WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.060 Hey, episode 88 of the Church of Digital Podcast, powered once again by Stadia Church Planning. 00:00:05.060 --> 00:00:10.960 Jeff here. Have you noticed in this COVID season that all the playbooks got thrown out? 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:17.160 Like all the plans, all the vision 2020s? Hey, raise your hand right now. Even if you're driving 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:22.120 in a car, raise your other hand, one hand on the steering wheel. Raise your hand if you had a 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:29.260 Vision 2020 campaign. Like every church I knew of was doing Vision 2020. And I'm just curious, 00:00:29.260 --> 00:00:35.480 in this year 2020, where are we with all that? Like none of it matters. None of it's stuck. None 00:00:35.480 --> 00:00:43.340 of it is relevant even at this time because COVID, God bless it, changed everything. And so in this 00:00:43.340 --> 00:00:47.700 new season, in this new reality that we're in, mid-COVID, coming out of post-COVID, maybe we're 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:52.860 going back to the beginning of COVID, depending upon where we are. We here in Florida, we've got 00:00:52.860 --> 00:01:01.200 problems. Yeah. So the idea is for church, we need to learn lessons, yes, but we also need 00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:07.380 to experiment. We need to move on. I had a church tell me, Jeff, I can't pause ministry 00:01:07.380 --> 00:01:12.720 anymore. I need to get started. We need to get going. Church is stuck and we need to get 00:01:12.720 --> 00:01:18.220 unstuck. How do we do that? And really that's where this idea of experimenting comes in. 00:01:18.860 --> 00:01:24.880 Iterating, taking small steps, seeing what works and what doesn't, learning in the season. 00:01:25.220 --> 00:01:30.380 There's no solid answers. Maybe there were solid answers pre-COVID, but now that COVID is happening. 00:01:30.500 --> 00:01:36.660 Church, if you're going to survive, we need to be experimenting in this season. And so often 00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:41.480 churches are asking me questions like, Jeff, who should I hire? Jeff, what should we do? 00:01:41.580 --> 00:01:46.680 Jeff, what should our org chart look like? And these are important questions. But oftentimes 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:51.220 there are churches that are asking them, it's the wrong question because they don't know what 00:01:51.220 --> 00:01:55.420 they're doing yet. And you're going to hire somebody that's not the right person because 00:01:55.420 --> 00:01:59.980 you yourself, church, don't have clarity on the road that you're on because you haven't developed 00:01:59.980 --> 00:02:05.580 those plans with COVID. And really this brings in this conversation that I wanted to have today 00:02:05.580 --> 00:02:10.580 to talk about church. Maybe we should be experimenting with things in this COVID season. 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:16.660 And to that reality, maybe we shouldn't be hiring staff people. Maybe we should be contracting. 00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:23.660 Maybe we should be working with volunteers or bringing in experts in a short-term project based. 00:02:23.880 --> 00:02:28.820 Instead of hiring a long-term solution, maybe we should be experimenting with something a little 00:02:28.820 --> 00:02:36.180 smaller of a project that's a safer sandbox really to play with. And really this is where we are. 00:02:36.260 --> 00:02:41.980 We wanted to bring into the conversation Matt Lombardi. Now, Matt is a digital strategist for a church 00:02:41.980 --> 00:02:49.360 out in the Texas area, Wimberley, Texas, if you're keeping up with that. But Matt also runs a company 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:55.420 called Share. It's literally a company designed to help churches get connected with creatives. You know, 00:02:55.420 --> 00:03:00.260 those video editors that you're so desperate for, those graphic artists, those social media people, 00:03:00.640 --> 00:03:07.700 those illustrators. Yeah. Like he bridges creatives and churches together so that they can work 00:03:07.700 --> 00:03:13.420 together, not in a staffing basis, but at a contract level. You know, it's contract level where it's safer 00:03:13.420 --> 00:03:19.040 to really experiment with. And so that's the heart of the conversation here. We're bringing in Matt and 00:03:19.040 --> 00:03:24.840 myself and we're talking about, hey, how can we experiment? How can the church experiment with 00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:30.720 this? What are the issues that the church struggles with pre-COVID or mid-COVID when it comes to 00:03:30.720 --> 00:03:37.260 experimenting with trying things new? And how can we overcome these things so the church can have freedom 00:03:37.260 --> 00:03:46.020 to experiment, to test things out without having to release staff, move things around, and just get 00:03:46.020 --> 00:03:50.920 entirely messy as an organization? So here's where we are. We're bringing in Matt Lombardi from 00:03:50.920 --> 00:03:57.960 Share.work. S-H-A-A-R.work. We'll put a link in the show notes. And myself, Jeff, with the Church 00:03:57.960 --> 00:04:04.180 Digital and Stadia Church Planting. In a conversation that I'm simply calling, what do you mean your church 00:04:04.180 --> 00:04:09.820 can't experiment during COVID? Okay, everybody. Here you go. Tell us a little bit about yourself. 00:04:09.820 --> 00:04:16.940 Tell us what Share is. It's interesting. Like you pronounce it Share, S-H-A-R. There's some 00:04:16.940 --> 00:04:21.960 uniqueness with that. There is. Walk us through a little bit about you and Share. 00:04:22.440 --> 00:04:27.260 Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to. So yeah, it all starts with the funny name that looks like it should 00:04:27.260 --> 00:04:32.260 be Shar. It's actually from the biblical Hebrew word, Sha'ar, which is the gate to the marketplace. 00:04:32.820 --> 00:04:36.340 And we're a tech company, so we had to do the trendy thing that every tech company was, 00:04:36.340 --> 00:04:41.280 which have a weird spelling for their name. So we pronounce it Share. The biggest reason just 00:04:41.280 --> 00:04:46.600 being that we are that kind of online marketplace for churches to connect with freelancers and kind 00:04:46.600 --> 00:04:51.820 of contract workers who can help them build a remote team. And we really want to push on that 00:04:51.820 --> 00:04:57.860 marketplace idea, right? We really want to lean into the fact that really anything a church could 00:04:57.860 --> 00:05:02.140 need can be found on Share. So whether that's video production, whether that's a graphic designer 00:05:02.140 --> 00:05:06.700 on the creative side, or that could be something like an accountant or a bookkeeper, or, you know, 00:05:06.760 --> 00:05:11.980 every church, the bane of their existence is keeping their CHMS updated well, right? Like someone to help 00:05:11.980 --> 00:05:16.760 with that kind of stuff. So that's really what the product is. And I had spent the better part of the 00:05:16.760 --> 00:05:22.780 past decade working for in around churches and also as a freelancer. So I'd seen both sides of it. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:27.920 And, um, really the two big experiences for me that I can think through that kind of started this, 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:33.860 uh, one was in seminary. Um, I was trying to put myself through seminary, pay the bills, 00:05:33.860 --> 00:05:38.900 uh, with my wife and I would go to thrift stores and I would buy old suits and I would flip them on 00:05:38.900 --> 00:05:43.880 eBay to try to make extra cash to just like put, just hustle on, right. Put myself through seminary. 00:05:43.960 --> 00:05:47.540 I remember thinking there's gotta be a better way. Like I'm learning Greek, I'm learning Hebrew, 00:05:47.960 --> 00:05:52.660 I'm learning all this great theology. And I'm in this area where I can't really apply it in a local 00:05:52.660 --> 00:05:56.220 church setting that much because we're in new England, right? Not a lot of evangelical churches. 00:05:56.520 --> 00:06:00.120 And so I remember thinking, I wish I could actually use what I'm doing to like make money, 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:04.500 uh, and like serve a church somehow. Uh, so that kind of always was in the back of my mind. 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:09.860 And the other one was when I was serving at a church up in new England. Uh, and it was this old 00:06:09.860 --> 00:06:16.160 200 year old church, um, of about 15 people. Right. And we just flat out did not have the talent we 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:22.200 needed or the resources or anything to actually start to grow the church. And so, um, from that 00:06:22.200 --> 00:06:26.480 experience, I actually ended up kind of having a mini burnout very early in my ministry career from 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:32.940 that. Um, that made me think through, okay, why is it that we have this amazing body of Christ? 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.740 There's all these amazingly talented people all over the world or connected with technology. 00:06:36.980 --> 00:06:41.440 Why can't we figure out a way for a local church to work with someone who isn't in their local 00:06:41.440 --> 00:06:45.480 congregation? Um, so that's kind of where the idea initially started. And we launched, um, 00:06:45.540 --> 00:06:50.560 launched really our product about three months ago, um, after kind of working on it for, for about 00:06:50.560 --> 00:06:54.420 three before that. So, um, yeah, that's a little bit more about share a little bit more about, 00:06:54.500 --> 00:06:55.060 about our story. 00:06:55.740 --> 00:07:01.780 Really the heart of the conversation that I really wanted to get into is, is the fact that churches are, 00:07:01.880 --> 00:07:06.240 are hesitant, are fearful that don't know, or they don't know how to, 00:07:06.340 --> 00:07:11.260 to really experiment. Um, you know, I've had, I've had some side conversations recently with this 00:07:11.260 --> 00:07:15.240 idea of, and it's going to be a technical conversation. Maybe it applies to churches, 00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:20.740 but it's a hardware mentality versus software. Apple comes out with a new iPhone once a year 00:07:20.740 --> 00:07:26.060 and they spend so much time and there's so much rigidity into developing that hardware. The goal is 00:07:26.060 --> 00:07:30.300 you've got to solve everything from the beginning and design this thing to perfection. 00:07:31.080 --> 00:07:35.340 And that's great. But then there's like the developing software mentality of, 00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:39.160 Hey, we just want to launch this thing as soon as possible. We're going to learn some things 00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:44.040 through that. We're going to adapt. We're going to change. And it's much more agile as opposed to 00:07:44.040 --> 00:07:50.020 more of, of like a, a waterfall structure towards it. And it's, and it's really, and even tying in, 00:07:50.020 --> 00:07:56.320 into your business with, uh, with, uh, contractors coming in and, and utilizing some of that. Hey, 00:07:56.320 --> 00:08:01.760 church, don't try to hire somebody with, you have no idea what even road you're on, 00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:07.740 what you're hiring, get somebody on contract, experiment with it, try out what you want to do, 00:08:07.860 --> 00:08:14.240 try it, see if you like it. And then if, if you do cool, develop the full long-term plan to get 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:20.160 somebody on staff and grow. And, and so even what you're talking about here, how churches are hesitant 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:26.480 to, um, to explore, to experiment, like kind of what's your, what's your heart, what's your 00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:30.480 experiment, uh, what's your experience? What are you kind of learning in this season through it? 00:08:30.960 --> 00:08:35.800 Yeah. The, the first phrase that comes to mind is one that, um, gets thrown out a lot in kind of 00:08:35.800 --> 00:08:41.380 software tech space, which is fail fast, fail often, right? Like that, that failure is not something 00:08:41.380 --> 00:08:45.160 to be feared as a church. Oftentimes as church leaders, cause you know, I work in a church 00:08:45.160 --> 00:08:51.020 currently and also am founding this company. Uh, oftentimes in church world, we're so afraid of 00:08:51.020 --> 00:08:54.700 what everyone's going to think, right? Like, well, what if we launch this program and it fails? Or 00:08:54.700 --> 00:08:58.760 what if we try this new thing and it fails? And the people in our church care far less about that 00:08:58.760 --> 00:09:03.200 than we do. Oftentimes they aren't really judging us that hard on it. Um, but what, what you do is 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:06.660 you actually figure out who you are, what you do really, really well, what your team does, 00:09:06.660 --> 00:09:12.020 the more you fail, like, and the only way to like, there is no short circuiting that there's no 00:09:12.020 --> 00:09:17.280 hopping around failure to get to the good stuff, right? Like you have to fail in order to do that. 00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:22.200 Um, and I love your, like the way you're thinking through hardware versus software. Cause that's 00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:26.080 with what we're building with share. I mean, so many of the things we've learned building this 00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:30.720 have come directly from just launching something before it was ready, being open and transparent 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:34.940 about that saying like, Hey guys, this is a beta test. It may not, it's, it's going to break, 00:09:35.040 --> 00:09:40.960 right? We know that. Um, but things like, for example, uh, we have the ability to add an 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:45.760 introduction video for yourself as a freelancer. We didn't come up with that idea. That was something 00:09:45.760 --> 00:09:49.500 that we just launched the product and like one of our freelancers was saying, Hey, it'd be really 00:09:49.500 --> 00:09:53.400 cool if I could upload a video of myself talking to churches. So cool, let's build that. Like, 00:09:53.400 --> 00:09:58.320 let's see how that works. And then, um, the ability to, Hey, you know, churches would say, 00:09:58.420 --> 00:10:02.320 we'd really love to find someone based on our denomination because we're pretty unique with the 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:07.480 way we do things. Cool. Let's try that out too. And I think more churches having the ability to 00:10:07.480 --> 00:10:14.300 just try things, see if it works. If it doesn't like not every process or system you build needs 00:10:14.300 --> 00:10:19.040 a funeral, like move on to the next thing and just keep going forward. Uh, because ultimately 00:10:19.040 --> 00:10:23.800 those, those little actions are going to teach you more and those little failures are going to teach 00:10:23.800 --> 00:10:30.660 you more, uh, about who your, your kind of church is and what is going to be effective for you than 00:10:30.660 --> 00:10:35.000 it would ever if you were, um, if you're just trying to master plan it in a room on a whiteboard 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:42.360 session. Awesome. So like, just tell me, so you're working primarily with creatives, um, designers, 00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:47.860 video people, uh, right. Is that, is that primarily the focus of, of share of who you're, 00:10:47.860 --> 00:10:53.060 who you're serving, who you're helping to serve churches? Yeah. So early right now it is, uh, 00:10:53.060 --> 00:10:57.640 because so many churches, uh, mine included are all trying to figure out how do we do this, 00:10:57.720 --> 00:11:01.440 this digital world, right. That you talk about all the time. How do we get more content out there? 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:06.540 How do we make those processes quicker? Um, how do we make sure we have an excellent online product? 00:11:06.700 --> 00:11:11.400 Because in the past, like that's been a nice addition. Now it's, you know, front and center for 00:11:11.400 --> 00:11:15.900 everyone. So right now that's been the big focus. Um, but there are, our vision is really that 00:11:15.900 --> 00:11:19.700 we're going to actually be able to start to connect churches with even skillsets they've never 00:11:19.700 --> 00:11:24.520 imagined that they could use before. So for example, the average church pastor right now 00:11:24.520 --> 00:11:28.600 probably doesn't have a sermon research assistant. That's kind of the thing reserved for those like 00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:32.800 mega churches and like the pastors with the big stages, but we're trying to figure out, man, 00:11:33.520 --> 00:11:37.800 there are thousands of seminary students across the nation. How can we connect them with a local 00:11:37.800 --> 00:11:42.040 church pastor who needs them for two or three hours a week? How can we democratize a lot of the 00:11:42.040 --> 00:11:46.160 things that help churches work smarter, uh, by using technology? 00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:51.940 I love that. And by the way, even research assistant acital, that that's really interesting 00:11:51.940 --> 00:11:59.980 down the road. I could see you having that grow more and more as, as churches kind of regrow out of this 00:11:59.980 --> 00:12:06.580 COVID season. But even the idea of, of the creative right, right here in the season of COVID where 00:12:06.580 --> 00:12:15.240 churches are, are struggling to create the amount of content they need or spending people who are 00:12:15.240 --> 00:12:21.640 better off in the ministry context are now trying to edit videos on their own. Like there, I don't 00:12:21.640 --> 00:12:26.740 know how many times I've heard a lead pastor tell me, yeah, I've had to learn video editing in this 00:12:26.740 --> 00:12:34.340 COVID season. And I'm like, why? You've got other things you should be doing as a pastor than editing 00:12:34.340 --> 00:12:38.840 video. Let's go find somebody to edit video for you. Well, Jeff, we don't want to, we don't have 00:12:38.840 --> 00:12:43.700 anybody on staff that's, that's good to do this. And so who else is going to do it? And it's like, 00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:49.480 contract some guy, bring somebody in, find somebody local, a volunteer that you can train up. There's 00:12:49.480 --> 00:12:56.220 a thousand better answers than I lead lead pastor now edit the videos for, for our church. Um, so 00:12:56.220 --> 00:13:04.760 this, this is, this is a phenomenal thing. Like the, is it, what's been the, the response from 00:13:04.760 --> 00:13:10.100 creatives? Like you were, you were doing this pre COVID, right? This was not, this is not a response 00:13:10.100 --> 00:13:16.440 to COVID. So like, how has COVID affected your, your business overall from a church standpoint, 00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:19.960 from the creative standpoint, like what has that done to the conversation? 00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:24.720 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously it's changed it significantly. Uh, so when I would pitch, 00:13:24.820 --> 00:13:30.500 you know, what we were building pre COVID, uh, the response is always a very, oh, that's neat, 00:13:30.560 --> 00:13:34.940 neat idea. Right. Uh, and now the response has been, oh, that's a necessity. That's something 00:13:34.940 --> 00:13:39.300 that we have to have. Uh, and so for our business and kind of God's province, the timing just worked 00:13:39.300 --> 00:13:44.480 out, um, really, really well, uh, to, to be frank. And so what we've started to see though, 00:13:44.480 --> 00:13:49.500 is, is more churches say, okay, we see content creation as a priority. So the things you're 00:13:49.500 --> 00:13:54.500 talking about video content writing, right? I mean, as much as there are social media companies 00:13:54.500 --> 00:13:59.460 out there that you can hire, do content for you on a daily basis, the voice of your church 00:13:59.460 --> 00:14:04.260 is so unique. Every church has a unique voice. So you really almost need a, a human being who 00:14:04.260 --> 00:14:09.680 can understand that, comprehend that, ask questions and then craft messaging appropriately. That's 00:14:09.680 --> 00:14:14.080 not something that you can necessarily just automate away and say, oh, well, they're going to give us 00:14:14.080 --> 00:14:17.940 30 free social media posts a month. That's fine. But for a lot of churches, they're saying, no, 00:14:17.980 --> 00:14:20.980 we want something a little bit more than that. We want to really create content that's discipling 00:14:20.980 --> 00:14:25.620 people. That's not just filler. So we can say we're doing social media and that's where they've 00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:29.920 seen the value of having a person like we can offer on share. Um, so for the freelancers, 00:14:29.920 --> 00:14:34.020 it's also been great because now for the first time, they have kind of a central place where 00:14:34.020 --> 00:14:38.980 they can set up their profile, put their portfolio, uh, and then churches come to them, right? Like 00:14:38.980 --> 00:14:43.100 they aren't going and scouting a million Facebook groups, always having to comment and say, Hey, 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:47.060 I can do this service for you or, you know, cold calling anyone. It's just, Hey, it's all in one 00:14:47.060 --> 00:14:51.280 place. Churches come to them and they're able to get, get kind of extra juice in their, in their 00:14:51.280 --> 00:14:56.400 business. Uh, and then also for churches, churches don't have to post those. Hey, we're looking for 00:14:56.400 --> 00:15:00.320 someone, anyone know anyone? There's just real transparency now in the process because of it. And so 00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:03.500 we're just really fortunate that, um, that God's timing worked out the way it did. 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:10.760 That's amazing. And it's just so much demand right now and people are willing to jump in. But before, 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:18.400 before I even met Matt, um, and I've, I've told you the story, uh, I, I was one, I'm trying to find, 00:15:18.500 --> 00:15:22.980 I'll just be honest through the church digital. I was trying to find somebody to contract to bring 00:15:22.980 --> 00:15:27.580 in on video editing. I've got some people that I've used in the past and I was like, Hey, I'm really 00:15:27.580 --> 00:15:32.260 interested in finding somebody towards this. And I just, I made a comment, I think in a zoom 00:15:32.260 --> 00:15:37.140 to a buddy of mine who's at a church and he's like, Oh, I'm looking for somebody too. And so, 00:15:37.140 --> 00:15:43.280 uh, I, I just, I threw out on Facebook, Hey, I'm, I'm looking, I'm looking for somebody who can edit 00:15:43.280 --> 00:15:48.620 some videos, uh, simple stuff, not complex editing, just, you know, it's going to be consistent 00:15:48.620 --> 00:15:53.960 meeting somebody come in and do this. Like if, if you're interested, reach out, send me a, 00:15:53.960 --> 00:15:58.740 or whatever. I'm thinking I'd get, you know, two, three people, honest to God, I probably had 30 00:15:58.740 --> 00:16:04.960 people before I stopped counting. And what was fascinating, even on top of that was I was getting 00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:11.380 direct messages from churches, like a dozen churches. Hey, when you're done with compiling 00:16:11.380 --> 00:16:16.420 that list, could you send it our way? And I'm like, wait, I'm not trying to like do a thing here. 00:16:16.800 --> 00:16:21.900 I'm just trying to find somebody. And my, my friend here was looking for, and suddenly I'm like, 00:16:21.900 --> 00:16:26.720 well, crap, I'm going to have to like assemble and put together. And in my mind, I'm like, 00:16:26.740 --> 00:16:30.700 I don't want to do this. There's got to be a better way. But as I was looking around, 00:16:30.700 --> 00:16:37.920 I couldn't find anything. And the irony is, is literally the next day I have a meeting with Matt 00:16:37.920 --> 00:16:41.560 and he's telling me all this stuff that he's, that he's doing this. And I'm like, thank God that 00:16:41.560 --> 00:16:47.760 I literally, I, the night before I was building a Facebook group that was going to function as a, 00:16:47.900 --> 00:16:52.560 as a, like a contractor type of thing. And I'm in my mind, I'm like, this is going to be horrible, 00:16:52.560 --> 00:16:56.880 but this is the only solution I can have to try to help churches. I didn't even know you were out 00:16:56.880 --> 00:17:02.940 there. And so you like doing this and trying to connect, you know, there are churches that need 00:17:02.940 --> 00:17:08.900 to experiment and they're, they're fearful of experimenting because they're afraid of commitment. 00:17:08.900 --> 00:17:15.560 And there's, there's an opportunity here for them to separate from the commitment to, to work through 00:17:15.560 --> 00:17:24.220 contracting people, contracting experts that can come in and be, and can speak into how the ministry 00:17:24.220 --> 00:17:31.000 works online and can help you get places. And the good news is, is if it doesn't work out, 00:17:31.300 --> 00:17:36.300 it's on contract. You figure out how to move and try something else on. You can get to, 00:17:36.300 --> 00:17:41.960 to rent the experience to lease it instead of feeling like you got to move somebody across the 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:48.680 country, you know, and just deal with all that mess in context. So love what you're doing here. 00:17:49.040 --> 00:17:54.300 Let me ask you what, as you're, as you're talking with churches and engaging, because you're engaging 00:17:54.300 --> 00:18:01.860 on the contract side, you're engaging on the, on the, the church side. Is the, is the general approach, 00:18:01.980 --> 00:18:06.740 like, are they, are they pro contract or are they struggling? Do they, do they look at it like an 00:18:06.740 --> 00:18:11.900 experiment? Like what's the posture and speak to that kind of the posture of churches in this season? 00:18:12.360 --> 00:18:18.340 It really is. It's across the map. I wish I could say there was one, you know, kind of central, 00:18:18.520 --> 00:18:22.060 how they all kind of feel this way. But as you know, every church is a little bit different. 00:18:22.220 --> 00:18:26.360 Some have had experiences contracting the past and so they're more comfortable. They say, 00:18:26.420 --> 00:18:31.200 oh yeah, we know what this is. Some are, hey, we've never really hired someone outside. How does 00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:35.600 this work? Like, are they going to be shady? You know, like, like so many questions that come up 00:18:35.600 --> 00:18:40.060 with it. We'd have to do a lot more education. So it really has been across the map. One of the 00:18:40.060 --> 00:18:44.580 central themes that has come back though, time to time again, whether it's a church who has used 00:18:44.580 --> 00:18:51.520 contractors before or not though, is that by having kind of a service in the middle, it is clarifying and 00:18:51.520 --> 00:18:57.620 simplifying the process. Right. So, so it's, it's, it's becoming a process that instead of, 00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:02.060 okay, well maybe I'll find someone online and I hope that they really are who they say they are. 00:19:02.300 --> 00:19:06.160 And I hope that they really have the skills. And if they don't work, like how am I going to pay 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:10.460 them? Do I send them a check? I do a 1099. If you're in California, that's a huge pain. Right. 00:19:11.120 --> 00:19:15.960 And so every, it's just always different. Whereas what we're able to do is just say, hey, 00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:20.960 here's one central, easy to use process. We're going to make it, if you've never used a 00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:25.000 contractor before, really simple to get up and running. We literally do an onboarding call where 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:30.460 we help figure out what are the two or three big projects that can free up a ton of time for your 00:19:30.460 --> 00:19:34.800 staff. And if you've done it before and you just need to scale up your team for a season, 00:19:34.980 --> 00:19:38.820 you can do that too. And we make that possible by just saying, hey, you know what you want? 00:19:39.120 --> 00:19:43.380 Cool. Let's add another video editor to your team of video editors so that you can get a little more, 00:19:43.460 --> 00:19:47.680 a little more help in seasons where you need it. Because that's, that's the other thing about 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:53.140 staffing. You know this as someone who's in a church, Jeff, is every season of ministry is 00:19:53.140 --> 00:19:57.660 different. So leading up to Christmas, right? Things are extra crazy and you need more hands 00:19:57.660 --> 00:20:01.380 on deck and leading up to Easter, you need more hands on deck. And oh, that mission team project 00:20:01.380 --> 00:20:05.920 popped up and now we need extra help with that. So ministry is not this just like throughout the 00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:13.680 year, steady state of, of, uh, of like almost staffing energy. It's always in flux. And so by being able 00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:19.380 to scale up or down, exactly like you said, on contract when you need it, it's, it's experimenting, 00:20:19.380 --> 00:20:25.360 but it's also giving you just complete flexibility in your staffing to not be rigid, uh, in any way, 00:20:25.360 --> 00:20:30.520 shape or form. Where do you find the creatives? Like tell me, tell me the relationship, the experience 00:20:30.520 --> 00:20:36.680 that, that share has with that. Yeah. So, uh, when we started, it was, and this is just kind of the 00:20:36.680 --> 00:20:41.780 way I do think, we just cold emailed like 250 freelancers, uh, just saying, Hey, this is a crazy idea. 00:20:41.780 --> 00:20:46.860 We have, would you be interested in signing up? Um, and we, we did some, uh, some early, 00:20:46.940 --> 00:20:50.660 just like LinkedIn data scraping. So we just figured out who were people who were already 00:20:50.660 --> 00:20:54.880 doing this, who worked for churches, who had great experience. Uh, and then we would just 00:20:54.880 --> 00:21:00.120 reach out to them, cold email. And then that started to build kind of this organic sense that, 00:21:00.120 --> 00:21:03.700 you know, creatives kind of have their own community, right? Where they know someone who 00:21:03.700 --> 00:21:06.780 knows someone who knows someone. And so then since then it's just been word of mouth and kind 00:21:06.780 --> 00:21:10.480 of really nice organic growth. Um, you know, we post on Facebook and we're active on social 00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:15.000 media. So that's attracted some folks. Uh, but really a lot of our growth on the freelancer 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.820 side has been organic word of mouth. And we've tried really hard to foster that community, 00:21:19.820 --> 00:21:24.220 uh, by making, you know, Facebook groups, making that a place where we can really be the, 00:21:24.220 --> 00:21:28.920 the central, uh, organization that's trying to speak into this issue of being a Christian 00:21:28.920 --> 00:21:32.320 freelancer. Cause it does. I mean, it's, it's its own set of issues. Like there's its own 00:21:32.320 --> 00:21:36.480 set of ethics that come along with that of working for churches and its own set of challenges. 00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:40.880 And so we want to be there to walk alongside those freelancers. We see them as just part 00:21:40.880 --> 00:21:44.940 of our team. Uh, they're really a community that we, we value and love. And so, um, we're 00:21:44.940 --> 00:21:46.020 just trying to pour a ton into them. 00:21:46.500 --> 00:21:51.660 So with, with share, it's, you're logging on and scouring a database where you're seeing 00:21:51.660 --> 00:21:58.360 potentially videos you mentioned, audio profiles, um, portfolios to see examples of work, things 00:21:58.360 --> 00:22:04.800 like that. And, uh, and so you, you find the, the, the, the fit that you think, or I guess 00:22:04.800 --> 00:22:09.200 you can dialogue and engage with to try to find, you know, somebody that really has the, 00:22:09.340 --> 00:22:13.860 the voice, the feel, the connection at the church level. That's exciting. You know, you 00:22:13.860 --> 00:22:17.660 said you started with around a couple hundred or so, like how many artists, uh, creatives 00:22:17.660 --> 00:22:18.500 are you up to at this point? 00:22:18.760 --> 00:22:24.000 Yeah. So when we sent emails to about 250 early on, and that's gotten us up to, you know, we're 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:28.800 a few months in now. So right at last count, I think we had 232 users, uh, as of this morning 00:22:28.800 --> 00:22:31.980 that have signed up. So that's been exciting for us. So, uh, you know, most of those are 00:22:31.980 --> 00:22:36.700 freelancers that are on there and, um, have profiles kind of, they're setting up and, uh, 00:22:36.700 --> 00:22:40.920 everything from, like I said, social media managers to video editors to, um, you know, 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:45.380 accounting and bookkeeping, really anything. We have, uh, 16 different categories, uh, for 00:22:45.380 --> 00:22:50.600 the church. And so, yeah, a little bit of, of everything, uh, on, on the creative side 00:22:50.600 --> 00:22:53.620 though, that's really where a lot of the magic is happening early on. 00:22:53.960 --> 00:22:57.860 What types of churches are working with you? Are they, I mean, there's, there's everything 00:22:57.860 --> 00:23:02.880 from Giga to church plants that are listening to us. I can tell you, you know, highly urbanized 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:10.580 areas. I can tell you, um, bucko five rural type environments that they have dial up still 00:23:10.580 --> 00:23:15.960 for, for, uh, internet. So like, what's, what's the feel, um, uh, for, for you guys? 00:23:16.260 --> 00:23:20.740 Yeah. So we actually recently did a pretty big kind of survey, uh, trying to gather some 00:23:20.740 --> 00:23:25.520 data on, on what churches would be using us. Uh, and, and the results were pretty interesting, 00:23:25.520 --> 00:23:30.780 uh, of that survey, but also what we've seen so far. We see a lot of churches who are approaching 00:23:30.780 --> 00:23:35.720 what I'd call growth barriers who are starting to see, okay, we could use some outsourced 00:23:35.720 --> 00:23:39.000 staffing. They're, they're looking for ways to grow their team. So whether that's a church 00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:44.200 coming up on 200, right there, 150, 160 people, they know they need more staffing, they need 00:23:44.200 --> 00:23:48.000 more capacity, but they're not sure. They don't have it in the budget yet to actually do that. 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:52.880 So they're saying, huh, well, what if we outsource someone and brought in the extra talent on a 00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:56.440 budget that works for us, a timeline that works for us, and then we can scale up or scale down 00:23:56.440 --> 00:23:59.620 as those growth barriers kind of break through right before that thousand range. We've seen 00:23:59.620 --> 00:24:04.980 that a lot too. Um, and then really, uh, one of the kind of key niches that we we've tapped 00:24:04.980 --> 00:24:10.400 into early are churches who are in more remote locations, but are larger churches. So there's 00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:15.380 churches over a thousand that happen to be, you know, in an area that let's just be honest, 00:24:15.380 --> 00:24:19.260 probably doesn't attract a ton of creative talent because maybe it's a smaller town. Like 00:24:19.260 --> 00:24:23.360 maybe they're not in San Francisco or Austin or, you know, some big city that has a huge 00:24:23.360 --> 00:24:28.900 influx of creative talent. And so they're saying, well, we, we have a larger church. We need the 00:24:28.900 --> 00:24:34.740 staffing. Um, but we don't have the people here in our town necessarily to do what we want to do, 00:24:34.740 --> 00:24:38.600 or it's really hard to find them. So, so those have been kind of some early sweet spots for us, 00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:43.220 those people around growth barriers. And also there's churches who are in locations that just don't 00:24:43.220 --> 00:24:50.180 naturally attract a ton of creative talent. Let's swing over to the church. Um, because at the heart 00:24:50.180 --> 00:24:56.880 of this is, is the idea of, Hey, let's experiment. Let's, let's try something new. Um, what, what are 00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:02.480 the obstacles that, that, that hinder a church from, from experimenting? You know, even as, as we're 00:25:02.480 --> 00:25:08.120 looking, people are trying to get back to the building, possibly hinging back over to trying to get to 00:25:08.120 --> 00:25:13.140 whatever the way that it used to be. Talk to me a little bit like, Hey, what, what's, what's some 00:25:13.140 --> 00:25:18.040 interesting concepts? What do you think some church is doing at possibly exploring, experimenting, 00:25:18.200 --> 00:25:22.860 doing something new or different with some of these creative, uh, tools that you're offering? 00:25:23.360 --> 00:25:29.240 Yeah. So, um, just kind of break that down. The first question I'll answer for why churches aren't 00:25:29.240 --> 00:25:34.240 maybe experiencing what, what are some hindrances that keep them from experimenting? Um, I think the 00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:40.460 biggest one is just, uh, there's this sense, uh, that we have, I think for too long cultivated in 00:25:40.460 --> 00:25:44.760 the American church of performance, uh, that performance is the key metric to everything. And 00:25:44.760 --> 00:25:49.680 if you don't, if you don't perform consistently every single week or everything isn't a success, 00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:53.660 then somehow that means that, oh, you failed. And that's a reflection on you personally, 00:25:53.660 --> 00:25:58.960 right. Uh, our creative friends always say this, you are not the work you make. And so I think church 00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:03.580 leaders, we have to get a little more comfortable with, okay, cool. We, we tried this thing and it 00:26:03.580 --> 00:26:08.140 failed. That's not a reflection on me as a leader. That doesn't mean that like I'm a failure. It means 00:26:08.140 --> 00:26:14.100 the idea failed. Um, early on one of our advisors told me, he's like, don't fall in love with your own 00:26:14.100 --> 00:26:17.820 children. I was like, that's a weird thing to say, but his idea, he was talking about ideas, 00:26:17.880 --> 00:26:21.480 right? He's talking about don't, don't fall in love with your own ideas so much that you won't 00:26:21.480 --> 00:26:26.220 abandon them. If you realize this is a bad idea. And I think as leaders, it just starts with, 00:26:26.340 --> 00:26:30.280 I mean, a spiritual posture of humility. I'm going to try some ideas. They're not going to work and 00:26:30.280 --> 00:26:35.900 they're going to fail, but that's okay. Like that's part of growth. Um, and so it's, it's sometimes 00:26:35.900 --> 00:26:42.260 just a cultural spiritual issue of you gotta be okay with, with your identity, not coming from you 00:26:42.260 --> 00:26:46.740 just being a success all the time, but in you actually just being a child of God and a disciple and 00:26:46.740 --> 00:26:50.940 a follower of Jesus. So that's a, that's not a really highly technical answer, but I think that's 00:26:50.940 --> 00:26:55.600 a lot of times what's going on behind the scenes for us as leaders. Uh, and I feel the same tension 00:26:55.600 --> 00:26:59.600 that most pastors out there are going to feel, uh, as far as what we're seeing with churches starting 00:26:59.600 --> 00:27:06.680 to experiment. Um, some of the big things that we're starting to see, um, are the church going 00:27:06.680 --> 00:27:13.900 from this idea of being a place to a platform. Uh, so no longer is it just, okay, well, it's a place 00:27:13.900 --> 00:27:19.020 where people show up or even just a gathering, you know, in homes or anything like that. But now churches 00:27:19.020 --> 00:27:24.580 are wanting to, to test out this idea of, could we be a true platform for, for content in all 00:27:24.580 --> 00:27:29.420 different forms of discipleship, uh, in a digital sort of a way. So what that means is practically 00:27:29.420 --> 00:27:33.780 churches have to start staffing up in the area of content creation and what they're building out 00:27:33.780 --> 00:27:37.380 through the platform. Uh, and so you're seeing this with, you know, every church now is, you know, 00:27:37.420 --> 00:27:40.920 if you've experimented at all with like the church home app, which I know has been really, 00:27:41.040 --> 00:27:46.100 really popular, uh, up here in the Pacific Northwest, at least. Um, a lot of churches are thinking 00:27:46.100 --> 00:27:51.120 through how do we create a ton of content around discipleship. And, um, and so I know for example, 00:27:51.120 --> 00:27:55.840 the church I work for, we're thinking through a lot right now, how to create custom curated content 00:27:55.840 --> 00:28:01.860 so that we have different discipleship journeys for every type of person who would come in. So 00:28:01.860 --> 00:28:06.320 in traditional marketing terms, we talk about customer avatars, right? So, you know, your church 00:28:06.320 --> 00:28:13.100 may have a customer avatar of, or a target, you know, a Tinder avatar that is the, uh, the dad, 00:28:13.100 --> 00:28:18.220 uh, who is 40 years old and has 2.5 kids and lives in the suburban neighborhood. Right. 00:28:18.560 --> 00:28:26.660 And so you may have an entire discipleship pathway online for that particular person coming into your 00:28:26.660 --> 00:28:31.300 church online for the first time, and you're going to have customized content for him. So I'm seeing a 00:28:31.300 --> 00:28:37.060 lot of churches think more about platform in that way. And how do we create custom curated content on 00:28:37.060 --> 00:28:40.640 our platform that can hit people exactly where they are in their stage of life? 00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:46.800 Yeah. I, it was funny. I love the example. We we've had Mark Venti, uh, on the podcast at least 00:28:46.800 --> 00:28:51.900 once. And, and, and he's a friend that we talked a lot about the success. He's the XP over at church 00:28:51.900 --> 00:28:57.520 home. Yeah. And, uh, just really have loved watching that church kind of thrive in this season. Two 00:28:57.520 --> 00:29:02.580 years ago, I mean, literally Fox news is running articles, calling Judah Smith, like crazy. 00:29:03.060 --> 00:29:08.820 Judah Smith thinks he can pastor people via mobile app. And now like every church in America is trying 00:29:08.820 --> 00:29:13.360 to do that and wants to be them. And it's like, how dare you get such a good headstart on this? But 00:29:13.360 --> 00:29:20.420 and those that are trying to copy, you know, this, this whole church home model. And I know the story 00:29:20.420 --> 00:29:25.760 of how Mark, and we will put a link to it in the show notes, but how Mark connected up to launch the 00:29:25.760 --> 00:29:31.440 platform and, and, and kind of what that process is and the people that are involved in it. And like, 00:29:31.520 --> 00:29:39.320 it's not, it's not a cheap, nor is it an easy thing to do. And so it's, it's fascinating for me when, 00:29:39.380 --> 00:29:43.620 when I talk with churches and they're like, yeah, we want to, we want to develop a content platform 00:29:43.620 --> 00:29:48.180 like this. And we want to be the next, we want to be the Christian Netflix. Right. And, you know, 00:29:48.180 --> 00:29:52.120 and all this sort of stuff. And I'm like, okay, Hey, cool. And they're already starting on like 00:29:52.120 --> 00:29:57.060 wireframes and software development and all this stuff to build a flat platform. And I'm like, 00:29:57.280 --> 00:30:01.240 Hey, so the platform is built. That's actually the easy part. Right. That's the easy stuff. 00:30:01.480 --> 00:30:06.660 The hard stuff is actually creating the content. Do you guys create content? No. Do you like 00:30:06.660 --> 00:30:13.600 creating content? No. Does your lead pastor thinking content? No. No. Okay. So like, let's start 00:30:13.600 --> 00:30:19.740 there. Like look at YouTube. Let's contract some people, try to get familiar with it. See if your 00:30:19.740 --> 00:30:26.120 church actually likes creating content. Yeah. Yeah. I was on staff with the church and it was the same 00:30:26.120 --> 00:30:30.220 thing. They're like, yeah, we want, we want to be the content Kings. And it was like, okay, well, 00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:34.940 let's, let's actually see if we like creating content. So let's, let's create some videos. Let's 00:30:34.940 --> 00:30:40.380 create a discipleship pathway for a type of person. Let's create regular, I couldn't even get the church 00:30:40.380 --> 00:30:46.960 to like blog. Right. It's like, can you watch her song? Right. I mean, it's one piece at a time, 00:30:47.040 --> 00:30:52.360 but it was interesting. It was in that, in that discovery period before we invested a ton of money, 00:30:52.360 --> 00:30:58.720 it was like, no, let's stop. And let's figure out if we actually like the way this feels before we 00:30:58.720 --> 00:31:04.860 really go down the road. So let's experiment before we pave the cement pathway and start writing giant 00:31:04.860 --> 00:31:10.240 checks and hiring people to come in and do that. This is, this is so crucial to this idea of what 00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:17.040 share is doing with, with contact connecting with, with contractors to just test the waters and learn 00:31:17.040 --> 00:31:22.700 with experts in the season. This is so cool. Yeah. And, and I, I want to touch on some, an idea that 00:31:22.700 --> 00:31:28.360 you brought up earlier, which I love, which is this idea of, of software versus hardware thinking. 00:31:28.860 --> 00:31:33.900 And so I'm going to throw something out there. I think the future of church staffing and the way 00:31:33.900 --> 00:31:38.840 that we work as church is both. I think there are going to be hardware pieces that are always in 00:31:38.840 --> 00:31:43.180 place, right? So that's your on the ground ministry pastors. Those are your, you know, that like, 00:31:43.580 --> 00:31:47.140 I'm probably not going to do pastoral care via zoom if someone has just been through trauma, 00:31:47.220 --> 00:31:50.920 right? Like that's just not, I don't know that that's the wisest way to do it. There are certain 00:31:50.920 --> 00:31:55.160 things you're always going to have that hardware based, but what if you're able to have a hardware 00:31:55.160 --> 00:32:00.060 team and a software team, that software team being the ones who are constantly rapidly evolving and 00:32:00.060 --> 00:32:04.260 you're changing them out. So just like a new operating system or just like Adobe releases their new 00:32:04.260 --> 00:32:08.240 products and it's different than the last one and it's iterating. Cool. So you have your hardware team 00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:13.020 great. It's on the ground, but you have an entire software team too. It's constantly changing pieces, 00:32:13.020 --> 00:32:17.800 or maybe you have some core pieces there that then are going to get upgraded every year or so, 00:32:17.800 --> 00:32:22.140 or every two years, but you have to have the ability to run hardware and software. Otherwise the 00:32:22.140 --> 00:32:27.680 computer is useless. And so your team has to be that same sort of, yes, you're going to have on the 00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:32.700 ground. You're probably going to have physical again, hopefully at some point. But if you don't 00:32:32.700 --> 00:32:37.940 have a strong software piece, then that's really, I mean, that's where the magic happens for your 00:32:37.940 --> 00:32:41.640 church. And that's the thing that's going to drive everything is having the software that's 00:32:41.640 --> 00:32:46.360 constantly able to adapt. Yeah. I mean, you use the language, fail fast, fail hard earlier 00:32:46.360 --> 00:32:52.880 towards that. You know, I had Gary V quote in marketing out here locally, if you're not aware, 00:32:53.220 --> 00:32:58.660 I'm not going to link to them in the show notes. But he said a line a couple of years ago, 00:32:58.680 --> 00:33:03.400 it really impacted me. It's like version one is better than version none, you know? And actually, 00:33:03.400 --> 00:33:10.100 I use this podcast as the example. I, for three or four years, I was mulling over in my head, 00:33:10.660 --> 00:33:18.280 hey, I want to do a podcast. And I, even to the point I was like talking to musicians about creating 00:33:18.280 --> 00:33:24.760 like this custom core at the beginning. I need somebody to score this and I want to buy like 00:33:24.760 --> 00:33:31.300 all the right gear up front because I'm a gear head. And so like, I just, I had this vision for 00:33:31.300 --> 00:33:37.800 what I wanted. And honest to God, I stalled for almost three years because I couldn't get all the 00:33:37.800 --> 00:33:44.800 pieces together for this perfection idea to happen. And Ray DeArmas is a co-host on the podcast a lot. 00:33:45.180 --> 00:33:49.860 And I've said this before, Ray's actually the reason I started because Ray basically slapped me 00:33:49.860 --> 00:33:56.000 over the head, said, stop being an idiot. You're losing impact by not doing this. Just get started. 00:33:56.400 --> 00:34:00.460 Get started with what you have. Like, and it's funny, this mic, if you're on YouTube, you can see 00:34:00.460 --> 00:34:06.420 the mic. This is actually the fourth microphone I've ever used on a podcast because I had one and it was 00:34:06.420 --> 00:34:10.700 nice for a season. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to upgrade. And that was nice for 00:34:10.700 --> 00:34:15.800 a season. And once again, I'm rotating. Ray actually is using one of the mics that I used to use. I just 00:34:15.800 --> 00:34:22.800 pass them on, on the different people, but it's like, get started with whatever you have with it, 00:34:23.180 --> 00:34:29.460 learn through the experience and then grow into it. I had a church tell me recently, you know, 00:34:29.460 --> 00:34:33.460 in the midst of this COVID season, uh, they, they were, and I think we talked about it on the podcast, 00:34:33.460 --> 00:34:39.540 but they said, Hey, our, our lead pastor just told us that three weeks from now, uh, maybe it was four 00:34:39.540 --> 00:34:44.700 weeks from now, four weeks from now, we want to launch our, our, our micro location, uh, watch party 00:34:44.700 --> 00:34:48.860 set up for the church COVID it's, you know, a thing. And so we're, we're, we're trying to gear up for 00:34:48.860 --> 00:34:54.340 four weeks. And he says, well, actually we got to communicate to the volunteers what's happening. So 00:34:54.340 --> 00:34:59.820 four weeks is actually probably three weeks. And then like, we've already lost three or four days 00:34:59.820 --> 00:35:04.700 this week. So it's really like two weeks. So we've got to figure out a long-term strategy for our church 00:35:04.700 --> 00:35:09.080 and how to do micro locations in the next two weeks. Can you help us get started? I mean, that's literally 00:35:09.080 --> 00:35:14.760 the conversation that I walked into and I was like, okay, timeout. You don't have to solve the world's 00:35:14.760 --> 00:35:20.740 problems in two weeks. You've got to figure out how to like get two weeks in two weeks. So where do you 00:35:20.740 --> 00:35:25.360 want to start? Uh, and it just kind of coach them through. Okay. You get to that point, you start 00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:29.820 there and then you build on top of it. I'm like you, like I'm in the trenches. I work at, I'm 00:35:29.820 --> 00:35:34.380 director of digital innovation for a church in Texas and I do that remote. So in some ways, like I get high 00:35:34.380 --> 00:35:40.420 on my own supply, right? Like I am doing the thing that like our business is all about, but, um, we feel 00:35:40.420 --> 00:35:44.580 that pressure all the time. There's such a pressure on us as church leaders right now to feel like we 00:35:44.580 --> 00:35:50.320 have to get everything done tomorrow. And oh my gosh, like this pandemic and it's urgent. And 00:35:50.320 --> 00:35:56.440 I just try to encourage our team, but also any church leaders out there, just breathe, 00:35:56.820 --> 00:36:02.680 like breathe. It's okay. God's still in control. He's not driving an ambulance. He like your church 00:36:02.680 --> 00:36:07.900 is going to get to where it needs to be. Um, but there are so many steps between where you probably 00:36:07.900 --> 00:36:12.300 are with your platform right now and content creation and church home. There are like a million 00:36:12.300 --> 00:36:17.440 steps between there. So don't try to think you need a national audience tomorrow. You need to pass 00:36:18.040 --> 00:36:23.080 God's already given. You need to create content for the audience you have. That's like number one rule 00:36:23.080 --> 00:36:27.400 of social media. You know this, Jeff, right? Like you don't, you don't wait to engage until you get 00:36:27.400 --> 00:36:32.120 an audience. You engage with the people who show up day one. And so if you're a church leader right 00:36:32.120 --> 00:36:37.860 now, if you're not faithfully using digital content to shepherd the people already showing up to your 00:36:37.860 --> 00:36:41.620 Facebook live streams or already showing up to your Sunday, you know, online gatherings, 00:36:42.120 --> 00:36:46.620 you're not going to do it. When you get another 10,000 people, you're just going to have chaos. 00:36:47.100 --> 00:36:50.780 And so it's, you've got to take the first step and it's not going to be great right away. 00:36:51.120 --> 00:36:54.440 That's okay. Your people love you. That's why you start with your own church first. 00:36:54.920 --> 00:36:57.580 Uh, they'll give you a little more grace than people who don't know who you are. 00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:01.600 Uh, and so, yeah, that would just be my encouragement for pastors out there. Don't feel like you have to do 00:37:01.600 --> 00:37:04.180 everything all at once despite the tyranny of the urge. 00:37:04.620 --> 00:37:08.740 What are the challenges that, that a church would have with contracting? Like I'm, I'm even just 00:37:08.740 --> 00:37:14.020 thinking conversations that I've had, uh, maybe it's, um, okay. So I'm contracting somebody that's not 00:37:14.020 --> 00:37:19.040 in the same city. I'm not breathing in the same space. How do I hold them accountable? How do I know 00:37:19.040 --> 00:37:23.540 that they're, that she's not going to disappear on me? Kind of when you're having those conversations, 00:37:23.540 --> 00:37:28.960 what obstacles are you feeling? And then maybe like organizationally, how, how can we overcome 00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:33.660 that to get to this place? Yeah, that's, that's a great question because there are, uh, you know, 00:37:33.660 --> 00:37:39.560 I try to be fair about that. It is not, uh, using 1099 contractors is not, you know, this 00:37:39.560 --> 00:37:44.160 mythical thing that just solves all your problems. There are definitely, uh, challenges. The biggest 00:37:44.160 --> 00:37:49.760 one is communication. If your team doesn't communicate well right now, um, then you're not 00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:54.380 going to communicate well with someone who's 1500 miles away. Yeah. Communication has to be 00:37:54.380 --> 00:37:59.380 the key to everything with working and someone outsourced. Um, so that's, you know, for, 00:37:59.460 --> 00:38:04.440 for a lot of ours, we're going to encourage it minimum, if they're working on more of a long-term 00:38:04.440 --> 00:38:09.420 project at minimum, a weekly check-in, um, ideally a Slack channel where they're communicating almost 00:38:09.420 --> 00:38:13.520 on a daily basis, uh, where it's, Hey, this is what I worked on today. Uh, here's questions about 00:38:13.520 --> 00:38:17.240 this. And it's just a constant communication, just like you would if that person was in the office 00:38:17.240 --> 00:38:21.600 right next door to you, they just pop in and Hey, question about this or that have Slack open, 00:38:21.600 --> 00:38:25.040 and have, you know, use a text chain, use an email, whatever you want to use. I prefer 00:38:25.040 --> 00:38:29.560 Slack, but, um, be in constant communication with that person. Uh, and you can do that even 00:38:29.560 --> 00:38:34.180 on share with our, we have like messaging as part of it. So you can constantly be communicating 00:38:34.180 --> 00:38:38.680 with them on platform. Uh, so communication is the number one thing. The second one is setting 00:38:38.680 --> 00:38:43.940 expectations, uh, setting expectations for exactly what's the work to be done here. The number 00:38:43.940 --> 00:38:49.840 one challenge most churches I see face outside of communication is that they don't know what 00:38:49.840 --> 00:38:54.580 they really need. They say, Oh, well, we want social media to be better. And you ask, well, 00:38:54.640 --> 00:38:58.440 what do you mean better? Well, just better like them, you know, like this other church 00:38:58.440 --> 00:39:01.700 that's doing it really well. So you have to kind of drill down and take, ask those second 00:39:01.700 --> 00:39:05.700 level questions of, okay, what does better mean to you? Like, how do you want to communicate? 00:39:06.280 --> 00:39:11.940 Um, you really do have to get some clarity around what the job is to be done because what you realize 00:39:11.940 --> 00:39:17.040 when the person isn't in staff meeting with you every single week is that they don't just pick up 00:39:17.040 --> 00:39:21.060 naturally on the culture immediately because they just hear it in the air all the time. So you really 00:39:21.060 --> 00:39:25.800 do have to go a little bit overboard with setting expectations early of here's exactly what we're 00:39:25.800 --> 00:39:31.560 looking for in this. Um, so that there's no sort of tension around, oh, well, you know, 00:39:31.680 --> 00:39:34.920 you didn't deliver what we thought. So like on share, the way that we do that is we have a section 00:39:34.920 --> 00:39:39.920 where you post a project that you have to outline as a church, what the clear deliverables are. 00:39:40.240 --> 00:39:44.120 So these are the things we expect to get. So if it's, you know, if it's a social media person, 00:39:44.180 --> 00:39:50.340 we expect to get three custom design graphics each week and five posts on Facebook and seven on 00:39:50.340 --> 00:39:55.420 Instagram. Like you clearly define those so that it sets the expectation early on of this is what's 00:39:55.420 --> 00:39:59.720 going to be delivered for this price point. Um, it can be an awkward conversation for churches 00:39:59.720 --> 00:40:04.500 because a lot of times we don't like to talk money in churches, but you kind of, if you're working 00:40:04.500 --> 00:40:09.440 with someone, you need to set those expectations just to be honest and fair up front is, is 100% 00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:15.440 the biggest key. I love that. You know, and, and, and having that consistency, um, there, is it, 00:40:15.680 --> 00:40:22.860 is it, is it per project? Is it, is it, is it like regularly recurring? What, what, what types of, 00:40:22.860 --> 00:40:27.940 of, uh, deals are you working with? So we do both. Um, and that's kind of to, to work with 00:40:27.940 --> 00:40:32.380 the needs of churches. Um, because I know that there are certain roles, like you were talking 00:40:32.380 --> 00:40:37.280 about with the video guy or video gal where it's, Hey, I just need someone every single week. It's 00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:42.220 super consistent. It's the same thing every time. And I need that until we decide to completely change 00:40:42.220 --> 00:40:47.140 our strategy and not do content anymore. Right. And so we have it so that you can do recurring jobs and 00:40:47.140 --> 00:40:50.780 you hire the person, find them. And then every single month you can just set it up so that 00:40:50.780 --> 00:40:54.720 automatically takes the same amount out of your, your checking account. You're good to go. 00:40:55.240 --> 00:40:59.720 It's just on autopilot for you. You work with that person. But then we also do understand that a lot 00:40:59.720 --> 00:41:04.020 of times churches are going to want to try either a one-off project or it's just a big push. So, 00:41:04.020 --> 00:41:09.000 you know, uh, a church the other day I was talking to, they have, you know, they're trying to do this 00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:13.060 online kids VBS thing and they want to do all the branding around it. And their graphic design and 00:41:13.060 --> 00:41:17.980 video team is just strapped right now. Have no flexibility to add that onto what they're already doing. 00:41:17.980 --> 00:41:22.300 So they're saying, well, why don't we outsource that specific project? All the creative elements 00:41:22.300 --> 00:41:27.980 that need to be done for this online VBS. And so they're able to use that one-time project and say, 00:41:28.120 --> 00:41:32.220 great, that was a good experience. Helped our team in the, in the short term. If they decide to come 00:41:32.220 --> 00:41:36.500 back and use it for something else in the future, they can. So we have both, uh, just to, to be as 00:41:36.500 --> 00:41:41.060 flexible as possible for churches. And so you're, you're learning churches, church out there, you're, 00:41:41.060 --> 00:41:45.920 you're learning things along the way. Uh, you're building relationships with artists. You're discovering what you 00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:52.000 like and what you don't like through that. And so, um, I mean, you're, when you initially, 00:41:52.100 --> 00:41:57.000 when you eventually hire somebody, or maybe you just even keep it contract. And I've actually known 00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:03.840 creatives that were on staff who wanted to, Hey, you know what, instead of being on staff and dealing 00:42:03.840 --> 00:42:08.820 with this, you don't, you don't need staff. You need a contract. Let me step back to be contract, 00:42:08.940 --> 00:42:13.600 give the artist even freedom to do that. And then it gives you the ability that as a church to, 00:42:13.600 --> 00:42:19.680 to, to pick up multiple contracts with different specialties instead of just the one person that's 00:42:19.680 --> 00:42:24.980 carrying all the weight that does not, it probably is not aware of all the different specialties 00:42:24.980 --> 00:42:29.640 and nuances of the things that they're doing. Yeah. One of the perfect examples of this is we 00:42:29.640 --> 00:42:33.760 talk to churches all the time who are like, I need a graphic designer. And what they really need is an 00:42:33.760 --> 00:42:37.100 illustrator. But what they don't realize is that graphic designers are not the same thing as 00:42:37.100 --> 00:42:41.100 illustrators. And so they'll ask a graphic designer, Oh, well, we want this cool illustration done, 00:42:41.160 --> 00:42:45.540 this cartoon sort of thing. And the graphic designer quickly is saying, I don't do illustration. And 00:42:45.540 --> 00:42:48.900 they're like, wait, but you're a graphic designer. And it's like, it's a different thing. And so, 00:42:48.980 --> 00:42:54.520 yeah, you're right. Be able to hire exactly who you need, not just, Oh, well, he's our jack of all 00:42:54.520 --> 00:42:59.660 trades, creative guy or gal is super important. Yeah. So definitely love that. Especially, 00:43:00.020 --> 00:43:03.620 you know, when you, when you ask your, your illustrator to edit videos, you know, 00:43:03.620 --> 00:43:10.020 that's where it gets, it gets a little fuzzy right now. Probably need to find a different plan towards 00:43:10.020 --> 00:43:15.360 that. But I tell you what, man, Matt, this has been, it's been awesome. I've loved hanging out. I 00:43:15.360 --> 00:43:21.580 love what I'm seeing over at Share. And I've been pushing, even as people are approaching to me over 00:43:21.580 --> 00:43:27.080 to Share to get connected, churches to get connected with artists. Artists, you know, continue. If you 00:43:27.080 --> 00:43:32.740 really want to resource churches, cook up with organizations like Share that are, that are going 00:43:32.740 --> 00:43:37.400 after churches and that are being kind of that middleman through it. So tell me this, if somebody 00:43:37.400 --> 00:43:41.560 wants to get connected either on the artist side or the church side, how are they getting connected to 00:43:41.560 --> 00:43:52.000 you? Yeah, super easy. Go to www.share, S-H-A-A-R dot work actually. So dot W-O-R-K dot work. Super easy. 00:43:52.260 --> 00:43:58.000 If you're a freelancer or an artist, creative or admin, anything like that, it's going to take about 00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:02.340 10 to 15 minutes to set up your profile. Because we're going to ask for what categories you're in 00:44:02.340 --> 00:44:06.900 and your portfolio and experience so that churches really get a clear picture of who you are. For 00:44:06.900 --> 00:44:11.240 churches, it takes less than two minutes. There's no signup fees. You don't pay anything. It's 00:44:11.240 --> 00:44:15.280 literally just, hey, here's your name. Here's what we're looking to do. And then once you set up your 00:44:15.280 --> 00:44:20.420 profile, you can post your first project. It should take, I don't know, five to 10 minutes to actually 00:44:20.420 --> 00:44:25.120 post it. But really, the work is going to be on, hey, figuring out exactly what your needs are. 00:44:25.600 --> 00:44:28.880 So yeah, that's where churches and also creators can go and sign up. 00:44:29.380 --> 00:44:34.480 Share dot work, S-H-A-A-R, which comes from, you said it earlier, 00:44:34.680 --> 00:44:37.320 Char, which is that. The gates to the marketplace. 00:44:37.940 --> 00:44:43.060 Yeah. The gates to the marketplace. That's phenomenal. That is a deep cut right there. 00:44:43.300 --> 00:44:45.280 That is. That's my seminary days, man. 00:44:46.520 --> 00:44:47.740 Hats off to that. 00:44:47.740 --> 00:44:48.420 Yeah, absolutely. 00:44:48.860 --> 00:44:51.980 I'm like, how am I, what is this? How am I supposed to pronounce this? 00:44:52.120 --> 00:44:52.260 Yeah. 00:44:52.420 --> 00:44:56.400 Oh, okay. Yeah. So there's a historical context to Char. 00:44:56.400 --> 00:44:56.880 Yeah, absolutely. 00:44:57.280 --> 00:44:58.880 I thought you were quoting Klingon or something. 00:45:00.540 --> 00:45:03.420 That's another podcast that I really care about. 00:45:03.600 --> 00:45:04.980 That'll be our Star Trek podcast. 00:45:05.440 --> 00:45:10.280 That's awesome. Well, hey, Matt, as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts or anything 00:45:10.280 --> 00:45:10.920 else on your side? 00:45:11.160 --> 00:45:15.160 Yeah. I mean, I would just encourage churches and pastors out there with the same thing we started 00:45:15.160 --> 00:45:20.120 with, right? Like fail fast, fail often. Don't be afraid of failure in this season. The only way to 00:45:20.120 --> 00:45:27.580 approach uncertain times, uncertain futures is by being willing to adapt and change on a daily basis 00:45:27.580 --> 00:45:32.160 if necessary, right? The more nimble, the more flexible and agile you can be, the more likely 00:45:32.160 --> 00:45:35.940 you're going to come out the other side of the stronger. And so that would be my encouragement 00:45:35.940 --> 00:45:36.780 for leaders out there. 00:45:37.200 --> 00:45:43.400 Awesome. Church experiment. Learn in this season. First off, coming out of mid-COVID, post-COVID, 00:45:43.400 --> 00:45:48.420 whatever your opinions are where we are right now, the rule books still aren't valid. Like 00:45:48.420 --> 00:45:52.800 whatever the playbooks we were operating in the past, the past is not going to operate for 00:45:52.800 --> 00:45:58.440 tomorrow. And so we're going to have to develop new plans and new strategies. And Stadia is doing 00:45:58.440 --> 00:46:03.740 a ton of work towards digital and helping churches gain the strengths of physical and digital. 00:46:03.980 --> 00:46:08.460 But the stuff that we're talking about here with experimenting and learning, all of us, 00:46:08.560 --> 00:46:17.020 all of our churches, we need to be wrestling with that. So work with checkoutshare.work and start to 00:46:17.020 --> 00:46:24.240 experiment, learn, bring some wisdom in. Don't try to hire, don't try to develop the four-year plan 00:46:24.240 --> 00:46:30.540 until you can figure out kind of what the next four months looks like. And what better way to wrestle 00:46:30.540 --> 00:46:36.020 this up and down season than by bringing on some contracts, developing some projects, learning from 00:46:36.020 --> 00:46:44.540 that, and start to get more wisdom for what digital, for what communications can look like in the 00:46:44.540 --> 00:46:52.480 coming weeks, months, and years. So, hey, Matt, thanks for jumping on this. For Matt, this is Jeff with 00:46:52.480 --> 00:46:53.160 The Church Digital. 00:46:53.280 --> 00:46:54.300 Glad you were here for the podcast. 00:46:54.440 --> 00:46:56.060 And we'll see you next time here on the show. 00:46:56.140 --> 00:46:56.680 Y'all have a good day.