WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.500 Hey, episode 96 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planting. Once again, 00:00:04.580 --> 00:00:09.480 Jeff here. So in the conversations that I've had with churches in this COVID season, 00:00:09.920 --> 00:00:13.140 a lot of them are trying to figure out, hey, they got their weekend service. 00:00:13.580 --> 00:00:17.140 Okay, we're doing it digitally. We got to figure out how to do it physically. We got to figure out 00:00:17.140 --> 00:00:22.420 how to do it at the same time. We're challenging them. Hey, look at engagement. Don't just do reach, 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:26.600 look at engagement, try to figure out how to create community. And in that community, 00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:31.800 try to connect people to Christ. Like we're having those types of conversations, disciple making, 00:00:32.340 --> 00:00:37.780 discipleship, really rich level conversations to help churches figure out how to do church, 00:00:37.860 --> 00:00:42.220 not just in physical space, but we're going to be fidgetal here, do it in digital space, 00:00:42.220 --> 00:00:47.500 and then figure out how the two work together. But what's interesting is there's a subsector 00:00:47.500 --> 00:00:52.420 that's really has come out of this COVID season. Maybe there were a couple around, maybe there was 00:00:52.420 --> 00:00:58.060 an idea pre-COVID, but it's really caught fire. Your church may be one of these. I can't tell you 00:00:58.060 --> 00:01:03.660 how many times in this COVID season I've heard a church tell me, hey, Jeff, yeah, we want to be 00:01:03.660 --> 00:01:09.340 the next Christian Netflix. Now, it's not like an organization or a company that's wanting to create 00:01:09.340 --> 00:01:16.680 this content. It's legitimately a church that wants to create content to reach people externally, 00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:24.940 outside of the week in service and to the point of being the next Christian Netflix. Now, there's 00:01:24.940 --> 00:01:28.920 right now media and there's some of those that are doing that. Set those aside. Because while those 00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:35.820 are speakers who are creating content, for the most part aimed at the 99, what's interesting with 00:01:35.820 --> 00:01:42.180 these churches is they're creating content, not necessarily aimed at the 99, but they're aimed at 00:01:42.180 --> 00:01:48.560 ones. And all of a sudden now we've got churches that are creating content to connect with ones. 00:01:48.980 --> 00:01:53.800 And if it's coupled with getting those people connected into an engagement pathway and it's 00:01:53.800 --> 00:02:00.320 a discipleship process, all of a sudden now you've got a disciple making machine that's happening. 00:02:00.320 --> 00:02:07.520 And part of the hook, the lead in, that shareable content becomes the exclusive, this original content 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:14.140 that's been created by churches. And all of a sudden this crazy idea, hey, this church wants to become 00:02:14.140 --> 00:02:20.520 the next Christian Netflix if it's coupled with a disciple making process. Man, we got a legitimate idea 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:28.120 here that's going to help us. It's going to help our church thrive, grow, and even multiply here in this 00:02:28.120 --> 00:02:33.180 COVID season. And so I reached out to one of these churches that's starting in this process that wants 00:02:33.180 --> 00:02:38.880 to be the next Christian Netflix. I just wanted to see how it's going. What are they learning? What are 00:02:38.880 --> 00:02:43.160 they striving for? What's the goal? What's the process? How are they connecting? And I connected 00:02:43.160 --> 00:02:50.120 with Bay Hope Church here in Florida. I'm in Florida. Bay Hope Church in the Tampa area. Andy Mage is 00:02:50.120 --> 00:02:56.200 a longtime friend. He's been on the podcast for a while now. Great guy, online pastor, digital pastor 00:02:56.200 --> 00:03:01.680 there out of Bay Hope Church and started talking with him on this idea of some of this original 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:07.460 content. And he's like, oh, we got to grab Andres Aquino, who is one of the worship leader, actually 00:03:07.460 --> 00:03:12.600 he's one of the video guys on staff at Bay Hope Church. And it was like, we got to bring these guys 00:03:12.600 --> 00:03:19.080 together and have this conversation. And what came out of this was this really rich idea of what a church 00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:26.140 that is not just creating weekend content, but creating shareable content, engaging content that's 00:03:26.140 --> 00:03:32.300 meant and that's reaching ones. How effective is it to connect with those people? And then how effective 00:03:32.300 --> 00:03:38.420 is it to get them into a discipleship process? Phenomenal conversation. Do not sleep at the end 00:03:38.420 --> 00:03:43.520 of this where we get to this idea of racial reconciliation. And some of the stuff that they've been creating 00:03:43.520 --> 00:03:47.880 as a church, there's plenty of links in the show notes, but they've been creating aggressively, 00:03:48.380 --> 00:03:55.200 bringing together the blacks and the whites, coming together, trying to figure out the racial 00:03:55.200 --> 00:04:02.240 reconciliation piece of this. As content, we have an opportunity not just to create and talk, 00:04:02.740 --> 00:04:08.400 but through the content, listen and engage in some of that. So phenomenal, phenomenal stuff. 00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:13.280 So like I said, we're bringing in Andy Mage, digital pastor, Bay Hope Church, as well as 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:19.300 Andres Aquino, who is one of the videographers with Bay Hope Church, and myself, Jeff with the 00:04:19.300 --> 00:04:23.640 Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning, in a conversation that I'm calling Churches that 00:04:23.640 --> 00:04:27.100 want to be the next Christian Netflix. Okay, everybody, here you go. 00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:34.440 So on that note, actually, in all of this, as Bay Hope TV has been jenning and coming about, 00:04:35.020 --> 00:04:41.160 we saw our average attendance were 3,000 to 4,000 size church. So we're not super small, 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:44.520 we're not super big, we're kind of right there in the larger churches. 00:04:45.300 --> 00:04:46.640 That's pre-COVID, I'm assuming? 00:04:46.820 --> 00:04:52.880 Pre-COVID numbers, yep, pre-COVID total numbers, yeah. That's the whole thing. But we doubled 00:04:52.880 --> 00:04:57.400 in size, obviously, like every single church in the world, it seems like doubled in size. And that was 00:04:57.400 --> 00:05:05.220 a conservative estimate. I started, I'm a little bit of a pessimist by nature. And my wife will tell 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:10.720 you that's not good. But when it comes to metrics and data and stuff like that, you know, I tend to 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:18.280 take a very conservative approach. And so we doubled conservatively, which was great, but the numbers 00:05:18.280 --> 00:05:22.520 didn't mean anything. And so that's when we really started having the platform discussions of how can 00:05:22.520 --> 00:05:27.560 we utilize the platform to do exactly what Andre was just saying, to reach people for the kingdom 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:34.100 that should be leading in this time. And so we, we started, you know, doing, we were able to do 00:05:34.100 --> 00:05:42.060 really creative things in, you know, just from interactive worship sessions. So we would go live 00:05:42.060 --> 00:05:46.900 every day at 12 o'clock with a worship set. And sometimes it was a full band. Sometimes it was just 00:05:46.900 --> 00:05:51.040 two people. Sometimes, you know, we were able to get creative, obviously, with just the cinematography 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:55.640 aspects, cameras and lighting and sound and all that. But we were also able to get creative with the 00:05:55.640 --> 00:06:02.740 actual interactive engagement responses that were happening from wherever we were. And that part was cool. 00:06:03.300 --> 00:06:11.900 So all of this was kind of this little pebble, snowball that was rolling downhill. Because as it 00:06:11.900 --> 00:06:15.440 started gaining speed, we started thinking, okay, wait, if those people are going to talk to us during 00:06:15.440 --> 00:06:19.620 then, what if we can talk to them during this? And then what if we can grab them in this? And what if 00:06:19.620 --> 00:06:24.340 we can grab them in this? And so we hit Easter, we started kind of rolling that ball downhill a little 00:06:24.340 --> 00:06:31.440 bit. And that's really when Bay Hope TV discussions started advancing. Because the one main reason, 00:06:31.640 --> 00:06:36.760 so Andre said that Pastor Matthew, who is our lead pastor, he was completely on board with what was 00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:41.280 happening with the vision that we were casting in terms of this platform that was going to be running 00:06:41.280 --> 00:06:47.680 24-7 all the time with Bay Hope TV content, or with Bay Hope content, with other content that was 00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:56.220 going to help guide and provide for people. And he basically walked into his executive director team 00:06:56.220 --> 00:07:01.060 and said, hey, we need to build an actual television studio. I need a whole bunch of money to build an 00:07:01.060 --> 00:07:07.520 actual television studio. Now, mind you, this is in like May of 2020. And I don't know if you guys 00:07:07.520 --> 00:07:13.900 remember May of 2020. It seems like it was both three months ago and 30 years ago. But there was a lot of 00:07:13.900 --> 00:07:20.880 like financial strain at that time. And for him to go and ask for a large outflow of cash was a big 00:07:20.880 --> 00:07:25.660 deal. And there was, you know, a lot of hand wringing, a lot of teeth grinding and stuff. Obviously, he's 00:07:25.660 --> 00:07:31.260 the lead pastor. So it got done. And we have this big, beautiful, brand new television, literally a 00:07:31.260 --> 00:07:38.140 television studio that we now work out of. But he saw the merit of it. So to be valued and heard by your 00:07:38.140 --> 00:07:47.340 lead pastor is great. Out of that studio, we were able to do amazing things. We ended up on just a 00:07:47.340 --> 00:07:55.340 couple of little samples. We ended up running a virtual VBS for 500 kids. Again, conservative 00:07:55.340 --> 00:08:02.340 estimate for 500 kids this, what was that? July, end of June, beginning of July. We ran a live 00:08:02.340 --> 00:08:06.740 interactive worship night right then and there. Did it from the platform, kind of did, you know, 00:08:06.740 --> 00:08:11.200 just a whole bunch of kind of creative things with worship and teaching and all that. We've been, 00:08:11.640 --> 00:08:17.640 we've slowly started rolling out the Bay Hope TV network of things, meaning we're rolling podcasts 00:08:17.640 --> 00:08:22.700 and we're rolling all sorts of, you know, in the Tampa Bay area where we are as of, what is it, 00:08:22.740 --> 00:08:28.740 September or whatever of 2020, beginning of September, 2020. Schools are opening slowly. 00:08:29.220 --> 00:08:35.960 Churches are opening slowly. Student ministries are opening slowly. And so we're still rolling virtual 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:42.120 student ministries out of our Bay Hope TV studios. We're rolling our virtual, we have a college campus 00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:47.640 called the Harbor on the University of South Florida campus. University of South Florida is not open, 00:08:47.740 --> 00:08:55.640 barring a couple of little things. We are doing virtual interactive times with the Harbor as well, 00:08:55.640 --> 00:09:01.000 all based around this idea that we can provide the content for groups of people to get together 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:07.380 in smaller locations, kind of the age old microsite approach, except we're now taking it into 00:09:07.380 --> 00:09:12.740 smaller ministry fields. Instead of just, hey, big church, hey, we're, now we're doing it in every 00:09:12.740 --> 00:09:17.940 little ministry. And the coolest thing is that people are connecting all over the place. The 00:09:17.940 --> 00:09:23.380 stories and emails and testimonies that we get from people that are connecting in houses and in 00:09:23.380 --> 00:09:28.600 small groups and just even the little anecdotes we hear from the ministry leaders, as they say, 00:09:28.680 --> 00:09:34.440 wow, I never knew this could actually work. I mean, that's both a shot in my gut because I want to go, 00:09:34.560 --> 00:09:40.660 guys, I've been telling you this for like a year, even pre-COVID. But then, you know, 00:09:40.680 --> 00:09:44.460 it's also a shot to the heart of like, hey, this is a good thing. This is what we're doing well. 00:09:44.860 --> 00:09:49.200 It's good. So when you guys talk about this as a platform, are you sending people just to your 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:53.520 website, to an app? Like how is a lot of this getting to the actual people? Is this a YouTube 00:09:53.520 --> 00:09:55.220 channel? What are we talking here as far as- 00:09:55.220 --> 00:10:02.880 So it's an all approach right now, simply because we are in the process of creating something from 00:10:02.880 --> 00:10:13.000 scratch. We are creating an app built around algorithmic, I don't know, we'd have to get our 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:18.040 executive director, Zach, on here to get the nerd talk in there. I just give the guys the vision and 00:10:18.040 --> 00:10:23.240 they kind of go do the thing and then it comes back and then it works. So the app we're building is 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:31.140 based around almost a quasi-social media with a algorithm-driven video approach. Then we are 00:10:31.140 --> 00:10:37.300 marrying that into a web portal. So everything is tied into the same database, but it just has 00:10:37.300 --> 00:10:40.960 different flavors. Whether you're on desktop or mobile, whether you're on an iPad, whether you're 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:45.760 on Android, whatever you're on, we are going to have those different expressions for people to 00:10:45.760 --> 00:10:50.660 actually get involved with Bay Hope TV. And then we're actually putting hooks into it to drive people 00:10:50.660 --> 00:10:56.020 back into the app. So that's the quasi-social media of interactive prayer, interactive journaling, 00:10:56.200 --> 00:11:03.040 interactive times of communication with pastors and with leaders and with directors so that people 00:11:03.040 --> 00:11:07.180 understand that they're actually, you know, the biggest thing that drives people back to the 00:11:07.180 --> 00:11:12.080 Facebook app is that little red number at the upper right-hand corner of the icon because they know 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:19.200 that somebody liked their post or did anything. And one of the most infuriating things is when you click 00:11:19.200 --> 00:11:23.820 on that Facebook ad or that Facebook app and you go to your notifications and it's literally just, 00:11:24.120 --> 00:11:29.260 hey, it's so-and-so's birthday. Cool. But Facebook did what it wanted you to do. It got you to open 00:11:29.260 --> 00:11:32.800 the app to look at the thing. That's what we want. We're not going to be sending, you know, 00:11:32.860 --> 00:11:36.620 junk notifications like that, but we want people to know that there are other people in the church 00:11:36.620 --> 00:11:41.920 that they can connect with through this lens of the Bay Hope TV content. So the content is 00:11:41.920 --> 00:11:47.440 just sort of the vehicle, you know, we're just kind of providing something and then letting the actual 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:52.480 connection and discipleship happen through that. What kind of programming and content are you guys 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:57.960 picturing for this? Maybe right now, like, so you said virtual VBS and student ministry online. 00:11:58.040 --> 00:12:01.720 That's pretty cool. Cause when I hear Bay Hope TV, I automatically go to, oh man, they're going to 00:12:01.720 --> 00:12:05.400 make like their own version of Charles in charge or something like that. So, yeah. Well, it's funny. 00:12:05.400 --> 00:12:10.800 It's funny you say that. And this is, this, I don't think there's any, any, well, whatever. If you guys ever, 00:12:10.800 --> 00:12:15.160 ever, ever seen, um, like drunk history on, uh, and I know we're not supposed to talk about drunk 00:12:15.160 --> 00:12:20.320 history, but like the drunk history stuff, we're actually genning up some stuff to shoot for 00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:25.620 Christmas. Um, almost like kid drunk history. So we're not going to get kids drunk. So anybody 00:12:25.620 --> 00:12:29.320 listening, but we're going to do, you know, retellings of that. And then we're going to do like, 00:12:29.400 --> 00:12:34.800 so this is just Christmas 2020. Um, I think Andre had a really good idea of like doing a shot for 00:12:34.800 --> 00:12:40.400 shot remake of the home alone dance party. Um, and you know, doing just fun, interactive things that are 00:12:40.400 --> 00:12:46.240 going to draw people in, into the platform and into that. Um, so yes, there is a little bit of, 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:54.700 um, us generating content that is sitcom-y in nature and acting and, you know, fictional in nature, 00:12:54.700 --> 00:12:59.720 but then there's also, you know, real life and teaching and, and the things that are, you know, 00:13:00.060 --> 00:13:03.680 driven by, uh, are driven for church members. 00:13:03.920 --> 00:13:08.660 That's, that's fascinating. So tell me how, like, just be, be practical. By the way, 00:13:08.760 --> 00:13:12.620 I can probably tell you a half a dozen churches right now that I've had conversations with 00:13:12.620 --> 00:13:18.360 that are thinking the same thing. Like they, they want to be, um, the, the Christian version 00:13:18.360 --> 00:13:22.580 of Netflix has been a phrase that I've, I've heard a lot. And so there, there are churches 00:13:22.580 --> 00:13:27.720 that are wrestling with this. And, and so like, I'm hearing this kind of more, more aggressive 00:13:27.720 --> 00:13:33.520 stance. Um, and then, then I'm hearing questions like, okay, so you want to create the, you 00:13:33.520 --> 00:13:38.800 want to recreate the dance party from home alone. How is that going to help people grow closer 00:13:38.800 --> 00:13:43.900 to God? How is that going to create a disciple maker? How's that work into our discipleship 00:13:43.900 --> 00:13:49.720 pathway? Like kind of walk me through a little here, maybe on the practical side, like how 00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:54.620 some of this really fits into the overall plan of what the church is wanting to do. 00:13:54.940 --> 00:14:00.460 Yeah. For us, it's the, those hooks, the fun hooks like that are, are, I say hooks, but it's 00:14:00.460 --> 00:14:04.560 the, it's the age old tactic of let's make people smile. Let's make people laugh and let's 00:14:04.560 --> 00:14:08.580 get them using the app. Let's get them using the platform. Let's get them actually plugged 00:14:08.580 --> 00:14:15.560 into what, um, the behind or not even what, what the next layer looks like, which is teaching, 00:14:15.680 --> 00:14:21.080 which is practical, um, engagement things like groups, small groups, alpha groups, things 00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:26.920 like that. Things that are actually going to provide value to people. Um, and that, that's 00:14:26.920 --> 00:14:32.360 our, that's our hope. And that's our kind of drive with that. Um, plus we just like to 00:14:32.360 --> 00:14:36.940 exercise our creative legs every once in a while. Andre likes to just run with something 00:14:36.940 --> 00:14:40.220 every once in a while. Um, which is what he's been doing with Common Ground. I mean, that's 00:14:40.220 --> 00:14:45.440 been, uh, that was, that's been an Andre led, Andre driven thing from the start. And, you 00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:50.180 know, we're trying to be, you're right, Jeff, there are, you know, a hundred churches 00:14:50.180 --> 00:14:54.020 out there that want to do the quote unquote Netflix style. And we don't think we're unique 00:14:54.020 --> 00:14:59.780 in that. We do think we're unique, however, in our all in one, all encompassing approach. 00:15:00.380 --> 00:15:06.720 Um, and you know, if we can help a church get better at what they're doing in terms of 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:10.200 that, if we can all learn from one another, again, looping back to what Andre said, we're 00:15:10.200 --> 00:15:13.840 all in it for the kingdom. So let's do it, man. Let's all take a piece of it and get better 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:15.800 at it and then help each other learn about it. 00:15:16.220 --> 00:15:19.940 Yeah. The thing, the thing that intrigues me is, yeah, I can give you a lot of churches 00:15:19.940 --> 00:15:25.500 that are interested in that in the middle of COVID pre COVID, like not a lot of people. 00:15:25.620 --> 00:15:29.820 I don't, I can't tell you another church that was really tracking this way. You guys were 00:15:29.820 --> 00:15:35.420 like this, this was part of your plan. We were talking off air even before COVID. So 00:15:35.420 --> 00:15:40.200 like, where's that vision? Where's that kind of forward thinking mindset come for your church? 00:15:40.380 --> 00:15:46.400 I mean, that honestly, Pastor Matthew, uh, our lead pastor, probably five or six years. So 00:15:46.400 --> 00:15:52.320 Bay Hope has been streaming live for 10 years. Um, they were one of the first in the Tampa Bay 00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:58.680 area to be streaming live services, hiring people like Andre. So Andre got there a while, a year 00:15:58.680 --> 00:16:01.920 and a half before me, maybe two years before me. I've been, I've been at Bay Hope just over, 00:16:02.020 --> 00:16:07.120 well, a year and a couple months now. Um, uh, almost a year and a half, my goodness. Uh, 00:16:07.180 --> 00:16:13.760 and you know, with Pastor Matthew and kind of his visions looking into the future and saying, Hey, 00:16:14.680 --> 00:16:20.240 Gen Z is not coming to a building. Uh, millennials are stopping coming to buildings. So how can we 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:25.740 reach them? Well, we go to where they're at. We're, we're doing the Matthew 28 thing. And so his 00:16:25.740 --> 00:16:32.180 forward thinking, he planted seeds 10 years ago and then started hiring around that and then gave it to 00:16:32.180 --> 00:16:36.660 a couple of people here and then at the church. And then they started running with it. And then 00:16:36.660 --> 00:16:42.020 eventually they end up hiring, you know, people like Andre and people like our, um, our creative 00:16:42.020 --> 00:16:47.280 director, uh, David Alonzo and people like the people on our worship team that are forward thinking 00:16:47.280 --> 00:16:52.060 like that. Then they hire Andre and Andre is forward thinking like that. And so then they hired this 00:16:52.060 --> 00:16:56.920 bald guy here. Uh, and you know, and, and just to kind of start tying up a little bit of the loose 00:16:56.920 --> 00:17:05.300 ends and then COVID hits. And then we have a team that is just able to, in a day, build a studio and pivot 00:17:05.300 --> 00:17:10.420 to, okay, we're going to start, we're a television studio now. Um, it's funny. I heard on a podcast 00:17:10.420 --> 00:17:16.400 right at the beginning. Um, my brother, Mike Mage actually hosts a podcast called the healthy jerk, 00:17:16.580 --> 00:17:21.940 healthy, uh, healthy church leadership podcast. Excuse me. I stumbled over that, uh, healthy church 00:17:21.940 --> 00:17:27.960 growth. And he had on there, um, I can't even remember his name. He was an incredible individual. 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:32.920 And I'll have to, I'll have to, um, look that up and get that to you later. But the guy basically 00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:38.820 said, uh, Hey, uh, churches in COVID need to start thinking like television studios. 00:17:39.060 --> 00:17:43.280 We need to start broadcasting. Like we're television studios, keeping people plugged into the church 00:17:43.280 --> 00:17:48.320 24 seven, as much as possible to let them know that we're still here and we're still doing good 00:17:48.320 --> 00:17:53.400 for the world. And that's, that's where we are. That's, that was the vision that kind of happened 00:17:53.400 --> 00:17:58.240 before me and that I've just been grabbing it and taking that ball, you know, 10 yards down the field. 00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:03.300 How does it move, uh, at least, and how have you guys kind of tested how it moves from just content 00:18:03.300 --> 00:18:08.740 to community? Cause obviously it's a lot of content creation, a lot of good stuff, but some people have 00:18:08.740 --> 00:18:13.160 like growing a fan base. Cool. But with church, you're actually trying to move people in a specific 00:18:13.160 --> 00:18:18.340 direction. So how's that been for you? Uh, so, so far so good. I mean, we've been, um, running 00:18:18.340 --> 00:18:23.100 Andre, I cut you off, dude. Sorry. Um, uh, we've been, that's been my job 00:18:23.100 --> 00:18:30.460 is to really take people from just the video content, um, um, consuming consumption side 00:18:30.460 --> 00:18:35.540 and into more of the engagement side. And that's been going well. I mean, we have, uh, now granted 00:18:35.540 --> 00:18:38.980 it's not, doesn't seem like a whole not a whole lot of number. We have 54 people plugged into 00:18:38.980 --> 00:18:44.380 our groups as of, uh, last month. Um, now again, doesn't seem like a whole lot, but when you 00:18:44.380 --> 00:18:49.320 consider that we're running a thing called alpha, alpha is amazing. Um, if shout out to Nikki 00:18:49.320 --> 00:18:54.600 Gumbel and what they did at the very beginning of COVID their online alpha stuff was not, not 00:18:54.600 --> 00:18:58.880 bad, but it was not good. And all of a sudden they turned on a dime and just started offering 00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:04.460 everything. And we've been running alpha groups. And so far we've run 150, almost 200 people 00:19:04.460 --> 00:19:11.320 through alpha and through our small groups and things like that. Um, because of this dumping 00:19:11.320 --> 00:19:12.800 into people. 00:19:12.800 --> 00:19:17.980 When it comes to maybe like practical ministry and, and I want to like feed this into the common 00:19:17.980 --> 00:19:23.080 ground, some of that, but what are some other examples of, of like content that you're creating 00:19:23.080 --> 00:19:28.840 that's engaging? Virtual VBS, cool. Kids student ministry, cool. What do you got for the, for the 00:19:28.840 --> 00:19:34.100 43 year old bald guy with a goatee? Like what's, what, what other types of, of things are you, 00:19:34.220 --> 00:19:38.920 programs are you creating, content are you creating that's feeding into your, your disciple 00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:43.680 making process? Yeah. So, uh, there's one thing, I don't know if we can share this yet, but I'm just 00:19:43.680 --> 00:19:48.080 going to say it anyways, it might be putting my foot in my mouth. But this morning we had a quick 00:19:48.080 --> 00:19:53.600 meeting, just like off the cuff with, uh, uh, executive director, Zach. And we used to do this 00:19:53.600 --> 00:19:59.060 conference where we would, uh, it was called the real ideas where we'll bring in local churches 00:19:59.060 --> 00:20:03.140 and we'll invite them directly into the church and we'll train them on different things on sound, 00:20:03.220 --> 00:20:08.060 on tech, on ministry, you know, all that stuff. I was unfortunately never able to be a part of 00:20:08.060 --> 00:20:15.000 that, but, uh, he brought it up today and he, uh, said we should, the guy that's kind of like put in 00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:21.020 his heart and then his head to like bring that up, but bring it up digitally and expand it more and 00:20:21.020 --> 00:20:27.060 make it better, uh, for creatives. So for someone like you, Jeff, right, the guy who may not be tech 00:20:27.060 --> 00:20:32.820 savvy, maybe, you know, or, or doesn't know how to get it up running. We have these certain points 00:20:32.820 --> 00:20:38.440 and how to, uh, like for example, for me, uh, one of the things that, one of the workshops that I'm 00:20:38.440 --> 00:20:43.280 planning on doing is how to shoot a talking head, right? A lot of churches, it's so easy. You can, 00:20:43.540 --> 00:20:48.620 a talking head is your pastor's message, right? A video announcement, you know, anything. It can be 00:20:48.620 --> 00:20:53.580 an email that you can communicate, you know, you don't, you want to clearly communicate the message 00:20:53.580 --> 00:20:58.380 without any distractions. So setting up something simple with like three-point lighting, you know, 00:20:58.380 --> 00:21:05.500 we start from, uh, location and then from lighting, from lighting to post-production and from post-production 00:21:05.500 --> 00:21:11.300 to delivering, right? Whether that looks to be a YouTube video, you know, what codec to export when 00:21:11.300 --> 00:21:15.920 you need to post things on Instagram, how to post things on Instagram, how to post long videos on 00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:21.800 Instagram, how to post story videos on Instagram. So like these are tools and resources that are going 00:21:21.800 --> 00:21:27.640 to be available for free for any church or any business, anybody that can get their hands on. 00:21:27.640 --> 00:21:33.960 And I feel like that's something that it's just gonna, it just kind of like reinforces what, 00:21:34.300 --> 00:21:38.500 you know, again, like what our leadership is all about. And that starts with Pastor Matthew, 00:21:38.560 --> 00:21:44.720 obviously, and it's like impacting our community and our church. And that's a capital C, you know? 00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:49.520 Yeah. So we've got, we've got that, that creative conference coming up, which is good for churches 00:21:49.520 --> 00:21:53.920 everywhere, uh, partners in with, like I said, our hope network and kind of what we've been doing 00:21:53.920 --> 00:22:00.100 to, to help other churches come alongside them in this time. Um, we've got a suite of podcasts. Uh, 00:22:00.100 --> 00:22:04.420 we've got, we're rolling and we're rolling out more and more, uh, all the time. We've got, um, 00:22:04.540 --> 00:22:09.100 every, and everybody and their mother has a podcast. So, uh, we are stand out a little bit in that 00:22:09.100 --> 00:22:13.780 it's, uh, we're hitting, it's true. I mean, you know, um, my mom, if she was, 00:22:13.780 --> 00:22:16.680 that's what we're doing here, man. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Exactly. 00:22:16.820 --> 00:22:20.680 Listen, I'm all about promoting the mom on the podcast or getting the mom to promote the podcast. 00:22:21.060 --> 00:22:22.520 Go for it. Go for that. That's gold right there. 00:22:22.520 --> 00:22:28.420 Let's hit every demo we can. Um, but you know, we have, we have, we have, we have podcasts that are, 00:22:28.420 --> 00:22:32.880 um, just, you know, average guys like myself and my brother, we just get together and talk. 00:22:32.940 --> 00:22:37.020 It's called the weekday. Um, we've got a, uh, something that one of our pastors came to, 00:22:37.020 --> 00:22:41.780 um, her name's Pastor Julie. She does like a five minute guided meditation every morning 00:22:42.100 --> 00:22:46.520 and she's got the perfect like voice and we put some ambient pads behind it. And it's, 00:22:46.600 --> 00:22:51.280 it's great, man. It's like that, that first thing in the morning, you know, we release it every day 00:22:51.280 --> 00:22:57.200 at 5am and she, it's just, Hey, it's Pastor Julie. I'm here to like, uh, I'm here to pray with you. 00:22:57.360 --> 00:23:01.940 Let's talk to God, that type of thing. And just go. Um, we have, uh, we have one, 00:23:02.080 --> 00:23:06.380 we have a podcast called figuring it out with a couple of our young adult dudes that are helping. 00:23:06.700 --> 00:23:11.720 Um, and actually one of the ones that we're rolling out ties in with Common Ground and it's 00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:19.740 actually going to be led by, um, my sister, Melissa, who is our, um, she's one of our producers 00:23:19.740 --> 00:23:26.840 here. She leads a, um, a young adult ministry, but she is going to be leading. She's part of Common Ground. 00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:34.500 She was one of the voices in Common Ground. Um, but she's going to be leading a further deep dive into 00:23:34.500 --> 00:23:44.320 the racial tension and racial reconciliation for lack of a better term. Uh, in, it's almost like a, 00:23:44.480 --> 00:23:51.040 um, I like to think of it as like those podcasts that you always hear from HBO or from, uh, television 00:23:51.040 --> 00:23:56.200 or television networks that dive into the series after the series. That's what she, that's what 00:23:56.200 --> 00:24:01.440 she's doing. And the reason, I mean, she's bringing in professors, um, she's bringing in a videographer, 00:24:01.660 --> 00:24:05.640 she's bringing in all sorts of people and she's just going and doing it and just said, Hey, I want 00:24:05.640 --> 00:24:10.420 to know more. I, now that I have watched Common Ground, now that I have been through this experience, 00:24:10.420 --> 00:24:15.340 now that I have had these conversations about race with people that are not of the same color that 00:24:15.340 --> 00:24:20.100 did not grow up like me, I have forever been changed and I need other people to forever be 00:24:20.100 --> 00:24:24.720 changed like I have. So let's take this journey together. So we're trying to kind of span the 00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:29.440 gamut a little bit from, you know, uh, cradle to grave type thing and everything that we're doing 00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:34.100 at Bay Hope TV. I love that. Before we dig into that piece, cause that, that piece definitely 00:24:34.100 --> 00:24:38.440 intrigues me. I mean, so many, I I'm sure that you guys have done this too. Countless shows that I've 00:24:38.440 --> 00:24:42.640 gone back and listened to the podcast, like Watchmen comes to mind, like where I've gone and listened, 00:24:43.100 --> 00:24:47.140 deep dive into the podcast, post the show, because I was like, man, I need to find out like 00:24:47.140 --> 00:24:49.840 what those creators were doing. And then even in terms of the race 00:24:49.840 --> 00:24:54.400 conversations, much like many people, that was my first learning of the Tulsa wall street situation. 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:59.780 So like my eyes were open to so many things that I was like, man, I need to hear from the creators. 00:24:59.780 --> 00:25:03.700 And so I definitely want to get into that, but let's talk about common ground. Cause this is very 00:25:03.700 --> 00:25:09.060 intriguing for me on so many levels, because like many churches, even my church, we did like a 00:25:09.060 --> 00:25:14.000 conversation on race and first and foremost, like I was like, this is needed. This is important, 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:19.200 but I'm freaked out that we're going to step on some toes unintentionally. All sorts of fears and 00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:23.420 stuff pop into mind. So why don't you tell folks exactly what you did for common ground and how that 00:25:23.420 --> 00:25:27.660 conversation started? Was it pre-George Floyd? Was it post-George Floyd? Like how did all this kind 00:25:27.660 --> 00:25:28.260 of come into play? 00:25:28.660 --> 00:25:33.700 It's something that was in my heart and my wife's heart. And then when all this stuff with George 00:25:33.700 --> 00:25:43.340 Floyd happened, um, you know, I was just really, really upset. Um, I was, uh, I was, I was 00:25:43.340 --> 00:25:51.560 disappointed. Um, and how some, uh, some churches weren't doing things about it or talking about 00:25:51.560 --> 00:25:58.720 it. Um, and I could see why, you know, um, and, uh, it's, it's a really, uh, touchy subject. 00:25:59.180 --> 00:26:05.640 And, um, I was like, well, we need to talk about this. Um, like we, we are the church. We are 00:26:05.640 --> 00:26:11.400 literally the representation of God's love. Like, so one day I'm thinking, I'm like, why is there 00:26:11.400 --> 00:26:17.280 such thing as like, call like, you know, the black church or a white church or a Spanish church? Why, 00:26:17.360 --> 00:26:23.060 why is that like that? You know, isn't the church supposed to be a representation of, you know, 00:26:23.140 --> 00:26:27.740 what the kingdom of God is going to look like. And I understand demographics and all that stuff, 00:26:27.740 --> 00:26:32.900 you know, where you live in the area, but that's not an excuse for you, anyone to diversify their 00:26:32.900 --> 00:26:38.760 church. Right. Um, you know, and, and talk about these topics that are pretty, pretty hard to talk, 00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:45.060 talk about. So, um, I was talking one day to one of my good friends who was actually part of the 00:26:45.060 --> 00:26:50.020 common grounds. Name is John Wilds. Um, good friend of mine. I've known him for like 15 plus years 00:26:50.020 --> 00:26:57.660 and I was just venting to him, you know? Um, and he said, listen, like, I hear you. Um, he's all, 00:26:57.740 --> 00:27:04.520 he's African American. And, uh, he, he said, uh, you know, take all this frustration that you have 00:27:04.520 --> 00:27:11.080 and turn it into something good. You know, you have these resources, uh, available to you. You have 00:27:11.080 --> 00:27:19.060 this great, uh, leadership team that's supportive. You have, you know, the capability and the resources 00:27:19.060 --> 00:27:28.460 to do something. Um, so do something. And, uh, he kind of shut me up, you know? Uh, and, uh, I started 00:27:28.460 --> 00:27:33.960 praying about it. And, uh, you know, with a couple of more conversations with him, we, uh, kind of landed, 00:27:33.960 --> 00:27:40.080 it was funny cause I told him the idea, you know, I kind of want to get different, uh, originally was 00:27:40.080 --> 00:27:47.040 just like, I want worship leaders to come together, different ethnicities and backgrounds, black, white, 00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:56.220 Spanish, Asian, whatever. And I want them to worship together. And then I want them to talk about their 00:27:56.220 --> 00:28:02.920 experiences from being a black worship leader, from being a white worship leader and et cetera. Right. 00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:10.280 I want to see how their perspective is. What can they offer during these tough times of, of racial 00:28:10.280 --> 00:28:16.180 injustice and, you know, these wrongdoings and, you know, everything that's going on today in society. 00:28:16.540 --> 00:28:22.580 Um, there's a big magnifying glass on it right now. And the solution, in my opinion, is God, 00:28:22.780 --> 00:28:28.920 you know, it's God's love and the church that's literally the church's mission is to show that and 00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:38.820 spread that. And I feel like, um, common ground was, uh, what's, was, was something that can only be done 00:28:38.820 --> 00:28:45.400 with God, right. Through seeking God and praying about it. And the coolest thing, and I had no idea, 00:28:45.400 --> 00:28:54.040 like it would turn into this, is that it's a great tool. Let's say if someone like Jeff, right. Or even 00:28:54.040 --> 00:28:58.960 Andy, who is white and wants to talk about, even mentioned yourself, these things are awkward, 00:28:59.060 --> 00:29:05.760 you know, you got to be careful what you say and stuff like that. Like this is a great tool and 00:29:05.760 --> 00:29:12.340 resource to get your leadership around or your team around your church team, or you even, you're even 00:29:12.340 --> 00:29:20.440 personal team, you know, in your, in your business and sit down and hear this conversation. Let the ball 00:29:20.440 --> 00:29:28.360 roll. Listen to these guys talking, you know, John and Jay, Ethan and Melissa and Mike, and see how 00:29:28.360 --> 00:29:32.960 they're personally affected and how God, how they seen God's love and grace through these tough times. 00:29:33.780 --> 00:29:40.660 And from that moment, you open up the room, you know, let them like, it's so funny. Cause I would 00:29:40.660 --> 00:29:46.200 watch and like, I would see Mike, uh, Andy's brother. He was, he was pretty much hosting the 00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:51.400 questions and like, he would feel like, so like uncomfortable in the beginning. And you can kind 00:29:51.400 --> 00:29:55.700 of see it like in the videos, like the later the videos get, the more loose you see Mike getting 00:29:55.700 --> 00:30:01.680 because it is hard to start it off, but it's okay to talk about this stuff, man. Like it's not 00:30:01.680 --> 00:30:10.160 something to shy away from, right? Um, it's something to be spearheaded. And if, if people 00:30:10.160 --> 00:30:15.940 would just, uh, you know, understand that, um, because it is like super sensitive to talk about, 00:30:15.980 --> 00:30:21.820 right? But if you are able to use this, you know, common ground as, as a resource or as a tool 00:30:21.820 --> 00:30:28.080 to start that conversation, I completely believe that this will bless your ministry, your personal 00:30:28.080 --> 00:30:33.080 life, your spiritual life. And it's just going to do all that because everybody that's on 00:30:33.080 --> 00:30:39.480 there, you know, they are, they've been leading worship for years. They've been seeking God 00:30:39.480 --> 00:30:45.080 and looking for God and God has given them wisdom and discernment. These questions that 00:30:45.080 --> 00:30:49.460 were tough. I don't know if you got a chance to listen to the first one, but man, like I, 00:30:49.560 --> 00:30:54.280 I would have hated to be up there. Even just, I felt like weird filming it behind the camera. 00:30:54.280 --> 00:30:59.740 I was like, Oh man, I was starting to sweating. I'm like, I feel sorry for Mike, man. But like 00:30:59.740 --> 00:31:06.740 the stuff that God, you know, allowed to be said, um, in that moment. And you can see, 00:31:07.080 --> 00:31:11.540 you can see it. It's not just hearing it. You can see it, you know, you can see it in their 00:31:11.540 --> 00:31:16.240 face. How, how you, you know, maybe someone felt uncomfortable about that. But now as you, 00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:24.160 as the video gets longer or, or, or towards the end, you see them being, uh, understanding 00:31:24.160 --> 00:31:28.580 and loving and caring and saying, you know what? It is okay to talk about this stuff. 00:31:29.040 --> 00:31:34.800 And God wants me to take care of this problem. And I want God to be the one that guides me 00:31:34.800 --> 00:31:39.700 through this, you know? And it's, that's kind of like kind of where it came from and like 00:31:39.700 --> 00:31:44.080 what it is turning into besides, you know, awesome worship leaders singing and all that good 00:31:44.080 --> 00:31:51.220 stuff, you know? And, uh, but like, besides, you know, that, uh, just spiritually and, and, 00:31:51.220 --> 00:31:56.620 and, and feeding your heart, I think this, this is a great resource to get people talking 00:31:56.620 --> 00:31:57.500 in the church. 00:31:57.680 --> 00:32:02.160 Yeah. Love, love that. Love you. I mean, you're creating content outside of the weekend service. 00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:08.320 You're bringing people together to dialogue. You're, you're featuring a song as well as, 00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:12.920 you know, an, an open mic moment. It sounds like, and we'll, we'll include links to several 00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:18.000 of these in the show notes. We'll grab some of them and pass them along just to allow others 00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:23.920 listening to the podcast to experience this. But it's, all this is really done outside of 00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:29.220 the weekend service and you're using it as a way to engage and connect with, with people, 00:32:29.220 --> 00:32:35.060 uh, digitally. So like, this is, this is phenomenal. You've got the platform, you've got the voice, 00:32:35.060 --> 00:32:40.860 you're doing it outside of the service. You're allowing others to speak, you know, so often it's, 00:32:40.860 --> 00:32:45.640 and especially in this, in this racial time, it's, Hey church, let's, let's listen. 00:32:46.260 --> 00:32:51.260 Let's, let's learn. You, we don't, we don't have the answers. And even the way that you postured 00:32:51.260 --> 00:32:56.640 this, where it's, it's a learning experience where others are coming in and are given an opportunity 00:32:56.640 --> 00:33:02.140 to speak their voice. And through that, we're discovering the common ground. Like this is, 00:33:02.140 --> 00:33:09.240 this is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Like, tell me how, tell me some stories. Tell me some, 00:33:09.340 --> 00:33:17.020 some practical, like how did this affect your church? What, how did this kind of move some even 00:33:17.020 --> 00:33:19.780 racial reconciliation among your church over at Bay Hope? 00:33:19.980 --> 00:33:24.320 So I was, I was producing, which is just a fancy term for just making sure that nobody runs away 00:33:24.320 --> 00:33:31.180 and making sure that everybody was on time. Hey, whatever. And the coolest thing for me was that 00:33:31.180 --> 00:33:38.220 I got to, as the producer, I got to take the 30,000 foot view and watch and kind of guide 00:33:38.220 --> 00:33:42.080 conversations and guide hosting and guide, not really shots. That was Andre's thing. But 00:33:42.080 --> 00:33:51.200 my sister, one of the reasons that she's starting her podcast was the same reason that I started this 00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:57.500 by saying I'm the resident white guy because we, and my brother says it in one of the, one of the 00:33:57.500 --> 00:34:03.000 questions. So the way it was shot was we asked questions upfront and there was about four or five 00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:09.560 hours. It was, yeah, it was about, well, about three and a half, four hours of just dialogue. And we came up 00:34:09.560 --> 00:34:14.000 with a bunch of questions and just started firing them off. And then we took a break for lunch and 00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:19.100 then we started to worship. They started to worship together. And you could tell in the worship set 00:34:19.100 --> 00:34:26.460 that everyone was really close, but it was because of the fact that, uh, like we were saying, I, as a 00:34:26.460 --> 00:34:38.340 middle-class white American growing up in suburbia, I never had a lot of those, uh, things that, uh, 00:34:38.340 --> 00:34:42.720 Jay, one of the African-American worship leaders or John, one of the African-American worship leaders 00:34:42.720 --> 00:34:48.340 or Ethan, who is a white guy, but grew up with a bunch of African-American worship leaders and just 00:34:48.340 --> 00:34:54.340 never really knew the difference. Uh, I didn't have any of those experiences. And so listening to just 00:34:54.340 --> 00:35:00.500 these, these three guys just start talking, you could watch as myself and my brother and my sister, 00:35:00.500 --> 00:35:07.240 we all just kind of went, wait, what, like what's going on here? And the, the amount of barrier that 00:35:07.240 --> 00:35:12.700 broke in just us was fantastic. But the amount of barrier that has broke in the conversation that 00:35:12.700 --> 00:35:18.880 has happened around it in, uh, you know, even on YouTube and in Instagram and even just 00:35:18.880 --> 00:35:25.400 in our like chat hosting platforms when we're live somewhere has been phenomenal. And we've only put 00:35:25.400 --> 00:35:31.500 one, well, we've got another one coming out next week. We've only put maybe a fifth of the conversation 00:35:31.500 --> 00:35:36.620 out. We've only really, we've only scratched the surface. Um, and I think one of the guiding factors 00:35:36.620 --> 00:35:40.880 for all of it was we want to make sure that we're not just putting content out to put content out 00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:46.920 because anyone could make a cool video and put some good music out. Um, Andre really helped spearhead 00:35:46.920 --> 00:35:52.460 the fact that at the end of this, we were going to ask people, how can you do something about this? 00:35:52.460 --> 00:35:58.760 And the very last question is, what can we do? And that's kind of, we need to get to that zenith. 00:35:58.760 --> 00:36:03.160 Like we're on the way there. Like we're taking this journey with our congregation. But at the end of 00:36:03.160 --> 00:36:08.440 it, we want people to be asking and answering that question themselves. What can I do personally where 00:36:08.440 --> 00:36:14.640 I'm at? How much of this is scripted in that sense? Uh, and I don't mean this to make it seem like any 00:36:14.640 --> 00:36:19.120 of it's inauthentic and I'm glad that you threw up the big burger, but even like in terms of the 00:36:19.120 --> 00:36:22.980 action steps, like how much do you guys know ahead of time? All right, this is the direction we're 00:36:22.980 --> 00:36:26.140 headed. And this is exactly what we're going to give them at the end to move them in a specific 00:36:26.140 --> 00:36:34.400 direction. Or was there none of that at all? That was a lot of planning. Yeah. Uh, so prior to the 00:36:34.400 --> 00:36:42.760 shoot, you know, uh, we met, uh, one time with John, uh, and Andy and our, uh, our executive 00:36:42.760 --> 00:36:48.860 team and our creative director, um, to kind of just talk about the idea, you know, and through 00:36:48.860 --> 00:36:55.460 that conversation, there was a lot of questions, a lot of questions like, who's this for? How's 00:36:55.460 --> 00:37:01.280 it going to impact people? How's this, this and that? So like, we like just went in, like the cool 00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:06.080 thing about, about working here is that there's a lot of different perspectives. You're like, oh man, 00:37:06.120 --> 00:37:10.960 I didn't think about that. Like, what is, what really is this for? Like, or like what, you know, 00:37:10.960 --> 00:37:17.520 like there's like these, not processes, but there's just like these, these elements that just 00:37:17.520 --> 00:37:23.200 up the value of what your idea, you think it is, oh, I have this great idea. And then this team 00:37:23.200 --> 00:37:26.860 takes it and just explodes it. It makes it to something better. So we had that initial idea, 00:37:27.200 --> 00:37:33.160 kind of pitch, uh, uh, the idea and, uh, show what it's kind of, what's going to be about, 00:37:33.260 --> 00:37:36.820 get the blessings, you know, all that good stuff. And then we had another meeting with 00:37:36.820 --> 00:37:41.760 all the worship leaders that were going to be involved. And, uh, we kind of were on the same 00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:44.240 page. Hey, this is what's going to be about. We're going to ask a couple of questions. 00:37:44.800 --> 00:37:49.880 Um, we hadn't come up with the questions yet at that time. We sent them later in another email. 00:37:50.420 --> 00:37:55.680 Um, and, uh, we kind of said, okay, we're going to do a worship moment. Uh, we kind of just laid 00:37:55.680 --> 00:38:01.400 out the schedule, got everybody's timeline. Um, but besides that, it was literally, we came in that 00:38:01.400 --> 00:38:07.320 morning, we had some coffee, you know, everybody got to introduce each other and say hi. And then we 00:38:07.320 --> 00:38:13.980 said, okay, guys, we're rolling in 10 and everybody just sat down in a chair and then Mike just started 00:38:13.980 --> 00:38:18.760 asking questions. And I'm telling you, man, uh, when you guys see this thing, you could see 00:38:18.760 --> 00:38:24.760 Mike in the first episode, the long, the long format one, the question one. And he is just like, 00:38:24.760 --> 00:38:32.420 uh, uh, like, like deer in the headlights. Like I'm, he was like, he, nothing was scripted. It was 00:38:32.420 --> 00:38:36.960 just like, we're doing this. Just we're, we're trusting in God. We've prayed about it. We had our 00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:41.880 prayer team pray about it. We had our leadership and our pastors pray over it and God just showed up 00:38:41.880 --> 00:38:48.880 how he always does, man. And that was the biggest thing, you know, is at least for me, uh, was having 00:38:48.880 --> 00:38:57.920 faith, um, in God that he was going to provide. Uh, and, and he did. It's funny, you know, as humans, 00:38:57.920 --> 00:39:02.960 we get to this mode where we think we control everything and then everything goes wrong. 00:39:03.160 --> 00:39:06.680 And then you hit these walls, you hit these walls and you, I'm going to run through this wall. I'm 00:39:06.680 --> 00:39:10.220 going to run through this wall. I can run through it. But that when you're at that wall, 00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:17.140 that's when you need to stop and ask God for help and ask and pray for God as, as you know, 00:39:17.200 --> 00:39:23.480 pray and, and ask for discernment and wisdom and have faith, man. God, I'm telling you a hundred 00:39:23.480 --> 00:39:26.840 percent of the time when stuff like that has happened in my life, God has come through. 00:39:27.160 --> 00:39:31.620 What's been, what's been the engagement, maybe outside the physical circle of influence? Like, 00:39:31.620 --> 00:39:37.860 have you seen, uh, engagement traction, uh, other cities, maybe even other churches outside 00:39:37.860 --> 00:39:41.640 of hope with within kind of like, so tell me about the reach here. 00:39:41.640 --> 00:39:49.540 So right now, uh, we have, uh, the Instagram videos have been like popping off, uh, like on 00:39:49.540 --> 00:39:55.000 our, on our Bay hope, uh, Instagram. Um, I think, I think it's close to at least a thousand 00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.520 views. Maybe Andy, I'm not sure. Um, but I know the YouTube channel, the worship portion, 00:39:59.520 --> 00:40:08.300 um, has about 3000 plus views. And we just got a comment today from Venezuela, uh, saying how this 00:40:08.300 --> 00:40:14.720 video has blessed their life or how the worship has impacted their life. And it's just so, so amazing. 00:40:14.720 --> 00:40:19.580 Like, I mean, Andy could speak more into that, uh, uh, uh, maybe not towards common ground, 00:40:19.580 --> 00:40:28.160 but we have people from all over the world watching Bay hope, um, on a weekly basis, every weekend, 00:40:28.160 --> 00:40:34.980 someone from outside the state or, um, sorry, outside our country is watching and viewing and engaging 00:40:34.980 --> 00:40:40.660 with us and we directly impact their lives. Um, that's something that we kind of tell our video 00:40:40.660 --> 00:40:44.840 team here, uh, our volunteers. It's like, Hey, you, you're, you're point, you're doing more 00:40:44.840 --> 00:40:51.580 than just pointing a camera, you know, someone's salvation is in your hands, you know, in that 00:40:51.580 --> 00:40:56.940 focus, uh, gear, you know, uh, in that zoom gear, you know, in your composition, nailing 00:40:56.940 --> 00:41:02.120 the shot and making sure that there's no distractions, uh, when Matthew's preaching or when there's a 00:41:02.120 --> 00:41:07.840 worship moment, you know? Um, and it's amazing. Uh, I'm hoping that the, obviously the goal 00:41:07.840 --> 00:41:12.720 was, you know, everybody loves this video and it gets millions of views and everybody impacts 00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:20.500 their lives. But like, I just want it to be, uh, seen in as many places as it can be, whether 00:41:20.500 --> 00:41:25.800 that be on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube, I want it to be a tool. Like I go back to that, 00:41:26.080 --> 00:41:30.960 you know, like where, like my, where I thought like, Oh, this is such a grandiose idea, but 00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:38.040 there was so little on, on, for what God really has for it, you know, like, like I'm, I'm telling 00:41:38.040 --> 00:41:43.200 you this, this is going to be something that is a tool to spark that conversation. 00:41:43.460 --> 00:41:47.820 So Dre, um, I'm really intrigued about that. Like how, how many more chapters of this are 00:41:47.820 --> 00:41:52.820 there going to be? Because this is obviously an ongoing conversation as uncomfortable as 00:41:52.820 --> 00:41:56.640 it makes people as political as people are making it out to be, which really it shouldn't 00:41:56.640 --> 00:42:02.340 be. Um, but it's a, it's an ongoing conversation, isn't it? And so what are you guys thinking as 00:42:02.340 --> 00:42:03.280 far as what's the next step? 00:42:03.620 --> 00:42:09.100 Yeah. So we have, um, a total of five episodes, right? Long format. So we, the way we did it 00:42:09.100 --> 00:42:13.820 is we split it up because the videos are very long and people's retention span, you 00:42:13.820 --> 00:42:18.360 know, it's not that good nowadays. So we hit them with two different videos. So there's 00:42:18.360 --> 00:42:25.180 a set of 10 deliverables, right? So 10 total deliverables, five being the long form, like 00:42:25.180 --> 00:42:32.560 20 minute, 15 minute conversations, uncut, raw of them talking about the question, each 00:42:32.560 --> 00:42:36.920 question. So there's five questions. And then the second set of deliverables, which is 00:42:36.920 --> 00:42:42.040 another five is the worship aspect. So we start with the worship and then we go into a little 00:42:42.040 --> 00:42:47.880 small portion of the person who led that song. So for example, the first one is Jay. He leads 00:42:47.880 --> 00:42:54.560 Graves into Gardens. Um, and then immediately right after that, it fades in, into, uh, Melissa 00:42:54.560 --> 00:42:59.660 hosting it saying, Hey, you're about to hear Jay, a small portion about what he thinks about, 00:42:59.660 --> 00:43:04.300 you know, uh, how to mourn in the church during these times. Right. That was the first question. 00:43:04.300 --> 00:43:08.760 And so we go into a segment of Jay. He has about two, four or five minutes talking about 00:43:08.760 --> 00:43:15.560 that. And then we faded out and then we bring it back in and to Melissa again, sharing, uh, 00:43:15.640 --> 00:43:20.640 um, doing a call to action to hit the link on the bottom of the YouTube channel to go watch 00:43:20.640 --> 00:43:25.640 the full conversation. So the goal is, is to bring them in with this candy, this shiny toys. 00:43:25.740 --> 00:43:29.480 Hey, look at these cool worship leaders, you know, around the area. Look how cool this video 00:43:29.480 --> 00:43:35.000 looks. But like, this is like the sprinkles, right? The real good stuff is that long for 00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:40.420 my conversation. That's what we want them to go see and engage with. Um, because I've, you 00:43:40.420 --> 00:43:45.500 know, although I'm not trying to sell it short, but cause they do talk about, uh, great things 00:43:45.500 --> 00:43:51.700 in the worship sessions, but it's not long. Um, we cut it short. Um, we did it for one person 00:43:51.700 --> 00:43:59.600 for whoever's leading that specific song, but like each question, it's, it is like amazing. Like 00:43:59.600 --> 00:44:03.640 everybody answers the question. Everybody has their turn of answering the question and everybody 00:44:03.640 --> 00:44:10.280 kind of groups and everybody starts talking about it. And there's so many things on there. If 00:44:10.280 --> 00:44:14.340 whether you're white, you're black, Spanish, it doesn't matter. Like, I'm trying to tell you, 00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:19.480 like, there's so many like hard points that you're like, I don't know how to talk to my team about 00:44:19.480 --> 00:44:26.620 this. I feel like I need to, but I don't know how to put on that video and let, and seriously, 00:44:26.820 --> 00:44:31.400 it's going to happen. Like there's no way you're not going to feel like you have that grace 00:44:31.400 --> 00:44:36.180 because that's what it is. You know, like one of the things that John was telling me about, 00:44:36.180 --> 00:44:41.540 like as Christians is that we need to have grace. When we talk about this, when we see other people, 00:44:41.540 --> 00:44:45.660 if a white pastor is talking about racial injustice and he says something out of term, 00:44:45.660 --> 00:44:51.800 maybe that he didn't mean I'm not supposed to go and bash him about that. You know, I got to see that 00:44:51.800 --> 00:44:57.080 through grace. You know, I have to, you know, I have to, I have to show grace with that because then 00:44:57.080 --> 00:45:02.360 where's my heart, you know, like what, what does that lead me to, you know? So, um, that's something 00:45:02.360 --> 00:45:09.740 that, uh, it's really, um, you know, awesome about this project is, is, is that, and I keep going back 00:45:09.740 --> 00:45:15.480 to it. I'm sorry if I do, but it's just, it's just, it's just, uh, I just think that's where 00:45:15.480 --> 00:45:20.240 God is going to move. Um, you know, besides the worship stuff and the worship moments, which 00:45:20.240 --> 00:45:26.180 it's literally, there was, these guys were just like, go, there's all they had was a click and you, 00:45:26.320 --> 00:45:30.040 you know, the song, if you want to extend it, you want to make it longer, you want to go into a worship 00:45:30.040 --> 00:45:35.820 moment, you go into a worship moment. We're not holding anything back. This is a beautiful time for us 00:45:35.820 --> 00:45:42.480 to do whatever God has in this room. And, um, when we were in Andy, you know, he's speaking to this 00:45:42.480 --> 00:45:47.300 more as well. When we were in that moment worshiping, there was times where I was just like, man, I feel 00:45:47.300 --> 00:45:53.520 like strongholds are being broken right now. You know, like it was just such a movement of God and 00:45:53.520 --> 00:46:00.380 the Holy spirit and just God's love. It was, it was all there, man. It was a crazy, crazy day, 00:46:00.380 --> 00:46:08.000 very exhausting, but you know, what we got from that and how God is moving through these, 00:46:08.460 --> 00:46:10.040 you know, this project, it's going to be amazing. 00:46:10.360 --> 00:46:14.980 Well, and not only that, there's a, there's a continuation aspect to it too, where we want 00:46:14.980 --> 00:46:20.180 to loop back after we get all this stuff out there, we want to loop back maybe six months from now 00:46:20.180 --> 00:46:26.860 with everybody and add on and continue to ask because, you know, even in the time that we've 00:46:26.860 --> 00:46:30.480 only published one of these, cause it, you know, it's a mountain of work to try to publish something 00:46:30.480 --> 00:46:36.600 that's very large. Anybody who listened to this probably knows that. Um, but even in that, like 00:46:36.600 --> 00:46:41.440 we've had Jacob Blake and then we've had all of the Kenosha, Wisconsin stuff. And then we've had all 00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:48.860 of the Rochester stuff, you know, every, all of these, um, topics on race keep popping up that we need 00:46:48.860 --> 00:46:56.040 to talk about because as the church, we, we, we are the ones that are called to heal and we're not 00:46:56.040 --> 00:47:04.100 going to heal if we continually have this, um, uh, my sister calls it an accent. We all have this 00:47:04.100 --> 00:47:12.220 accent, um, as, as white America, we have an accent in our church and we were born into that with this 00:47:12.220 --> 00:47:17.040 accent and that's the accent we speak. And we just expect everybody else to understand it. 00:47:17.480 --> 00:47:23.420 And when people don't understand it, we call them weird. And that's unfortunately what's 00:47:23.420 --> 00:47:27.180 happening. And so common ground is designed to, uh, you know, yes, it's not the Waco, 00:47:27.580 --> 00:47:34.720 the Waco coffee house. It is us trying, really trying to, uh, bring common ground into the kingdom. 00:47:34.940 --> 00:47:38.620 And I think that's, that's great for your community, for your specific community too, 00:47:38.620 --> 00:47:44.120 to hear them, to, to see their pastors, to see their church staff engaging in this kind of way, 00:47:44.120 --> 00:47:48.860 because then it kind of takes down the walls of the politics, the celebrities, everybody else just 00:47:48.860 --> 00:47:53.660 kind of get into it because now, you know, the people who are engaging in these conversations. Now 00:47:53.660 --> 00:47:58.020 it becomes really, really different when it's like, Oh, wait a minute. I know this person by name 00:47:58.020 --> 00:48:03.560 and this is how they feel, or this is how it's causing them to feel, you know, the, the hurt and 00:48:03.560 --> 00:48:07.700 the pain that they've gone through in their life, et cetera. It kind of takes all that apart versus, 00:48:07.900 --> 00:48:12.560 and I'm seeing this through a newscaster's eyes versus I'm seeing this in terms of people I know. 00:48:12.880 --> 00:48:18.020 And I think that's just really helpful. Um, before we kind of conclude, I also kind of wanted to hit 00:48:18.020 --> 00:48:25.000 on, you guys talked about a deep dive into like post, you talked about like a deep dive podcast, post, 00:48:25.100 --> 00:48:30.500 all of that, um, kind of go into it a little bit more in terms of who's being invited to talking to 00:48:30.500 --> 00:48:34.500 this thing. I have professors and that kind of intrigues me in some kind of way. Like who else is being 00:48:34.500 --> 00:48:37.940 invited into this thing? Or is it just Christians, non-Christians? Well, it's allowed. 00:48:38.320 --> 00:48:42.680 Yeah. So the professor, she is, as far as we know, the one that my sister has talked to. So 00:48:42.680 --> 00:48:47.180 I keep talking to my sister. My sister is Melissa Miner. Um, she's the experience director here. 00:48:47.260 --> 00:48:53.820 She's one of our producers here. Um, she's amazing. Yeah. And she was, she's, um, one of the 00:48:53.820 --> 00:48:59.100 people in the actual common ground video. And she's, uh, she's actually, I think in the second one, 00:48:59.100 --> 00:49:04.100 but she, like I said, she was changed, like shook to the core by everything that was happening 00:49:04.100 --> 00:49:08.120 because she, like me, grew up in the same household as me and didn't have any of these 00:49:08.120 --> 00:49:13.760 experiences. And so she wanted to further that. And her deep dive is her literally seeking out 00:49:13.760 --> 00:49:19.260 people of a different, not even necessarily color, although color has a different, a very large part 00:49:19.260 --> 00:49:24.340 of it, but a different background than her. And she is literally knocking on doors, writing email. 00:49:24.340 --> 00:49:29.500 I mean, not in COVID times, but sending emails and DMs and Facebook messages and things, 00:49:29.920 --> 00:49:33.520 trying to get people that are not believers. And that may be believers, 00:49:33.700 --> 00:49:38.800 but really to further the conversation, she's kind of just, if you know anything about my sister, 00:49:38.800 --> 00:49:48.920 you would know that she is a one woman army, uh, who can wreck face, uh, and will not stop until 00:49:48.920 --> 00:49:54.020 this thing has succeeded until she has figured out how the church can actually help. And in what 00:49:54.020 --> 00:49:58.700 context the church can actually help. Um, and she's doing that in through the lens of, 00:49:59.160 --> 00:50:04.360 Hey, we did this common ground thing. Um, she, that's how she's really opening up the door to 00:50:04.360 --> 00:50:08.920 these conversations with people. She's sending them a link saying, Hey, just want to want to get your 00:50:08.920 --> 00:50:12.880 advice on this. If I hear back from you, great. If I don't hear for back from you, great. The people 00:50:12.880 --> 00:50:17.920 she has heard back from, she's all in, um, I do know. So like I said, professors, she's talking to, 00:50:17.980 --> 00:50:22.740 she's going to bring on all of the other worship leaders again, just as like a recap, kind of a, 00:50:22.920 --> 00:50:27.540 Hey, how's the last three or four months been for you? Um, I do know that she's reaching out to 00:50:27.540 --> 00:50:33.140 churches. So she was in a band, um, a band called Bellarive that toured all around the country, 00:50:33.220 --> 00:50:38.180 all around the world really. But, um, so she made a lot of contacts around the country in the music 00:50:38.180 --> 00:50:43.360 world. And, um, as part of that, she's reaching out through those contacts. And so she's reaching 00:50:43.360 --> 00:50:47.020 out all through the country to people throughout the music world and the music industry, trying to 00:50:47.020 --> 00:50:53.040 just draw people in because the, the, the core of all of this, like Andre said, this is a tool for 00:50:53.040 --> 00:50:58.420 people to really start to bring healing. Um, and that's, that's exactly what Bay Hope TV is trying 00:50:58.420 --> 00:51:06.820 to do is just be resources for people. Yeah. I love this idea of, of, of creating these resources, 00:51:06.820 --> 00:51:14.100 of facilitating these conversations, of taking the posture of a learner, of, of listening in this 00:51:14.100 --> 00:51:20.760 season to, um, the, the despair of the situation that, that is, is race here in America. It's sad to 00:51:20.760 --> 00:51:27.480 say, I don't, I don't think this is going to be over in any time soon. And so continuing that 00:51:27.480 --> 00:51:33.260 conversation, revisit it, changing, uh, an individual, a person at a time is a phenomenal 00:51:33.260 --> 00:51:37.940 challenge. And so thankful for you guys, uh, through Bay Hope and now through this platform, 00:51:38.060 --> 00:51:43.620 Bay Hope TV, uh, even just taking those steps, uh, towards, towards doing that. It's, that's an 00:51:43.620 --> 00:51:49.200 awesome, awesome thing. And so one of the questions that I get from, from churches that are, are 00:51:49.200 --> 00:51:56.920 interested in doing this whole, like become the Christian Netflix type of thing is how do I 00:51:56.920 --> 00:52:04.200 staff this? How do I grow this? How do I test this to see if I even like the idea and then expand? 00:52:04.200 --> 00:52:09.500 I mean, I would love maybe some feedback, maybe it's Dre, maybe it's both of you, but just like, 00:52:09.840 --> 00:52:16.540 how did you start? What did like the first couple rounds of it look like? And then how are you growing 00:52:16.540 --> 00:52:24.140 it? Maybe where are you expecting to go? Staff, org chart, creative team, types of videos, like just 00:52:24.140 --> 00:52:29.720 kind of tell me that Genesis story here a little bit of, of, uh, Bay Hope TV. 00:52:30.320 --> 00:52:34.760 Yeah, I think, uh, you know, I can touch on it a little bit, but I think Andy has a better grip on 00:52:34.760 --> 00:52:40.420 this subject. I can probably be a pretty good example. Uh, when I first started working here, 00:52:40.420 --> 00:52:48.240 it was just pretty much me, um, me and Zach, uh, Zach at the time was a creative director and, uh, we 00:52:48.240 --> 00:52:52.480 really kind of, we kind of had a comms teams and communication teams and a creative team, but it 00:52:52.480 --> 00:53:02.400 really wasn't, um, as cohesive and, uh, and a world door machine as it is today. But, uh, you know, 00:53:02.400 --> 00:53:13.540 I think something that, uh, you have to be, is persistent. Um, I am very persistent, um, when it 00:53:13.540 --> 00:53:23.040 comes to, uh, doing things good for God. Um, and, and that's talking to leadership, uh, planting seeds. 00:53:23.580 --> 00:53:30.980 And I think the most important thing is just prayer, seeking God for that. Um, you know, that's kind of 00:53:30.980 --> 00:53:38.460 like a 40,000 foot view. And since then God has blessed us tremendously. Um, we were able to bring 00:53:38.460 --> 00:53:46.740 in, uh, Andy who has been a tremendous, like blessing for us, uh, keeps us on top of things. You know, 00:53:46.740 --> 00:53:55.020 he comes up with great ideas and, uh, and he's just a great pastor. So, um, anyways, since then we've 00:53:55.020 --> 00:54:01.280 kind of restructured, um, kind of how we work and as a unit, you know, kind of the whole orb chart 00:54:01.280 --> 00:54:07.160 thing. Um, the cool thing is that we kind of don't focus on that too much here. Um, titles and 00:54:07.160 --> 00:54:12.420 positions and all that stuff that, that, that stuff you, you can get in the weeds with that stuff, 00:54:12.420 --> 00:54:16.680 you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, your pride gets in the way or, or, or, uh, you know, 00:54:16.980 --> 00:54:23.500 people become ill will towards certain individuals. We don't see that we're a team. Um, and our goal 00:54:23.500 --> 00:54:30.860 is to, you know, expand the kingdom of God. You know, our pastor's vision and mission is 30 by 30, 00:54:30.980 --> 00:54:38.300 you know, 30,000 disciples by 2030. That is a huge, like, ass. And that's what God has given him. And 00:54:38.300 --> 00:54:45.360 that's with faith and, and, and, and, and determination, you know, hopefully we're able 00:54:45.360 --> 00:54:51.980 to reach that goal and honor God in that way. Um, so I guess basically that's kind of where I stand on 00:54:51.980 --> 00:54:56.780 that subject or in that time. Andy can definitely speak more into other things about that. So. 00:54:57.200 --> 00:55:01.120 Yeah. The, uh, the, in terms of just orb chart and things like that, I mean, you obviously need, 00:55:01.180 --> 00:55:08.760 like I understood support from your leadership, but really you need to have producer. And I never 00:55:08.760 --> 00:55:13.080 really, I never really realized the necessity of a good producer until I kind of stepped, 00:55:13.300 --> 00:55:19.700 stepped into that role. Um, just to keep the trains running on time. Uh, you obviously going to need 00:55:19.700 --> 00:55:26.880 videographer at least one, if not two, um, just to handle the editing load. Uh, the thing that they 00:55:26.880 --> 00:55:33.800 don't tell you is that you can shoot until the cows come home, but if you can't do the hard work of 00:55:33.800 --> 00:55:39.660 editing and actually getting it, you know, get your pipeline greased, you're out of it. And so again, 00:55:39.660 --> 00:55:44.060 that's where your producer comes in. So my role ends up being as, even as digital pastor, I've turned 00:55:44.060 --> 00:55:50.440 more into digital producer whereby I'm literally just kind of opening the pipeline. So letting Andre, 00:55:50.560 --> 00:55:54.500 I'm, you know, I'm cutting and doing some editing, light editing and light cutting. Um, 00:55:54.500 --> 00:56:01.220 but letting Andre and kind of our, our, uh, our other videographer take care of the actual heavy 00:56:01.220 --> 00:56:05.900 lifting of editing. I'm simply the guy that's just getting stuff out the door, getting it in because 00:56:05.900 --> 00:56:11.820 you know, it's not easy to get it onto YouTube and into your other platforms, somebody doing the SEO 00:56:11.820 --> 00:56:17.540 work you need it. So that's my job. So get your producer, get kind of your creative lead as well. Uh, 00:56:17.540 --> 00:56:22.260 and then you can filter in with two to three other, either videographers or communications people, 00:56:22.260 --> 00:56:28.900 something along those lines that will really, really help. It would almost behoove any church that's trying 00:56:28.900 --> 00:56:39.420 to do this to have some, somebody that is at least mostly skilled in, um, social media. Uh, and by social 00:56:39.420 --> 00:56:47.140 media, I mean, not just posting on Facebook, but how the nitty gritty of all of it works. Um, just to, just so you're not 00:56:47.140 --> 00:56:51.820 spinning your wheels. We kind of find we were spinning our wheels a little bit until we retasked, like Andre 00:56:51.820 --> 00:56:57.400 said, we're kind of a well-oiled machine. Now we retasked basically our creative director with, Hey, 00:56:57.460 --> 00:56:59.300 you're the, you're now our social media guy. 00:56:59.840 --> 00:57:06.540 That's awesome. Love that for Andy, uh, for Dre, for Ray. Hey, let that, that rhymes. That's cute. 00:57:06.640 --> 00:57:11.300 This is Jeff with the church digital, otherwise known as grumpy white guy, evidently through the podcast. 00:57:11.700 --> 00:57:13.440 Thanks for being here on the show. 00:57:13.500 --> 00:57:14.700 We'll see you next time here at the pod. 00:57:14.760 --> 00:57:15.200 Y'all have a good day.