WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.920 Hey, Jeff here with The Church Digital. I'm excited about episode 28. We're talking about a topic we 00:00:04.920 --> 00:00:10.660 don't normally hit on in context with Church Online with the podcast here, but it's something 00:00:10.660 --> 00:00:16.600 that's near and dear to my heart. It's really an underlying theme of all of these podcasts that 00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:22.980 we've done along the way. And no, we're not going to talk about Spider-Man and his return back into 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:29.040 the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was hardly gone, and now he's back. I just wanted to take a moment 00:00:29.040 --> 00:00:34.880 here publicly on the podcast. Thank Marvel, thank Disney, thank Sony for getting together, 00:00:35.480 --> 00:00:40.720 for figuring out how to make this thing work, for signing the deal. Everybody's happy. Everybody's 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:45.940 making money, and we get Spider-Man one or two more movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 00:00:46.120 --> 00:00:51.240 and we'll have to see what other crossovers come down the road. But this is not a Marvel podcast. 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:57.640 Well, it kind of is on the side, but it's not normally a Marvel podcast. So let's talk 00:00:58.080 --> 00:01:03.780 about Church Online. What I want to hit on today really centers around this idea of the word 00:01:03.780 --> 00:01:09.360 engagement. And so, because honestly, I believe that engagement has really lost its meaning, 00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:16.240 or it has so many meetings right now that people don't really understand what the core of engagement 00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:22.640 is. And to that end, I want to bring in Seth Mews. Seth is a communications director, and long story short, 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:28.380 he had on his Instagram account, maybe a couple weeks ago, arguably the greatest single Instagram 00:01:28.380 --> 00:01:34.120 post I've ever seen in my life. Okay, maybe that's a little overstating, but it was really good. And it 00:01:34.120 --> 00:01:40.960 encapsulated a lot of what I've been wrestling with in the past couple years of how it highlighted the 00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:48.340 two types of different, in his context, social media posts. But in my context, I'd say, in context of 00:01:48.340 --> 00:01:53.640 Church Online, what we're communicating, even not even Church Online, but Church Overall, there's two 00:01:53.640 --> 00:02:01.280 different types of communications. And to his point, post type number one are posts that where it's 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:10.820 communication that's centered around us as a church. And the second type of communication that he highlighted 00:02:10.820 --> 00:02:19.160 is the types of communication that highlight the listener, the reader, the audience. It's designed 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:26.120 to engage the people where they are. You see, sometimes in church, we think by talking about a sermon 00:02:26.120 --> 00:02:32.280 series or talking about inviting through a social media post to some event, we think that that's 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:40.900 engagement, when that's really not engagement. Engagement's when we listen to the people, not when 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:48.240 we try to cram information towards them and drive them onto our property, physical or virtual for 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:54.120 Church Online. And so this is what I want to do. I want to have a conversation where we dig in and try 00:02:54.120 --> 00:03:01.880 to figure out what engagement really is, and how we as a church, we as Church Online can do better 00:03:01.880 --> 00:03:10.340 at engaging online. So welcome, Seth Muse from Hope Fellowship to the conversation. Myself, Jeff Reed 00:03:10.340 --> 00:03:16.780 from the Church Digital in a conversation on redefining engagements. Hey, everybody, here you go. 00:03:17.780 --> 00:03:23.820 For me, I think the church is so... When social media really started, it was a promotional 00:03:23.820 --> 00:03:27.640 deal. I mean, it was like, put yourself out there kind of thing. And there really wasn't any rhyme or 00:03:27.640 --> 00:03:33.640 reason to what was going on. It was just chaos. And we saw it as like, hey, if I put things out 00:03:33.640 --> 00:03:38.480 there, people will see it. But it's still not the case anymore. And you have to be more strategic now. 00:03:38.480 --> 00:03:44.740 And it's just so much harder to be seen and noticed. And what people tend to stop scrolling on 00:03:44.740 --> 00:03:50.320 is important. And they scroll on things. Sadly, we're sinners. Stuff that's kind of about them, 00:03:50.660 --> 00:03:55.160 you know, that makes them feel good. So that's kind of where I was. I was literally writing some 00:03:55.160 --> 00:04:01.280 things down for an audit I was doing for a couple of our channels. And I just wanted to see what kind 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:08.380 of content we were posting. And I had these columns that were like, I shouldn't have thrown that away. 00:04:08.480 --> 00:04:13.980 Probably could use that today. But it had like, scripture posts, or like encouragement, 00:04:14.740 --> 00:04:22.920 inspiration, advertisement. What else was it? Like a promotional deal, like come sign up for this 00:04:22.920 --> 00:04:28.040 thing. Because some of our and it would be like, I could check some of those more than once for one 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:33.100 post, right? Because we covered a couple boxes. And when I was looking at it, I was like, I naturally 00:04:33.100 --> 00:04:39.660 just divided it into these columns without realizing it and went, Oh my gosh, these are about us. And 00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:43.960 these are about them. And I was like, that's clear. I'm gonna write that down on the board before I 00:04:43.960 --> 00:04:47.820 forget it. So I started brainstorming. That's what I came up with. And I was like, somebody might want 00:04:47.820 --> 00:04:56.760 to see that. So and here we are. Well, and even the word engagement, like it's been lost over over the 00:04:56.760 --> 00:05:03.560 years, or it's been watered down and means so many different things that it's like, oh, yeah, I'm 00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:09.600 engaging people by, and I'm overstating here to prove a point, but I'm engaging people by shoving my agenda 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:16.940 towards them, and getting them to process, you know, my new sermon series, or this event, and, and, 00:05:16.940 --> 00:05:23.160 and just to step back and to realize that's, that's not really engagement when we're forcing our 00:05:23.160 --> 00:05:33.920 agenda or our motives towards them. Engagement is, yes. And while that may work in a church building 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:39.420 with people that already bought in, like, we know that doesn't work with, with outsiders, with people 00:05:39.420 --> 00:05:46.060 who are, who are cold to the idea of church or, or even to God. It was funny, like, we're, 00:05:46.060 --> 00:05:52.320 this is just an off story. One of the things that I'm doing right now, I'm consulting with a church 00:05:52.320 --> 00:05:58.020 that's getting ready to launch a multi-site in a, in a, in a, in a area that there's not a lot of 00:05:58.020 --> 00:06:02.960 churches. There hasn't been a lot of successive churches here in Miami. And so I'm project managing, 00:06:02.960 --> 00:06:08.340 I'm helping, you know, with some logistics and some things like that. And so we had an opportunity 00:06:08.340 --> 00:06:13.740 to sit down and, and it's happening in a school. So the multi-site is going to be to set up and tear 00:06:13.740 --> 00:06:20.760 down in a school. So a week or so ago, I sat down with, with the teachers of the classrooms that we 00:06:20.760 --> 00:06:29.160 want to go into. And it was funny, like one of the, one of the teachers in the room was, was more anti us 00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:34.620 being there than the others. Like she was, had maybe a little more concerns about it and, and was very 00:06:34.620 --> 00:06:42.020 much pressing the, um, what are you doing for us? Kind of, kind of approach. And, and it was funny, 00:06:42.020 --> 00:06:46.900 like, uh, you know, immediately some of the pastors were talking about, oh, well, you know, we've already 00:06:46.900 --> 00:06:53.320 been out here to help paint and, and we built a butterfly thing. And, uh, and so we were, we were 00:06:53.320 --> 00:06:58.400 doing, you know, just a lot of this stuff, uh, around here and, and the, the church had really 00:06:58.400 --> 00:07:04.980 been doing a good job of, of, of serving the community, but it was, it was funny. Like her 00:07:04.980 --> 00:07:10.540 immediate response was, oh, facility stuff. Okay. What do we, what do we get out of this? 00:07:11.540 --> 00:07:16.380 Exactly. Like it was, it was, and it was this moment of clarity. I'll, I'll be like, okay, 00:07:16.380 --> 00:07:22.080 they're saying the right answers. Oh, but that's not what she wanted to hear. Okay. And so like, 00:07:22.080 --> 00:07:26.500 you know, 15 minutes later down the road, I'm like, Hey, you know what I want to hear? I want 00:07:26.500 --> 00:07:33.320 to hear how we can serve you. We told you how we're serving, but it didn't connect with you. So 00:07:33.320 --> 00:07:40.760 what do you need? And it was funny from that second on the relationship, the conversation went 00:07:40.760 --> 00:07:49.240 completely different because she's now understanding I'm on her side as opposed to I'm shoving an agenda. 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:55.240 Yeah. And, and, and it was amazing that the clarity and the conversations and, and, um, you know, 00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:59.600 in back of my mind, I'm like, I got to figure out how to do some of this stuff. I have no idea how to, 00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:03.420 but dang it, what we're going to, we're going to give it a shot and figure out how to help this, 00:08:03.500 --> 00:08:08.480 this teacher be more effective and enter school. Yeah. You're right. We just have to keep what's 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:14.260 in it for people in the front of our mind. And, and we always answer that question with, well, 00:08:14.260 --> 00:08:18.460 Jesus is in it for people. And they're like, well, they've already decided they don't want that. 00:08:19.340 --> 00:08:24.360 What if they've decided they don't want that at all? Yeah. Like then what? You still got to have 00:08:24.360 --> 00:08:29.120 a church and a building. You still need them on your, on your side, you know? And like, and you still 00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:33.740 got Christians that say that like, yeah, I'm a regular attender and show up once every six weeks 00:08:33.740 --> 00:08:40.300 on average, you know? And so it's like, yeah, even our people are not like, man, we just can't 00:08:40.300 --> 00:08:45.260 wait to get back to church. So, you know, we have to keep that in mind so that they're constantly 00:08:45.260 --> 00:08:49.220 reminded of like, here's the benefit of this place. Here's what it does for you. Here's how it 00:08:49.220 --> 00:08:54.940 enhances your life. And that sounds sleazy and sales pitchy, but I mean, that's what we've always 00:08:54.940 --> 00:09:01.020 really done. It's just now the, the, the answer to that question is different, you know, because 00:09:01.020 --> 00:09:08.220 they're not prioritizing the church as we're not prioritizing it as a community anymore. You know, 00:09:08.220 --> 00:09:12.040 it's not the center and the hub of activity in the communities that the school is. 00:09:12.360 --> 00:09:17.600 Educators would say, uh, scholars would say that we're in a post Christian society. 00:09:17.780 --> 00:09:23.520 Yeah. And so how the church responds to us, to your point, one week out of four, one week 00:09:23.520 --> 00:09:29.160 out of six attendance, you know, maybe a decade, two decades ago, like we were pushing more than 00:09:29.160 --> 00:09:34.100 once a week, uh, and trying to get people to come back for like a midweek service and things 00:09:34.100 --> 00:09:39.680 like that. But we've, the church has changed and, and attendance has changed. And when we're 00:09:39.680 --> 00:09:46.380 seeing, um, we're seeing drop in physical attendance, we're seeing online attendance, uh, spike and 00:09:46.380 --> 00:09:51.040 increase. And, and some churches handle that better than others. I've, I've had conversations 00:09:51.040 --> 00:09:56.000 with churches where it's like, Hey, we're considering shutting down our online campus in hopes that 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:03.180 by shutting down the online option, people will go back to the physical building. Um, and I'm not even 00:10:03.180 --> 00:10:08.240 like in that, that I, I think personally, that's a bad idea. Hey, hurt, stop the thing that's working 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:12.100 in hopes that it'll help the thing that that's not working anymore. So like culturally that, 00:10:12.260 --> 00:10:16.840 that gives me a headache. Um, find is if they shut that thing down, it actually hurts their 00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:22.620 attendance in physical places. So, so true there where online kind of can feed into that as a front 00:10:22.620 --> 00:10:28.500 door, as that first level of, of like your lobby or guest services, even engaging on that. 00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:36.540 But it's amazing what happens where, when you don't try to push the agenda or the strategy or the model, 00:10:36.540 --> 00:10:44.380 but instead step back and listen to what people are looking for, what they need, um, how, you know, 00:10:44.380 --> 00:10:50.040 you may be trying to meet them at this level when in fact people are, you know, they're not to your 00:10:50.040 --> 00:10:56.220 point. The person who may already be turned off or against church, um, might be looking for another 00:10:56.220 --> 00:11:02.000 engagement point, another relational point. That's not going to be solved by your most recent, uh, 00:11:02.140 --> 00:11:07.600 sermon series. Uh, that's not going to be, that maybe there's a marriage thing they're struggling 00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:12.920 with or something. And it's, and instead of pushing an agenda, it's listening to where the people are 00:11:12.920 --> 00:11:19.160 in doing that. And that's the thing that I think online does so well is that you're able to turn the 00:11:19.160 --> 00:11:21.220 corner and meet people where they are. 00:11:21.560 --> 00:11:27.120 And they're not, they're not going to type in your sermon series title to Google. They're not, 00:11:27.280 --> 00:11:31.940 they're not looking for that. They're not looking for like, you know, um, I don't know, 00:11:32.420 --> 00:11:36.980 whatever series you got, I forget, like, uh, at the movies, they're not really looking for 00:11:36.980 --> 00:11:43.760 that on Google. They're looking for, you know, fixing marriage or, you know, dealing with difficult 00:11:43.760 --> 00:11:48.180 kids. And, you know, they're typing in keywords that are not going to bring your sermon series up 00:11:48.180 --> 00:11:53.080 online. And that's where they're going for help. They're not thinking, let's call someone at the 00:11:53.080 --> 00:12:01.320 church on the, on the telephone, uh, and talk to a real person who is a pastor, because that's not 00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:07.200 what they see as the go-to for, for help. So they're going to go online and they're going to 00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:12.600 search YouTube and they're going to search Google and which are the number, you know, not the right 00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:18.040 order, but one in two search engines in the war on the world. And, uh, how to in Google is like the 00:12:18.040 --> 00:12:24.680 number one hit phrase. It's how to do stuff. It's the university of YouTube, you know, so, um, they're 00:12:24.680 --> 00:12:29.660 going to find it there and they're going to, they're not looking for us at the church. So it's like, we're 00:12:29.660 --> 00:12:34.520 trying, we have to figure out as a church how to, instead of, cause they're not coming to us, how do 00:12:34.520 --> 00:12:40.340 we get to them? And how do we think about them? And I think this is what Jesus always did. He always 00:12:40.340 --> 00:12:47.660 went to them. He never sat around and just waited for people to show up. He was moving and they followed 00:12:47.660 --> 00:12:54.480 him. You know, the, the intentionality of follow me is that the thing you're following is moving, you 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:59.960 know, and it's like, you've got to move with him to stay with him. And so things are always going to be 00:12:59.960 --> 00:13:04.500 changing. Things are, methods are always going to be moving. The crowd is always going to be, uh, you know, 00:13:04.560 --> 00:13:09.780 morphing into something and you have to constantly be moving with it or you stand still and you're left 00:13:09.780 --> 00:13:14.980 behind. And that's what I think happens to a lot of churches. We find a model that makes us comfortable 00:13:14.980 --> 00:13:21.320 and has some success, but then the model moves and the culture moves and we don't move with it. 00:13:21.520 --> 00:13:25.800 And so we miss so many people. And I think that's the big deal with online that a lot of pastors, 00:13:26.060 --> 00:13:32.540 you know, you know, are maybe missing if they're against it is that it's not a replacement of your 00:13:32.540 --> 00:13:41.220 in-person stuff. It's a, it's an extension of it. It's an, it's an and thing and it brings people in. 00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:45.360 It connects with them where they are. It makes a bridge, you know, and it goes to where they are. 00:13:45.740 --> 00:13:50.280 So I feel like I have a lot of strong feelings about this, but you know, cause, cause I, I really 00:13:50.280 --> 00:13:57.960 want to like, I really believe that, you know, the, the, the mandate for Christians is to go. 00:13:58.280 --> 00:13:58.680 Yes. 00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:07.700 It's not to, you know, plant and stay and put up like the bat signal with a cross in it and think 00:14:07.700 --> 00:14:12.220 that somebody is going to show up and it just doesn't work like that, especially now. 00:14:13.540 --> 00:14:17.780 I got to tell you, don't say the bat signal with a cross thing too loud. Somebody's actually 00:14:17.780 --> 00:14:22.620 going to like run with that if they haven't, cause they're like, that's, oh my gosh, that's the 00:14:22.620 --> 00:14:26.420 greatest thing I've ever heard. A bat signal with a cross and shine it up in the, well, I'm not 00:14:26.420 --> 00:14:30.160 saying I haven't done it. I mean, it's one of those things that you just, you know, it's a great 00:14:30.160 --> 00:14:31.000 idea. It's a great idea. 00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:36.640 But there, you know, there, there, there's so much good there. Here's here, like today it, what, 00:14:36.640 --> 00:14:42.560 what I heard you say, what I hear a lot of, of people struggle with is it's one more thing 00:14:42.560 --> 00:14:49.180 for, for decades. We've been okay with just the service. Like we, we, we have this model, 00:14:49.260 --> 00:14:54.200 this model works. I was actually on a podcast with, with Tom Pounder a couple of weeks ago 00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:58.620 and we were talking about this and he equated it to like the, and it was this beautiful analogy. 00:14:58.660 --> 00:15:04.100 It was like traditionalist with baseball of, well, no, you can't add that because Babe Ruth didn't 00:15:04.100 --> 00:15:09.180 have to deal with that in 1920 when he won, you know, and, and all of a sudden you go to all the 00:15:09.180 --> 00:15:14.480 historical context and all of this. And it's like, well, no, the, the game has like, the world has 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:20.440 changed around the game of, of baseball. And all of a sudden you need to do things to keep the game 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:26.660 to be relevant. It's not, the game doesn't change. I don't know that the rules necessarily change, 00:15:26.660 --> 00:15:32.680 but how the game's presented should be. And, and church similarly, the goal, if the goal was your 00:15:32.680 --> 00:15:37.940 Sunday service, then you had the wrong goal for years. Like the goal wasn't the service. The service 00:15:37.940 --> 00:15:45.100 was the method for the end game, which was the gospel, which is, is, is that discipleship piece. And so 00:15:45.100 --> 00:15:50.420 realizing that we're called to make disciples, go and make disciples, your reference Seth, you know, 00:15:50.420 --> 00:15:57.280 we've got this, this great challenge to, to evolve because the world is evolving faster than ever 00:15:57.280 --> 00:16:03.900 before. The church struggles to realize that. Yeah. Oh yeah. And then my favorites, the, oh, well, 00:16:03.900 --> 00:16:09.580 let's, let's change our services. People are only coming once a month. You know, maybe, maybe if we're 00:16:09.580 --> 00:16:15.360 lucky, we can get them to two. And it's, I'm just, I'm always like, turn the game on, on its, on its side. 00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:20.760 Like do look at it from a completely different viewpoint, figure out how to make disciples 168 00:16:20.760 --> 00:16:26.640 hours a week, engaging people when they, where they are, instead of trying to drag people into a 00:16:26.640 --> 00:16:32.260 building that, that they don't want to go to anymore. Yeah. And that's how, that's how, like, I struggle 00:16:32.260 --> 00:16:38.220 with this because I think I see social in a way that many leaders who are in pastoral positions don't. 00:16:38.760 --> 00:16:42.400 And this is, this is, I think the disconnect in communications is looking at this post, you know, 00:16:42.400 --> 00:16:48.660 it's like, we can, we can see it as us and them type posts, but for, for a pastor, I think they see 00:16:48.660 --> 00:16:54.900 it as all inclusive. Like all of them are us and they're part of us. And there's, there's, there's a, 00:16:55.320 --> 00:17:04.520 there's a misunderstanding that social is a thing that's meant to, to advertise and to, to get people 00:17:04.520 --> 00:17:12.380 to, to move to some, I see social as a tool for ministry. Like it almost like it's, it's like a 00:17:12.380 --> 00:17:18.160 small little slice of church that we can put out and have a conversation about every day or a couple 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:22.640 times a day. You know, it's like, if I put out a scripture, we can talk about it or they can at 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:27.500 least hear it. I mean, what's different than that, than a pastor standing on a stage and saying the 00:17:27.500 --> 00:17:31.640 scripture, they don't respond. I mean, they're sitting there in this, in their seat, they're listening. 00:17:31.640 --> 00:17:37.620 There's no engagement, you know, in a, in a worship service while the pastor's speaking, they're just 00:17:37.620 --> 00:17:41.700 considering what he's saying. They're listening unless they're opening a peppermint and everybody's 00:17:41.700 --> 00:17:45.940 watching that and listening to that. Cause that's the loudest thing in the world. But you know, 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:51.000 they're like, what are you really getting there that you don't get online? You know, when, when 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:55.700 someone passes some information along, if it's just information. And so there's this thing that's 00:17:55.700 --> 00:18:03.060 like, there's so many similarities between how social can be a culture creating tool, a ministry 00:18:03.060 --> 00:18:08.780 of discipleship tool. Um, maybe not an evangelism tool. That's kind of tough, but you know, like it 00:18:08.780 --> 00:18:16.500 can be something that encourages people to live life like Jesus wants them to live. And isn't that good? 00:18:16.680 --> 00:18:24.340 Like, why is that not good enough to do that there? We can only do that in person. You know, that makes 00:18:24.340 --> 00:18:31.640 no sense to me because I see it happening. And it's like the culture has already accepted this as a mode 00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:38.560 for learning, for growing, for inspiration. And we know this because there are so many people whose 00:18:38.560 --> 00:18:44.620 theology is based on not scripture, but Instagram posts about scripture that are made out of context, 00:18:44.620 --> 00:18:49.580 that are made by people that are explaining it in really crazy ways. And the church is not in that 00:18:49.580 --> 00:18:56.880 space. You know, if you're concerned about theology, then put some there, you know, it's like, do that 00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:04.200 there and make some posts about growing them. And all that happens is they read it and are inspired 00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:10.200 and learn and grow, and they don't have to click anything or come to anything. Yeah. And that's a win. 00:19:11.420 --> 00:19:19.660 I remember Dave, Dave, uh, Adamson, uh, you know, out of North point, he did this experiment and he put on 00:19:19.660 --> 00:19:26.380 social media. It was the, um, uh, I think he was trying to search for, um, help me how to pray or tell 00:19:26.380 --> 00:19:34.140 me how to pray, or I don't know how to pray. And so like he did a search for that in YouTube and, and 00:19:34.140 --> 00:19:40.160 just, he started reporting on what was coming up and it was, I think out of the first 20, 30, 40, 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:48.100 there were no, no churches at all. It was, uh, you know, 11 year old girls, Jimbo, a Susie B just, 00:19:48.100 --> 00:19:53.580 just random people. And, and first off, like, uh, congratulations to those people. Thank you for, 00:19:53.580 --> 00:19:57.520 you know, creating content that, that triggered that. And I don't want to, I don't want to take, 00:19:57.600 --> 00:20:02.020 um, you know, their online or their ministry and packed away, but there's a huge opportunity. 00:20:02.020 --> 00:20:07.700 As a matter of fact, the first church person that popped up, um, was actually Joyce Meyer. 00:20:08.360 --> 00:20:13.840 Uh, and so she came up, but it wasn't official Joyce Meyer ministry. Somebody just ripped a Joyce 00:20:13.840 --> 00:20:19.920 Meyer video and put it on there. So even in the first, whatever it was, it was multiple pages worth 00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:25.960 of results before you finally got down to the church, taking an opportunity to speak into that. 00:20:26.340 --> 00:20:30.800 And, and, and when I, when I've told that story, when I tell that story to churches and it's like, 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:38.560 here's the opportunity you have to speak into it, the, their engagement towards the people of YouTube, 00:20:38.560 --> 00:20:43.120 to the community of YouTube, to those online, it's yeah, you know what? Um, we're just, those aren't, 00:20:43.180 --> 00:20:46.460 those aren't the people we're trying to reach. We're trying to reach the people within our, 00:20:46.680 --> 00:20:52.380 within our block, within 20 miles of our church, within our city, you know, within the little town 00:20:52.380 --> 00:20:59.380 that we live in. It's, it's geographically limited to, to that scope. Like churches don't look at 00:20:59.380 --> 00:21:07.100 online as a mission field yet. I'm, I'm generalizing. There are churches that do, but yeah, it's not part 00:21:07.100 --> 00:21:13.340 of the strategy. It's something extra. Like if the social media person, uh, the website person all 00:21:13.340 --> 00:21:17.240 were fired, the church would be like, we're okay. We can outsource that. It's not like, 00:21:17.360 --> 00:21:21.780 oh my gosh, we lost our youth pastor, you know? And that's kind of what it really is, 00:21:21.780 --> 00:21:26.900 is that you've lost someone that connects you to a wide world that have a lot of people that will 00:21:26.900 --> 00:21:33.160 find you there in your city that may not have known your existence because most searching Google 00:21:33.160 --> 00:21:40.040 and on YouTube is localized. It's, if you're searching for how do I fix my marriage, 00:21:40.040 --> 00:21:43.600 it's probably going to serve up something that you're either connected to already, 00:21:43.600 --> 00:21:48.240 or if there's nothing there, it'll, it'll try to connect you to, I know definitely on Google, 00:21:48.320 --> 00:21:52.340 it does this maybe not on YouTube, but it'll definitely connect you to stuff that is, is near 00:21:52.340 --> 00:21:56.500 you because they want those meaningful relationships and connections to happen. 00:21:56.940 --> 00:22:02.480 And so if we had just leverage that platform and use keywords that people are actually searching 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:07.820 for instead of our clever and creative titles as the keyword, then we'll actually be found 00:22:07.820 --> 00:22:12.500 and people will connect with us. And it's like, that's the new mission field. That's the new 00:22:12.500 --> 00:22:19.340 evangelism is his SEO and Google, you know, and, and, and being found on YouTube. Dave Adamson's a 00:22:19.340 --> 00:22:24.780 friend and I love that guy. He actually said, um, he doesn't believe that church attendance is 00:22:24.780 --> 00:22:30.800 decreasing. He believes it's decentralizing the community that you have, the culture of people 00:22:30.800 --> 00:22:37.180 that you have in your church. They're counting attendance as watching online. They're counting 00:22:37.180 --> 00:22:42.100 attendance as going and physically being there. They're counting church attendance as being in 00:22:42.100 --> 00:22:47.260 their small group that week and doing nothing else. It's like, I'm going and investing in my 00:22:47.260 --> 00:22:54.080 spiritual life with Christ somewhere. They're probably doing it once a week at the most, unless they have a 00:22:54.080 --> 00:22:59.660 regular, like personal time or whatever, when they're going and connecting something, uh, they're counting 00:22:59.660 --> 00:23:05.520 online as one of those attendance points and churches are not, we're not counting that. We're saying 00:23:05.520 --> 00:23:10.600 that's a doorway to actual attendance. That's kind of how we phrase it and really not phrased that way, 00:23:10.600 --> 00:23:15.440 but that's how we think about it. It's like we have online. That's great. But really what we care 00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:23.160 about is butts in seats when that's not what they care about. They will come to church once every four 00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:29.260 to six weeks in our counting, but in their counting, they watched online twice and showed up once they 00:23:29.260 --> 00:23:35.820 came three times. You see what I'm saying? They're the, the culture's understanding of attendance is 00:23:35.820 --> 00:23:41.700 different. And even our people's understanding of attendance is different than the pastoral leadership 00:23:41.700 --> 00:23:45.800 in the churches who are theologically debating whether or not that counts. It's like they've 00:23:45.800 --> 00:23:52.640 already decided it counts. And so we're not responding to that. And so they show up. And what 00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:57.800 we hear sometimes from pastors is they actually downplay online attendance and they say, we want, 00:23:57.900 --> 00:24:03.340 that's great, but we want you to have, you know, be here and yeah, you're going to miss community. 00:24:03.540 --> 00:24:07.240 Yeah. You're going to miss things, but they have community. They have their small groups. You know, 00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:10.280 they have their friend groups, they have their baseball team parent group or whatever, 00:24:10.280 --> 00:24:15.880 and they don't understand how it's different. And so we're missing that connection. But for them, 00:24:15.880 --> 00:24:20.680 it's always going to be like, Hey, I showed, I watched church online. I set aside time to sit 00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:26.920 and watch something for 45 minutes to an hour and a half. That's me attending because I gave you my 00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:32.560 attention. And that's what we don't understand. Attendance is not what people is what not valuable 00:24:32.560 --> 00:24:41.040 anymore. Attention is valuable. And that's what they're basing. The price of doing something is 00:24:41.040 --> 00:24:44.980 not how much of my attendance is going to be needed. It's like, no, I'm not even going to think about 00:24:44.980 --> 00:24:49.440 that. How much of my attention are you going to get? And churches are not thinking in terms of 00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:54.060 attention. They're thinking in terms of attendance still and physically being somewhere. And I mean, 00:24:54.060 --> 00:25:00.020 I don't even have to be physically in a store to shop anymore. Why would I have to physically be in 00:25:00.020 --> 00:25:05.900 your church? It's like, I know the theological differences. I know why that's, that's not the 00:25:05.900 --> 00:25:11.820 same, but they don't, you know, and, and in our attempts to educate them, it just makes them feel 00:25:11.820 --> 00:25:18.380 guilty for doing it. And then they don't want to come at all. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, and we're in the, 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:24.920 we're in this position, right? Where, where culture is, is shifting. Um, and the church often 00:25:24.920 --> 00:25:31.120 struggles to, uh, to, uh, to adjust to it, to adapt to it. Right. How, how do we, how do we turn the 00:25:31.120 --> 00:25:37.620 corner? Like what in your, in your mind with your advice, like Seth, how does somebody, you know, 00:25:37.620 --> 00:25:43.100 maybe right now there, there's an online, uh, pastor, there's an online volunteer. There's 00:25:43.100 --> 00:25:48.600 somebody that, that wants to turn the corner, either in social media, church online, digital 00:25:48.600 --> 00:25:55.020 communication, something where it's, Hey, I need to, we need to engage more. Uh, we need to start 00:25:55.020 --> 00:26:02.240 focusing more on that side of the coin, start to worry more about them and less about us, man. I 00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:07.740 think it starts from the top. Your, your senior leadership has to understand that. And so if 00:26:07.740 --> 00:26:13.940 they're not there yet, it's part of our job, you know, this guy, Clay Scrogg and stuff like leading 00:26:13.940 --> 00:26:18.640 up, right. You have to, you have to educate, you have to investigate and bring things to them, 00:26:18.700 --> 00:26:22.960 help them understand this is what's happening out here. That's kind of our job, right. And communications, 00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:27.900 uh, or creativity and creative departments, whatever. Uh, if we're working the web world 00:26:27.900 --> 00:26:32.380 or online world, it's, this is our, our job is to help those that really aren't in that. They 00:26:32.380 --> 00:26:36.640 don't care. I mean, your pastor might be great at it, but he's not in it. Like we are right. Like 00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:40.820 even some of the ones that are most involved. So it's our job to bring that to them and help them 00:26:40.820 --> 00:26:45.160 see the value of the ministry that could take place. Cause I find that pastors don't really care 00:26:45.160 --> 00:26:49.660 about stats. They care about stories. They care about people, life change. It's like, that's 00:26:49.660 --> 00:26:54.880 what they got into this for. And so for us as, as, uh, you know, creative leaders or, you know, 00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:59.760 maybe we're pastors, I'm not sure, but, um, you know, we have to bring that into the, into the story 00:26:59.760 --> 00:27:04.920 for them to help them see like, this is not an, uh, an either or ministry. This is an and ministry. 00:27:05.600 --> 00:27:13.100 And, um, the biggest hurdle to that is finances. And so I always, I always say that you can look at 00:27:13.100 --> 00:27:18.140 your budget at a church and see what you really care about. And you can really tell like, what is 00:27:18.140 --> 00:27:23.860 your priority as a ministry. And often the budget has tons of money going into the weekend service 00:27:23.860 --> 00:27:28.980 and no money going into the week, you know, like the, and I'm not even talking online. I'm talking 00:27:28.980 --> 00:27:34.440 about Bible studies and classes and, you know, home groups. There's no money resourcing staffing for 00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:39.560 that or volunteer training for that. There's no money going into the creative space or social media 00:27:39.560 --> 00:27:44.120 or ads or your website. It's like, let's just do what we have. Cause that stuff's kind of expensive. 00:27:44.120 --> 00:27:49.340 Let's be honest. Our world is kind of expensive. So we, we, we're like, uh, we're putting a ton of 00:27:49.340 --> 00:27:53.800 money, like hundreds of thousands of dollars into our sound system that will only affect those that show 00:27:53.800 --> 00:28:01.200 up, but you know, a thousand dollars a year into social media ads that will, that affects so many 00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:07.420 people every week for 52 weeks out of the year, you know, um, and not just 52 days out of the year, 00:28:07.420 --> 00:28:12.920 you know, if you're just meeting on Sunday. So, um, that's a huge difference. And I think that if 00:28:12.920 --> 00:28:17.940 you can't shift your budget around, then it's always going to be an uphill battle to start 00:28:17.940 --> 00:28:23.400 including the online world as part of your ministry strategy. Cause I think that's the real goal 00:28:23.400 --> 00:28:30.160 is getting everyone on board to see that when people are here or when people are connecting with us 00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:37.360 elsewhere online, it's a person, they matter. And when we should care about them the same as if they 00:28:37.360 --> 00:28:41.740 were standing right in front of us in real life. And how would we do ministry? If that were the case, 00:28:41.760 --> 00:28:47.260 we thought about them that way. It's changing the picture that we have in our mind of what constitutes 00:28:47.260 --> 00:28:53.020 ministry. I use air quotes when I say that what constitutes ministry is not just what we've known as 00:28:53.020 --> 00:28:58.940 we do a service. It's excellent. It's so good. People can't help, but show up. And then they, 00:28:59.080 --> 00:29:02.740 we send them on and we try to connect them to the small groups and Bible studies that actually meet 00:29:02.740 --> 00:29:09.320 in person. It's like, there is a whole world of stuff of connection that matters to our communities 00:29:09.320 --> 00:29:14.580 that we can invest in. And it's going to take investment. You need people and you need money 00:29:14.580 --> 00:29:19.300 and they have to have time. And it's cause all of that, just like a real relationship, 00:29:19.300 --> 00:29:24.100 it just takes time to cultivate, you know? And so I think there's, there's a couple of steps to it. 00:29:24.220 --> 00:29:30.260 It's not easy. It's not simple. It's not even often clear on most of our, most of our churches. 00:29:30.600 --> 00:29:35.880 But if we keep those goals in front of us, then we're, and we all understand the goal is the same. 00:29:36.320 --> 00:29:39.720 I think that's where the big hangup for most churches are, is that the communication department 00:29:39.720 --> 00:29:45.660 sees some needs and some goals that aren't shared by pastoral staff and pastoral staff see needs and 00:29:45.660 --> 00:29:49.120 goals that aren't shared by the communication staff who are doing all these online 00:29:49.120 --> 00:29:54.460 things. And so getting those people in the room to say, what is our church doing in ministry 00:29:54.460 --> 00:30:02.700 and seeing communications as a ministry and not as a service department is a huge mind shift 00:30:02.700 --> 00:30:07.160 that has to happen. And it has to happen on the, it's not just pastors too, it's communicators, 00:30:07.240 --> 00:30:11.580 seeing ourselves that way, you know, and owning some of that space. I mean, when people respond 00:30:11.580 --> 00:30:16.480 to me on Facebook to our church, that's me responding. I have, I'm the one social media guy 00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:20.940 for our main channels. Then we have some others that help with some of our students and kids and 00:30:20.940 --> 00:30:27.020 whatever, and volunteers. We have a, we've launched a massive Facebook group strategy and we've published 00:30:27.020 --> 00:30:31.120 that. We're actually running some contests right now and have the campus pastors doing it, but without 00:30:31.120 --> 00:30:36.820 their buy-in, all of that fails, you know, and they've just seen how good it can be because 00:30:36.820 --> 00:30:42.660 we launched a campus with nobody that, uh, you know, didn't have a building, still doesn't have a 00:30:42.660 --> 00:30:47.900 building. Yeah. And we, we started a Facebook group. It had 200 people in it. Actually, somebody else 00:30:47.900 --> 00:30:53.920 started it. I just took it over and then we branded it up, made it good, gave it to our pastor. I ran him 00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:58.540 through how to work it, you know, how to do content and like, just use your phone, just get in there and be 00:30:58.540 --> 00:31:03.020 real with people. And it has over a thousand people in it now. That was six months ago. 00:31:03.980 --> 00:31:09.200 You know, and the reason it did that is because they're excited about what's going on in their 00:31:09.200 --> 00:31:15.140 community. We're coming there, but we were talking about them the whole time and that's what they're 00:31:15.140 --> 00:31:22.020 pumped about. Yeah. And that's, I've, I've struggled with this over the years, um, with, and not, 00:31:22.020 --> 00:31:26.840 and not about one church, multiple churches, you know, two things that you just kind of hit on there 00:31:26.840 --> 00:31:33.100 is, is creative communication. Is it a ministry or is it a, uh, a service department? Uh, you know, 00:31:33.100 --> 00:31:38.720 are, are we, are we ministering or are we executing the, the, the directives of, of the pastors and, 00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:44.660 and ministers with that in, in like, I, I know, um, honestly in my lifespan, like I've landed on both 00:31:44.660 --> 00:31:48.880 sides of the coin where I'm like, guys, we're a ministry. Like, you know, let's, let's, let's run that 00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:53.880 way. And sometimes honestly, I've been like, Hey, like we're just following the lead of, of the pastors 00:31:53.880 --> 00:31:59.320 with that. And let's set aside, um, you know, some of our own agenda and ideas for now, and let's just 00:31:59.320 --> 00:32:04.020 focus on serving. And so there's, there's different sides of that, but the biggest tension that I feel, 00:32:04.020 --> 00:32:09.240 and I've run into this, honestly, within the past week where I was talking with, uh, with, uh, with 00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:16.780 an online pastor who had created a, a group for the, the church online. And so basically what the church 00:32:16.780 --> 00:32:20.660 online was, it was Facebook group. It was, so they were doing the broadcast rather than doing 00:32:20.660 --> 00:32:26.420 connection cards, like they funneled everybody into that group. Um, but in the group, then they 00:32:26.420 --> 00:32:31.480 were engaging relationally, they were connecting, uh, they were trying to funnel into the next steps 00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:36.020 class or the, or the, you know, small groups, whatever it was, but they were using that, that 00:32:36.020 --> 00:32:42.740 private Facebook group for the church online to really, um, to do ministry, to do, uh, in, 00:32:42.740 --> 00:32:47.900 to engage, to talk with people here where they are and then do ministry with them. 00:32:48.280 --> 00:32:53.760 Yeah. And that was the group where that was going well. Um, and then, and like, this is a story from 00:32:53.760 --> 00:32:58.000 the church, but essentially the, the creative communications department got wind that they 00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:02.580 were doing this like separate thing. It was like, no, that can't be, you know, that can't be a ministry 00:33:02.580 --> 00:33:07.720 thing. That's got to run through us because they're wanting to take the opportunity to, you know, 00:33:07.720 --> 00:33:14.840 market a new sermon series or, you know, start to do more of the us type of communications than the, 00:33:14.840 --> 00:33:20.580 them type of communications that the online campus is trying to do. And so then there became a, 00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:27.500 you know, a battle might be a, um, overstatement, but tensions around how that group operates and 00:33:27.500 --> 00:33:32.140 what's happening. And they're still trying to figure that out. Like how, how do you, yeah. And so like, 00:33:32.140 --> 00:33:35.500 you see both sides of that, right. How, how do you handle like tensions like that? 00:33:35.500 --> 00:33:42.040 Well, for us, first of all, you know, serving is ministry. So what we do as a department, 00:33:42.040 --> 00:33:48.020 as we, if we're serving other departments and other members in the church, um, it is a ministry 00:33:48.020 --> 00:33:53.260 to serve them, even serving staff. And so I think we have to, as a communicator, communicators and 00:33:53.260 --> 00:34:00.120 communication departments, we have to see what we do as a service in some ways too. If you're a minister 00:34:00.120 --> 00:34:05.040 and you're coming to someone and they've got a problem, your goal is to help them, right? It's not 00:34:05.040 --> 00:34:10.120 to, you know, it's not just to say, here's the right things. Here's what you have to do. It's, 00:34:10.460 --> 00:34:14.280 it's to help them get over whatever barriers they're, they're in the way before they can do 00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:19.480 those things. Right. And so as a, in that particular situation, you know, we've had groups that started. 00:34:20.020 --> 00:34:24.600 And so my, my response to them was, I go to them, Hey, I see that you started a group. 00:34:24.740 --> 00:34:29.920 It's really cool. Um, I like what you're doing, or I love that you're doing this, but we do have a 00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:34.860 policy, you know, that we're a part of it. Here's what I want to do. Can we, can I need, I need to be 00:34:34.860 --> 00:34:39.320 an admin so we can officially represent the church because we want to actually make this thing blow 00:34:39.320 --> 00:34:45.320 up for you. It's like, we're for you. Like we're for you doing ministry. You found something we didn't 00:34:45.320 --> 00:34:52.680 see. Awesome. Let us help you make it great. Not let us take it over, but let us assist you. Let us 00:34:52.680 --> 00:34:59.540 give you our expertise and our expertise. If sometimes isn't wanted because it's not ministry 00:34:59.540 --> 00:35:05.760 minded, it's service minded. And we come in with that mindset of, we're going to make this excellent. 00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:09.440 We're going to change all the colors. We're going to make, we're going to control the content. We're 00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:14.020 going to, we're going to be able to post. I don't post anything in our Facebook groups unless I talk 00:35:14.020 --> 00:35:21.040 with our campus pastors. I let them have the group. It's their ministry. I'm helping them do it. I'm 00:35:21.040 --> 00:35:26.520 giving them content ideas. I gave them scheduling ideas of how to keep up with that. I gave them 00:35:26.520 --> 00:35:30.820 examples. I'll even go film it for them, but I'm not going to be on camera. I'm not going to post 00:35:30.820 --> 00:35:35.680 graphics in there. I'm not going to do that kind of stuff because that's for them. I want them to see 00:35:35.680 --> 00:35:40.300 that as part of their ministry. And as a, as a communication department, we have to kind of think about 00:35:40.300 --> 00:35:45.400 our ministry is through people. And so sometimes that's not going to come out on the other side. 00:35:46.740 --> 00:35:51.180 Like we kind of envision it. So we have to be okay with that. But in those situations, it's, 00:35:51.320 --> 00:35:56.620 we have to remember that we're here to serve. Like we're not a service department only, but we are here 00:35:56.620 --> 00:36:04.540 to serve. That's the mindset of a, of a, of a minister, of a pastor is that we have to understand 00:36:04.540 --> 00:36:09.680 that we're here to help people move from one step to the next. And if our pastors are the face that 00:36:09.680 --> 00:36:14.480 can do that, then we need to help that face get in front of their face. And if we can't do that, 00:36:14.480 --> 00:36:19.060 then it's really because it's, we're selfish. It's about us. Ted Vaughn, that church conference 00:36:19.060 --> 00:36:24.260 recently shared this great spectrum for communicators to understand. He said, when we, we go through 00:36:24.260 --> 00:36:28.300 this and this is a tension to manage for us, this is not going to be, you know, we figured this out, 00:36:28.360 --> 00:36:32.120 we set some policies and we don't have a problem with it anymore. Communicators are always having to 00:36:32.120 --> 00:36:36.540 manage this tension because there's always stuff that's moving. And he gave us a spectrum, like, 00:36:36.600 --> 00:36:42.280 which side are you on? Are you skewing towards anger and you want to control things and it makes you 00:36:42.280 --> 00:36:46.080 angry being, you know, something like that? Oh man, I can't believe they started that group. How dare 00:36:46.080 --> 00:36:51.480 they do that without our permission? And then you become like the, the, the branding cop, you know, 00:36:51.480 --> 00:36:56.960 the, the excellence cop or whatever, and nobody likes you. And then you're not helping anybody. 00:36:56.960 --> 00:37:01.580 You're just the guy they have to get around to get done what they feel like God is calling them to do. 00:37:01.580 --> 00:37:05.280 And that's not a good position. And then you skew all the way to the other side of apathy 00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:10.060 or where it's like, I can't get anything done. I give up, you know, whatever you want to do. And 00:37:10.060 --> 00:37:13.960 it's just chaos. And yeah, start a group. I don't care. And it doesn't look like the rest of the 00:37:13.960 --> 00:37:17.660 groups and you're not in it. Something crazy happens. And you're like, I don't know, you know, 00:37:17.660 --> 00:37:20.620 and it's like, whatever you want to do, then you got branding issues all over the place. We can't go 00:37:20.620 --> 00:37:25.560 that far either. So we're constantly managing this tension in the middle of like, Hey, we want to help you 00:37:25.560 --> 00:37:30.820 do this. We want it. There's some things that are non-negotiable, but those are not too many things, 00:37:31.040 --> 00:37:34.440 you know, nothing that really affects you doing ministry because we really want to empower you to 00:37:34.440 --> 00:37:40.720 do ministry. And when I started putting it that way to our campuses, they suddenly got real excited 00:37:40.720 --> 00:37:45.960 about social media where previously they were really adverse to it. They hated it. And then they 00:37:45.960 --> 00:37:51.520 started to see it as like, Oh, I get to do this. This is my ministry. This is like, I kind of flavor 00:37:51.520 --> 00:37:56.940 it how I want to. And it was like the campus pastors were saying, like, we feel like we don't, 00:37:57.040 --> 00:38:01.200 you know, they don't teach our main, our lead pastor teaches a lot and he's on video. So we pipe it into 00:38:01.200 --> 00:38:07.200 other campuses. So they speak three, four times a year. And, you know, some of them are good at it. 00:38:07.200 --> 00:38:11.740 Some of them are not as good at it, but they all want to be in front of the people that they pastor 00:38:11.740 --> 00:38:15.300 so that people can know who they are and they can make these connections because they're doing the 00:38:15.300 --> 00:38:20.940 day-to-day work. Right. And so I'm like, Hey, here's an answer to that question. You can be in 00:38:20.940 --> 00:38:27.760 front of your people every day. If you want to just pull out your phone, get in your group. Hey guys, 00:38:27.860 --> 00:38:32.540 it's your pastor. Love you. Here's a devotional thought. Here's something going, you know, and make 00:38:32.540 --> 00:38:38.340 it about what they're dealing with minister to them where they are and you can be in front of them. So 00:38:38.340 --> 00:38:43.800 communication departments have to like, look at some of these issues and go, how can we help solve some of 00:38:43.800 --> 00:38:49.080 the problems that our ministers are having? And that's when you become the hero. That's when you 00:38:49.080 --> 00:38:53.460 become a major help. And people like to see you come into their office and go, cause you know, 00:38:53.480 --> 00:38:56.580 they're going, you're going to go, I got an idea that I think can help you out. What do you think 00:38:56.580 --> 00:39:01.980 about this? And they're going to be like, I'm glad to see you coming instead of, Oh man, I did 00:39:01.980 --> 00:39:06.000 something wrong. What's he coming for? What's he coming in here for? You know, you don't want that. 00:39:06.820 --> 00:39:10.400 Or you don't want a guy that's sitting over in the office going, you know, I have to make him do, 00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:16.120 I needed a Facebook group and I haven't seen it yet, you know, whatever. So I think 00:39:16.120 --> 00:39:21.960 to turn that corner, you know, you really, the communication departments just have to understand 00:39:21.960 --> 00:39:28.600 that we are servants that have ministry in mind. There are things that we have to be assertive 00:39:28.600 --> 00:39:35.440 about. Um, but if we have that relationship that they know we're for them, uh, for the rest of the 00:39:35.440 --> 00:39:40.300 church knows we're for them, then those things we have to be assertive about are not really a problem. 00:39:40.460 --> 00:39:46.240 Yeah. Well, I tell you what, that is that not like the exact same posture that the church should 00:39:46.240 --> 00:39:55.560 have. Um, we, we are, we are servants, um, serving the world. Uh, but we have a posture of love and 00:39:55.560 --> 00:40:02.380 respect knowing that we, the church are for them. Um, and, and, and it's amazing when we, 00:40:02.380 --> 00:40:08.000 when we engage, if we engage, like you were saying in your example, if the creative, if the communications 00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:14.240 department engages the church at that level with that service attitude, um, the response among the 00:40:14.240 --> 00:40:19.520 church and I've seen it in, in my own communications departments that I've led and worked with, like 00:40:19.520 --> 00:40:25.980 it's, it's phenomenal that response when they serve with that level of respect and, and coming back to 00:40:25.980 --> 00:40:32.340 the us versus them mentality as we communicate publicly, you know, church, if we have that posture 00:40:32.340 --> 00:40:40.540 of, um, of understanding them, understanding the people engaging, uh, with that level, letting people 00:40:40.540 --> 00:40:48.100 know that we are for them, um, and the understanding that what Christ can do with that, a lot of the, 00:40:48.140 --> 00:40:54.960 the people that are not interested in you will become interested because you care for them as an 00:40:54.960 --> 00:41:02.700 individual, as opposed to a, um, analytical, but in seat, uh, to quote Seth. And I've, I've, 00:41:02.700 --> 00:41:06.800 I've used that phrase a lot. I said, no worries, but that's awesome. Every time I hear on a podcast, 00:41:06.800 --> 00:41:12.140 I'm like, but in seat, Hey, that that's great. Um, because it's, it's, we're, they're more than that. 00:41:12.140 --> 00:41:20.980 Um, and the people, uh, people in the world today are looking for something. Um, stats tell us lifeway 00:41:20.980 --> 00:41:27.020 2016 that what they're looking for, they don't want to find in a building. Um, they're not interested 00:41:27.020 --> 00:41:31.360 in your church to the same level that you're probably not interested in going to a mosque. 00:41:31.360 --> 00:41:36.720 You've already made spiritual decisions are comfortable where, where you are. Um, but people 00:41:36.720 --> 00:41:41.920 are interested in talking to others about their faith. They are interested in talking to their 00:41:41.920 --> 00:41:46.960 friends about faith. So, uh, the more that we can disciple and lead people, the more that we can 00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:54.600 engage our Christ followers to get them to become digital disciples that are out there utilizing social 00:41:54.600 --> 00:42:01.540 media to, um, to get public, to go out there and, and to utilize the mission field that that's a win. 00:42:02.120 --> 00:42:07.120 Um, but that often doesn't happen in a brick and mortar building on a Sunday. 00:42:07.120 --> 00:42:11.900 In fact, we did a communication survey a year ago. We just wanted to find, 00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:15.640 like how our channels are hitting the people. Like where are we actually, where do they care? 00:42:15.800 --> 00:42:19.660 You know, where are they looking? And so do you, where do you normally find out about events? 00:42:19.660 --> 00:42:25.280 You know, that kind of thing. And one of the questions we ask is, um, how are you most likely 00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:31.000 to invite someone? Is it phone call? Is it text message? Is it with a card that we give you to 00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:37.140 hand out? Is it a social media post that you can share? And, and that, and, or word of mouth, 00:42:37.140 --> 00:42:43.320 word of mouth was number one by far, but number two was a social media invite that they shared 00:42:43.320 --> 00:42:51.200 and the rest were like nothing. It was crazy because our church is up is like, it's a younger, 00:42:51.200 --> 00:42:56.340 you know, families and a lot of mobile friendly people. And, you know, our giving is 90, I think 00:42:56.340 --> 00:43:01.600 almost 90% online. Um, you know, so we're, we're like in that phase of things. So I know that we're 00:43:01.600 --> 00:43:07.740 kind of skewed to one side, but even still, that's, that's a staggering, that's a staggering, 00:43:07.740 --> 00:43:13.260 uh, stat for us to go, wow, social media invite. They here's, and here's what to take away from 00:43:13.260 --> 00:43:21.760 that. They count sharing your post as a church, as an invite to everyone on their list. That's huge, 00:43:21.760 --> 00:43:27.760 but we don't, we want them to, we want them to call. We want them to text. We want them to give 00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:31.540 them, we want to give them a card and they have to hand it out. They're not going to really do that. 00:43:31.580 --> 00:43:35.420 They may not even make it to the car. You know, they want to, but you give them a social media 00:43:35.420 --> 00:43:38.780 post that they care about. And here's what they're kind of posts that we're talking about. Let's just, 00:43:39.020 --> 00:43:42.920 you know, we didn't really do this yet, but the, the them kind of posts that they'll actually share 00:43:42.920 --> 00:43:47.780 questions, like what kind of stuff do you like on your burger? That's stupid, but that's what 00:43:47.780 --> 00:43:51.680 friends talk about. Right. And so if your church is asking that, we're trying to be friends with you. 00:43:51.940 --> 00:43:55.240 And so they're like, yeah, isn't this funny in my church? That's, you know, whatever. And they share 00:43:55.240 --> 00:44:00.600 that, uh, polls, votes, you know, like what's, you know, it could be like, who's your favorite Bible 00:44:00.600 --> 00:44:04.280 character to like, who's your favorite office character, you know, and it could be any of that. 00:44:04.340 --> 00:44:08.700 And they'll share that kind of stuff. Tasks, like, uh, give them something like, Hey, tell us to tell 00:44:08.700 --> 00:44:13.520 five people they matter today. Or I did a post recently, which was, um, a countdown post. I got 00:44:13.520 --> 00:44:18.360 this idea from Brady Shearer and it was a one minute countdown. You can see it just ticking away. 00:44:18.360 --> 00:44:23.540 And all it was, was a drone shot of our city. Uh, or actually it wasn't even our city. I got it 00:44:23.540 --> 00:44:28.700 from story tape and it was just a city, a drone shot of a city. It was like, take 60 seconds to 00:44:28.700 --> 00:44:34.960 pray for a neighbor. And it just counts down with some nice music. So behind the scenes shots of 00:44:34.960 --> 00:44:39.700 what's going on at your church, people love to find out who you really are. That's super important. 00:44:40.460 --> 00:44:44.300 Operational posts and devotionals are, are huge. They'll say, Oh, that's great. They want to be 00:44:44.300 --> 00:44:48.220 represented. They feel like, Oh, that's what I think. That's what I believe. Yeah. Let's share 00:44:48.220 --> 00:44:52.660 that. They'll share it with them. And they count that as an invite or a, um, a touch point with their 00:44:52.660 --> 00:44:57.220 friends, scripture quotes, things that you, you know, they find interesting and they want to share 00:44:57.220 --> 00:45:04.740 that counts as an invite for them. And things that are like for us are announcements, ministry promos, 00:45:04.900 --> 00:45:11.020 ads, invites to the service even are about us getting our people to invite people, which they may share 00:45:11.020 --> 00:45:17.400 that, uh, series promos. That's about us. It's what we're doing. And most people, unless it's a really 00:45:17.400 --> 00:45:21.720 clever or controversial sounding series, they're probably not going to share that. They don't really care 00:45:21.720 --> 00:45:27.840 because that changes so much. So it's not like, I mean, you're, you're, you're at the movie series 00:45:27.840 --> 00:45:33.120 is cool, but you know, and you know, probably infringing on a lot of copyright laws, but it's 00:45:33.120 --> 00:45:37.500 still, that's a cool series that people will want to show like a church is showing movies. 00:45:38.920 --> 00:45:43.580 It's still though, not as popular as a video of somebody doing on his phone going, Hey, I love you 00:45:43.580 --> 00:45:48.900 guys. We're starting now. I'd love to see you guys at my church. That works better. It just works 00:45:48.900 --> 00:45:53.640 better. And I can't explain why it just feels more authentic. And those are the posts that are 00:45:53.640 --> 00:46:00.220 really more about, let's just be real. Let's just be friends because that feels like you care about 00:46:00.220 --> 00:46:08.140 them. But a big produced video or a nicely designed graphic is like a business. Yeah. You know, 00:46:08.140 --> 00:46:13.980 it's professional. And so kind of more about us. Look how cool we are. You know, that's not a question 00:46:13.980 --> 00:46:17.860 they have. They're like, we know you can do cool stuff. Cool. I don't care. I don't care about your 00:46:17.860 --> 00:46:23.000 events. I don't care about your series. What are you gonna do for me? Yeah. And it's, it's ironic 00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:28.620 that that actually plays well to the smaller and medium sized churches that don't have the huge 00:46:28.620 --> 00:46:34.640 budgets that don't have the creative resources. You know, several times in just talking with churches, 00:46:34.640 --> 00:46:41.480 I'll have a pastor tell me, Oh, I'm wanting to get the quality up before I do some, do a video 00:46:41.480 --> 00:46:47.900 before I get into social media. And, and like my, my head explodes because honestly, the lesser quality 00:46:47.900 --> 00:46:54.020 makes you more engaging and endearing. And it's going to get people to, to buy into you over 00:46:54.020 --> 00:47:00.800 something that's overproduced and, uh, and, and over edited and overs, uh, sensationalized. 00:47:00.980 --> 00:47:06.460 And let me just quote, let me just quote a foul mouth genius, Gary Vaynerchuk and say version 00:47:06.460 --> 00:47:14.880 version one is better than version none. Oh, that's yeah. Do it. Oh man. I I'm amazed at how 00:47:14.880 --> 00:47:18.920 much, how many connections, relationships, and ministry opportunities we're willing to let just 00:47:18.920 --> 00:47:25.160 go by and do nothing because we didn't want, we couldn't do it a hundred percent perfect 00:47:25.160 --> 00:47:33.020 or because we couldn't do it excellently. They don't care about that. Just do something. Oh, 00:47:33.060 --> 00:47:38.240 that blows my mind too. That's a soapbox for me right now. That's crazy. Drives me crazy. I'm like, 00:47:38.320 --> 00:47:42.300 you're not here to make great stuff. You're here to, to, to reach people with the gospel 00:47:42.300 --> 00:47:49.580 like that. If you can make great stuff and good, awesome. But if you can't, that does not disqualify 00:47:49.580 --> 00:47:55.160 you from, disqualify you from ministry, you're called to do that still and doing nothing because 00:47:55.160 --> 00:48:01.700 you can't do it. Great. It's disobedient, man. I'm sorry. It's disobedient to, to our, our mandate 00:48:01.700 --> 00:48:07.920 as a Christian. It really, I feel very strong. Sorry. You get letters about that. Uh, well, 00:48:08.020 --> 00:48:11.840 we'll get emails about it. You won't get letters. Nobody knows who that is. Yeah. So it's Seth 00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:20.160 muse at Instagram S E T H M U S E. Not, not to me. I don't want it. I'll take it. It's fine. 00:48:20.800 --> 00:48:26.880 Um, but no, it's, it's, it's, you know, once again, it's trusting God to do something with it, 00:48:26.880 --> 00:48:32.480 offering whatever the resources you have, whatever that offering is, giving it to him and allowing him 00:48:32.480 --> 00:48:37.080 to use it for his kingdom and glory. And I don't want to over spiritualize something like 00:48:37.080 --> 00:48:44.840 producing a video, but, um, no work goes unrewarded or unfulfilled. And so by doing that, 00:48:44.980 --> 00:48:49.900 get it out there and let God, let the Holy spirit do something with it. It's the widow's might. 00:48:50.020 --> 00:48:55.360 It's the widow's might story. It's social media is, is you're the widow dropping little two copper 00:48:55.360 --> 00:49:00.720 coins in the box and giving everything you got. You know, it's like, what do you got? If you don't 00:49:00.720 --> 00:49:06.220 have a 4k camera, so what you have an iPhone, you have a Samsung, whatever, you've got a decent phone 00:49:06.220 --> 00:49:12.620 and a video device that can be a studio in a box, do something, you know, because, because that's 00:49:12.620 --> 00:49:17.660 where your people are. It's like, Jesus didn't sit around and go, well, I'm going to wait until they 00:49:17.660 --> 00:49:24.600 build like microphone systems to show up on the earth. You know, he didn't wait for like social 00:49:24.600 --> 00:49:29.700 media to be a thing. Cause he could have reached so many more people. Had he come in this time with 00:49:29.700 --> 00:49:36.880 social media. He could have, but he chose to come in the time he did because, and then, and dealt with 00:49:36.880 --> 00:49:43.100 that. And it's like, he did the best with what he had. He just went, he went for it. Like in, in people 00:49:43.100 --> 00:49:50.300 wrote about it, you know, it was like, that's do what you can do right now. And he can do anything. 00:49:50.440 --> 00:49:57.840 No, but still. Any thoughts as we're landing the plane? No, I mean, just realize if you're in the 00:49:57.840 --> 00:50:02.840 communication space, you're working with social media, a lot of us are part-time, you know, we're 00:50:02.840 --> 00:50:07.240 volunteer. There's a lot of people in churches that, you know, the structure isn't necessarily 00:50:07.240 --> 00:50:13.960 clear or healthy or whatever, you know, you may hear all this go, yeah, I'm with you. I get it. I can't 00:50:13.960 --> 00:50:22.040 do jack about it. Take the little steps, you know, take the lead where you can and, you know, always 00:50:22.040 --> 00:50:27.420 try to explain. And, and, and it's kind of like the old, the scripture, you're like never tire of doing 00:50:27.420 --> 00:50:33.040 what's good. It's like never tire of trying to bring people along with you. Like never tire of like 00:50:33.040 --> 00:50:41.800 trying to, to show how this can be an enhancement to what the church does in your area. And it is a 00:50:41.800 --> 00:50:47.980 tireless, thankless task a lot of times, but you just celebrate those little wins that you get and 00:50:47.980 --> 00:50:53.060 find a community of people that get it, that will say, good job. That was awesome. Because without 00:50:53.060 --> 00:50:59.780 that, I'd be dead. I mean, my, my whole, I mean, I have a good setup here. I really do. But, but it's 00:50:59.780 --> 00:51:05.900 not devoid of things like this, where I disagree with leadership on how we should view these types of 00:51:05.900 --> 00:51:10.280 things or whatever. And we have those conversations and I don't win them. You know, there's some I don't 00:51:10.280 --> 00:51:16.320 win. That's fine. You know, cause I'm here to serve. So I do what I can with this. And there's 00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:20.060 things that I hold that I'm like, huh, I think I'm wrong about that. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I need to 00:51:20.060 --> 00:51:25.980 expand my thought on social media or maybe I'm, cause there was a time where I was like, I'm not 00:51:25.980 --> 00:51:31.320 promoting anything. And it was, it was like to a point I had a conversation with my boss at the time 00:51:31.320 --> 00:51:35.980 and he was like, I think you're missing some stuff. And I was like, yeah, cause you do need those us 00:51:35.980 --> 00:51:42.080 posts. I hope we understand that. Like you can't not post that stuff, you know, but you can find a way 00:51:42.080 --> 00:51:50.300 to post it and talk about it. That's not just a big ask all the time. You know, you can find a way 00:51:50.300 --> 00:51:55.720 to talk about it. Like instead of saying, come to our student party thing that we're having this 00:51:55.720 --> 00:52:01.560 Wednesday, get some students to talk about how much they love that thing. And then just put the details 00:52:01.560 --> 00:52:06.420 in the, in the caption or a link in the caption. So you're still focused on what they would care 00:52:06.420 --> 00:52:12.100 about, but you're actually being getting them to talk about it. You're actually advertising too. 00:52:12.700 --> 00:52:17.700 You know, that's what I was doing my audit. Some of them were like, it was a them and us post at the 00:52:17.700 --> 00:52:23.100 same time, you know, and if you're creative enough or you think about it hard enough, you can figure 00:52:23.100 --> 00:52:29.380 out ways to do the us posts in a them way. And I think that is a, and I think that's the magic, 00:52:29.380 --> 00:52:34.200 right. That's the magic that you can, if you can find that way to do it, it takes more time, 00:52:34.240 --> 00:52:37.400 it takes more effort. It's a little harder. You have to think a little further ahead, 00:52:37.400 --> 00:52:43.140 but I mean, come on though, that's our job. So, you know, we can do that. So that's what I would, 00:52:43.220 --> 00:52:49.520 that's my parting shot is that you need to, we can't think in that dichotomy. I think it's a false 00:52:49.520 --> 00:52:56.360 dichotomy, but it is one that we live in, but we have to see how can we bridge that gap? Because let me 00:52:56.360 --> 00:53:02.140 tell you, that's what pastors get excited about. You're helping me put butts in seats and we're 00:53:02.140 --> 00:53:08.360 reaching people online. That's the, that's the goal is to do these together and find a way to really 00:53:08.360 --> 00:53:16.060 help them do ministry even more and more while infusing the online world to it and showing that 00:53:16.060 --> 00:53:22.920 there's value there. Awesome. Well said. It's a mixture, right? You get the, the us content, 00:53:23.080 --> 00:53:29.080 but presented in a, in a them way so they can process it. That was excellent. Well, hey, Seth, 00:53:29.140 --> 00:53:34.900 where, where can people find you online? You can connect with me at SethMuse.com. And from there, 00:53:34.900 --> 00:53:39.160 you can find my Facebook group and follow me on Instagram. And, you know, I'd love you to subscribe 00:53:39.160 --> 00:53:43.640 to my podcast, The Seminary of Hard Knocks. We talk about church communications. It's a content 00:53:43.640 --> 00:53:49.580 marketing. It's kind of, I like to say it's a, it's a common ground marketing kind of a podcast. So 00:53:49.580 --> 00:53:55.420 I'd love to, for you to subscribe and give that a listen. Awesome. Well, hey, Seth, thanks for, 00:53:55.420 --> 00:54:01.540 for jumping into our world here and appreciate you coming on. Listening audience, it's been a great 00:54:01.540 --> 00:54:06.340 podcast again, and we'll hear you next time here at the Church Digital Podcast. Y'all have a good day.