WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.220 episode 43 with the church digital podcast and this is going to be an interesting podcast because 00:00:05.220 --> 00:00:10.960 i i'm not even going to be the host here it looks like i'm going to be the guest that's going to be 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:15.520 interviewed on my own podcast this is going to be fun see a couple maybe a month or so ago at this 00:00:15.520 --> 00:00:21.540 point kyle schultz who is the associate online pastor over at northwoods community church up in 00:00:21.540 --> 00:00:27.820 illinois they um were they're interested in maybe possibly doing some church online for kids stuff 00:00:28.420 --> 00:00:33.800 and so kyle got on facebook and posted that he was looking for for somebody to you know give them 00:00:33.800 --> 00:00:40.820 some insight uh towards church online for kids and uh and so christ fellowship miami the church that i 00:00:40.820 --> 00:00:47.400 was at when i was online pastor did church online for kids for for a season and and i tagged on on 00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:53.340 the threads like yeah i'd love to you know talk with an expert too on church line for kids or somebody 00:00:53.340 --> 00:01:00.900 else who's done it and done it successfully and um and slowly we discovered that nobody else really 00:01:00.900 --> 00:01:07.140 was uh interested or had done church online for kids and so it actually started a series of 00:01:07.140 --> 00:01:13.500 conversations like who else has done church online for kids surely somebody has done a targeted motion 00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:19.980 towards a movement towards a movement towards creating a online environment aimed at children 00:01:19.980 --> 00:01:29.500 and lo and behold i don't think that there are many people that have and so instead of interviewing 00:01:29.500 --> 00:01:36.540 myself which would be weird on a podcast i've asked kyle schultz to come on and be the interviewer 00:01:36.540 --> 00:01:43.320 to walk through some questions and together let's just dialogue through what it means to do church 00:01:43.320 --> 00:01:47.160 online for kids what are the strengths and what are the weaknesses and what are the issues and 00:01:47.160 --> 00:01:51.620 and just with a full disclaimer we we didn't do church online for kids that long 00:01:51.620 --> 00:01:56.700 um there were some issues that we as an organization couldn't get past and so 00:01:56.700 --> 00:02:01.540 it did run for it for a period of time and then we stopped it and they're they're not doing it now 00:02:01.540 --> 00:02:08.540 to say that it can't be done i would disagree with to say that uh it should not be done i i think we 00:02:08.540 --> 00:02:15.880 should as churches be utilizing online environments to to reach kids i do think it looks differently and 00:02:15.880 --> 00:02:22.600 that's a lot of what this podcast is because i think the rules of church online for kids has to be 00:02:22.600 --> 00:02:29.020 different than church online so we're going to unpack a lot of this right here in this podcast you've got 00:02:29.020 --> 00:02:35.000 kyle schultz uh associate online pastor with northwoods community church you've got ray the 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:40.000 armis who's currently online pastor at christ fellowship miami and once again co-host here with 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:47.800 the church digital podcast and myself jeff reed with the church digital podcast in a episode that i'm 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:53.600 calling deconstructing kids church online okay everybody here you go i just want to hear about 00:02:53.600 --> 00:02:58.220 your guys's experience with doing kids ministry online like that let's start there what's your 00:02:58.220 --> 00:03:05.580 experience been and why did you start we looked at what we were doing across all of our campuses 00:03:05.580 --> 00:03:14.140 kids students adult services um where we were a what were we raised six seven campus multi-site church 00:03:14.140 --> 00:03:21.980 yeah we were we were hovering around eight we were getting ready to go ahead miami beach like there was 00:03:21.980 --> 00:03:28.160 and we were and we also had like a lot of micro sighting going on like within campuses like we had campuses 00:03:28.160 --> 00:03:35.120 doing specialized services like we had brickle going on at the time that's true um we had kind of a brickle 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:44.120 yeah there was uh and and there were like experimental things that we were doing at the time to reach more people we were hovering around like ten thousand in terms of attendance yeah um 00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:48.280 and so for us and that's not even including online this is just counting some of the physical numbers 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:56.020 at the time and so there was there was a season of hey since we're already scaling this stuff to go 00:03:56.020 --> 00:04:03.140 multi-site what would it look if we just scaled it a little more to take it online yeah um and and so 00:04:03.140 --> 00:04:10.080 kind of the challenge that that i brought in in a to the on to the kids ministry team is all right so 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:15.620 we're doing skits we're doing games we're doing honestly it was video worship at that point we never 00:04:15.620 --> 00:04:22.880 did live band worship so so much of this stuff is already video based um what would it take to just 00:04:22.880 --> 00:04:30.780 do a little more work uh to make it not just video based for a multi-site venue but video based 00:04:30.780 --> 00:04:38.480 entirely for online right so the the big thing like for us there there was already the um the stories 00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:43.800 like that would be told kind of like the forgive me i don't know kids ministry terms given terms but 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:48.200 like the parable the story that would connect to the kids that was already video based we were already 00:04:48.200 --> 00:04:55.700 recording that uh because it was too difficult to reproduce actors across six eight campuses so hey let's just 00:04:55.700 --> 00:05:02.160 let's just video that uh worship was already video at that point uh and we were taking stuff off of open 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:07.960 network and um but way back then i think new spring wasn't attached to new open network new spring was 00:05:07.960 --> 00:05:13.400 doing their own thing they were remember like we took a lot of stuff back then from new spring as well 00:05:13.400 --> 00:05:20.640 but i also got to say this jeff we wrote a lot of content like we had staffed writers for cf kids at the 00:05:20.640 --> 00:05:27.040 time which made sharing the content a lot easier you know and for those of you who are working with 252 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:30.940 or some of the other stuff you know that they've got all the rights they've got all that stuff and so 00:05:30.940 --> 00:05:34.960 right now that's not something whether it's gospel project you know if you're on the southern baptist 00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:40.200 end or whether you're you know if you're working with 252 and orange um we weren't doing that at the 00:05:40.200 --> 00:05:47.020 time which enabled us to then create a lot of content that we could share um now there was a lot of 00:05:47.020 --> 00:05:51.960 upfront cost to that as you can imagine but at the time we were also doing a line teaching on the 00:05:51.960 --> 00:05:57.900 weekend with kids as we were with adults we were just packaging it for kids um which you know created 00:05:57.900 --> 00:06:03.500 a great vibe it's something that we had going on for a long time even before this era but um but it 00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:10.020 enabled us to do this kind of thing and to do it well so the the biggest challenge i think that we 00:06:10.020 --> 00:06:16.020 really pulled from doing the uh the orange and we'll get to this at a later point so they ended 00:06:16.020 --> 00:06:21.520 up going to orange which is really what kind of dive bomb the online piece you know you may maybe you 00:06:21.520 --> 00:06:27.520 don't necessarily feel this but being in miami as multicultural as we are um it was a bunch of white 00:06:27.520 --> 00:06:34.120 people on videos like it was not kind of and i'm not speaking negative of new spring or any church 00:06:34.120 --> 00:06:39.320 because kind of like if if that's who your church is made up of i totally recognize hey you know just 00:06:39.320 --> 00:06:44.640 go with that but in a church like christ fellowship where it was like i mean i'm just gonna make up 00:06:44.640 --> 00:06:53.420 numbers here but ray 40 50 hispanic 25 for 30 white 20 black yeah i mean we had almost at this point 00:06:53.420 --> 00:06:59.560 because races don't even mean anything anymore down here like seeing a bunch of white people act out 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:05.420 something on a video like it's awkward enough that you have to question it like people in their room 00:07:05.420 --> 00:07:09.480 be like why are there a bunch of white people up there what are they politically trying to say 00:07:09.480 --> 00:07:15.120 and so like it's it's that that tension of you want to create your own stuff right but that costs money 00:07:15.120 --> 00:07:21.740 but then if you don't uh then you're kind of stuck with what you know not offending life church but 00:07:21.740 --> 00:07:27.740 life church in the middle of you know oklahoma they have a different um demographic 00:07:27.740 --> 00:07:34.420 uh of people who are showing up and they may not represent as well right anyway and not at the time 00:07:34.420 --> 00:07:39.560 there weren't a lot of people creating video content either in this kind of area that we could take and 00:07:39.560 --> 00:07:42.840 we could say we could actually fit and work into this i remember this because i was part of a group 00:07:42.840 --> 00:07:48.460 that went to go review different types of curriculums that lifeway had to offer that orange had to offer 00:07:48.460 --> 00:07:53.840 and this is before we made the jump and a lot of it was text-based it was like hey here are pdfs that 00:07:53.840 --> 00:07:58.980 your folks can download but once again that took a lot of it and it put a lot of emphasis on having 00:07:58.980 --> 00:08:04.980 a quality volunteer which is great if you can reproduce that over and over and over again across 00:08:04.980 --> 00:08:10.280 multiple locations across multiple services we could not especially going week to week with the material 00:08:10.280 --> 00:08:15.960 and trying to get it at the time to match up and to sink in with alignment in terms of what was going 00:08:15.960 --> 00:08:21.620 on on the weekend it just wasn't something that that would have worked out for us but you know that being 00:08:21.620 --> 00:08:26.440 said the content that we were able to create was actually very compelling for kids it was very good 00:08:26.440 --> 00:08:32.060 um and it was something that you know even my own kids enjoyed you know preface it like hey this is 00:08:32.060 --> 00:08:38.480 our stuff i we just threw it out there and it was a lot of fun that's awesome the biggest part when we 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:44.180 really looked at what we were doing at the multi-site level so content that we were already creating for the 00:08:44.180 --> 00:08:51.960 multi-site what were we missing to put it online and the biggest part that we were missing was the was the 00:08:51.960 --> 00:09:00.340 hosted segments so normally like the campus you know the campus children's director or a volunteer 00:09:00.340 --> 00:09:06.400 you know would stand up in front of the kids be the hype man get them excited you know set up uh 00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:14.140 introduce the video set up maybe tell them something to to set the stage and then show the video um and so 00:09:14.140 --> 00:09:21.740 we were missing kind of that that hype person for for online um which is where roxy fit in so well 00:09:21.740 --> 00:09:30.160 because roxy just exudes uh hype and so like you know she just she really has that that high level 00:09:30.160 --> 00:09:34.700 energy and connects so well with kids and you put her in front of the camera and it doesn't matter that 00:09:34.700 --> 00:09:42.060 there's no kids in front of her she is still hyping that that that that crowd up uh in in real ways 00:09:42.060 --> 00:09:48.060 and the good thing with her was we actually we tried we tried two or three different people in the role 00:09:48.060 --> 00:09:58.420 um two i think that were staffed um one was uh someone who was a volunteer in kids men uh and had a 00:09:58.420 --> 00:10:05.620 background in television so she was more comfortable on the television side uh but she wasn't like as 00:10:05.620 --> 00:10:11.120 tightly intertwined she was a volunteer so she kind of knew what was going on uh she really struggled in 00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:17.600 the role and honestly she went on after she left she went on to do incredible things like so this isn't 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:22.940 a negative towards her at all uh because honestly she's working for a far better organization at this 00:10:22.940 --> 00:10:29.340 point than any of us was but where she struggled with it was kids ministry and this may be just 00:10:29.340 --> 00:10:35.160 indicative of christ fellowship but there's so many day-to-day changes and so much like fluidity 00:10:35.160 --> 00:10:41.260 in kind of what's happening that her as a volunteer on the outside really struggled to keep up with it 00:10:41.260 --> 00:10:48.400 and so things would change you know oftentimes between monday and wednesday and and like by the 00:10:48.400 --> 00:10:52.380 time she came in to film something on wednesday it had changed two or three times she didn't know 00:10:52.380 --> 00:10:57.400 about it and we had to go back and reshoot and the communication really wasn't that good because 00:10:57.400 --> 00:11:03.480 she was kind of an outsider trying to come in and that that was one of the big reasons why we went 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:08.060 with the roxie model where hey let's get somebody that already speaks the language that already 00:11:08.060 --> 00:11:12.820 understands what's going on let's just get a little more out of her i think roxy was was part-time i 00:11:12.820 --> 00:11:18.080 don't think she was full-time at that point and it was something like you know move her 25 to 30 hours 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:22.920 or something something like that just give her a little more uh where where she can help create this 00:11:22.920 --> 00:11:28.760 content and and kind of help us get to that that next level at least at the intro absolutely so what 00:11:28.760 --> 00:11:34.260 would you guys say was there a felt need in your mind for a kids ministry online as you guys were 00:11:34.260 --> 00:11:39.800 assessing your online presence and your community was there a need there that you guys were like we 00:11:39.800 --> 00:11:44.480 have to do this or is it just something that you guys just jumped into because you're like well we're 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:49.620 at the multi-site we're already doing it let's just try it yeah that's that's a great question here 00:11:49.620 --> 00:11:55.080 here's what i would say i don't think we realized the felt need and then the felt need became the biggest 00:11:55.080 --> 00:12:04.020 challenge yeah the reason we got into it was um and and and i'll i'll own this like i i live and i've 00:12:04.020 --> 00:12:09.020 lived my life even with the church digital i don't think there's a limitation to what church online can 00:12:09.020 --> 00:12:15.140 be and so the biggest challenge when i talk about church online when i talk about micro sighting 00:12:15.140 --> 00:12:20.240 one of the questions i'll get out of top five questions people ask one of them is always what do you do with 00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:27.180 the kids and so rather than kind of running with that or or hiding from that uh i'm just kind of a 00:12:27.180 --> 00:12:31.640 jerk that way i'm like we are freaking gonna do kids ministry let's figure out how to do it i can't 00:12:31.640 --> 00:12:36.600 believe i just said freaking on a podcast but we're gonna we're gonna figure out how to do uh explicit 00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:44.060 rated this podcast this way yeah we're gonna put up nc 17 on the thing anyway so we're gonna figure 00:12:44.060 --> 00:12:50.580 out how to how to do this and so it was you know let's throw stuff in a blender let's see if it 00:12:50.580 --> 00:12:58.620 sticks let's be experimental with it um you know and see how how it goes now the the challenge of with 00:12:58.620 --> 00:13:04.400 me when when i look at church online i wasn't necessarily targeting the people i definitely was 00:13:04.400 --> 00:13:09.760 not targeting the people in my front door or side door i'm not targeting people who attended christ 00:13:09.760 --> 00:13:16.820 fellowship miami campuses i was trying to target people outside the city outside the state outside 00:13:16.820 --> 00:13:22.480 the country around the world and really and and i i can't speak to the stats now but when i left 00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:28.500 50 of the traffic of christ fellowship miami online of their online church was outside of the state of 00:13:28.500 --> 00:13:34.760 florida so there was a much larger reach part of that is actually there were many reasons why 00:13:34.760 --> 00:13:40.720 why that was happening but here's the problem that that i experienced i i can market an adult service 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:49.460 i could never figure out how to market a kid service like i can't you can't market to kids 00:13:49.460 --> 00:13:56.060 like you can't put create ads for kids they're not on the social media the only the only thing we could 00:13:56.060 --> 00:14:02.080 do was to market to the parents and kind of draw it down to the kid level yeah and so that really 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:08.840 became the the the problem the biggest hurdle of church online was the the adult services were very 00:14:08.840 --> 00:14:16.980 outside external oriented evangelism reach out get them connected to god type of thing 00:14:16.980 --> 00:14:26.580 the church online really evolved into my kids are sick my kids aren't at church this week i want to keep 00:14:26.580 --> 00:14:32.520 them connected so they can watch the service now it happens like it was funny i might my kids were 00:14:32.520 --> 00:14:37.740 i'm gonna do bad math here my kids were probably four and six when we were doing this both of them had 00:14:37.740 --> 00:14:44.040 ipads yeah i'm the dad that gives their kids ipads at four and six we you can email me later um 00:14:44.040 --> 00:14:51.780 but i bookmarked the cf online for on that and they would instead of watching freaking um handy manny 00:14:51.780 --> 00:14:58.880 50 times over and over and over and over again they were watching cf online and and i and i i personally 00:14:58.880 --> 00:15:06.520 i love that but it wasn't the the vision of the church was more external and reaching out as opposed 00:15:06.520 --> 00:15:13.180 to giving people an alternative to handy manny and so that was a lot of where the tension was go ahead 00:15:13.180 --> 00:15:18.480 no i was gonna say you know jeff the irony of that is i think you know to your question kyle the answer 00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:23.000 is yes and yes like there's the felt need and there's also the understanding that hey there is an 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:26.540 audience here like that's the way that i'm looking at it now where i'm hoping that one day we can bring 00:15:26.540 --> 00:15:31.700 it back either in partnership with one of our content creators or something else we're even working on 00:15:31.700 --> 00:15:35.160 we're knocking on orange's door like hey look can we get rights to this can we do something 00:15:35.160 --> 00:15:40.940 and here's why because i agree with jeff there's the sense of hey we work so hard on creating 00:15:40.940 --> 00:15:47.220 compelling content that it can't just exist for the weekend yeah like that's that's just bad 00:15:47.220 --> 00:15:51.600 stewardship right you're gonna tell me we're gonna invest all this time and all this effort and it's 00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:55.980 just gonna exist on saturday and sunday and the same thing has to apply to kids as it does in terms 00:15:55.980 --> 00:16:00.160 of our adult service so we're gonna invest all this time and effort into this kind of ministry and 00:16:00.160 --> 00:16:05.340 the content's just gonna get relayed once to them you know that that my view just doesn't make sense 00:16:05.340 --> 00:16:10.660 and especially in an era where kids are used to the whole digital kind of mindset digital and physical 00:16:10.660 --> 00:16:16.060 places just kind of providing them the same content that they have access to and so i'm convinced that 00:16:16.060 --> 00:16:20.580 my kids if they'll go to church on sunday still and they'll want to replay that service if it was great 00:16:20.580 --> 00:16:24.460 and compelling during the week they'll still want to go back and watch that great content if it's 00:16:24.460 --> 00:16:29.040 presented in a package that they're going to love absolutely they're going to come back and watch it or 00:16:29.040 --> 00:16:33.460 they're going to show it to their friends hey look at what look at what i'm watching and and and this is 00:16:33.460 --> 00:16:37.500 the key jeff i think this was our missed opportunity at the time and i think we're discovering this more 00:16:37.500 --> 00:16:43.800 now youtube is like the great place for this to live youtube is like the grand spot for this to live 00:16:43.800 --> 00:16:48.840 on youtube kids specifically and youtube right now is being very very careful with kids stuff that 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:52.800 you've got like a special check mark some of you are youtube content creators you know this you've seen 00:16:52.800 --> 00:16:57.780 this already that if you were creating stuff for kids you have to market specifically for kids and they 00:16:57.780 --> 00:17:02.840 won't allow it on the youtube kids app and they shouldn't unless it go unless this is checked off 00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:09.180 so that they can review it and so that they can put it out there so now more than ever there is a hunger 00:17:09.180 --> 00:17:15.360 there's a desire there's an audience and the kids have the capability of getting to it and you can create 00:17:15.360 --> 00:17:20.500 great content that's made for them i mean you know let's kind of go back and let's think through about 00:17:20.500 --> 00:17:26.320 how mr rogers you know would pour into so much effort to make his available for families 00:17:26.320 --> 00:17:31.780 that churches we should do the same thing we should pour the same kind of efforts and so reggie joiner if 00:17:31.780 --> 00:17:36.140 you're listening to me out there all right i'm telling you man please make orange available so that 00:17:36.140 --> 00:17:40.760 churches can take this stuff online because man there's an audience here people need to see that 00:17:40.760 --> 00:17:45.660 that's a great point on the youtube kids i just want to put a disclaimer on that we shut down we 00:17:45.660 --> 00:17:52.180 switched to orange um in the next week youtube announced youtube kids that's fact um and it was 00:17:52.180 --> 00:17:56.920 on honest because i remember going back in and trying actually hey we got a shot here let's let's 00:17:56.920 --> 00:18:03.360 and it was too late like it was already it was already moved over and yeah reggie orange man there's a lot 00:18:03.360 --> 00:18:10.820 of humility in that right it's like let me create content and have it not just for my under my brand 00:18:10.820 --> 00:18:17.460 but let me create content orange let me create content for others yeah we can show them at the 00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:22.960 church property but but show it online as well like i would imagine there would be a lot more exposure 00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:30.220 and i'm just hypothesizing here but if if there was a video that was shown on 252 00:18:30.220 --> 00:18:37.580 um and then that'll get some traction but if you show that video on maybe a couple hundred church 00:18:37.580 --> 00:18:44.040 onlines um there's going to be a lot more exposure towards that maybe you're more maybe you're more 00:18:44.040 --> 00:18:49.080 selective about who you're bringing in but i i think you know once again it's a lot better what other 00:18:49.080 --> 00:18:53.140 people say about you than what you say about yourself and churches you know being able to 00:18:53.140 --> 00:18:58.220 provide some of that content being able to own it to that point like i think that's a huge opportunity 00:18:58.220 --> 00:19:05.200 yeah and there have been two or three conversations i've had anytime i i see a um underworked video 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:12.900 person honest to god underworked christian video person i cast this vision to them what if you created 00:19:12.900 --> 00:19:18.920 video content for churches in the kids area um and that's nothing against any of the players that 00:19:18.920 --> 00:19:23.060 are out there but i just think there's this huge need and there's not a lot of options 00:19:23.060 --> 00:19:29.560 out there yeah you got the got the lifeway stuff yeah orange you know there's it's funny everywhere 00:19:29.560 --> 00:19:36.260 i and i'm i'm in the church world everywhere i look it's orange stuff and it's like man and it's it's 00:19:36.260 --> 00:19:40.860 good stuff i don't want to criticize it but love to have some other options out there that would maybe 00:19:40.860 --> 00:19:45.960 challenge uh and get some innovation in the area what would you guys say is the biggest challenge 00:19:45.960 --> 00:19:50.860 that you faced when you first started doing kids ministry online finding the audience 00:19:50.860 --> 00:19:54.600 because we really were limited um 00:19:54.600 --> 00:20:03.600 the adults that would watch online it wasn't a clean fit i'm gonna answer this into finding the 00:20:03.600 --> 00:20:08.660 audience is is one the adults wouldn't stream wouldn't connect it immediately down to the kids 00:20:08.660 --> 00:20:15.260 and so like that was a hard kind of push to get it there and when we did really kind of figure out 00:20:15.260 --> 00:20:20.720 that we were regulated regulated is not the word we were kind of restricted our audience really was 00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:26.460 the kids who were just stick or who were traveling and stuff like that um and so that was a challenge 00:20:26.460 --> 00:20:33.340 probably the the other challenge was when we tried to do it at the at the microsite level we tried to do 00:20:33.340 --> 00:20:43.480 house church uh there's a lot of um legal issues around kids ministry at house churches yeah um and 00:20:43.480 --> 00:20:50.160 and even really challenges even seeing how when we were doing micro locations in 2014 2015 00:20:50.160 --> 00:20:57.980 house churches watching church online um you know watch parties is a common term now uh right when we were 00:20:57.980 --> 00:21:03.280 doing that back then it wasn't was not a common term back then uh even how like how we're handling the 00:21:03.280 --> 00:21:07.320 kids you know you're putting it on the website and all these people are coming to some house they 00:21:07.320 --> 00:21:13.980 don't know like even that philosophy is kind of shifted a little bit like i can remember um we had 00:21:13.980 --> 00:21:20.720 a house church up in uh a network that was kind of starting up in the new york city area and uh the guy 00:21:20.720 --> 00:21:29.720 would literally let his 13 year old daughter um lead like the the bible study or with the kids 00:21:29.720 --> 00:21:34.840 and they'd watch the video they go through the curriculum like and it was it ended up being when 00:21:34.840 --> 00:21:40.480 every time they did it on friday nights it was like one kid would take a turn teaching all the other 00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:45.780 kids so he would like rotate through and have different kids do different things which was kind of a cool 00:21:45.780 --> 00:21:51.000 spin on it that i wasn't expecting but it was instead of like the adults teaching it was the was the kids 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:56.320 um but even that it's like you know there's a lawyer somewhere who's just banging his head against the 00:21:56.320 --> 00:22:04.340 wall because there's there's so much um tension around the idea of children in homes that may or may 00:22:04.340 --> 00:22:10.200 not be fully supervised um you know and so that there there's some difficulty there that needs to get fixed 00:22:10.200 --> 00:22:15.400 yeah the community aspect has to be the most challenging you know when you talk about church 00:22:15.400 --> 00:22:19.260 online the whole thing shouldn't be just the content creation but the community that you're 00:22:19.260 --> 00:22:26.020 trying to create around it and in terms of speaking as a parent yeah i'd be really uncomfortable with my 00:22:26.020 --> 00:22:30.780 six-year-old like hey so i want to go into a chat room with a volunteer with a volunteer you know to 00:22:30.780 --> 00:22:35.720 lead my small group yeah even that for me even as a church person even as a pastor yeah that for me 00:22:35.720 --> 00:22:41.780 just sets off all sorts of red flags like that and so creating the community around the content 00:22:41.780 --> 00:22:46.880 is got to be the most difficult part because yes you know that people are watching but how you get 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:50.860 them to interact with one another or how you get them to take next steps that's that's the most 00:22:50.860 --> 00:22:57.260 challenging aspect of it well and then you know part of you raise your points great what about next 00:22:57.260 --> 00:23:02.900 steps try to figure out how to take the next steps what's the end game yeah like what what is the 00:23:02.900 --> 00:23:10.580 finish line what are you trying to do with your children online um and so even and that's not 00:23:10.580 --> 00:23:16.080 that's not something any of us on this podcast can answer that's like a philosophical question that 00:23:16.080 --> 00:23:21.780 church needs to wrestle with right um because in one thing you know if you're listening to the podcast 00:23:21.780 --> 00:23:26.960 is we're more than just the one hour on sunday and just like you know to use christ fellowship's 00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:32.760 example christ fellowship my example from a couple years ago um we needed to be more than just 00:23:32.760 --> 00:23:39.100 broadcasting that one service what what's the goal okay so the goal is you know to empower parents 00:23:39.100 --> 00:23:44.300 with more resources to help disciple their kids cool so that's more than just video by the way that's 00:23:44.300 --> 00:23:51.500 a larger need than just um for church online that's the entire church so there's there's ways i think 00:23:51.500 --> 00:23:59.400 with kids ministry to maybe align things uh where physical i mean you used the word digital ray i love 00:23:59.400 --> 00:24:05.700 that it's the combining of the physical campuses and the digital and the online campus it's it's not two 00:24:05.700 --> 00:24:12.180 different experiences it's not two different goals it's one goal that's just interwoven um to work 00:24:12.180 --> 00:24:18.160 together yeah and to point back real quick to 252 so this is where parent queue has come in so big like 00:24:18.160 --> 00:24:23.000 they provide they provide a lot of great resources for parents do that in the sense that whether or not 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:26.660 parents use them that's on their own dime or that's on their own you know whatever they're going to do 00:24:26.660 --> 00:24:33.100 but providing an app providing all sorts of tools you know that kind of coincide with those lessons 00:24:33.100 --> 00:24:38.380 that's a big deal because then that furthers you know the home game in terms of me as a parent 00:24:38.380 --> 00:24:42.720 empowering me to disciple my kids which should be the goal of every church ministry church kids 00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:48.060 ministry to partner with the parents so that it's not like when i did youth group back in the day it's 00:24:48.060 --> 00:24:52.740 like oh we're dropping off our kid for you to fix him no no no no no that's not how it works we're 00:24:52.740 --> 00:24:57.740 supposed to partner together on this you know so that your child has a cohesive team i'm going to 00:24:57.740 --> 00:25:01.880 back you up as a parent and you're going to back me up as a student person and we're going to plan 00:25:01.880 --> 00:25:07.960 together how to help raise this human into a fully functional and adult that loves jesus and that's 00:25:07.960 --> 00:25:12.060 going to serve him with the rest of his life and that's how this is going to work together in kids 00:25:12.060 --> 00:25:17.340 ministry there's got to be that kind of relationship where that happens and so maybe the community aspect is 00:25:17.340 --> 00:25:23.580 parents uh kids ministers together kind of working together and to help provide resources and provide 00:25:23.580 --> 00:25:29.100 tools that they can build community around you know if i am a parent who is only online and i've got my 00:25:29.100 --> 00:25:36.740 kids um and you don't have your own content that you're creating yourself as a church so what resources 00:25:36.740 --> 00:25:43.600 are there available you know or curriculums that can be used uh to help successfully implement you know 00:25:43.600 --> 00:25:49.840 a kid's online ministry and help foster that with them i guess is where i that seems like the next 00:25:49.840 --> 00:25:54.100 logical question to ask here because that's one of the things we're wrestling with at northwoods is we 00:25:54.100 --> 00:25:59.720 don't we don't do our own content like video based content so what content do you use do you know 00:25:59.720 --> 00:26:07.920 uh i don't right now um i think it's all they're not a part of 252 um i know that they 00:26:07.920 --> 00:26:14.520 they're creating their own but it's none of it is digitally based right now okay okay well if you 00:26:14.520 --> 00:26:18.480 are writing your own content that at least saves you the trouble of uh having to jump through those 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:24.040 loopholes which is great um however if you're not creating any kind of digital resources with that i 00:26:24.040 --> 00:26:27.480 can understand how that could be a little bit all right so how do we take that next step like i 00:26:27.480 --> 00:26:32.480 mentioned earlier if if you're looking for you know gospel project or any of those deals right now 00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:38.240 they're not licensing that for churches to take it to the digital area we're all hoping and praying that 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:43.020 that somehow some way if it's it's a larger license we got to pay for if it's something along those 00:26:43.020 --> 00:26:47.840 lines that that gets opened up to churches but we're not there just yet do you know do you know 00:26:47.840 --> 00:26:55.400 what what the uh and i'm out of my league here um what's the logistical hold up on them licensing 00:26:55.400 --> 00:27:00.840 like do you know what the reason is no not just yet we've talked to the folks at orange uh on a number 00:27:00.840 --> 00:27:04.700 of fronts and the only reason i keep referencing them is because that that's who our church is using 00:27:04.700 --> 00:27:08.240 currently we're not using gospel project right now you know we're still trying to work it out with 00:27:08.240 --> 00:27:14.580 them i think it's i think there's a lot of different areas uh both in terms of music um you know music 00:27:14.580 --> 00:27:18.520 licensing can be such a challenging for all of you who are doing church online you know what i'm talking 00:27:18.520 --> 00:27:22.320 about especially if you're trying to take it on social media uh you've been flagged by facebook or 00:27:22.320 --> 00:27:27.260 even flagged by youtube hey content copyright whatever i mean that's that's for sure a thing 00:27:27.260 --> 00:27:32.020 you know to worry about to think through uh the next thing is is cultural references if they're 00:27:32.020 --> 00:27:36.920 looking at hey we want to you know leverage a clip or something you know if they're doing some form of 00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:40.840 and they're not doing at the movies but if they're doing some form of that then you know that's another 00:27:40.840 --> 00:27:46.460 issue that kind of comes into play um as far as the content and the licensing is concerned 00:27:46.460 --> 00:27:50.120 and then i think the third thing is i think they're trying to figure that out as well 00:27:50.120 --> 00:27:54.320 you know how to sell our content but also how to enable churches to distribute it digitally 00:27:54.320 --> 00:27:59.460 i think they're trying to figure that out as well um you know not every church can create 00:27:59.460 --> 00:28:06.060 content leveraging their scripts some can some can't right like our church we do have the capability of 00:28:06.060 --> 00:28:10.440 doing that we would have to staff more in order to help you know provide video editors and and 00:28:10.440 --> 00:28:14.360 videographers and things like that to make it happen but you know we see we see the vision 00:28:14.360 --> 00:28:19.380 we see the understanding of it i think we would go for it but um but it would be a challenge for 00:28:19.380 --> 00:28:24.020 churches in general to do that because of some of the upfront costs that are involved at least to do 00:28:24.020 --> 00:28:30.360 it well it'd be really interesting if a church kind of caught vision of this and it's like hey we're 00:28:30.360 --> 00:28:37.020 gonna do this and let's partner with bleeding edge is always expensive it is and that that's just kind 00:28:37.020 --> 00:28:44.520 of like the the thought and and part of part of the reason why i i love working with vendors so much 00:28:44.520 --> 00:28:49.360 is because i i believe that innovation right now isn't going to come out of the church overall it's 00:28:49.360 --> 00:28:54.480 going to come out of vendors that are going to provide the resources that then now vendors have paid 00:28:54.480 --> 00:29:00.840 that bleeding edge tax and now the churches can kind of uh come on easier uh without paying all that 00:29:00.840 --> 00:29:07.120 the the the upfront cost and the vendor can spread it out over a bunch uh but it would and and you know 00:29:07.120 --> 00:29:11.120 maybe there's a reason why this is working or not working and like i said i don't i don't understand 00:29:11.120 --> 00:29:17.280 how the sausage is made on this necessarily to really appreciate the licensing and the legal issues 00:29:17.280 --> 00:29:22.780 there but if it could be interesting if like five churches ten churches got together and said hey we're 00:29:22.780 --> 00:29:28.300 gonna we're gonna align and we're gonna create kids content and and this is going to be the end game 00:29:28.300 --> 00:29:33.740 we're we're we're going to be culturally relevant we're going to be uh demographically appropriate 00:29:33.740 --> 00:29:39.820 we're going to be theologically sound and we're going to have distribution of all of this so that 00:29:39.820 --> 00:29:46.300 it works within our i don't know if that's a i don't know if that's a network thing i don't know if 00:29:46.300 --> 00:29:52.680 that's a um a denomination thing but there's an opportunity i think for churches to work together 00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:59.720 towards it and spread out all this cost among multiple churches like i even think how i mean 00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:05.580 just it's completely off topic from kids ministry but look at how rock rms started you know i was a 00:30:05.580 --> 00:30:10.360 couple of churches coming together and then everybody open sources and and adds on to it there's there's 00:30:10.360 --> 00:30:16.180 a model there that if that if some churches would get together and just you know i don't want to be 00:30:16.180 --> 00:30:21.400 like learn to work together but figure out how to work together uh i i think there's an opportunity 00:30:21.400 --> 00:30:27.320 for for a big win to connect with kids in a new way absolutely especially since you know considering 00:30:27.320 --> 00:30:33.560 i mean this this is my kids man this is gen z this is just kids you know uh this is this is what happens 00:30:33.560 --> 00:30:37.520 this is our opportunity to reach them and this is the medium that they're going to most often 00:30:37.520 --> 00:30:42.020 you know they're going to digital resources you can cry about it you can hate on it you can shake 00:30:42.020 --> 00:30:45.500 a stick at them and say get off my lawn and get out in the street and ride a bike or whatever else 00:30:45.500 --> 00:30:50.120 but you got to deal with the fact that they love the digital resources that are provided to them 00:30:50.120 --> 00:30:55.100 schools are figuring this out for the love of god my kids are doing my kids are doing homework on their 00:30:55.100 --> 00:30:59.620 computers they're encountering the same material you know through digital mediums and then they're 00:30:59.620 --> 00:31:03.660 having to go do their physical homework like in a pad and paper and notebook they're having to do both 00:31:03.660 --> 00:31:09.340 so somewhere in the church world there is a place for this and essentially yes we do need to throw 00:31:09.340 --> 00:31:14.540 out the challenge we should be leading the way in this but instead we are lagging way behind in terms 00:31:14.540 --> 00:31:19.060 of trying to break some barriers and make this kind of thing happen yeah one i mean my first my first 00:31:19.060 --> 00:31:26.020 grader everything he does at school is online he rarely has paper-based homework so yeah it makes sense 00:31:26.020 --> 00:31:30.980 so what type of strategies and systems um did you guys put into place when you first started 00:31:30.980 --> 00:31:40.060 i don't know that's not the answer you wanted um none none none at all we want we wanted to make sure 00:31:40.060 --> 00:31:45.980 i mean i can from the from we wanted to get it off the ground to see if it would work that was kind 00:31:45.980 --> 00:31:51.380 of let me let me let me let me answer the question and i'm gonna answer your question i'm gonna turn the 00:31:51.380 --> 00:31:57.760 corner um it was throw and go we i don't i don't even i can't even remember how long we did it i want to 00:31:57.760 --> 00:32:02.760 say maybe six months i don't think it was a full year man it didn't feel that long it felt a lot 00:32:02.760 --> 00:32:09.600 shorter than that yeah like it was it was it was give it a shot and then kind of budgets and some 00:32:09.600 --> 00:32:14.460 other things kind of fell into play where they didn't want to invest all that bleeding tax money 00:32:14.460 --> 00:32:21.420 uh bleeding edge tax money into this and so they they went with the orange solution um but there 00:32:21.420 --> 00:32:29.260 ultimately we were we were we were stuck on creating content yeah and it was okay let's figure out the 00:32:29.260 --> 00:32:38.820 easiest and the cheapest way to create this model of uh the weekend service online and that's where i 00:32:38.820 --> 00:32:45.480 made my mistake like i'll just i'll own this right now i shouldn't have been so focused on recreating 00:32:45.480 --> 00:32:52.680 that one hour on sunday yeah and instead i should have been focused on how can i create resources that can help 00:32:52.680 --> 00:33:01.480 people like me disciple my kids and that's where that's where the focus got got onto i'll own this this was one of my 00:33:01.480 --> 00:33:09.480 biggest mistakes um in my stretch there doing church online was i i was so focused on on the content piece 00:33:09.480 --> 00:33:16.920 and exclusivity of online because i got to create this content for an online audience instead i should 00:33:16.920 --> 00:33:25.080 have been how can i create content that will help parents help parents disciple kids whether they're 00:33:25.080 --> 00:33:31.480 in the same city whether i attend a physical campus or whether they're in another country like the idea was 00:33:31.480 --> 00:33:37.960 it's where this fidgetal comes into play yeah i should have been creating content that would help 00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:44.280 disciple and resource and help parents be better to reach kids instead of trying to figure out oh how 00:33:44.280 --> 00:33:52.920 to get that skit background mc thing to look good in a video frame yeah i was misguided this kind of 00:33:52.920 --> 00:33:56.680 centers around kyle around the entire thing that we told you at the beginning of the of the podcast 00:33:56.680 --> 00:34:02.200 where we were doing a lot of things at the time um and the truth is we were doing a lot of things and 00:34:02.200 --> 00:34:06.760 reaching a lot of people but there wasn't an overarching strategy in terms of what we were doing 00:34:06.760 --> 00:34:11.640 and so that was some of the frustration that we that we were leading with at the time if there is an 00:34:11.640 --> 00:34:17.000 underlying dna behind what it is that you're doing and if there's an underlying strategy and 00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:21.480 infrastructure then reaching out beyond some of these things and pushing some bleeding edge doesn't 00:34:21.480 --> 00:34:26.040 feel so stressful in the organization because it feels like you're taking what you're doing and you're 00:34:26.040 --> 00:34:30.360 taking it into a digital area it's the same thing you know that jeff and i have discussed a lot 00:34:30.360 --> 00:34:34.280 over and over again with people with discipleship stuff like you can't have like oh church online does 00:34:34.280 --> 00:34:39.160 discipleship this way and then the rest of the church does it this way it's like no it should be unified 00:34:39.160 --> 00:34:44.840 in all areas and so you know figuring out strategically what it was we were going to do 00:34:44.840 --> 00:34:48.360 if the goal like what jeff is saying if the goal was to help parents disciple their kids 00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:54.440 man i think that's something that we could have succeeded at and it would have been better in the 00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:59.320 sense of hey we could have done it at a pace that worked out great we went about we wouldn't have 00:34:59.320 --> 00:35:04.440 been about concerned about creating an hour worth of content maybe as much as hey here's 15 minutes 00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:09.720 here and there but heading in a specific direction you know what i'm saying of great content that's 00:35:09.720 --> 00:35:14.600 compelling for kids it's super professional it's very well done and um you know but you live and 00:35:14.600 --> 00:35:18.280 you learn and that doesn't mean that that's not something we could revisit or somebody else can 00:35:18.280 --> 00:35:21.320 hey pick up this blueprint we're talking about now and run with it go for it yeah 00:35:22.360 --> 00:35:26.440 and and really i mean that's where that's where experimenting comes into play and we so often we 00:35:26.440 --> 00:35:32.200 talk with churches and and they're like oh it failed we're gonna and it's it's the honestly it's it's 00:35:32.200 --> 00:35:37.160 it's one of my regrets i'm i'm not saying the thing was a failure it was so bleeding edge it was it 00:35:37.160 --> 00:35:41.720 was informational but what i regret is that we never got to turn the corner and try it again 00:35:42.360 --> 00:35:47.880 it was that um you know budget was too tight we're not interested in going in this direction we're just 00:35:47.880 --> 00:35:53.720 gonna cut ties on this the entire church is going to orange which is great but orange doesn't have 00:35:53.720 --> 00:36:01.640 distribution so you're you know sol um and so like that's the that's the unfortunate of this i would 00:36:01.640 --> 00:36:08.440 have loved to okay now i understand this better let's figure out how to create resources in a different 00:36:08.440 --> 00:36:14.040 in a different topic in a different range under a different guidance uh and and unfortunately we 00:36:14.040 --> 00:36:19.240 just didn't get the chance that being out and said man church is out there experiment with stuff like 00:36:19.240 --> 00:36:24.840 this and when you learn those lessons don't be afraid to try it again uh experiment in a different 00:36:24.840 --> 00:36:29.880 way revamp give it another shot yeah you know what i would love to see uh what i think would be great 00:36:29.880 --> 00:36:33.320 and then maybe somebody's going to pick this run with it and then become a millionaire and if you 00:36:33.320 --> 00:36:39.160 are man go ahead uh somebody go out there get your pencils ready hold on yeah go get ready get ready 00:36:39.160 --> 00:36:47.160 this is the idea just create one of those unboxing channel videos for kids and have a spiritual lesson 00:36:47.160 --> 00:36:51.880 that's bible based right at the end like man my kids will probably watch that for hours give you like 00:36:51.880 --> 00:36:57.160 10 000 views you know what i'm saying 10 million views other kids will watch it you know what i'm 00:36:57.160 --> 00:37:01.480 saying because it's taking something that kids are already watching like that i'm sure other parents you 00:37:01.480 --> 00:37:06.520 don't get it i don't get it kids watching up other you know watching other kids unbox toys and play with 00:37:06.520 --> 00:37:11.400 them but they do it you know like hey here's the newest frozen doll man let me tell you what i learned 00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:17.720 from frozen this is how god you know how god works and boom create like a devotional around that and 00:37:17.720 --> 00:37:22.920 there it is there it is because kids will watch it they will engage with it and leverage it for the 00:37:22.920 --> 00:37:27.400 glory of god i mean if we're able to create christian radio stations for the glory of god based on the 00:37:27.400 --> 00:37:34.200 same pop music that we listen to you can do this so go for it i'm definitely with you on that i mean 00:37:35.320 --> 00:37:40.280 because my boys they're on youtube kids they watch ryan's world and other things like that and i'm 00:37:40.280 --> 00:37:48.040 like how can we create content that's more based around what they should be learning instead of about 00:37:48.040 --> 00:37:55.560 a toy you know and so yeah i definitely that resonates a lot with me a lot and let's let's shift because 00:37:55.560 --> 00:37:59.080 this is this is this is interesting this is not what we want to talk about with online but let's really 00:37:59.080 --> 00:38:05.720 dig into the content here right the the problem is is that at least i would throw out as option number 00:38:05.720 --> 00:38:15.480 one the problem is is that we're so focused on on throwing an agenda or a series or a topic or pushing 00:38:15.480 --> 00:38:22.280 this stuff on that we're not really engaging and listening and and and the problem if we could if 00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:27.080 we could figure out how to and i don't know how do you engage and listen to little kids which is 00:38:27.080 --> 00:38:31.160 another thing which is why i'm so focused on parenting instead of the kids and that might be 00:38:31.160 --> 00:38:37.560 a crutch in itself maybe there is a way to to to listen to the kids to get down to that to that level 00:38:38.120 --> 00:38:43.000 but it seems to me like if all we're doing is is and this is what i was guilty of let's figure out 00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:48.840 how to create this this new dynamic sermon series for for kids or this new you know whatever it was 00:38:48.840 --> 00:38:54.600 message series or topic series or story series whatever the language was um and and it's like that just 00:38:54.600 --> 00:39:01.720 became the overarching vehicle of everything that we did with kids ministry online and there is i'll just 00:39:01.720 --> 00:39:07.720 speak in my language there's hollowness to that like that that's that's not something that you can build 00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:16.280 uh an effective church and effective ministry a kid's ministry on there has to be more to that there 00:39:16.280 --> 00:39:22.040 has to be and i don't want to use the word physical connection but there has to be something richer than 00:39:22.040 --> 00:39:27.240 than just the story if i'm watching and i'm using a dated reference of handy manny because my kids were 00:39:27.240 --> 00:39:32.840 addicted to handy manny if all i'm doing is watching handy manny i'm not discipling my kids 00:39:32.840 --> 00:39:37.720 by watching handy with them watching handy manny there's another level that we got to get to with 00:39:37.720 --> 00:39:45.960 the kids and it's figuring out how to create that content coupled with another piece of okay what's 00:39:45.960 --> 00:39:52.120 the physical interaction or the person-to-person interaction to help them take maybe this head 00:39:52.120 --> 00:39:56.680 knowledge down to a heart go ahead that's where the parent has to come into play and that's 00:39:56.680 --> 00:40:01.000 something that i appreciate you know once again going back to orange that they provide questions 00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:05.080 for during the week for the parents and the kids to interact you know what i'm saying so if you can 00:40:05.080 --> 00:40:08.840 do something based off of that model where you're providing content that's for the kid but at the same 00:40:08.840 --> 00:40:13.960 time the parent has a spot hey parents click here we've got you know a spot for you to add here's 00:40:13.960 --> 00:40:19.400 discussion questions between you and your kid here's you know an activity that you guys can do together 00:40:19.400 --> 00:40:25.320 here's this um that to me the parent's a lot more compelling you know what i'm saying in that it's giving me an 00:40:25.320 --> 00:40:29.640 activity or it's giving me a way to relate to my kid through spiritual content that i become the 00:40:29.640 --> 00:40:34.440 small group leader than in my household i become the small group leader leading zoe and lexi my two 00:40:34.440 --> 00:40:40.520 little girls through that content um and that's where i think that relationship can be as opposed to 00:40:40.520 --> 00:40:45.640 hey some unknown guy some volunteer at a church or somebody who's not really going to stick and walk with 00:40:45.640 --> 00:40:51.960 them for the long haul um now obviously that's you know in a digital world that's putting a lot on the 00:40:51.960 --> 00:40:56.840 parent supposedly you know but it's what we're called to do as parents anyways it's just giving us more 00:40:56.840 --> 00:41:02.040 handles on how to do so so most people would agree that i mean parents they're gonna have the most 00:41:02.040 --> 00:41:07.800 spiritual influence over their kids than anybody in their life so i mean if you really think about that 00:41:07.800 --> 00:41:18.040 so yeah i love them i need i need help i as a i'm just i need help discipling my kids i do it on me too 00:41:18.040 --> 00:41:25.080 god almighty that's that's all of us yeah and so like church out there listening realize you know 00:41:25.080 --> 00:41:30.920 the hero in in my children's spiritual life does not need to be the children's pastor you know we've 00:41:30.920 --> 00:41:37.560 talked about a lot of things you know with this but when it comes to creating buy-in you know not only 00:41:37.560 --> 00:41:43.240 at the leadership executive leadership level with a kids ministry but even with the own kids ministry 00:41:43.240 --> 00:41:51.560 and their staff what's some advice that you you would give around that you know because we haven't 00:41:51.560 --> 00:41:57.000 explained we haven't experienced that because the question hasn't been asked yet but yeah i'm sure at 00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:01.640 at least at northwoods i mean that's going to be something that we may have an issue with but we 00:42:01.640 --> 00:42:07.160 may not i mean i don't know so yeah any advice there that you would give let me let me throw two 00:42:07.160 --> 00:42:14.200 things um i remember the first conversation that we had about kids ministry online and half with the 00:42:14.200 --> 00:42:20.760 with the staff with the people who would be involved in executing this on a regular basis half were 00:42:21.640 --> 00:42:29.400 excited at the opportunity half of them looked at it like this is just more work and i'm already giving 00:42:29.400 --> 00:42:39.000 you as much as i can i cannot give you that extra um and so but i we started selling task we didn't 00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:46.840 necessarily sell it on on vision on on discipleship because at the time church wise we were very task 00:42:46.840 --> 00:42:54.600 oriented and not necessarily you know um person oriented and so i think i think part of the challenge 00:42:55.240 --> 00:43:01.640 is to speak to the level of of the of the vision first and that's where getting it to align 00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:10.440 uh with the church overall uh which actually gets me in the number two figure out how it's a win for 00:43:10.440 --> 00:43:19.480 physical as well as online because and especially i mean you can look at your cms check-in i'm willing 00:43:19.480 --> 00:43:25.080 to bet if you're like any other church in america one week out of three the kids are there so two weeks 00:43:25.080 --> 00:43:30.520 out of three the kids are gone your adult stats may be worse than that but you at least know through 00:43:30.520 --> 00:43:35.960 kids check-in you know what what that is and so realize that's another opportunity for you to engage with 00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:42.760 kids so that's another opportunity for you to engage with parents uh with added value for them to maybe 00:43:42.760 --> 00:43:49.320 understand something at a spiritual level um during the week you know i think there's a lot of effort 00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:55.400 in church overall not just kids ministry towards that one hour on sunday and if we just put a fraction 00:43:55.400 --> 00:44:01.240 of that towards the other 167 hours a week so that people can be christian so that they can understand 00:44:01.240 --> 00:44:06.200 their spiritual calling outside of the physical church building on sunday i think the church would 00:44:06.200 --> 00:44:11.640 be in a better place and so it's leading with a lot of that vision and understanding assuming your 00:44:11.640 --> 00:44:17.240 church is on board with that that'll really help you get to that sometimes you're gonna have to sell 00:44:17.240 --> 00:44:25.160 this vision up man uh because if you're excited listen i'll just tell you for me if it was it was hard going 00:44:25.160 --> 00:44:33.160 up um that was eventually bought into and then scrutinize learn from it and and make adjustments 00:44:33.160 --> 00:44:39.320 you know as as as you're doing it there's not a lot that are doing it but that doesn't mean it shouldn't 00:44:39.320 --> 00:44:46.600 be done this is to me like i said earlier uh kids ministry deaf uh these these are two things 00:44:47.160 --> 00:44:53.640 that that i think the church is is grossly missing an opportunity by not uh capitalizing and building 00:44:53.640 --> 00:44:59.160 on this in in the digital scope that's good there are steps to this i don't think it has to be an 00:44:59.160 --> 00:45:05.640 all-in um to thing you know to tell your leadership hey we want to just dedicate a bunch of resource 00:45:05.640 --> 00:45:10.200 to starting an online kids ministry i think there are steps that you can take that can help lead to 00:45:10.200 --> 00:45:15.800 that which when you provide enough wins over time enough momentum in a specific direction that's 00:45:15.800 --> 00:45:21.160 compelling enough for leadership to to create buy-in with them which i think they would see the value 00:45:21.160 --> 00:45:25.480 in it i think the first person you know on board is actually your kids director um because they're 00:45:25.480 --> 00:45:29.720 going to be not just creating the content but you got to be completely aligned you know you don't want 00:45:29.720 --> 00:45:33.960 two different churches existing like your kids online ministry and then your your kids in person 00:45:33.960 --> 00:45:37.080 ministry and you don't want them to think that you're trying to compete with them either 00:45:37.080 --> 00:45:41.080 um which is where a lot of people start with online spaces right like oh online competes with the 00:45:41.080 --> 00:45:45.560 weekend no it doesn't it enhances the weekend but it doesn't compete with the weekend allows the 00:45:45.560 --> 00:45:49.720 same content that you're creating to live on for a long time and to be leveraged for a lot of people 00:45:49.720 --> 00:45:53.640 why not go ahead and kind of like we were talking about create a few resources that your parents can 00:45:53.640 --> 00:45:58.440 use and put them on digital platforms and promote them and talk about them leverage them off and refer 00:45:58.440 --> 00:46:03.960 back to them and point to them over and over again uh you will create a bible story for kids a bible 00:46:03.960 --> 00:46:09.240 study for kids put that on digital platforms leverage them often talk about them often you know refer back to 00:46:09.240 --> 00:46:13.480 them and and then use those steps this way you can come back to your leadership and you can say look 00:46:13.480 --> 00:46:18.680 this thing got like 300 views in the first couple weeks that it was up people are out there watching 00:46:18.680 --> 00:46:23.560 it and they're sharing it this is what's happening with this imagine if we did just a little bit 00:46:23.560 --> 00:46:28.600 more and don't cast like the whole thing in front of them but just start walking them slowly 00:46:28.600 --> 00:46:34.440 through this process because to just point this is very bleeding edge on a lot of fronts and so that you 00:46:34.440 --> 00:46:39.560 don't have to jump all the way in the river there are steps that we can take to get there um so before 00:46:39.560 --> 00:46:44.520 we go off you know start starting a bunch of different you know side projects competing with 00:46:44.520 --> 00:46:48.680 all the different content creators that are out there for kids materials let's see if we can take some 00:46:48.680 --> 00:46:53.080 steps in the right direction to help provide resources for both kids and parents to grow in their 00:46:53.080 --> 00:46:59.640 relationship with jesus that's really good and and let your and i love the idea ray of your like start 00:46:59.640 --> 00:47:06.280 you know bring the the children's director bring the kids director in early i would even say let them 00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:13.320 define it let them create the why of it you know you you've heard you've heard ray and i ramble on 00:47:13.320 --> 00:47:20.840 about kids ministry and we're we're not the experts in this you have a staff expert and so letting them 00:47:21.480 --> 00:47:28.440 um define it is going to give them the ownership down the road when there's tension when things are being 00:47:28.440 --> 00:47:34.280 called into play when there's questions when there's evaluating for how to make it better if they own 00:47:34.280 --> 00:47:39.800 it at the beginning they're going to own it in that season absolutely that's great to switch gears just 00:47:39.800 --> 00:47:46.520 a little bit um you know obviously there's a lot of talk about micro churches and in the online space 00:47:47.160 --> 00:47:52.120 what does a successful kids ministry look like and you guys alluded to some challenges that come with 00:47:52.120 --> 00:47:58.520 that earlier but well let me ask let me ask this cal before you do that just to give give me context 00:47:59.080 --> 00:48:03.080 what is a micro location because the micro location looks like 50 different things 00:48:03.080 --> 00:48:08.200 sure you guys what does micro locations look like uh where you're at yeah we've got a couple right now 00:48:08.200 --> 00:48:14.200 that are meeting outside of the peoria area that would not be able to travel to get here um we've got one 00:48:14.200 --> 00:48:20.200 one of the quad cities which is about an hour and a half to two hours away from us uh we've got a group 00:48:20.200 --> 00:48:28.360 of 15 people that meet at a house and they kind of rotate between each of the couple's houses each week 00:48:28.360 --> 00:48:35.240 and uh you know one of the questions that they're asking is you know how do we minister to our kids 00:48:35.240 --> 00:48:41.640 in that setting you know and what does that look like as it continues to grow and one of the approaches 00:48:41.640 --> 00:48:48.040 that we're as a church moving to is we're really going to use our micro churches as a way to plant 00:48:48.040 --> 00:48:54.120 churches because we're moving from a multi-site approach to a church planning approach okay um and so 00:48:54.920 --> 00:48:58.920 that's just one of the things that we're kind of wrestling with because and that's been asked of 00:48:58.920 --> 00:49:03.800 our micro locations of like we're having a hard time figuring out what to do with our kids when we're 00:49:03.800 --> 00:49:13.560 meeting so so what's what's the average size of of a micro location right now our biggest one uh they 00:49:13.560 --> 00:49:20.680 have 15 people that are there and there's a couple of them that have kids it's not a huge demographic 00:49:20.680 --> 00:49:27.880 of children but there are some kids that are represented there so this is the challenge in 00:49:27.880 --> 00:49:33.240 terms of liability because i remember jeff we talked about this with danny hicks i believe too 00:49:33.240 --> 00:49:37.800 at elevation in terms of their wash parties and and how this has kind of become you know a bit of an 00:49:37.800 --> 00:49:43.640 issue and and you know it's a problem that'll eventually get solved but there's a lot of issues in terms 00:49:43.640 --> 00:49:51.560 of liability um if we if if you say hey we've got kids ministry at these locations that that's 00:49:51.560 --> 00:49:55.880 problematic in the sense of well that comes with a lot of expectations should a kid get hurt even if 00:49:55.880 --> 00:49:59.320 the kids are just hey playing outside in the backyard jumping on a trampoline and all of a sudden one 00:49:59.320 --> 00:50:04.520 kid falls breaks their arm okay what happens now is the person hosting you know the watch party or the 00:50:04.520 --> 00:50:10.120 micro location liable and the answer unfortunately is yes to a degree and then the church also becomes 00:50:10.120 --> 00:50:15.240 liable if it falls underneath that umbrella of hey we're an expression of the church wherever 00:50:15.240 --> 00:50:22.120 we're at and so that's where you want to be very very careful of how you express hey kids are welcome 00:50:22.120 --> 00:50:29.080 here etc or hey we want to do kids ministry at these micro locations for right now uh that that may be an 00:50:29.080 --> 00:50:35.560 unwise thing because there's not a great solution on that front for kids yeah i don't know ray um a lot 00:50:35.560 --> 00:50:41.320 of the same this i've literally had this conversation the same liability you have with with kids at a 00:50:41.320 --> 00:50:47.720 micro location it's the same liability you have with kids at a small group at somebody's house like 00:50:47.720 --> 00:50:55.640 you're already your church is already taking some of this risk on by doing things at houses and so 00:50:55.640 --> 00:51:02.360 there is an inherent risk with that um maybe it was interesting yeah i mean but it is right it's it's 00:51:02.360 --> 00:51:07.000 yes and no and this is where this is where and i remember having these discussions with our higher 00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:11.160 ups on this according to the insurance writers and stuff and this is where you got to be careful about 00:51:11.160 --> 00:51:18.920 what a micro location is and how it's defined in terms of you know hey this is a mini location 00:51:18.920 --> 00:51:24.040 because you know there's having a we don't describe small groups as like a pop-up store 00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.880 you know what i'm saying uh or a pop-up location but these micro locations are described in that kind 00:51:29.880 --> 00:51:35.240 of light so in the same way yeah if there's a difference between like a pop-up store best buy 00:51:35.240 --> 00:51:40.840 in a mall or something along those lines that's carrying the brand a lot heavier than something 00:51:40.840 --> 00:51:47.080 else and so that's where small groups get a little bit different treatment versus a micro location 00:51:47.720 --> 00:51:52.680 you know what i'm saying that's that's where in terms of the branding and you know this is where 00:51:52.680 --> 00:51:56.920 legal jargon comes into play look i've got family that are that study the law and their lawyers and 00:51:56.920 --> 00:52:01.160 stuff but this is where they tend to win or where they tend to go after folks hey wait you guys have 00:52:01.160 --> 00:52:09.640 defined this as church property now that right there is kind of what places you in the realm of liability 00:52:09.640 --> 00:52:15.400 that's what that's where i would say you got to be careful with it you know and yeah even if they don't 00:52:15.400 --> 00:52:19.160 win the case jeff it's the fact that they're going to go after you and the fact that it's going to cost 00:52:19.160 --> 00:52:22.280 you a lot in legal fees and they're going to go after the church it's going to cost you a lot in 00:52:22.280 --> 00:52:26.920 legal fees with it yeah kyle this isn't necessarily a conversation that you wanted to have but this 00:52:26.920 --> 00:52:34.200 actually gets back ray to um jay crandall when with his his movement of micro his movement of micro 00:52:34.200 --> 00:52:41.400 micro is is less of hey i'm going to gather 50 people in phoenix arizona together because i've 00:52:41.400 --> 00:52:46.760 got 50 viewers and i'm trying to gather these people together his expression of micro of what 00:52:46.760 --> 00:52:52.760 he's working at now is i've got one person in phoenix that knows 10 people that don't know jesus and 00:52:52.760 --> 00:52:57.960 i'm going to disciple her to the point that she can go out and start to gather these 10 people in 00:52:58.600 --> 00:53:07.080 their church and so that approach is far more um engaging is a better word healthy is a better word 00:53:07.080 --> 00:53:12.600 uh i'm trying to think of the good word i'm sorry uh is is a lot safer i mean you're you're if you're 00:53:12.600 --> 00:53:18.360 bringing in 10 of your friends into your house and four of them have kids that's that's a lot safer 00:53:18.360 --> 00:53:23.320 opportunity which is actually why it's probably small groups is a little safer of an environment 00:53:23.320 --> 00:53:29.400 because you don't have random strangers walking in which honestly having done the microsite model 00:53:29.400 --> 00:53:34.760 that was hey let's try to cluster these people together it is kind of weird when you're like hey 00:53:34.760 --> 00:53:40.520 i want to post your website your name on our your address home address on our website and people are 00:53:40.520 --> 00:53:47.320 just going to randomly show up like that's that's that's weird and so there's chances are your organization 00:53:47.320 --> 00:53:54.440 as northwoods already has some sort of solution for that at at the micro level uh but a lot of that is 00:53:54.440 --> 00:54:00.040 if if it's if it's a safer environment uh you don't necessarily have some of those worries or you're less 00:54:00.040 --> 00:54:05.080 worried about that yeah the other part of this isn't and i hate to even like play this card but it's worth 00:54:05.080 --> 00:54:13.320 doing um nowhere in the bible does it say you have to do kids ministry like um that even kids ministry 00:54:13.320 --> 00:54:20.040 itself i i think was i think and um kyle you may have been there but jason morris is actually talking 00:54:20.040 --> 00:54:25.240 about this at the church it network i think he said it was like late 800s when the church is trying to 00:54:25.240 --> 00:54:29.480 kind of figure it out oh we got to separate the kids into something so they farmed them out into 00:54:29.480 --> 00:54:33.960 like the school classrooms or something i don't know but at the end at the end of the day um 00:54:34.680 --> 00:54:41.000 you know i i would even challenge a little bit of at the micro level let's not figure out how to 00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:47.480 shuffle the kids off into uh daycare because if the best that you can generate on your own is daycare 00:54:47.480 --> 00:54:53.320 then yeah let's let's figure out how to make it inclusive and make them make them a part of it 00:54:53.320 --> 00:54:59.560 um and so it's it's a hard question it causes people to question some of the values that may already 00:54:59.560 --> 00:55:07.720 have within their church organization but like a micro location to the end of planting churches 00:55:07.720 --> 00:55:13.800 should not die that movement should not stop to exist because we don't know what to do with our 00:55:13.800 --> 00:55:19.240 eight-year-old right and you know jeff and and you're 100 right this is kind of a struggle in terms 00:55:19.240 --> 00:55:25.720 of the model if you're looking for a micro location to be an exact microcosm of what you create on sunday 00:55:25.720 --> 00:55:31.080 morning that that that are right there is already going to be flawed so if you want to check in kids 00:55:31.080 --> 00:55:35.560 and kind of shuffle them off to a bedroom or a playroom or something along those lines that's 00:55:35.560 --> 00:55:40.120 going to be flawed in the same way that i wouldn't want greeters at my micro location you know i'm not 00:55:40.120 --> 00:55:45.400 going to have people out in front of my house like hey welcome welcome to christ fellowship and come on 00:55:45.400 --> 00:55:50.360 in and raise sofas right there and the fridge is there and yeah with the street signs and the whole nine 00:55:50.360 --> 00:55:55.880 and branded t-shirts and and all that stuff so you know i mean if that's the model you're going for 00:55:55.880 --> 00:55:59.960 then then that's that's a model to go for but that's going to be something that's difficult to 00:55:59.960 --> 00:56:05.000 replicate over and over and over again which is kind of where it comes into play whereas something 00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.160 to jeff's point that looks a lot more like small groups i mean i tell every couple that comes in 00:56:09.160 --> 00:56:12.200 with kids in my small groups hey if the kids run in because they got to go to the bathroom 00:56:12.760 --> 00:56:17.080 it's okay i don't want you to freak out you know if we got to stop the bible study because 00:56:17.080 --> 00:56:22.360 somebody got a boo-boo it's okay they're free to run in there and play and play with the toys and 00:56:22.360 --> 00:56:26.600 have fun with the kids and all that stuff and then for those of you without kids that are here in the 00:56:26.600 --> 00:56:31.320 small group i just want you to understand that that's what this is i want you guys to get used to 00:56:31.320 --> 00:56:35.400 it i want you to treat them like your nieces and nephews and just totally be okay with them 00:56:35.400 --> 00:56:39.080 running around and being all right with that are you guys good with that yep if you're not that's okay 00:56:39.080 --> 00:56:43.480 we'll help get you matched to another group there's other churches there's other places 00:56:43.480 --> 00:56:47.000 for people to connect if they're not connecting because kids are running in and out of the house 00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:52.600 and having a good time well man that that just may not be for them and i know i sound mean by saying 00:56:52.600 --> 00:56:58.040 it but man there's way too many free expressions of church out there for you to try go lead one 00:56:58.040 --> 00:57:02.840 if it's not good enough for you yeah well gentlemen that's all i've got as far as questions so 00:57:02.840 --> 00:57:08.680 far for today so awesome hey was this was this helpful it was it was super helpful 00:57:08.680 --> 00:57:13.640 yeah especially around the micro church that i hadn't even thought about the the legal side of 00:57:13.640 --> 00:57:18.120 it so that's that's super helpful just to know but yeah i i truly appreciate your guys's 00:57:18.840 --> 00:57:23.960 your time and your wisdom you know not kyle we appreciate you bringing up the conversation man 00:57:23.960 --> 00:57:28.360 it's something that we talk about quite often still to this day because you know in our heart 00:57:28.360 --> 00:57:33.080 and and jeff's jeff's in a new church and and i'm still here at cf in our heart there's still very 00:57:33.080 --> 00:57:38.280 much is a place for this nobody's figured it out yet but there's a place for this and so yeah you know we're 00:57:38.280 --> 00:57:41.800 hoping that somebody picks it up and it may be you we hope we hope you pick up the rubik's cube and run 00:57:41.800 --> 00:57:46.440 with it man yeah yeah i'm really excited just i mean as we've been talking about two different sides 00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:53.080 of it like how can we you know in in equip parents you know like i definitely think i lean more to 00:57:53.080 --> 00:58:00.520 that side of that with regard to this whole kids online thing so yeah that's exciting so i'm excited