17.700 that radical, like, I can't believe that, you know, you're a real person. I can't believe that 00:21:17.700 --> 00:21:21.620 you're talking to me and I can't believe how quickly you made yourself available to me. 00:21:23.140 --> 00:21:31.380 So, I mean, you being digital online campus director, having that level of urgency, good for 00:21:31.380 --> 00:21:35.860 you. Like, but you know, I don't want to be like, that's your job, but yeah, sure. That's that. I 00:21:35.860 --> 00:21:41.220 mean, that that's within scope of what your job is very aggressively. Do you have other pastors that, 00:21:41.220 --> 00:21:43.860 that follow that, that two minute guide rules? Yes. 00:21:43.860 --> 00:21:50.900 How did you get other people to buy into this idea? Yeah. So one thing, um, I think we definitely 00:21:50.900 --> 00:21:54.660 had working in our advantage and I don't, not to say, I don't think this is doable now. I think it 00:21:54.660 --> 00:21:59.540 totally is, but we rolled this out during COVID early on during COVID. So that was at a point where 00:21:59.540 --> 00:22:05.940 we had no physical services to some extent, all of a sudden, everyone on our staff had just become 00:22:05.940 --> 00:22:11.300 part of the online campus to some extent. And so it was really easy at that time, I think, to get buy-in. 00:22:11.300 --> 00:22:15.780 And I think we've done a good job of maintaining that buy-in even now. I think it's totally doable 00:22:15.780 --> 00:22:19.700 even to launch something like this right now would just take a little more intentionality, 00:22:19.700 --> 00:22:24.980 probably a little more work. But, um, you know, we've done a lot of, even then, and, you know, 00:22:24.980 --> 00:22:30.980 certainly continuing, we've done a lot of things to kind of create a team of teams. And so we have, 00:22:30.980 --> 00:22:35.780 you know, multiple pastors, we have an elder actually, who's on this team we have, but then it's not 00:22:35.780 --> 00:22:40.580 just, you know, pastors and elders. We have, you know, um, our kids director, we have our 00:22:41.140 --> 00:22:45.780 office administrator. So it's a, it's a wide variety, um, that we've kind of incorporated 00:22:45.780 --> 00:22:51.060 here and we've tried to kind of make it a team of teams. And so periodically, especially early on, 00:22:51.700 --> 00:22:55.940 we'd actually do a monthly team meeting for a little while, you know, like I mentioned that 00:22:55.940 --> 00:23:00.340 two minute goal is hard. Um, you know, it's easier for me to pull that off. We have, but we have people, 00:23:00.340 --> 00:23:03.860 you know, they're juggling this between our tasks, our responsibilities. And so 00:23:04.420 --> 00:23:10.500 that is a big ask. And so we've tried to really spotlight people, reward people when they are 00:23:10.500 --> 00:23:15.620 doing well with that for a while, we had these little, um, golden laptop trophies. And so every 00:23:15.620 --> 00:23:19.940 month I'd look at our response times. And when someone, you know, did amazing, we had this golden 00:23:19.940 --> 00:23:24.660 laptop that we just kind of present them. And so things like that were just monthly, we'd get 00:23:24.660 --> 00:23:30.260 together. Um, even just having a meal as a team once a month, just again, like a team of teams, 00:23:30.260 --> 00:23:34.260 right? Like all these different ministries, all these different teams are represented here. And so 00:23:34.260 --> 00:23:39.780 how do you create some buy-in here? How do you create a sense of community within this team so 00:23:39.780 --> 00:23:46.500 that we can, um, you know, just really get that sense of same urgency for everyone. Talk about our 00:23:46.500 --> 00:23:52.500 goals. How are we doing? Talk about who's doing well, kind of inspire everyone to want to jump in, 00:23:52.500 --> 00:23:57.460 to want to take those chats, to want to get us down to that timeline that we're going for. And so 00:23:57.460 --> 00:24:01.540 now we don't meet quite as often. It's more like once a quarter, but still that same thing of 00:24:01.540 --> 00:24:06.580 bringing everyone together, talking about where we're at, sharing wins, you know, of, of some of 00:24:06.580 --> 00:24:12.580 the feedback that we've gotten from some of our chats. Um, and then, um, you know, celebrating 00:24:12.580 --> 00:24:17.860 people when they're doing well. This is so cool. Um, you know, it's a little reminiscent, a little 00:24:17.860 --> 00:24:21.940 bit towards some of the stuff with glue with the, he gets us and the other Explorer programs, you know, 00:24:21.940 --> 00:24:27.620 but that's, that's outside of, uh, the church scope where this really feels like it's, it's more 00:24:28.340 --> 00:24:35.700 inside the, the, the church space. What, like the average person, are you like, what's, what's the 00:24:35.700 --> 00:24:40.180 CTA, the call to action? What are you handing them off to? Like, is it, you're helping them get 00:24:40.180 --> 00:24:45.380 connected to the event, helping them fix the website, praying for them, uh, getting them connected to a 00:24:45.380 --> 00:24:52.340 small group, uh, uh, somebody for, uh, deeper physical counseling. Like how, what, what's the, 00:24:52.340 --> 00:24:57.540 what's the next step for the person that that's kind of asking, uh, for help here via intercom? 00:24:58.420 --> 00:25:04.500 Yeah. Um, there's not one, we try to base it off of where people are at. I'd say some of our most 00:25:04.500 --> 00:25:09.140 common, um, certainly small groups, that's a big part of who we are. Um, probably a lot of people 00:25:09.140 --> 00:25:14.660 would be the same there. And so even if we can suggest a small group, that's one where we try to 00:25:14.660 --> 00:25:18.340 even, you know, look for opportunities. Maybe they're not specifically asking for a small group, 00:25:18.340 --> 00:25:23.860 but even, you know, within prayer requests. Um, if someone says I'm feeling lonely, I'm isolated, 00:25:23.860 --> 00:25:27.700 I don't have anyone. A lot of times, you know, that's a real like opportunity, not just to, 00:25:27.700 --> 00:25:32.740 to pray for them, but then also, you know, in addition to praying, you know, can I suggest, 00:25:33.300 --> 00:25:37.060 are you part of a small group? Have you considered a small group? That's a huge call to action. 00:25:37.060 --> 00:25:43.620 That's one of the more frequent ones. Um, outside of that, um, I mean, we get questions about, 00:25:44.420 --> 00:25:48.740 you know, care and counseling. And so as far as connecting them for pastoral counseling, 00:25:48.740 --> 00:25:53.140 obviously beyond, we'll try to, to some extent, do that over chat, but depending on what they're 00:25:53.140 --> 00:25:57.940 going through, you know, sometimes you want to set up something, if not face to face, even just like 00:25:57.940 --> 00:26:03.860 with a video call or something like that. And so, um, for pastoral counseling, we have, um, 00:26:03.860 --> 00:26:08.660 a bit of a process we can get them and see if that's the best fit for where they're at. Um, 00:26:09.460 --> 00:26:15.220 so really all over, uh, I mean, even we have people reach out, just we're, we're engaged. 00:26:15.220 --> 00:26:19.060 We want to get married. How do we do that? Um, benevolence, people who are going through, 00:26:19.060 --> 00:26:23.300 you know, financial hardship. We have a ministry where we help with that. We get a good number of 00:26:23.300 --> 00:26:29.380 chats along those lines. And so, yeah, if there was one, I'd say it's, I would say the most common 00:26:29.380 --> 00:26:33.860 would be our small groups, but it's certainly all over the place. Now it's, it's interesting to me, 00:26:33.860 --> 00:26:39.060 like we've talked a lot about pastors and directors and children's directors and, and others, uh, in 00:26:39.060 --> 00:26:46.340 there. Um, you haven't mentioned volunteers are volunteers engaging. Like, do you have a volunteer 00:26:46.980 --> 00:26:53.220 core that's, that's using this platform as well? Not currently. Um, in part for us, uh, I'd say 00:26:53.220 --> 00:26:58.740 that's twofold. One is intercom is more expensive. Um, I'm not here, you know, I'm not gonna, I don't 00:26:58.740 --> 00:27:03.780 have a referral code. You don't have to mention Evan C 15 to get 15% off, but, um, you know, 00:27:03.780 --> 00:27:07.060 it is one of the more expensive ones. It's a fantastic platform, but you know, there's that 00:27:07.060 --> 00:27:12.340 per seat license. And so for us, that's kind of been a limiting factor in thinking about what it 00:27:12.340 --> 00:27:17.860 would look like to roll out for volunteers. But we've also, we've kind of wanted to make this more, 00:27:17.860 --> 00:27:21.940 you know, like in our talking points, we kind of speak to this as we have pastors and leaders and, 00:27:21.940 --> 00:27:26.660 you know, we could extend that down to volunteers certainly, but, um, as long as capacity allows, 00:27:26.660 --> 00:27:33.380 we've wanted to make our staff and our pastors more accessible through this. And so there's been some 00:27:33.380 --> 00:27:36.420 some intentionality there. Some of that's been a limitation, but for us right now, 00:27:37.060 --> 00:27:42.020 this has looked like strictly staff. And then we have actually, you know, what I talked about 00:27:42.020 --> 00:27:48.500 all those years ago with that broadcast chat team, where that is volunteer driven. And so we do have 00:27:48.500 --> 00:27:56.100 a somewhat similar opportunity for volunteers, but, um, this is something that for us is staff-based, 00:27:56.100 --> 00:28:00.660 but that is not the only way to do it. Actually, you know, in talking to church home, who really did 00:28:00.660 --> 00:28:04.900 inspire us and teach us so much as we were building this out, I know for them, they, I believe they do 00:28:04.900 --> 00:28:05.540 have volunteers. 00:28:06.740 --> 00:28:11.940 Yeah. And I know the church home, they do utilize a lot of volunteers with the pastor chat and a lot of 00:28:11.940 --> 00:28:17.780 their pastors. Uh, we've done podcasts and we'll put links in the show notes. Uh, Jonathan song, 00:28:18.340 --> 00:28:24.260 maybe, uh, maybe, maybe six months ago, late last year, mid last year. I know just did a check back 00:28:24.260 --> 00:28:29.620 in on that. So such, so good. And when I heard you talking, Evan, about this, I was like, oh man, 00:28:29.620 --> 00:28:33.860 they must've, they must've connected up because there's, there's not many churches that are, 00:28:33.860 --> 00:28:40.900 that are thinking this way. You know, even 2023, 2024 post COVID, which, which will lead me to this, 00:28:40.900 --> 00:28:47.220 you know, right now, 2024, um, you know, churches are trying to get back to the way that it was. 00:28:47.780 --> 00:28:54.980 Uh, and we're seeing a lot of churches devalue digital. Um, did you, did you, did your church, 00:28:54.980 --> 00:29:01.380 did your leadership put any attention on this? Like, do they see this as a digital tool? Do they see this 00:29:01.380 --> 00:29:07.060 as a, uh, a digital thing that helps physical engagement driving towards physical small groups 00:29:07.060 --> 00:29:13.380 and physical church services? Like how do they view this tool, um, for you to still be doing it? 00:29:14.580 --> 00:29:20.740 So I try real hard to show how this serves the church as a whole. Um, I mean, we have different 00:29:20.740 --> 00:29:24.980 opportunities. Once a month, we have what we call staff chapel. We all come together. It's almost like 00:29:24.980 --> 00:29:29.540 a church service for our staff. And part of that we share wins. And so anytime I get an opportunity, 00:29:29.540 --> 00:29:36.820 I try to share wins specifically for chat. And I try to share wins that really do help showcase 00:29:36.820 --> 00:29:41.380 that this is serving, you know, not just people who intend entirely online, not just, you know, 00:29:41.380 --> 00:29:46.020 in some cases, people aren't even in this state, but you know, we've had people while they're in the 00:29:46.020 --> 00:29:51.220 building, reach out with a chat about how do I do this or how do I, um, looking for someone. And so 00:29:51.220 --> 00:29:56.980 it's made us way more accessible, even for people who are presently in the building, but you know, 00:29:56.980 --> 00:30:00.100 maybe it's, they don't know where to go or they don't know who to talk to, or they're more introverted 00:30:00.100 --> 00:30:06.500 than they'd rather communicate in that way. And so in so many different ways, um, I've tried to really frame it 00:30:06.580 --> 00:30:11.620 in a way that this, because it does, that's what we've seen is that it serves the church as a whole. 00:30:11.620 --> 00:30:16.340 We, I would say very much equally, you know, we have people who, and we serve people who intend 00:30:16.340 --> 00:30:21.540 entirely online, who are a little more of a hybrid. That's probably most of our audience. And, um, 00:30:22.340 --> 00:30:26.740 so even to the point that someone in the building might be engaging with us and, you know, to that 00:30:26.740 --> 00:30:32.580 point, um, yeah, I think there's continued to be great buy-in with this. And, um, even though it 00:30:32.580 --> 00:30:37.620 exists online, I don't think it's viewed as this thing. It's just like an online campus specific 00:30:37.620 --> 00:30:38.900 tool or resource. 00:30:38.900 --> 00:30:46.660 Yeah. Um, no, I know church home, they've got that, um, uh, the pastor chat. I mean, it's, it's a, 00:30:46.660 --> 00:30:51.300 it's a custom platform. You know, a lot of the, the majority of the stuff they're doing is custom 00:30:51.300 --> 00:30:57.460 and intercom IO is more over the, over the counter, so to speak, you know, it's a cloud service you 00:30:57.460 --> 00:31:04.900 can buy. Is there, is there any desire to build a standalone platform to expand beyond this? Like 00:31:04.900 --> 00:31:08.020 what's, what's kind of next, what's in the scope of, of where this is going? 00:31:08.020 --> 00:31:14.740 For us. Um, we've just focused on integrations. There's a lot that intercom integrates with out 00:31:14.740 --> 00:31:18.980 of the box. Um, and then we've also paid, it's called, it's a kind of an interesting game. It's 00:31:18.980 --> 00:31:24.340 called octopods. It's actually built by some guys that used to work at intercom. And so it allows 00:31:24.340 --> 00:31:29.300 integrations with extra platforms that intercom doesn't natively support like a Google business 00:31:29.300 --> 00:31:33.860 manager, for example. So when you search for us on Google maps, we have a chat button that pops up and 00:31:33.860 --> 00:31:38.740 it's all funneled through intercom, but you can chat with us through our Google maps. We get, 00:31:38.740 --> 00:31:42.020 um, I'd say probably weekly, we have people chatting with us and we can see a tag. It came 00:31:42.020 --> 00:31:49.460 in through Google business. And so at this point we now, um, Facebook, Instagram, Google business, 00:31:49.460 --> 00:31:54.980 um, even our church online platform, we, um, you know, where you can take a prayer request over 00:31:54.980 --> 00:32:01.140 like that email contact form that funnels in through intercom now for us. And so we haven't 00:32:01.140 --> 00:32:05.380 looked at too much at building something different because we have been able to through all those 00:32:05.380 --> 00:32:10.420 integrations, make this really a hub. That's been our focus is how can we not just, you know, 00:32:10.420 --> 00:32:15.380 through the chat box itself on our website or on our app, but then as we took it even more like next 00:32:15.380 --> 00:32:19.780 level, what does it look like for any sort of digital communication, like as much as possible to 00:32:19.780 --> 00:32:24.500 have this one platform? Cause we already have this team, you know, we realized, you know, why is it that 00:32:24.500 --> 00:32:30.020 we have, I think at the time we had 10 people on this chat team, but we only have one person who's looking at 00:32:30.020 --> 00:32:35.940 our Instagram messages. And so we made that connection there. And now we were able, when you reach out to 00:32:35.940 --> 00:32:40.340 us, you know, wherever it's Facebook, Instagram, on Google maps, even to that same degree, to be able 00:32:40.340 --> 00:32:47.780 to take more types of questions, to be able to, um, go deeper, to be able to more quickly respond, no matter 00:32:47.780 --> 00:32:52.420 how you're reaching out to us. And so that's kind of been our biggest focus is like in any digital 00:32:52.420 --> 00:32:55.460 communication. Just how can we kind of merge it all together? 00:32:56.260 --> 00:33:03.620 And so all of that's unified in, in, in one inbox. So like Instagram DMS are hitting intercoms inbox. 00:33:04.340 --> 00:33:09.460 Yep. Yeah. And so with that, you know, we've been able to respond really quickly as is our goal even 00:33:09.460 --> 00:33:14.100 has, um, you know, kind of prebuilt auto replies. Like it'll say immediately like, Hey, thanks for 00:33:14.100 --> 00:33:18.660 reaching out. Our team typically replies within a few minutes. And so that's actually helped us. I don't 00:33:18.660 --> 00:33:22.180 know if Facebook still shows us, but at one point, like you'd go there and it would have this really 00:33:22.180 --> 00:33:26.660 prominent badge that like typically replies, you know, like very quickly or within a few minutes. 00:33:26.660 --> 00:33:31.220 And so it just, again, like, it goes to create a sense of like, Hey, we're really accessible, 00:33:31.220 --> 00:33:36.580 which is, you know, what the whole heart of this is we want to make ourselves super accessible. 00:33:36.580 --> 00:33:41.620 And so it's allowed us to do that, not just on our own website and app, but even on these other 00:33:41.620 --> 00:33:47.300 platforms, which especially, you know, for someone who's maybe new to the church, not even part of the 00:33:47.300 --> 00:33:51.460 church, just, you know, kicking the tires, we've been able, you know, even just from Google maps, 00:33:51.460 --> 00:33:55.780 you're just trying to, you know, so you're searching churches near me and, you know, you click there, 00:33:55.780 --> 00:33:59.300 all of a sudden that chat box is there. And so we've just tried to make ourselves 00:34:00.340 --> 00:34:04.900 super radically accessible in all the different platforms that we have. 00:34:06.340 --> 00:34:11.300 This is so cool. And, and, and about how many, how many people are you talking to 00:34:11.300 --> 00:34:16.580 over the course of a week we are seeing right now about, I think we're seeing about 60 chats per week. 00:34:17.940 --> 00:34:25.780 I'm sorry, 16 or six, zero, six, six, zero, six. So you are, you through intercom IO, 00:34:25.780 --> 00:34:30.980 you are having some conversations, you know, texting conversations 00:34:31.780 --> 00:34:36.100 with 60, six, zero people, any given week. 00:34:36.100 --> 00:34:40.660 Yep. And so now there's a wide variety there. I mean, um, a good number of those actually are 00:34:40.660 --> 00:34:44.100 prayer requests. And so obviously those are some of the longest ones because, um, you know, 00:34:44.100 --> 00:34:50.340 the way we train our whole team, we want that to be, uh, an actual prayer. We don't just say I'm 00:34:50.340 --> 00:34:54.500 praying for you. And so as we take a moment and we pray for them, we actually want to, you know, 00:34:54.500 --> 00:34:58.500 in written form share exactly what we're praying for them. And so obviously that can be a little more 00:34:58.500 --> 00:35:03.540 wordy, but then, um, we also have saved responses for things, you know, like we've talked about 00:35:03.540 --> 00:35:06.820 service times a few times. That is a frequent question we get. And we, so in intercom, it's 00:35:06.820 --> 00:35:10.580 called a macro, you know, it's a saved response. Like, you know, some of these chats, you know, 00:35:10.580 --> 00:35:14.820 it is as simple as like, okay, I just, I use a keyboard shortcut. Here's our service times. And 00:35:14.820 --> 00:35:18.820 maybe they don't get back to us. We do always try to end with, is there anything else I can help with or 00:35:18.820 --> 00:35:23.700 that I can pray for, but some of them, they just end there, but, um, you know, a good number of 00:35:23.700 --> 00:35:28.660 them. Yeah. They are more of a, you know, a personal response that does take a little more 00:35:28.660 --> 00:35:32.660 fought and effort to write something out for. Do you, I'll put you on the spot. Do you have any 00:35:32.660 --> 00:35:40.660 idea what, what percentages of, of maybe like one hit wonders questions versus, um, personal responses, 00:35:40.660 --> 00:35:47.620 long engagement kind of conversations? I'd say it's at least 50, 50, if not more like a, 00:35:47.620 --> 00:35:53.300 maybe a third, um, of two thirds being more of a requiring more of a custom response. 00:35:54.420 --> 00:36:02.420 So the half to the majority and you're guessing, uh, non-scientific here, but a half to two 00:36:02.420 --> 00:36:10.500 thirds are looking for deeper engagement, not a quick, that's interesting that. So for me, 00:36:10.500 --> 00:36:16.260 that's pivoted over the past eight years. Uh, like when I did this, it would keep people more 00:36:16.260 --> 00:36:22.020 comfortable to technology, uh, totally and completely COVID engaging in that space. COVID did a lot to 00:36:22.020 --> 00:36:27.060 push the needle forward, you know? And, uh, cause me, what I was trying was pre COVID on this. 00:36:27.620 --> 00:36:34.980 And, uh, but I, I, I was like 80 to 90% was like, you know, I'm trying to find this page, 00:36:34.980 --> 00:36:39.540 you know, base, basic stupid stuff. That's like, here's the URL, you know, look under the hamburger 00:36:39.540 --> 00:36:43.460 next time. Totally. And I think, you know, some of that maybe even comes down to how we frame it. 00:36:43.460 --> 00:36:46.820 And, you know, in different ways that we make it available to you, a lot of our prayer requests, 00:36:47.460 --> 00:36:52.500 actually, um, at least the ones that come in on Sunday and just a quick note. So we actually see 00:36:53.060 --> 00:36:58.020 roughly half of our chats come in on Sunday and then the other half come in throughout the week, 00:36:58.020 --> 00:37:04.100 kind of spread out because we see kind of a big correlation of our chats just with overall website 00:37:04.100 --> 00:37:09.540 and app activity. Obviously, you know, we can have the most activity on those platforms on Sundays. 00:37:10.580 --> 00:37:15.540 And so I'll, let's say a lot of our prayer requests come in actually through church online platform with 00:37:15.540 --> 00:37:21.140 that prayer button that's really prominent on there. And so I think some of that is just even just in 00:37:21.140 --> 00:37:25.780 those different ways that we've made it available, even to the way we speak to it. We have host spots 00:37:25.780 --> 00:37:32.900 before service and after service and online. And I try to every week to speak to chat and to speak 00:37:32.900 --> 00:37:36.340 to it in a way that, you know, if there's anything that we can help you with, if there's any questions 00:37:36.340 --> 00:37:40.100 that we can answer. And also if there's anything that we can pray for, we really try to emphasize 00:37:40.100 --> 00:37:45.140 that. And so I think, um, to some extent, that's probably also where that comes from is that, um, 00:37:45.140 --> 00:37:49.620 and a lot of the ways that we speak to it, we try to emphasize that we have pastors and leaders 00:37:49.620 --> 00:37:56.900 who are here to pray for you. How do you, how do you equip the pastors that are on this? Like 00:37:56.900 --> 00:38:02.180 you've mentioned regular meetings or monthly meetings and now it's quarterly. Like, was there, 00:38:02.900 --> 00:38:08.100 did you recruit people that were digitally friendly? Did you recruit people because of their position 00:38:08.100 --> 00:38:13.540 and then teach them digital? Uh, like, uh, how did the building of that team come together? 00:38:14.580 --> 00:38:18.820 It was a little bit of both. Um, you know, we wanted to pick people in some cases, 00:38:18.820 --> 00:38:23.380 maybe just because, you know, they're already, we see them as someone who just more digitally 00:38:23.380 --> 00:38:28.020 friendly as in general, like, you know, um, at the time we had a couple, a few different admin 00:38:28.020 --> 00:38:32.740 people who, um, especially during COVID they were, we already saw them in other ways, replying to 00:38:32.740 --> 00:38:35.780 people or replying to people really quickly. They were comfortable with new technology. 00:38:36.740 --> 00:38:41.300 Um, and then, um, from the pastoral side, maybe just looking at them more like, Hey, 00:38:41.300 --> 00:38:45.060 maybe, you know, intercom might take some training, but there's someone who, 00:38:45.060 --> 00:38:49.540 if someone asks more of a theological question, you know, there's someone who I'd want to be able to 00:38:49.540 --> 00:38:54.100 jump into that and try to answer that because as much as possible, we want to answer everything 00:38:54.100 --> 00:38:57.780 on chat. There are certainly times, you know, whether it's what someone's going through this or that, 00:38:57.780 --> 00:39:02.820 sometimes we have to suggest that we continue this conversation elsewhere. Like, you know, 00:39:02.820 --> 00:39:06.340 we don't want to go back and forth over, you know, two weeks or a month on intercom, 00:39:06.340 --> 00:39:13.140 the platform is just not conducive to that. But, um, you know, to answer your question to some extent, 00:39:13.140 --> 00:39:18.100 I would say it's either it's, you know, their skillset, maybe in, um, being able to pray for 00:39:18.100 --> 00:39:22.580 people and being able to take more theological questions, something to that extent, or maybe it's 00:39:22.580 --> 00:39:29.940 more, um, of just this person can, is really good at responding to people and technology. And then, um, 00:39:29.940 --> 00:39:34.260 having those two different skillsets for the people who maybe that, you know, they're just like, 00:39:34.260 --> 00:39:37.460 man, they can pick anything up. They're good at quickly getting back to people. 00:39:37.460 --> 00:39:40.740 We have an online prayer guide, and this is actually pulled from Life.Church. It's in the 00:39:40.740 --> 00:39:45.380 slide deck, which I think you're going to link to. But, um, we have, I think it's like 20 some 00:39:45.380 --> 00:39:50.260 topics where, you know, if someone says that they're going through a loss or if someone says they're 00:39:50.260 --> 00:39:55.060 going through like, um, job trouble, there's scripture that you can share. It might encourage 00:39:55.060 --> 00:39:59.380 them or prayer points. And so that's been a great resource to people that might not be as 00:39:59.380 --> 00:40:03.300 comfortable praying for someone or, you know, praying for someone out loud or in this case, 00:40:03.300 --> 00:40:09.780 like, um, over message. And then we also, we try to do a little bit of an intercom specific 00:40:09.780 --> 00:40:13.220 platform training for those that maybe they're really comfortable praying for people. But 00:40:13.220 --> 00:40:16.180 what is this app? What are all these buttons? What does this mean? We try to 00:40:16.820 --> 00:40:21.700 quickly orient them. But one of the advantages with intercom, and I would, I'm sure there's 00:40:21.700 --> 00:40:26.020 several other platforms where this would be true too, is, you know, it's designed to be user friendly. 00:40:26.020 --> 00:40:30.660 So obviously we need to spend a few minutes or, you know, maybe a half hour going through how to use 00:40:30.660 --> 00:40:34.340 this platform, but it doesn't require a whole lot of specialized training. 00:40:35.220 --> 00:40:40.420 So, I mean, basically then it's, if, if somebody's knowledgeable enough to handle a text message, 00:40:41.300 --> 00:40:46.100 I mean, given parameters of what you're typing in, but the technology here is essentially 00:40:46.740 --> 00:40:48.260 text messaging one-on-one, right? 00:40:48.260 --> 00:40:52.820 A hundred percent. Yep. And so, yeah, a little bit of training up front. Like I said, you know, 00:40:52.820 --> 00:40:57.380 we try to teach them how the platform works, just some of our standards. Um, I've mentioned several 00:40:57.380 --> 00:41:01.380 times, like we try to always end with, is there anything else that I can help you with or pray 00:41:01.380 --> 00:41:05.780 for? So we try to instill some of that stuff. And we certainly try to look, because we do have that 00:41:05.780 --> 00:41:10.340 wide variety of people on the team, you know, we want to equip everybody to be able to do the same 00:41:10.340 --> 00:41:16.900 things. And so we have those macros for, you know, whether it's service times or, you know, um, and then, 00:41:16.900 --> 00:41:21.060 you know, for someone that maybe that's more their lane, but they would have a hard time praying for 00:41:21.060 --> 00:41:25.220 someone. We also have a lot of training for them to help equip them because we want as much as 00:41:25.220 --> 00:41:30.020 possible, anyone who's on this team to be able to jump in and help with any type of question or any type 00:41:30.020 --> 00:41:37.380 of chat. Yeah. And so you run that Sunday through Friday, uh, taking Saturdays off. 00:41:37.380 --> 00:41:42.020 That's right. Yeah. We have, um, a little bit more of an on-call schedule for Friday. 00:41:42.020 --> 00:41:47.460 Um, because our office schedule or a staff schedule primarily is Sunday through Thursday, 00:41:47.460 --> 00:41:51.540 but we do have one person who's working Friday and then we have kind of like a pastor on call, 00:41:51.540 --> 00:41:56.820 which is kind of a rotation just in case that's needed. But, um, it does kind of scale, 00:41:56.820 --> 00:42:01.700 you know, just like everything else. Um, like I said, big spike of activity on Sunday, 00:42:01.700 --> 00:42:05.780 Monday, Tuesday kind of continues and it kind of tapers off going into the weekend. So we've 00:42:05.780 --> 00:42:10.820 found that works pretty well for us. Now you, you presented this at church it network, um, 00:42:11.860 --> 00:42:18.740 back in 23 November. And so how, man, how, how'd that go? Were, were people open to the idea, 00:42:18.740 --> 00:42:23.300 excited, terrified, not working for me? Like what was some of the interest? I was, um, 00:42:23.300 --> 00:42:26.740 I was really impressed with the, you know, kind of the Q and A at the end. Um, well, 00:42:26.740 --> 00:42:30.500 yeah, it seemed like there was a lot of interest. Um, and honestly, um, you've covered some of the 00:42:30.500 --> 00:42:35.780 questions. I think the biggest questions were, you know, how do I get buy-in? Like this sounds great, 00:42:35.780 --> 00:42:40.260 but you know, this also sounds like it probably requires more than just the online team. I think 00:42:40.260 --> 00:42:45.700 it's probably safe to say in most cases, the online team, you know, is not the majority of the staff. 00:42:45.700 --> 00:42:50.500 And so, you know, to be able to take that number of chats throughout the week, you know, 00:42:50.500 --> 00:42:54.660 what does it look like to get buy-in from enough people on our team? Kind of like I said, just the, 00:42:56.180 --> 00:43:01.220 any sort of intentionality, whether that's some initial training, getting together, um, for us, 00:43:01.220 --> 00:43:06.820 having meals at those meetings has been huge, just, um, trying to build relationships, um, 00:43:06.820 --> 00:43:12.420 to a greater extent, and just to see us each as part of this ever, this team, we're on our separate teams, 00:43:12.420 --> 00:43:18.340 as far as our normal responsibilities, but to see this kind of as a team of teams. Um, 00:43:18.340 --> 00:43:22.660 and so that was probably the biggest question that came up. And then, um, I think just overall, 00:43:22.660 --> 00:43:28.100 you know, like questions about the platform or, you know, what does it look like to roll this out? 00:43:28.100 --> 00:43:34.740 How does this integrate with X, Y, Z? What, what I love about what you, what you've done here 00:43:34.740 --> 00:43:38.900 is you made this tool bigger than online ministry. Yep. 00:43:38.900 --> 00:43:45.300 Like you, you took the time to get, uh, ownership to buy in from people in, in other areas. You got the 00:43:45.300 --> 00:43:50.500 kids, um, director, you've got the business administrator, you've, you've got different 00:43:50.500 --> 00:43:56.580 aspects of the church to own the ministry that's happening within digital space. Um, to be honest, 00:43:56.580 --> 00:44:02.100 that's something, I mean, if I look back at my, my 10 years of digital pastor, I wasn't really good at 00:44:02.100 --> 00:44:07.700 that. And, and oftentimes a lot of what I was trying to do was a struggle. Our implementation of live 00:44:07.700 --> 00:44:12.500 person eight years ago was too soon. Like the technology wasn't there. I know that, but, um, 00:44:12.500 --> 00:44:21.700 it struggled because we, we really could not get pastors to, to own the responsibility, uh, and to, 00:44:21.700 --> 00:44:27.940 to see a vision for it beyond it. And so like it, it makes me excited. First off, you know, 00:44:27.940 --> 00:44:31.540 well, first off, I mean, I love church homes. Awesome. Church homes, one of my favorite churches. 00:44:31.860 --> 00:44:36.980 And so, Hey, Hey, pastor chats. Great. Good for you guys. You guys, I mean, freaking Justin Bieber 00:44:36.980 --> 00:44:42.580 talks about them on, on Tik TOK. They're, they're, they're going to figure it out, but a more normal 00:44:42.580 --> 00:44:48.660 church, sorry, church home. You're not normal. Uh, but a more normal church that that's engaging 00:44:48.660 --> 00:44:54.740 towards more of a, of a DM type of approach and engaging up to 60 different conversations, 00:44:54.740 --> 00:45:02.740 any given week, uh, direct one-on-one with someone dealing from a range of topics like this is exciting. 00:45:02.740 --> 00:45:08.740 This is challenging. This is, this is, um, I mean, some levels revolutionary because now you're, 00:45:08.740 --> 00:45:14.500 you're able to directly connect with people in a way that you've not been able to before. And I would 00:45:14.500 --> 00:45:20.900 argue cheaper than you probably were able to in, in, in other methods. And so it's just really, 00:45:20.900 --> 00:45:27.540 really, really exciting. So like, are you, is the goal to ramp up more pastors is, is the goal to, 00:45:28.340 --> 00:45:32.500 um, like what, what's, uh, what's vision for this thing? Where's this thing going? 00:45:33.380 --> 00:45:38.500 Yeah. So we've, um, we've gone back and forth, you know, um, on availability right now, 00:45:38.500 --> 00:45:42.180 we're kind of holding, you know, we've talked about, you know, do you go to more hours or, 00:45:42.180 --> 00:45:46.100 you know, Saturdays are one day off. Do you, do you find a way to cover that right now? I think we're 00:45:46.100 --> 00:45:52.900 pretty good there. Um, I think one thing for us this year is just continuing to work on that response 00:45:52.900 --> 00:45:56.180 time. Our goal is two minutes last year. We saw ourselves drifting a little beyond that. 00:45:56.180 --> 00:45:58.980 So we're trying to get in the last few weeks have been great. We've been getting back there, 00:45:59.620 --> 00:46:04.820 but, um, just trying to continue to work on that response time and then just seeing where else we 00:46:04.820 --> 00:46:09.620 can integrate it into things. Um, wherever that's, you know, like I said, it's integrated into these 00:46:09.620 --> 00:46:14.660 different platforms, even beyond our website and our app, but in, you know, like even within different 00:46:14.660 --> 00:46:19.460 events, within different things that we're doing, are there ways where we can leverage this as a way 00:46:19.460 --> 00:46:24.580 to reach out to us as a way to, you know, and even maybe as far as like, where maybe we would normally 00:46:24.580 --> 00:46:29.300 have you like text in a question or something like that. Can we use this in the place of that 00:46:29.300 --> 00:46:34.820 just to kind of build awareness, to build familiarity with it. Uh, but I think, yeah, biggest thing we'll 00:46:34.820 --> 00:46:40.980 probably be focusing on this, just continuing to work with the team, create those, um, connections between 00:46:41.780 --> 00:46:47.940 everyone on our staff that's part of this team. And then, um, I would say just even as far as how we 00:46:47.940 --> 00:46:53.220 make it available, um, you know, any sort of ways that we can continue to build awareness of it, to 00:46:53.860 --> 00:46:58.980 promote it. Um, we tried something a little different this past weekend pre-service where 00:46:58.980 --> 00:47:02.900 we had a TV behind us and we were kind of like showing a screenshot of it and talking about how it 00:47:02.900 --> 00:47:08.580 works. And so just stuff like that, because we promoted it really heavily during COVID, but then I have 00:47:08.580 --> 00:47:12.020 looked back and, you know, just, you know, how for anything goes, you know, last couple of years, 00:47:12.020 --> 00:47:16.820 we've just kind of assumed that people know about it. So yeah, not so much like offering a whole lot 00:47:16.820 --> 00:47:22.340 of new things, but it just even building greater awareness of that. It's there. This is what you can 00:47:22.340 --> 00:47:26.660 use it for maybe finding new ways to speak to it or highlighting things that we might be forgetting 00:47:26.660 --> 00:47:32.900 to speak to you about it. Awesome. I mean, I'm so excited for this. I wish, I wish every church would, 00:47:32.900 --> 00:47:40.500 would adopt the sort of strategy just to make pastors more accessible to, to people to, to 00:47:40.500 --> 00:47:45.380 engage in and kind of tear down some of those boundaries and borders. I'd love to see the price 00:47:45.380 --> 00:47:49.940 point shrink too, to get more volunteers in that space as well. But I totally, I can totally feel 00:47:49.940 --> 00:47:55.540 that, that, uh, that pinch there. Well, awesome, man. This has been, this has been great. You are now the 00:47:55.540 --> 00:48:01.780 official chat expert for the church digital, not only one Oh, but two Oh chats bringing you in for, 00:48:01.780 --> 00:48:06.820 for this. And so, Hey, it says we're landing the plane here, wrapping up in any closing thoughts. 00:48:07.620 --> 00:48:11.620 Yeah. I just say, um, you know, I love to talk about this stuff. One thing I tried to do is we 00:48:11.620 --> 00:48:14.500 were talking about the, you know, church I see network and I want to same thing here for anyone 00:48:14.500 --> 00:48:20.340 listening. Um, I love talking to other church leaders. And so if anyone is thinking about doing 00:48:20.340 --> 00:48:23.540 something, maybe you're even doing this and you're like, man, why didn't you say this? Or why aren't 00:48:23.540 --> 00:48:28.580 you doing this? Um, you know, it goes both ways there, but I'd love to talk in, um, in that link 00:48:28.580 --> 00:48:34.100 to that slide deck, I do have contact information in there. Um, but I would love to talk to, you know, 00:48:34.100 --> 00:48:37.700 whether it's questions about how we do something, or maybe you're doing something similar and you just 00:48:37.700 --> 00:48:42.740 want to share that. I would love to connect about all those things. Yeah, it sounds good. So check out 00:48:42.740 --> 00:48:49.860 the show notes or YouTube descriptions and we'll have, uh, previous podcasts and church home and, and, uh, 00:48:49.860 --> 00:48:55.700 his CITN presentation, his slide deck will be in there as well. And so it sounds like all sorts of 00:48:55.700 --> 00:49:02.180 good information, uh, in there on, on this idea and the strategy. And so, well, Evan, man, thanks for 00:49:02.180 --> 00:49:07.460 jumping on here and being part of the conversation for, uh, thanks for having me. And, um, I'm gonna have 00:49:07.460 --> 00:49:12.500 to start thinking about a third type of chat topic so I can come back on the podcast. Yeah. I mean, 00:49:12.500 --> 00:49:16.660 what's, what are we going to do with, uh, with metaverse? Like there's exactly something. What, 00:49:16.660 --> 00:49:22.740 what is, uh, what is, what is, um, augmented reality? There we go. Yeah. That'll be a good 00:49:22.740 --> 00:49:27.140 excuse to buy my new Apple headset. There you go. I, you put it in the budget, Apple vision, 00:49:27.140 --> 00:49:31.940 3,500. It's for Jeff's podcast. I have to do it. Jeff said you needed to do, uh, you're the web, 00:49:31.940 --> 00:49:37.300 you're the, uh, oh my gosh, that would be chat 3.0, uh, for web 3.0. Yeah. It's like, it's, 00:49:37.300 --> 00:49:40.820 it's, it's, it's, it's done. Just has to happen. Right. All right. So we'll go and schedule the 00:49:40.820 --> 00:49:45.460 podcast. We'll record again, uh, in eight and then let's do it for another four years. Let's 00:49:45.460 --> 00:49:50.900 try to find sounds great. Awesome. Hey, for, uh, Evan, this is Jeff with the church digital. 00:49:50.900 --> 00:50:08.340 Thanks for jumping on the podcast here. We'll see you next time on the show. Y'all have a good day.