WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.980 Jeff here. We'll get back to the podcast in a second, but I wanted to let you know of an 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:13.180 opportunity to help you further develop your church online. Here at The Church Digital, 00:00:13.380 --> 00:00:18.300 we found some of the best ways for churches to grow their ministry online is to work alongside 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:25.080 other churches. To that end, The Church Digital is opening up some coaching cohorts in January 2020. 00:00:25.080 --> 00:00:29.560 Through our cohorts, you'll be connected with churches with similar goals in place in ministry, 00:00:29.740 --> 00:00:34.040 and work through these goals together over the six months under the guidance of the crew 00:00:34.040 --> 00:00:40.460 here at The Church Digital. In 2020, invest in your church online. Invest in you. For more information 00:00:40.460 --> 00:00:47.380 and to find out how you can save 20%, visit thechurch.digital slash cohort. 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:56.480 So how are we going to market church online? That's the question I wanted to ask in episode 31 of The 00:00:56.480 --> 00:01:02.040 Church Digital podcast. And to that end, I brought in communication specialist Jennifer Miles to help us 00:01:02.040 --> 00:01:08.100 figure out what the answer to that question was. And while the answer she gave us was probably the one 00:01:08.100 --> 00:01:13.980 we needed, maybe it wasn't the one that we deserved, but ultimately, it was definitely necessary to hear. 00:01:14.100 --> 00:01:20.700 Okay, set aside the whole Dark Knight DC reference. I'm really much more of a Marvel guy. But at the end of 00:01:20.700 --> 00:01:27.720 this, Jennifer's answer to that question, how do we market church online, cut to the core of what church 00:01:27.720 --> 00:01:34.540 online could be and should be, to really get to the power, to the heart, to the soul of what church 00:01:34.540 --> 00:01:40.760 online is, and therefore created an interview, a conversation that you listening audience definitely 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:47.920 need to hear. So I present for this conversation, communication specialist, guru, all-knowing Jennifer Miles 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:53.700 to the conversation, and myself, Jeff Reed from The Church Digital, in a conversation that I'm calling 00:01:53.700 --> 00:01:56.880 The Marketing of Church Online. Hey, everybody, here you go. 00:01:57.440 --> 00:02:02.740 I'm Jennifer Miles. I work for Faithlife. I'm a project manager for their church products organization, 00:02:02.740 --> 00:02:09.680 and I work on upcoming features and supporting the content for those, and then also work on user ed 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:16.540 guides and what's the purpose of our products. In addition to that, I am wrapping up my doctorate at 00:02:16.540 --> 00:02:22.060 Portland Seminary, and that is a, no one ever knows how to say it. I do, I'm doing a doctorate in 00:02:22.060 --> 00:02:28.940 semiotics, which is essentially the study of signs and symbols and how things get their meaning. 00:02:30.140 --> 00:02:36.480 Signs and symbols are not just signs and symbols, they're words, they're images. So a lot of it is 00:02:36.480 --> 00:02:41.180 like, how does the church get its meaning? And how do we talk about meaning in the church? 00:02:41.180 --> 00:02:46.140 I worked at Church Online at Life Church for about four years, consulted with about 70 Church Onlines 00:02:46.140 --> 00:02:51.100 for four years, and helping them with their marketing strategy, their social media strategy, 00:02:51.100 --> 00:02:54.700 and then their discipleship strategy. So that's kind of a little bit of who I am. 00:02:54.700 --> 00:03:03.580 Wow, yeah, that's a great opening kickoff, everything from Logos books, Logos software to signs and 00:03:03.580 --> 00:03:06.380 interpretations, all the way to Life Church. That's right. 00:03:06.380 --> 00:03:14.700 Yeah, very, very good. That's an interesting life. So what's your seminary, what's your degree 00:03:14.700 --> 00:03:19.740 going to be in, your doctorate? So it's officially doctorate of ministry in semiotics. 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:25.420 And semiotics. Okay. Yeah. And so like, what, where do you hope to get on? I'm just curious, 00:03:25.420 --> 00:03:30.380 because that's who I am. Like, where do you hope to go with that? Where, where does a semiotics 00:03:30.380 --> 00:03:34.780 degree take you at a doctorate level? Well, it might help to understand why I even 00:03:34.780 --> 00:03:40.860 started the program, to know where I'm going with it. So when I started the program, I was doing 00:03:40.860 --> 00:03:44.860 consulting with a lot of different churches in their marketing, and I wanted to get better at 00:03:44.860 --> 00:03:49.740 communications. And what did that look like in the digital world? And so I went online and 00:03:49.740 --> 00:03:56.380 literally just started looking for communications degrees in the church, and they don't exist. I mean, 00:03:56.380 --> 00:04:02.540 they didn't five years ago. You're starting to see more now. But do you know who Leonard Sweet is? 00:04:02.540 --> 00:04:05.980 Of course. Soul Tsunami changed my life straight up. Yes. 00:04:05.980 --> 00:04:12.700 Yeah. That book, 1999, made me, I mean, I'm not discounting the Bible. Next to the Bible, 00:04:12.700 --> 00:04:18.380 that's number two for me. Okay. So then you'll, you'll get this. So I had read a lot of his stuff 00:04:18.380 --> 00:04:23.420 when I was doing church online and when I was doing my master's degree. And so my thesis for 00:04:23.420 --> 00:04:30.540 master's was actually about church online. And I used several of his things. His program at Portland 00:04:30.540 --> 00:04:37.260 Seminary was the thing that showed up in my search results for Google. And he's the lead mentor for 00:04:37.260 --> 00:04:44.860 this doctorate of ministry and semiotics. And its subtitle is the few, it's like a Google, a Google 00:04:44.860 --> 00:04:51.180 church or church and culture and future studies or something. But I was like, I don't care what the 00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:56.220 program is. Cause I didn't know what semiotics was. I don't care what the program is, but this is the 00:04:56.220 --> 00:05:03.500 person who has influenced me through his books. I'd love to learn from him in person and have 00:05:03.500 --> 00:05:09.340 conversations like that that are in his books face to face. Right. So I ended up signing up for the 00:05:09.340 --> 00:05:13.580 program thinking, Oh, this is going to help my communications world. I'm going to better 00:05:13.580 --> 00:05:18.460 understand theology in a digital space and really learn from this person who is probably 10, 15 years 00:05:18.460 --> 00:05:26.780 ahead of everybody else. And he completely rocked my world. I closed my marketing business. I got to this 00:05:26.780 --> 00:05:33.820 point where I, I was struggling morally ethically on is marketing church online, the way that we do it 00:05:33.820 --> 00:05:42.380 today, um, effective one, is it a wise use of our resources too? And are there better ways for us to 00:05:42.380 --> 00:05:49.980 connect? Like if the point of the gospel is to share Jesus and to build disciples, is marketing doing 00:05:49.980 --> 00:05:56.940 that? And I, so I ended up closing my business and throughout this course of this program, I changed 00:05:56.940 --> 00:06:02.940 to wanting to really understand what does it look like to disciple people in a digital age. If people 00:06:02.940 --> 00:06:09.020 are spending more time online, are building more relationships through what we're doing right now, 00:06:09.020 --> 00:06:15.900 right? This digital conversation, and then bringing that face to face, sometimes how do you disciple 00:06:15.900 --> 00:06:20.860 people, right? If discipleship, so what's your definition of discipleship, Jeff? 00:06:22.460 --> 00:06:27.660 A disciple, me, and I know that we've had this conversations on the podcast, discipleship has 00:06:27.660 --> 00:06:32.940 many meanings. And so, uh, different people interpret it differently, which causes mass confusion. 00:06:32.940 --> 00:06:37.980 Uh, discipleship, how, how we've interpreted typically on the show and me at a personal level 00:06:37.980 --> 00:06:44.300 would be, uh, building a relationship with someone and empowering them with the gospel 00:06:44.300 --> 00:06:50.540 to the level that they can turn around and do the same thing to someone else. A disciple is someone 00:06:50.540 --> 00:06:59.580 who literally makes another disciple. And so it's, it's that, um, that relationship between person A and 00:06:59.580 --> 00:07:03.820 person B to the point that person B can now replicate that with person C. 00:07:03.820 --> 00:07:07.900 Yeah. So there's a few things there, right? It's the relationship and the replication. 00:07:09.180 --> 00:07:14.220 Right. And as I was doing all this marketing for church online, I realized what I was really doing 00:07:14.780 --> 00:07:23.340 was I was bringing in consumers to be consumers. And it then became very difficult to turn consumers 00:07:23.340 --> 00:07:31.020 into contributors in a church online space because they think very differently. And so my whole mindset 00:07:31.020 --> 00:07:35.740 shift and I realized that what I really was doing online was I was trying to find a way 00:07:36.380 --> 00:07:42.780 to build relationship. And then though through those relationships, replicate what I believed 00:07:42.780 --> 00:07:47.980 and how I lived or how the, whatever the churches I was working with were, what they believed and how 00:07:47.980 --> 00:07:54.140 they transferred the gospel. And what was happening was we were doing all these ads and we were getting 00:07:54.140 --> 00:07:59.500 people in, but then we didn't have a solid discipleship program for them. And so we were just 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:05.660 throwing money at the front end and there wasn't a lot of return at the back end. And so that's, 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:09.900 so I ended up closing my marketing business and now I'm focusing really on the, what do we do is the 00:08:09.900 --> 00:08:14.060 next step. And a lot of the churches I talked to, that is the thing they struggle with. We have a lot 00:08:14.060 --> 00:08:18.940 of really good church marketers out there, but we were struggling with what do we do when we give 00:08:18.940 --> 00:08:21.980 these people in, how do we convert them from consumer to contributor? 00:08:21.980 --> 00:08:30.220 Yeah. And that's, and that's arguably, I mean, that's a, it's an, a big C church wide issue and we'll 00:08:30.220 --> 00:08:35.980 get there in a second, but I want to, I want to dive into this because I can relate a little bit 00:08:35.980 --> 00:08:42.620 to this of where I walked away from a church environment, from a church staff, 15 plus years, 00:08:43.340 --> 00:08:49.580 full-time church staff, 25, if you count high-level volunteers and volunteer board of directors, 00:08:49.580 --> 00:08:56.140 elders, like just crazy stuff. But, but I really felt the calling to kind of leave that and do 00:08:56.140 --> 00:09:01.900 something else. And so in, there was, that made me an emotional wreck. Um, and there, there was, 00:09:01.900 --> 00:09:07.580 you know, ups and down seasons of that. Tell me a little bit about that story of when you realized, 00:09:07.580 --> 00:09:13.260 Hey, you know what? I want to maybe walk away from the church marketing thing, walk away from this 00:09:13.260 --> 00:09:18.700 business and instead try to do something that's more driven, more focused towards discipleship. 00:09:18.700 --> 00:09:20.700 Like what was God doing in your life? 00:09:21.820 --> 00:09:29.580 Well, there was a lot going on at the time. Um, from 2014 to 2018, my family and I actually traveled 00:09:29.580 --> 00:09:34.620 the country in an RV. And so we had a lot more flexibility than a lot of people. Like a lot of 00:09:34.620 --> 00:09:41.180 people, they have a business and that business pays their bills. They like, it's, they need it, right? 00:09:41.180 --> 00:09:48.940 I didn't need it. For me, church marketing was something I enjoyed. And so it came down to this 00:09:48.940 --> 00:09:54.860 point. What that I sat there and I spent some time talking to my husband and some friends and 00:09:54.860 --> 00:09:59.420 some other church online pastors that I'd become really close to. I was like, I don't have a heart 00:09:59.420 --> 00:10:06.940 issue with this. And just from a moral perspective, if I'm following Jesus, I can't continue to do 00:10:06.940 --> 00:10:13.100 something that I now think is wrong. Um, and so for me, it was a really simple decision. It was, 00:10:13.100 --> 00:10:17.740 I didn't need it for the money. I could find another way to make money. Um, I've always been 00:10:17.740 --> 00:10:22.940 able to change my businesses and do that or get a job, which is what I did. I worked, went to work 00:10:22.940 --> 00:10:28.700 for faith life. Um, so I would say I didn't really struggle much with it. The problem I'm having now is 00:10:28.700 --> 00:10:34.780 I struggle with the, we have to change the way we do discipleship. And that's the message that people 00:10:34.780 --> 00:10:40.060 are struggling with not the church marketing thing because so many churches already were struggling 00:10:40.060 --> 00:10:44.620 with church marketing. Um, I kind of joined the mainstream when I said I didn't want to do that 00:10:44.620 --> 00:10:52.140 anymore. It was the moving to discipleship that was no longer the mainstream. It was a Sunday service 00:10:52.140 --> 00:10:57.420 isn't the way you disciple people. Um, expecting them to come to your building isn't the way you disciple 00:10:57.420 --> 00:11:04.140 people, right? Like that became the message that now I'm going to get pushback on. So, and I've really 00:11:04.140 --> 00:11:09.180 struggled with that part. I have a few friends that I talked to regularly about, am I, am I still 00:11:09.180 --> 00:11:14.140 following the Bible? Am I still following Jesus? Or am I now something that I have to worry about? 00:11:14.140 --> 00:11:21.580 Have I become a heretic and saying these things aren't what our society says they are, right? Like, 00:11:21.580 --> 00:11:26.700 how do you handle that part of it? And I still struggle with it. Um, for me too, I'm also a female, 00:11:26.700 --> 00:11:31.740 right? And so a female in the ministry world is if I'm, if I'm, as I'm sitting here talking about 00:11:31.740 --> 00:11:36.060 discipleship, well, I've already got depending on the denomination, some strikes against me. 00:11:36.780 --> 00:11:42.380 Um, so that's the stuff I struggle with is, am I doing what God is calling me to do? Where do I fit 00:11:42.380 --> 00:11:47.820 in the ministry perspective? If I go forward with some of the discipleship stuff I'm doing, 00:11:48.860 --> 00:11:53.260 is that okay? Not that, can I close my business? That stuff wasn't the hard part at all. 00:11:54.780 --> 00:11:58.300 Hey, this is the thing that I struggle with. Let me say it this way. I, this is what I struggle with. 00:11:59.500 --> 00:12:05.180 I hesitate in some of the things that I'm doing, that I'm talking about because I'm the, I don't 00:12:05.180 --> 00:12:09.580 want to say I'm the only one saying it, but it's by far the, the minority. 00:12:09.980 --> 00:12:15.020 Right. It feels like you're the only one saying it, you know? And, and, and it's like, I have people, 00:12:15.020 --> 00:12:20.780 um, and this is completely off topic, but I have people all the time coming to me and asking me, 00:12:20.780 --> 00:12:25.820 hey, Jeff, when are you going to plan a church completely online? And, and, and a, like, 00:12:25.820 --> 00:12:31.180 I'm not even sure like that's theological because the whole abandoning community and, and, and Romans 00:12:31.180 --> 00:12:35.900 and I, and, and so like, there's still, there's some of that, that, that, that I'm, I'm wrestling with. 00:12:36.460 --> 00:12:41.260 Um, and, and if I did, it would be planted more towards like a micro model where there would still be 00:12:41.260 --> 00:12:49.820 physical, but it's, it's like, I just, I have this, this fear of, um, I I'm okay. I'm okay. 00:12:49.820 --> 00:12:55.820 Being the first, if God tells me to go, you know, and, and I read an ax where, you know, some of the, 00:12:55.820 --> 00:13:00.780 the early church where they were doing things in the early church would literally say, should we listen 00:13:00.780 --> 00:13:04.860 to God or should we listen to you Sadducees? Who do you think we're going to listen to? We're going 00:13:04.860 --> 00:13:09.740 to listen to God. Right. And it's funny, like when I have these, these conversations just that at a 00:13:09.740 --> 00:13:14.380 personal level, but I'm like, Hey God, where are you, where are you leading me right now? Um, 00:13:15.100 --> 00:13:21.900 I, I don't hear yes. I don't hear no. Um, it's funny. I've, I've heard wait. And, and, and so 00:13:21.900 --> 00:13:26.140 it's funny. I'm like, wait for what, you know, like what, what, what are you, what are you waiting 00:13:26.140 --> 00:13:31.420 for? And, and it's just, it's, it's wait, you know, trying to find that, I guess in God's right 00:13:31.420 --> 00:13:37.100 time and things personally, I'm, I'm a little bit like Moses where, Hey, can I have, can I have 00:13:37.100 --> 00:13:41.020 somebody? Oh, you want to give me Aaron? Cool. Give me an Aaron. Give me somebody to come along 00:13:41.020 --> 00:13:47.100 this journey with me. That would be awesome. But, but short of that, it's, it's scary when, 00:13:47.100 --> 00:13:54.620 when you feel God leading you down a road and, and like, it's, it's unpaved, it's untrod. Nobody's 00:13:54.620 --> 00:14:01.180 gone down there before. So, man, I, I just, I can totally relate to this idea of, of just walking 00:14:01.180 --> 00:14:06.620 away from the business, um, trying to do things. You, you've got this established, but God's leading you 00:14:07.180 --> 00:14:12.700 somewhere else. And, and should you listen to the Sadducees or should you follow God? Who do you think 00:14:12.700 --> 00:14:17.760 we're going to go after? So, right. Well, and at this point it's, I'm going to follow God and I have 00:14:17.760 --> 00:14:24.720 no idea where he's taking me and that's okay. Yeah. So it'll work it out over time. That's awesome. 00:14:25.180 --> 00:14:29.620 Well done. Uh, so Jennifer, tell me this, help me connect the dots here. Cause you've got, 00:14:30.040 --> 00:14:35.560 cause what you're saying is that, you know, we, you, you want to focus more on discipleship because you no 00:14:35.560 --> 00:14:41.600 longer want to focus on marketing and you're implying that, you know, discipleship is the 00:14:41.600 --> 00:14:47.740 solution to marketing. So connect the dots here, tie that in, um, help, help, help me understand a 00:14:47.740 --> 00:14:53.960 little bit how a discipleship is really the solution for marketing online. Yeah. So when you do marketing 00:14:53.960 --> 00:14:59.540 online, um, there's a few different ways to do it, right? We have Google ads, we have Facebook ads, 00:14:59.540 --> 00:15:03.720 we can do display ads, we can do YouTube ads. Like there's all these opportunities. 00:15:03.940 --> 00:15:09.400 One of the things that's happened in the last few years, um, if you follow kind of the marketing trends 00:15:09.400 --> 00:15:15.660 at all in the church, a lot of people started with Google ads with the nonprofit program. Um, 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:22.740 and those provided you search ads, you couldn't do retargeting ads with that. And then you could do, 00:15:22.800 --> 00:15:27.820 but you could do Facebook ads and you could retarget people with Facebook ads. And so that strategy played 00:15:27.820 --> 00:15:32.100 really well where you started with search ads and people looking for felt needs, and then you retargeted 00:15:32.100 --> 00:15:37.460 them if they showed up on a page using Facebook. Well, over time, what has happened is Google now 00:15:37.460 --> 00:15:42.480 doesn't allow you to retarget at all any website that has Christian content or religious content 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:46.300 in general. There's actually a few categories they don't let you retarget. Wait, really? 00:15:46.680 --> 00:15:50.820 Yeah. I had, I had no idea. You can't retarget a church website anymore. 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:52.420 On, on, for Google. 00:15:52.780 --> 00:15:53.120 For Google. 00:15:53.120 --> 00:15:53.880 Correct. Yeah. 00:15:53.880 --> 00:15:54.780 Okay. Wow. 00:15:54.840 --> 00:15:57.500 And, and that's been about two and a half years now. 00:15:57.860 --> 00:15:59.740 Well, it shows how much retargeting I did. 00:16:00.040 --> 00:16:04.960 Right. So, but you could continue to retarget on Facebook, which has been great, 00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:12.700 but about a year, year and a half ago with kind of the fallout from their issues, um, 00:16:12.700 --> 00:16:18.780 they changed a lot of their targeting ability. So you could no longer target, um, pastors. 00:16:18.780 --> 00:16:25.980 You could no longer target based on, um, like self-identification categories. So like they 00:16:25.980 --> 00:16:32.680 removed 70% of the targeting that was helpful for the church. And so what was happening was you 00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:39.520 were spending all this money and you were really marketing to other Christians. You weren't marketing 00:16:39.520 --> 00:16:45.400 to people who weren't Christian. And so it became much more difficult to target the people that were 00:16:45.400 --> 00:16:51.060 really called to go out to. Um, and so that's when I really started thinking about it. And if you think 00:16:51.060 --> 00:16:55.120 about it, God called us to go and make disciples, right? It's, he called each one of us to go and 00:16:55.120 --> 00:17:00.420 have relationships. And when you think about how people do invites, I would do, I used to do ads for 00:17:00.420 --> 00:17:04.480 like Easter and Christmas. Of course, every church wants Easter and Christmas ads. One, they're 00:17:04.480 --> 00:17:09.620 extremely expensive during that season. I would watch my ads go from like 27 cents a click to like 00:17:09.620 --> 00:17:12.080 $4 and 50 cents a click. Wow. 00:17:12.360 --> 00:17:16.160 Because you're now competing. Not only are you competing with every other church in the U S who 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:20.260 wants to get on the bandwagon, you're also competing with every business who's marketing 00:17:20.260 --> 00:17:25.900 for black Friday for Christmas sales, right? So you're, it's just that they flooded the inventory 00:17:25.900 --> 00:17:30.580 and whoever wins the bid is the one who gets it. So it becomes extremely cost prohibitive. 00:17:31.020 --> 00:17:37.920 If all you're doing is getting a click and okay, let's say one person clicks, you now need, 00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:41.720 I don't know, a hundred people to click in order to get one person to attend your service. 00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:48.260 And so you're spending $40 to get one person to attend the service. Whereas I can say, Hey, 00:17:48.660 --> 00:17:53.700 my people who are my members, you have a mission to go out and make disciples. 00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:59.360 What can I do to enable you to do that? Can I help you have conversations with people in your 00:17:59.360 --> 00:18:06.240 workplace, with people that you meet on a day-to-day basis? Um, you invite people like changing your 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:11.820 cover photo is super easy and it's free. And that is actually more effective than an ad. 00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:17.960 And so when you talk and this, the same thing holds true for the physical church, right? When you say, 00:18:18.040 --> 00:18:24.220 Hey, we're going to have our Christmas service. Do you do door knockers? They work, but you can also 00:18:24.220 --> 00:18:29.060 say, Hey, people invite people. And if you, have you looked at those surveys where they talk about how 00:18:29.060 --> 00:18:35.360 do people come to church? Is it a Google ad, a Facebook ad, a mailer, right? What is the number one 00:18:35.360 --> 00:18:43.320 most effective thing? It's a personal invite. And it's like a 75% effective rate versus like a 5% 00:18:43.320 --> 00:18:49.600 effective rate. And so when we talk about what does it look like to shift from a marketing model to a 00:18:49.600 --> 00:18:54.620 discipleship model, it's instead of me doing all these cold ads, now I'm going to focus on 00:18:54.620 --> 00:19:01.460 empowering my people to talk to other people and invite people. And when you do it that way, 00:19:01.460 --> 00:19:06.980 you could now come back and support it with ads. I can do remarketing ads. And if someone has invited 00:19:06.980 --> 00:19:13.040 someone and they show up to the, my church slash Christmas page, I can remarket the Christmas page. 00:19:13.900 --> 00:19:19.100 And now someone got a personal invite and they're getting a reminder on their Facebook page. Hey, 00:19:19.820 --> 00:19:24.040 Joe invited you to Christmas. You don't put a name in there, right? But we'd love to see you. 00:19:24.220 --> 00:19:29.560 And so now I'm doing it the opposite direction. Instead of trying to get cold people in the door, 00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:36.820 oh, we should probably talk about cold, warm, hot for your audience. So a cold audience or a cold ad 00:19:36.820 --> 00:19:40.940 is someone who has no connection with you, who doesn't know you, who you have not established 00:19:40.940 --> 00:19:46.740 trust with. A warm audience is someone who has heard you, who has seen some of your content, 00:19:46.740 --> 00:19:51.540 who is beginning to understand who you are, and you have a little bit of trust equity with. 00:19:51.740 --> 00:19:56.840 A hot audience is someone who is sold out for you, is they will pretty much do whatever you ask them 00:19:56.840 --> 00:20:02.760 to do. They are your, they are your cheerleader. And so when you start looking at ads as this cold, 00:20:02.860 --> 00:20:10.000 warm, hot, cold ads are expensive. Sometimes it depends. And their, their effectiveness isn't great. 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:16.860 But when you start looking at it and saying, I want my hot people to invite people, and then you 00:20:16.860 --> 00:20:21.080 retarget the people they've invited, those people have moved from cold to warm, because they have a 00:20:21.080 --> 00:20:27.260 personal stake now, they have a personal connection. And so now you can retarget these warm people. 00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:32.380 And so it's shifting the paradigm. And instead of going cold, warm, hot, it's going hot, warm, 00:20:32.380 --> 00:20:38.600 and you kind of skip cold. And it sounds weird when you talk about it, because I'm trying to reach 00:20:38.600 --> 00:20:43.680 people who aren't Christian, I want all these cold people. Well, you do. But if you're talking about 00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:50.000 limited resources, you want to empower your people to reach people, and you want to come behind them 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:55.040 and support their effort. That's where I've really switched my mentality at this point. 00:20:56.200 --> 00:21:01.100 Yeah, there's, there's research that actually backs, backs you up, Jennifer, on this. And we talk about 00:21:01.100 --> 00:21:09.680 this, that a lot. LifeWay 2016 did a report that, man, I'm blanking on the exact number, I want to say it 00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:18.360 was 63%, 62 or 63% of people do not want to come to your church building. They are, they're just, 00:21:18.460 --> 00:21:24.120 they're not interested in the same way that I'm really not interested in going to a mosque. I've 00:21:24.120 --> 00:21:29.520 made a decision in my life of how things are going spiritually. And most people have, but 80% of 00:21:29.520 --> 00:21:37.420 people will have a conversation about faith with their friends. And so empowering your friends, 00:21:37.420 --> 00:21:43.460 empowering the members and the attenders of your church to go into these discipleship level 00:21:43.460 --> 00:21:49.260 conversations, these gospel grounded conversations. Um, and if the end game is, Hey, this is important 00:21:49.260 --> 00:21:55.700 to me. Let me invite you to the church building. If, if it's, if it's even to the level of, let me share 00:21:55.700 --> 00:22:03.340 the gospel with you one-on-one individually. Um, you know, that, that's the, that's the effective way 00:22:03.340 --> 00:22:10.620 of doing marketing right now. Like even, even to the point where, uh, we had Seth Muse on, I don't 00:22:10.620 --> 00:22:13.860 know, a couple of weeks ago, it's, it's been a while and I'm blanking on the name of his church in 00:22:13.860 --> 00:22:20.020 Dallas where he's at, but they did a, uh, they did a survey, um, and where they found that the physical 00:22:20.020 --> 00:22:26.500 invites that, that people have that people that the church has that they hand out. Um, Seth was saying 00:22:26.500 --> 00:22:31.600 that people weren't picking them up anymore and they were just throwing away the physical invites. 00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:38.060 Right. And so the church, the church thought, man, we've got a major issue with an invite culture 00:22:38.060 --> 00:22:43.840 here. Our people are not inviting into church. And this is a problem. What they did was they ended up 00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:50.040 doing a, uh, a survey to see. And one of the questions was, how do you invite people? And what 00:22:50.040 --> 00:22:56.680 they discovered was that the physical invites weren't effective. Digital graphics, you know, a share to 00:22:56.680 --> 00:23:03.960 your point, changing that, that, uh, that profile photo or the timeline photo and Facebook or, or whatever. 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:10.560 Like those were the things that the church was doing eight times out of 10. And so while the church 00:23:10.560 --> 00:23:17.280 was looking at, okay, uh, we have a invite issue because nobody's picking up the print assets, 00:23:17.280 --> 00:23:22.880 the digital assets were, were blowing out the door and we're getting a far more exposure and the church 00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:30.660 just wasn't looking in the right way. So like this, this is great. And this idea of how, um, we, we can, 00:23:31.220 --> 00:23:38.900 uh, we, we can shift our focus away from, you know, writing a check to like a Google organization or a 00:23:38.900 --> 00:23:44.940 Facebook, uh, to just cast the, and what the, what's the parable of the cat? You, you're, you're the 00:23:44.940 --> 00:23:52.320 walking, uh, PhD. I'm a lowly undergrad, but you know, the casting the seeds, right? Some of them are 00:23:52.320 --> 00:23:58.880 going to bounce off, uh, you know, thorns and, and Rocky and a couple of hit the soil by going through 00:23:58.880 --> 00:24:04.720 this discipleship level conversations, right? By going through something here, you're able to fine 00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:09.660 tune where those seeds are landing, landing, and at least making sure that you're throwing in the right 00:24:09.660 --> 00:24:14.120 direction, staying away from, from the, from the rocky path. Well, and the other thing that really 00:24:14.120 --> 00:24:18.880 convicted me when I was talking about, you know, cold ads, warm ads, it's when you look at the Pew 00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:23.680 research surveys, uh, the recent ones, have you seen that there's one, is it Pew or Barna? No, it was 00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:30.920 Barna that, um, more than 70% of the U S associates as Christian. Like they, they self-identify as 00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:39.640 Christian, but only 35% actually do anything, roughly 35, 35% actually do anything that the church would 00:24:39.640 --> 00:24:48.300 consider a Christian behavior. Yeah. And so me doing cold ads, people already know what Christianity is 00:24:48.300 --> 00:24:54.720 in theory. Um, they're looking for a relationship. They're looking for a community. I don't need to 00:24:54.720 --> 00:25:00.840 say, come to my church. They're a cold ad. What I need is someone to say, Hey, I go here. Will you 00:25:00.840 --> 00:25:07.560 come with me? Right. It's, they already know we're not introducing some new concept to them. They've 00:25:07.560 --> 00:25:14.120 made a decision not to go. The question is why have they made the decision not to go? Yeah. And so that's 00:25:14.120 --> 00:25:20.920 the thing we have to look at and address. So how do we, how do we do that? How, how do we have, 00:25:21.040 --> 00:25:25.840 how do we have that level of a conversation with someone? Right. Well, and that's, that's where we 00:25:25.840 --> 00:25:30.020 have a lot of different things happening today in the church, right? The church is becoming known for 00:25:30.020 --> 00:25:35.120 what they're against versus what they're for. And so more people are stepping out for that. We have a 00:25:35.120 --> 00:25:39.660 lot of people who have been hurt by the church. And so they're leaving for that. And so honestly, 00:25:39.660 --> 00:25:45.300 it's again, focusing on our people, teaching our people, what the gospel says, teaching them how to 00:25:45.300 --> 00:25:51.360 live and how to act out the gospel in their daily life, right? It's not just the hour you're there 00:25:51.360 --> 00:25:56.420 on Sunday and the hour that you're there on Wednesday, it's 24 seven. And then when you equip 00:25:56.420 --> 00:26:02.440 people with this, this is how you can talk about the gospel comfortably. You start kind of regaining 00:26:02.440 --> 00:26:09.380 that trust again with people who have left. It's, they need to see people who live out the gospel in a 00:26:09.380 --> 00:26:17.260 way that not, I don't want to say as comfortable, but as honest and as authentic and not just, 00:26:17.260 --> 00:26:21.660 I went on Sunday and I feel better. I mean, that's the thing. So when we were, um, when we were 00:26:21.660 --> 00:26:28.840 traveling the world or traveling the country, um, we do what we called campfire church. And so we also 00:26:28.840 --> 00:26:34.920 had coffee church, but it was every weekend we would be with any number of families. It could be two 00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:39.100 families. It could be 40 families on the, in the winter time, it was almost 40 families for the 00:26:39.100 --> 00:26:45.820 the whole winter. And we would do Sunday service together as a group. And the people who were not 00:26:45.820 --> 00:26:51.360 entirely comfortable with their faith wouldn't go to it, right? Because it was, you have your worship 00:26:51.360 --> 00:26:57.320 music, you have your sermon, it made them a little uncomfortable. And so my husband and I did a campfire 00:26:57.320 --> 00:27:02.300 church and what that was, and we didn't call it that, but that's in our mind, that's what it was, 00:27:02.300 --> 00:27:07.740 right? Is we just invited people to come to the campfire. We were there almost every night. It's like, 00:27:07.780 --> 00:27:12.660 if you have questions, we'd like to get to know you. And it wasn't about, you have to talk about 00:27:12.660 --> 00:27:17.320 faith with us. They knew we were Christian. They knew where we stood, but we had a lot of these 00:27:17.320 --> 00:27:22.580 conversations with people where I've left the church and I don't know if I'll ever go back. 00:27:23.060 --> 00:27:28.740 And so you'd have conversations. Why did you leave? What, what would bring you back? I mean, 00:27:28.740 --> 00:27:33.740 do you see yourself ever going back or is your faith stronger or weaker today? And a lot of them 00:27:33.740 --> 00:27:39.180 actually felt their faith was stronger because they left. So like, what does that tell us about 00:27:39.180 --> 00:27:44.500 the church? I mean, that we'd also have these conversations and they would say, you know, 00:27:44.540 --> 00:27:49.440 you're one of the few Christians we've talked to that didn't immediately condemn us. But again, 00:27:49.520 --> 00:27:55.160 what does that tell you is that we have this perception issue right now. So that's much bigger 00:27:55.160 --> 00:28:00.820 than marketing. That's, we have to work on hearts. We have to work on how do you talk about your faith, 00:28:00.820 --> 00:28:06.380 even understanding faith, right? When you look at, there's a website called theology on the web and 00:28:06.380 --> 00:28:11.260 they do, they show the results of the systematic, I don't want to say systematic theology. That's not 00:28:11.260 --> 00:28:19.140 really it. But when we talk about statements of faith and like, you know, is there a Trinity? 00:28:20.740 --> 00:28:27.560 Is there, is Jesus Christ, is Jesus Christ human or God? Like when you go and you look at this theology 00:28:27.560 --> 00:28:33.720 on the web and there's, I think there's 60 to 80 questions. And it's a survey of where do people 00:28:33.720 --> 00:28:40.980 stand as far as biblical sound theology? We're not doing so hot, right? And so you have to teach your 00:28:40.980 --> 00:28:47.540 people. What does the Bible really say? For me personally, I'm at a point where I'm understanding 00:28:47.540 --> 00:28:52.460 that digital has changed the way we do things, the way we learn, the way we remember things. 00:28:53.700 --> 00:28:59.160 We don't read anymore like we used to. And when we do read, we're so distracted, we don't comprehend. 00:29:01.120 --> 00:29:07.820 There's an organization, it's a really long name. I think it's NAACP that does the reading, 00:29:08.060 --> 00:29:13.860 the literacy tests around the world. And they do it about every 10 years. And what they have found 00:29:13.860 --> 00:29:20.360 is that in the United States, only 49% of people actually have the literacy and comprehension rate 00:29:20.360 --> 00:29:27.000 to understand what they're reading, to summarize it and to assimilate it into their belief system. 00:29:27.560 --> 00:29:33.620 So if you talk about that, I mean, 49% of the U.S. is unable to read the Bible and comprehend it. 00:29:34.520 --> 00:29:39.020 And we are expecting that's how people learn. You go on Sunday and then you read your Bible. 00:29:39.780 --> 00:29:46.920 Well, if only one in two people can do that, we're missing a huge part of our market, right? And so 00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:54.140 when we then talk about, well, digital enables us to do that, right, it's video, it's story. And so this 00:29:54.140 --> 00:29:59.420 is where, like, I've talked a little bit with you about this Bible telling organization that I'm going 00:29:59.420 --> 00:30:07.020 to in October. And Bible telling, there's a few different organizations that do that. And essentially, 00:30:07.020 --> 00:30:12.940 most of them do international missions where they have created a story set of the Bible. Crew and 00:30:12.940 --> 00:30:18.980 Story Runners is the one that I first worked with. And they have 48 stories that they literally have 00:30:18.980 --> 00:30:25.320 put together and it teaches the entire gospel from creation to revelation. Each story is two minutes 00:30:25.320 --> 00:30:30.900 long. And it really helps build a Christian worldview when you are going in to another country that 00:30:30.900 --> 00:30:36.900 doesn't have a written word. And they then teach these stories. And then they build, basically, 00:30:36.980 --> 00:30:42.760 it's micro churches, right? It's our model of house church, if you will, where it's, they have these 10 to 00:30:42.760 --> 00:30:50.340 12 people, once you get to like 14, split and do it again. And it's been extremely effective overseas. 00:30:51.300 --> 00:31:00.080 We haven't done a lot of that in the US. And where I am right now, I'm like, I would love to know my 00:31:00.080 --> 00:31:05.880 Bible better. I mean, I've read the Bible, but it's not necessarily, I mean, I think if I'm honest, 00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:09.300 and I think if other people are honest, too, like you read the Bible, but you don't always know how to 00:31:09.300 --> 00:31:13.780 bring it into your life. You don't know how to make it relevant for today. You don't know how to 00:31:13.780 --> 00:31:18.940 share it with people, right? And oftentimes you'll sit there and I have a horrible memory, so I can 00:31:18.940 --> 00:31:24.120 never remember verse, chapter, book. I was like, well, there's this place that it talks about this 00:31:24.120 --> 00:31:30.280 thing, right? And one of the things that's really great about Bible storying is that you don't have 00:31:30.280 --> 00:31:36.060 to remember where it is. You just get to tell the story. It's been really interesting. My husband 00:31:36.060 --> 00:31:41.020 and I did the Story Runners class a few years ago, and right, you'd think I know the Bible really well. 00:31:41.160 --> 00:31:47.180 I could recall it on memory. I have all these years of experience. I can't. My husband grew up 00:31:47.180 --> 00:31:51.680 Catholic, and in the Catholic church, you typically don't read the Bible really well or frequently. 00:31:52.040 --> 00:31:57.240 You'd rely on someone else to share it with you. And so he doesn't have the background that I have. 00:31:57.680 --> 00:32:02.200 When we did the Story Runners class, it was amazing because he came alive. He was like, 00:32:02.200 --> 00:32:06.380 this is the first time I've heard the gospel in a way that I connect with, that I can relate to. 00:32:06.700 --> 00:32:12.680 Like, it was living. And then when you start having that conversation, he goes, there are times where 00:32:12.680 --> 00:32:17.560 I'll be sitting with a coworker and they'll share something with me. And I'll remember from four 00:32:17.560 --> 00:32:22.240 years ago, this one random story where we talked about, you know, like the woman at the well, 00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:28.260 and it applies to the situation. So I can share this story in a really non-confrontational way. 00:32:28.260 --> 00:32:33.620 And I'm not like, well, you know, in the New Testament, Jesus went on this trip, and he talks 00:32:33.620 --> 00:32:38.340 about this thing with this woman. It's just like, hey, can I tell you a story? Like, it's from my 00:32:38.340 --> 00:32:42.420 Bible, but I just want to share. I think this might apply to you. And it's a very low-key way 00:32:42.420 --> 00:32:49.300 to share what you believe. And the more stories you learn, the more you start to understand how they 00:32:49.300 --> 00:32:55.460 impact your own life, and then how you can share them with others without feeling like you're 00:32:55.460 --> 00:33:01.620 proselytizing. Like, it's a very different mentality that we've experienced in the last few years. 00:33:01.620 --> 00:33:07.940 And Campfire Church is the thing that really led us down that path. And the feedback we've gotten from 00:33:07.940 --> 00:33:16.500 people who have felt condemned by other Christians has been really positive because we've changed the way 00:33:16.500 --> 00:33:24.820 we frame the scripture. It's now living. It's now story versus this law that I'm sharing with you. 00:33:24.820 --> 00:33:25.780 Does that make sense? 00:33:25.780 --> 00:33:32.580 Oh, totally. And it takes, and let me ask this, it takes a lot of transparency on your end to do that, 00:33:32.580 --> 00:33:36.660 right? I mean, there's a lot of vulnerability that's involved in that. 00:33:36.660 --> 00:33:45.460 How long does it take to learn a story? Is it just memorization? What does that process look like? 00:33:45.460 --> 00:33:52.420 Well, so in the Bible storing community, there's actually an organization called International 00:33:52.420 --> 00:33:58.340 Orality Network. And they kind of coordinate, or I don't want to say oversee, but they're just an 00:33:58.340 --> 00:34:03.140 umbrella organization that has a lot of these different Bible storing groups. And there's, 00:34:03.140 --> 00:34:09.300 just like there is with denominations, there's multiple views on how you do Bible story. Some 00:34:09.300 --> 00:34:16.980 are, you need to do it word for word. Some are, it's okay to paraphrase. So it just depends on who 00:34:16.980 --> 00:34:23.300 you learn from, if you will. My mentality, because I went through story runners, is two minute stories 00:34:23.300 --> 00:34:30.020 are about the best. You can remember almost anything that's two minutes long. Paraphrasing, as long as 00:34:30.020 --> 00:34:34.980 it's accurate. And so always making sure that you understand what the scripture truly says as you 00:34:34.980 --> 00:34:41.460 create your story. I mean, it's a big difference. One of the other gentlemen I follow, his stories are 00:34:41.460 --> 00:34:46.020 longer. They're five to seven minutes. I honestly have a hard time following them because I lose interest 00:34:46.020 --> 00:34:55.860 after a few minutes. And so, but I really respect what he does. He does an amazing job. He's done 265 00:34:55.860 --> 00:35:02.100 stories out of the Bible. So it's almost, it's almost the entire Bible. If you think about it, seven, 00:35:02.100 --> 00:35:07.460 over 70% of the Bible is a narrative. So it's really easy to divide the Bible into story and then to do 00:35:07.460 --> 00:35:12.260 like a two minute or a three minute story. And for me, it's just going through and figuring out, okay, 00:35:12.260 --> 00:35:19.860 what's the neck? What do I get a lot of questions about? Is it drinking? Is it just difficult 00:35:19.860 --> 00:35:27.380 relationships? Is it depression, right? And so what story in the Bible might answer that? And then I go 00:35:27.380 --> 00:35:33.060 and I figure out how can I tell that story in two minutes? And sometimes I can do it more word for 00:35:33.060 --> 00:35:37.620 word and sometimes it has to be more paraphrased, but I'm always really careful to keep it accurate. 00:35:37.620 --> 00:35:44.340 That's great. So you're, you're, you're sharing, um, you're having these conversations. You're, um, 00:35:44.340 --> 00:35:49.460 are you coaching at the same time where you're helping the person? Okay. So here's what this 00:35:49.460 --> 00:35:54.420 story means and you're helping them apply it to their life. Are you trusting that God's doing that 00:35:54.420 --> 00:35:57.620 on their own? Like what, what is, what is landing the plane trying to look like? 00:35:57.620 --> 00:36:03.380 Oh, so here's the, so when you start doing Bible telling again, there's a wide range of, 00:36:03.380 --> 00:36:08.100 oh no, you have to tell them what it means. And they've kind of, it's interesting because I think 00:36:08.100 --> 00:36:13.220 people who started that way have backed off a little bit. They've realized that what you think 00:36:13.220 --> 00:36:18.020 is really important in the story may not be what they think is really important in the story. 00:36:18.020 --> 00:36:22.660 And so they go through this model, um, of like, you know, what do you, what do you learn about God? 00:36:23.620 --> 00:36:28.660 What do you learn about man? How can you apply this to your life? Like you lead them 00:36:28.660 --> 00:36:33.940 through conversation, but you're not telling them what it means. People are pretty smart and people 00:36:33.940 --> 00:36:38.980 are pretty intuitive. You don't have to tell them the point of the story. And I think they also could 00:36:38.980 --> 00:36:42.420 start to think, they think about it, right? And so they're having to interact. They're having to 00:36:42.420 --> 00:36:48.340 internalize what they're hearing versus being told. When you tell someone it stays superficial. They 00:36:48.340 --> 00:36:53.220 don't really have to interact with the narrative. When you ask them to interact with it and tell them, 00:36:53.220 --> 00:36:58.420 ask you, ask them what they're getting out of it. They now have to interact. They have to put it into 00:36:58.420 --> 00:37:02.660 the, the narrative in their head that already exists, their worldview. And then they have to decide, 00:37:02.660 --> 00:37:08.180 does this meet up? Does this align with what I already believe? Does this change what I already 00:37:08.180 --> 00:37:12.740 believe? And then they have to figure out how does it change it? Right. And so it's, 00:37:14.020 --> 00:37:16.580 I don't tell them what it, what it means. It's like, what do you think it means? 00:37:18.100 --> 00:37:20.580 What's your background? It's going to change based on what that is. 00:37:21.220 --> 00:37:24.420 I mean, it's, well, and you're, you're, you're trusting God in those moments, right? 00:37:24.420 --> 00:37:32.660 Right. Where it's, it's, hey, let, let God rule in this and help the person apply how it can and 00:37:32.660 --> 00:37:36.260 going out on, on faith with that. That's, that's some powerful stuff. 00:37:36.660 --> 00:37:40.340 Right. Well, and I mean, I can't do it. That's, that's what the Holy Spirit's for. 00:37:41.060 --> 00:37:45.620 So a lot of the pushback I get when I talk to pastors about this is they do, they worry about, 00:37:45.620 --> 00:37:50.740 well, don't I need to tell them what it means? Like, how do I know that they're going to keep it, 00:37:52.180 --> 00:37:56.580 scripturally accurate and they're not going to then change the story and do something different 00:37:56.580 --> 00:38:00.740 with it. And I've gotten to the point where, or my response is like, I'm pretty sure that God can 00:38:00.740 --> 00:38:09.700 keep a story biblically accurate. If the Bible was passed down for how long orally and the Holy 00:38:09.700 --> 00:38:16.260 Spirit was able to maintain its integrity. I think it's okay to do one or two stories and 00:38:16.260 --> 00:38:19.220 allow the Holy Spirit to work in that. He's got this. 00:38:19.220 --> 00:38:26.900 That's a really interesting angle at that. That's very, that's very true. Well, awesome. So how does 00:38:26.900 --> 00:38:33.540 this, how does this fit? How does this apply to like a, a digital technological world? What, what, 00:38:33.540 --> 00:38:34.500 what does that kind of look like? 00:38:34.500 --> 00:38:40.180 Yeah, for me, the big thing is we have an amazing platform to share the gospel with people online. 00:38:40.900 --> 00:38:47.540 And like, I follow a lot of churches digitally. And some of them have church online, some don't, 00:38:47.540 --> 00:38:53.620 but my definition of church online is honestly any form of digital ministry at this point is I feel 00:38:53.620 --> 00:38:58.900 that the church is two or three people that can happen in a structured church online, or that can 00:38:58.900 --> 00:39:06.580 happen in a very, just a small conversation. Right. And so for me, if you are, if you are trying to 00:39:06.580 --> 00:39:11.620 figure out how to share the gospel as a church or as an individual, starting these stories that you know 00:39:11.620 --> 00:39:15.940 your friends are asking questions about, and then just posting them. Like literally it's like, 00:39:15.940 --> 00:39:20.260 here's a two minute video that I just threw up on YouTube that, Hey, I want to share a story with 00:39:20.260 --> 00:39:23.940 you today. I'm learning this thing. And you can be transparent and say, I'm trying to understand 00:39:23.940 --> 00:39:29.860 my faith better. And so I'm learning how to tell these stories. And that by itself is a way to engage 00:39:29.860 --> 00:39:34.020 online in a way. And I'm going to sound really bad. And I'm sorry, I'm going to say this, 00:39:34.900 --> 00:39:40.100 but Hey, which coffee is your favorite? Right. You know, the, the, the images where it's like, 00:39:40.100 --> 00:39:45.140 pick one through eight, which coffee is your favorite or the, so it's, it's a meaningful way to 00:39:45.140 --> 00:39:49.300 get people engaged with the scripture versus just doing something for engagement. 00:39:49.300 --> 00:39:55.380 Gotcha. That's a, it's a really interesting idea. And by the way, my coffee is always black. 00:39:55.380 --> 00:39:57.940 Uh, but that's not what you wanted to know. I'm milk. 00:39:59.540 --> 00:40:01.300 I have some coffee with my milk. 00:40:01.300 --> 00:40:05.700 Yeah. I don't, I don't even like milk for milk. Put it in Coke. Why mess up coffee? Anyway, 00:40:05.700 --> 00:40:12.660 another conversation. Uh, but, but the idea of, of getting engagement out of that, not engagement for 00:40:12.660 --> 00:40:18.180 engagement's sake, but engagement with intentionality towards that. And, and, and it's funny, like you do 00:40:18.180 --> 00:40:24.980 the, you do the coffee post cause you're trying to work the algorithm to manipulate the system to get 00:40:24.980 --> 00:40:29.860 it, do what you need to do. And, and maybe there's times to do that, but then there's also this flip 00:40:29.860 --> 00:40:35.780 side of the coin of what if we trusted God in this to pull up people's hearts, to make it work towards 00:40:35.780 --> 00:40:43.300 what we needed to. And instead of, um, manipulating the system to get the agenda that you want and the 00:40:43.300 --> 00:40:48.900 results that you want, what if we trusted God in this season, uh, to connect us to the people that 00:40:48.900 --> 00:40:54.900 needed to do the resources that we have available to us. Right. Sometimes growing slow is more healthy. 00:40:55.460 --> 00:41:00.100 Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've been on, believe me, I've been on both sides of the coin. Uh, I've, 00:41:00.100 --> 00:41:05.860 I've worked in, I've worked in churches that, you know, I felt like I was on a jet rocket flying a 00:41:05.860 --> 00:41:11.300 hundred miles an hour. Uh, and I've worked at churches that were like snails pace. I think we're 00:41:11.300 --> 00:41:17.300 running faster, uh, than, than we were. And, and, and, and both of them, you know, both of them, I think 00:41:17.300 --> 00:41:22.180 God was using both of them, I feel like was, was, was making it, making a difference. But at the end of 00:41:22.180 --> 00:41:27.460 the day, being connected with a, with an organization that's following the spirit, that's, that's an 00:41:27.460 --> 00:41:34.500 organization that's led by prayer. That's, that's led by devotion, um, towards discipling and creating, not, 00:41:34.500 --> 00:41:42.740 not a butts in seats mentality, um, not, you know, come in here so that you're a number, but, uh, having a, every 00:41:42.740 --> 00:41:48.020 relational connection with people that are in turn are relationally connecting with others, you know, 00:41:48.020 --> 00:41:56.260 I believe is key. Someone is wanting to do marketing and you've just thrown out at them. Hey, we should 00:41:56.260 --> 00:42:03.060 really focus on discipleship instead of marketing. Like that's okay. So I'm a web guy and I just heard 00:42:03.060 --> 00:42:09.380 that I'm, I'm a communications, um, director. And I just heard that that's, that's a hard, you know, 00:42:09.380 --> 00:42:15.460 bait and switch Jesus juke, call it, call it what you want. What are some practical steps? Like, how can I go 00:42:15.460 --> 00:42:20.740 from hearing this to say, okay, you're not wrong. It's something we need to explore, but I got an entire, 00:42:20.740 --> 00:42:25.540 you know, leadership team above me. Who's expecting the other thing. How do I proceed? 00:42:26.180 --> 00:42:30.500 Yeah. Well, I think there's, there's probably, uh, let's say three things you should do, right? 00:42:31.300 --> 00:42:38.740 The first one is understand your cold, warm, hot. So you understand who you really are trying to market to. 00:42:39.620 --> 00:42:44.420 The second is you have the ability to set up your website to do remarketing. 00:42:45.700 --> 00:42:52.100 If you're going to do ads, focus on that first. And so set up your, set up your pages so you can 00:42:52.100 --> 00:42:57.940 remarket, build Facebook campaigns around remarketing and be really strategic about it. If someone goes to 00:42:57.940 --> 00:43:06.020 your nursery page, do remarketing ads about the nursery. Don't just do these broad ads. And so it's okay 00:43:06.020 --> 00:43:11.140 to do ads, just do them appropriately. Do them for people who are warm or who are hot. 00:43:11.940 --> 00:43:16.980 Um, so, and the third thing is now that we've talked about this, this cold, warm, hot, and who 00:43:16.980 --> 00:43:20.580 is our audience. And now we're going to start remarketing people who are coming to our pages 00:43:20.580 --> 00:43:27.220 for certain things. How do we get more people to interact into the community? So now it's that 00:43:27.220 --> 00:43:32.180 discipleship track, right? Like how do we talk about the events we're having? It's, it's the three steps. 00:43:32.180 --> 00:43:36.740 How do we talk about the events we're having and getting people to invite and making pages, 00:43:36.740 --> 00:43:42.020 you as the communications director, making pages that share the information appropriately, 00:43:42.020 --> 00:43:46.340 that your congregation will feel comfortable sharing. So here's my invite page for Christmas. 00:43:46.340 --> 00:43:50.340 Here's all the things you need to know, right? What time are the services? Where do I park? 00:43:50.340 --> 00:43:53.460 What activities are going to be available? What can I expect when I get there? 00:43:54.340 --> 00:43:58.580 Um, what service should I go to? Maybe that you have a service that's really busy versus 00:43:58.580 --> 00:44:03.380 a service. It's not like, what do I expect for my kids? It's that kind of thing. It's more than just 00:44:03.380 --> 00:44:08.580 their ads out there. It's all the work that comes before that, that you need to really work on. 00:44:08.580 --> 00:44:16.180 So, um, fine tuning the marketing, um, you know, empowering some people around you to, to start to 00:44:16.180 --> 00:44:21.460 carry some of that messages as well and get out there and connect with people utilizing some of the 00:44:21.460 --> 00:44:28.500 digital assets, uh, to connect with at a, at a, at a personal level. Um, do that share, but also do a 00:44:28.500 --> 00:44:34.980 personal followup, share that digital file, but also, you know, message it maybe directly to, or text them 00:44:34.980 --> 00:44:42.500 so that there's a, a personal touches as well. Um, all of a sudden you can start to see stickiness to 00:44:42.500 --> 00:44:47.380 it. You can see some, some of that, the marketing that you are doing is, is starting to go towards 00:44:47.380 --> 00:44:54.180 more of a, of a warmer audience instead of one that's so cold. Right. So that's, that's some great 00:44:54.180 --> 00:44:59.380 stuff. How was it? How was, and this is off topic and maybe this will come back around with something, 00:44:59.380 --> 00:45:08.100 but how was it being under Leonard Sweet for four years? Amazing. Oh my gosh. So I, I have, I, 00:45:08.100 --> 00:45:13.380 I honestly like have done research. I didn't remember it being that school, but I did research 00:45:13.380 --> 00:45:18.500 in, in this, in this, like, he was that impactful. I was the same way. I was like, yeah, I want to go, 00:45:18.500 --> 00:45:23.380 go work, study under him. That's incredible. Yeah. He, he's at, he's at several different seminaries. 00:45:23.380 --> 00:45:30.500 Um, I think Duke is another one and I think there's another one as well. Um, because the, 00:45:30.500 --> 00:45:35.620 the one at Portland seminary, they only accept 15 students a year into, he keeps his cohort really 00:45:35.620 --> 00:45:45.700 small. I never knew where he was going to go next. So his breadth of knowledge, um, his insight into 00:45:45.700 --> 00:45:51.860 things is just unbelievable. And he doesn't just use like, there were times where we'd be sitting in 00:45:51.860 --> 00:45:57.460 his, cause the, one of the cohorts is his house. And so we were sitting in his house watching music 00:45:57.460 --> 00:46:02.340 videos from YouTube. I mean, that's not something you'd expect from him, but he's like, yeah, let's 00:46:02.340 --> 00:46:09.300 look at, um, what's the number one, like Spanish. It's the Despacito, but we're sitting there watching 00:46:09.300 --> 00:46:13.780 YouTube videos, talking about the semiotics of these YouTube videos and what we can learn 00:46:14.660 --> 00:46:22.020 for the church. Uh, we're watching movies that are, you know, not faith-based at all. And probably in some 00:46:22.020 --> 00:46:26.660 ways, most Christians would be like, why would you watch that? And it's like, what can we learn? 00:46:27.460 --> 00:46:32.020 What are the semiotics of this telling us? And how do you apply it to the church? Or we look at these, 00:46:32.500 --> 00:46:37.300 uh, paintings from, you know, a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago. 00:46:37.860 --> 00:46:41.860 Okay. Now what is this telling us about what these people believe in their faith? So I, I ended up 00:46:41.860 --> 00:46:48.180 having much more respect for like, when you go into an old cathedral and all the images on the wall, 00:46:48.180 --> 00:46:52.260 and if you, if you actually follow them, they tell the story of the church. They tell the story of that 00:46:52.260 --> 00:46:58.980 particular community. And it's, it's like things you'd never think about until you really stop and are 00:46:59.860 --> 00:47:07.380 asked to let's dig deeper in this. So it, when his knowledge, like I, as we were, as I was learning 00:47:07.380 --> 00:47:11.300 under him, one of the things that I really learned to love was like the Jewish culture and the Jewish 00:47:11.300 --> 00:47:17.460 history and how much that impacts what we read in the Bible. I don't know. I didn't think about that 00:47:17.460 --> 00:47:22.340 before. I mean, right. I've been a Christian for 20 years, but it wasn't until he was like, okay, 00:47:22.340 --> 00:47:27.380 let's stop and really think about like, what does it mean to go through the shepherd's gate? What does 00:47:27.380 --> 00:47:34.500 it mean to like be a rabbi? What does it mean? Like all these questions that you don't even think about 00:47:34.500 --> 00:47:40.500 until you start looking at the historical perspective of where Jesus grew up and Jesus lived 00:47:40.500 --> 00:47:46.020 and that faith community. Wow. So if you have a chance to do it, I recommend it. 00:47:46.020 --> 00:47:51.860 Wow. I don't, I, I seriously, I don't think I'm smart enough. Um, I remember like when, when I was, 00:47:51.860 --> 00:47:58.020 I was out of college and, uh, I was reading, uh, I read it like my senior year and actually like reading 00:47:58.020 --> 00:48:07.060 his book, uh, I started a.com 1999. I graduated December 99. So 2000, I literally started a.com 00:48:07.060 --> 00:48:13.140 doing web design just because he made this statement that, um, there is more, um, technology 00:48:13.140 --> 00:48:19.220 in a Casio Ironman wristwatch than the entire Apollo 11 space mission. Yet we, the church have not 00:48:19.220 --> 00:48:23.140 changed how we're using technology at all since, you know, the seventies or sixties or whatever. 00:48:23.700 --> 00:48:27.940 And it was, it was like, I want to, I'm doing, and so literally I started a.com doing web design, 00:48:27.940 --> 00:48:33.620 had over a hundred clients that I was building websites for and flash and CD-ROM development 00:48:33.620 --> 00:48:39.060 and hosting it. Like, it was just, was, was awesome. Um, but it was all, it was based off of 00:48:39.060 --> 00:48:44.820 this man's book, but I swear like reading that book, I can only read like one or two pages at a time 00:48:45.620 --> 00:48:52.660 because it was so thick with references and it was so, um, well-educated, you know, 00:48:52.660 --> 00:48:58.820 that it just, and I saw, he actually, I follow him on Facebook and he, uh, he posted, it's the 00:48:58.820 --> 00:49:02.740 20th anniversary of soul tsunami. And they're talking about re-releasing the book. And I'm like, 00:49:02.740 --> 00:49:10.340 oh, I got to get that. Cause it just, but like even a soul cafe, um, he did a Starbucks parallel 00:49:10.340 --> 00:49:14.580 that, that was really good. It's like, I've probably read four or five of his stuff and it's, 00:49:14.580 --> 00:49:18.340 yeah, he just, he has a new one now that's, and I can't remember the title of it, but it's about 00:49:18.340 --> 00:49:24.820 the ring of fire. Like that might even be the title, but, um, yeah, it's, it's always thought 00:49:24.820 --> 00:49:31.060 provoking. Awesome. And that's, that's good. I love that. Hey man, I want to thank you for the time. 00:49:31.460 --> 00:49:35.300 Uh, and, and I appreciate the conversation, Jennifer, with you jumping on with me today. 00:49:35.540 --> 00:49:39.940 Oh, absolutely. Loved being here. Yeah. And maybe in any thoughts or anything as we're landing in the 00:49:39.940 --> 00:49:45.700 plane. Uh, I think the big thing is like, trust your people, right? Empower your people to do things, 00:49:45.700 --> 00:49:50.500 give them the assets they need. I mean, you don't have to do everything and be everything. 00:49:51.380 --> 00:49:57.380 So the more you empower them, the easier it is to do marketing for the church. 00:49:58.260 --> 00:50:03.460 Wow. Trust the people around you. That's, that's some really good advice, uh, especially in some 00:50:03.460 --> 00:50:07.940 church environments. So well done. Hey, how can people find you on social media? 00:50:07.940 --> 00:50:13.860 Yeah. So I'm on, uh, what Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, pretty much everywhere. Um, Jen, 00:50:13.860 --> 00:50:22.260 a miles is my handle on all of them. So J E N a M I L E S. Excellent. Uh, well, Jen, uh, again, 00:50:22.260 --> 00:50:26.500 thanks for the time. Appreciate it. Uh, listening audience. Great to have you on and, uh, we'll see 00:50:26.500 --> 00:50:29.700 you next time here on the church digital podcast. Thanks everybody.