Podcast Episode 204: Episode 177: Building Connections: Vision Casting with Digital Tools

Description

In today’s digital age, churches face the challenge of maintaining personal connections while expanding their reach through technology. Vision casting and a robust digital strategy are crucial for meaningful interactions. This blog explores leveraging Rock RMS features and an outreach toolbox to build engaging Rock websites and foster personal connections. Join Emily Forman, Jon Edmiston, and Nick Airdo as they share practical tips on integrating technology with your church’s mission to enhance community engagement and support your ministry goals.

Transcribed Content

This episode of Rockcast is brought to you by Rock partner Triumph Tech, a full service specialist partner. Rock partners provide crucial support for Spark Development Network and important services for the Rock community. Connect with Triumph Tech today at rockrms.com/partners. Welcome to Rockcast. This is the podcast for you, members of the Rock community. We talk to you about what's going on behind the scenes, connections that will be helpful to you, strategy and tactical information that will benefit you in your Rock experience. And today, we are going to be discussing some vision casting related to individual churches and how we work with our attendees for maximum digital strategy. And when we're talking digital strategy, we're talking about discipleship and growing people individually and growing the body of Christ corporately. Yeah. And I think when we talk about vision, especially in this area, it's hard because we're we're actually playing against history. So there's a lot of quotes that say, , if you want to see the future, look back at history. And I think those are that's true, , especially in a lot of historical matters. But I think when it comes to technology and looking at vision there, sometimes the past is actually hampering the future. So for example, everybody knows, a church needs a website, that vision's already been cast, But unfortunately, it's been a hindrance of a vision. Because what we, no matter who you are, how advanced you are, we typically think, Oh, well, the website and we work with churches every day on websites. The first things we're talking about are , well, I have to have service times, I have to have the live broadcast, I have to have the messages, I have to have the brochure where, yes, all those things are , I'm not known by no means am I saying that all those things shouldn't be there. But these websites can do so much more for us if we just could change our vision of what their true purpose is or could be. I think it would unlock a whole new level of thinking. So I was thinking, and this isn't necessarily a % true, I think everything's on a continuum. But if we think about attendees, I think a majority of churches see attendees more as individuals to be acted upon. So we need to get these people to get to a class. We need get these people to do these next steps. We need to get these people to do this give or do that, whatever. That's sure, those are all good things, not saying that those shouldn't be done. But what if we could pivot and say, No, what if attendees are individuals to be activated? what if we activate them, and they go off and do a whole bunch of stuff? And these things aren't mutually exclusive, obviously, But I feel we get caught in more of an acted upon strategy versus an activation strategy. And you could argue, our next steps process is meant to activate them. Okay, maybe a little bit. Again, that's where it's not black and white true or false. It's levels of And a lot of this stuff we're unpacking today stuff, I'll be talking about the pre session at the conference. Little plug, make sure you're there. It's a digital strategy framework, we'll be talking about this and how to provide a framework to do these things. I think the first thing we have to do is change our mindset. Acted upon versus activated, we'll come back to think about that. And I think, again, another continuum, I I had this kind of thought of worldview of what I call the grabbing hands. And this all goes back to an old Depeche Mode song, which probably predates most people listening to this, but they were a band in the eighties. And they had a song and and the lyric went something , The grabbing hands, grab all they can, all for themselves, after all, it's a competitive world. Now churches typically don't have that. Mean, obviously the perfect church doesn't have any of that, but there is no perfect church. So we first have to be honest with ourselves and say, Well, none of us are perfect. So in what ways do we try to grab things? And so sometimes those are people. I just heard a story last night about a church who is definitely not doing this right, what was happening is that they were setting up geofences around all the churches in their areas, and they were targeting ads. So if you got near one of those churches, sitting in the church, it would target and talk about their new campus plant. Oh, wow. Yeah. Not a good idea. Now that idea was given to them by a corporate secular volunteer that they had. And perhaps they didn't really think it through. But that's an example of grabbing hands. Again, think all of us would be , Well, our church definitely wouldn't do that. We're not trying to compete other churches. And I think that is true, but there is a certain scarcity to that. And I think it comes back to sometimes, do we have a manufacturing mentality or a creation mentality? So if you have a manufacturing mentality, you have a zero sum game. So there are only so many people, and if I get the person, you don't get the person, and if you get the person, I don't get the person. We see this a lot when it comes to the secular world, and even sometimes within, even some of the sponsors within the community, think that we see , if you get them, I don't get them. And that's kind of seeing something as a pie, right? So you're dividing up the pie. Well, in fact, especially in true capitalistic economies, it's not a pie, it's a pie factory. We can make more pies. It's not a zero sum game. And so if we take that factory metaphor, right? It reminds me a little bit of an old, I'm gonna date myself again, Lucille Ball episode. There's an episode where she and her friend are at the candy factory, and the candies are coming out and their job is to put the candies in the boxes. This would be for robotics and all that stuff. Well, everything's going fine until the little machine starts going faster. And now these candies are flying out, and they cannot keep up. So they're stuffing candies everywhere, down their shirts, everything, just to keep up. And that's the world that we live in. If we have the right mentality, we live in this factory where this stuff is coming out faster than we If we're doing it right, it should be coming out faster than we can handle it. So taking the factory metaphor, I think how does this apply to many churches is if we think of the factory, right now we have the staff in the factory and they're trying to build and manufacture things as much as they can. But what if we invited all the attendees into the factory? So and if you look about that from a Rock perspective, how many of the features are built for the staff to effectively manage and shepherd the people? How many features in Rock or on your website are put in place for no other purpose than to help the person outreach and do all the things that a staff person should do? So, how does that work? How do we give these people those tools? So for instance, we might have tools to help a pastor do hospital visits or follow-up with notes on a certain person, or to know where they are maybe in an outreach process. Where's the tool on the website toolbox where the person lists all the people that they are trying to outreach to, and has notes on them and has prayers for them that follows up, builds the toolset for them. I think it's true that all churches would say that people should do that. There's no one would agree that no, no, no, only the staff are supposed to outreach. We say it almost in every sermon, be out there, reach your community. What tools are we giving them? We're basically telling them, not only should you go do that, but you gotta go build your own factory. I'm not gonna tell you how, but if I tell you how, I'm not gonna give you the tool to do it. You should take notes on your neighbors. I've heard that said from a couple of churches and that's a great idea. Write down their names. Every time you hear something about them, write it down so that you can go back and build that relationship strategically. If they have a prayer request, say, I'm gonna pray for you and then follow-up on it. But why aren't churches giving them tools to basically just does that? , here's your toolkit. These are your people. We're not gonna touch these people in the database. In fact, they may not even be in the same table in the database for privacy reasons and trust. But where is that? And I think when we start to unlock that and we take the curse of knowledge and history and we replace it with new ideas and new vision, I think it could undo everything that we how we think about building our sites and what tools we ask for. And basically, it can empower and activate the people to do what God has called them to do. Which sounds exceedingly the Great Commission. Right. And I think we'd all believe that that digital and technology can help with the Great Commission. And right now I think it is, but I think it's a majority of ways it's helping the staff. And in some ways helps people, right? , because you can register for the class, okay? But that's really seeing people's individuals to be acted upon. But how do we activate? , do they have tools that Here's your list of your 20 people you're trying to outreach to, , here's a quick tool to invite them to that starting point class or whatever it is for you, the barbecue maybe you're having. In the old days, we'd hand out little postcards right to help. I mean, that's kind of a analog analogy of helping them in their factory. But where's the digital extension of that? And I know some churches might have a little share button. That's cool, but Share to whom? I have to remember all the people I'm supposed to share it to. I can't I have a tool to keep my list of people. And maybe she remind me, hey, you haven't prayed for, , Joe in a while. Or Joe's mom was in the hospital last week. Don't forget to keep praying and don't forget to follow-up. Those are the tools we build for pastors every day. That's true. I have a I made a new friend in my neighborhood this year, and she has just been an incredible example of pursuing those kinds of things. , get a a text on my birthday, happy birthday. And I think how on earth did she know it's my birthday? Mhmm. And she had heard something somewhere. And I know she has a a way she jots that down. She records that information. , the day before I left on vacation, have a great trip on , when you go do this thing that I know you're doing. And and I'm just continually blown away by the intentionality she has to document certain things internally. And I know I'm not the only one that she does this with. And it's so relationship building and so incredibly inspiring. But she's had to solve that problem on her own. That's an exact perfect example. She had to build her own factory. Why doesn't every church have that factory for them? Say, Hey, here's a tool you can use. They reminds me of a guy I know, he was the husband of a person on staff, one of the admins on staff back when I started at CCV in 02/2001. He made it his life mission to know everybody's birthday, you said, but he'd also know your wedding anniversary. And to this day, I've been off staff there for eight years and his wife has been off staff there for probably fifteen. To this day, I get a Facebook message on my anniversary with a prayer, handwritten for me, it's not a template, it is stuff in there that's only germane to Heidi and I. And it's , he has And I asked him once, I go, I'm really impressed how you do that. How do you do that? And he has a handwritten list that he does, because he's very analog. Shame on me for not even thinking about that before, because what am I, a technologist? I should have been , this is what we should be in. I mean, I'm late to this game too, right? But wow, what could we do if we empower them with factories and let them use our factory? So it's almost a commercial kitchen, right? , I might be a food truck or a small food startup, I have to use a kitchen so I can get licensed. I can go to a commercial kitchen that already has all the equipment I need, and some of them may actually even have some of the ingredients I need and I just pay for what I take. Why can't we give our people that? It's a great idea. And people are so busy if we can make things simpler and easier and take some of the guesswork out, then the people who want to do these things and currently it just seems a huge hurdle to them will be invited into that space. And I imagine that some incredible adoption rates would happen by people who want that and don't know how to get there from where their schedule is today. Yeah. And that's just one piece, the outreach toolbox. Mean, the other part of the factory too is just some, , how can church curate more content for them? Obviously, the church can't make every piece of content that they need, but I think there's content out everywhere. I think the role of the church is sometimes just to curate that content too. And so we'll talk a little bit about that in in the session. And hopefully provide some the start of a framework to evaluate where you are today and provide maybe a next step. But I wanna be very honest that this isn't something you move from where you are to where the final place you need to be in one step. I think it frustrates me because there are people, not in our community, but out in the space who make promises just that. Buy our product and you'll go from where you are today to exactly what this vision is. And it's , I'm sorry. It's not that easy. And anything that can do that is gonna be overly simplistic and not personalized to the strategy of your church. And not that it needs to be super hard, but I think the answer is actually just take a step Mhmm. Knowing it's just a step, and then keep taking those steps. And then But the first thing is to change your mindset and your vision. Great advice and really great thoughts. So let me give one more plug for your session at the pre day because it sounds a don't wanna miss kind of opportunity. So that's just one one session, one piece of one session at this conference that's coming up. And that's really on the horizon. It will be here before it, probably just a couple weeks after the publication of this podcast. But we do take registrations up through the day and it's definitely something you don't wanna miss. Check out our our most recent last podcast where we gave some great examples of why this is a good investment. Definitely something to consider. But try to get there in person. Being able to connect with other people, especially if you can bring a couple people from your church and divide and conquer sessions and make those networking connections, very important. If there's a significant conflict or a budget problem and you really aren't able to make it, do pay attention to when the content from the conference is available as a subscription. It's not the same as being there in person, but it it is possible to gather the actual just content and not let those gold nuggets slip to your fingers. So keep an eye out for that as well. Yeah. The conference is the best investment you can make for your church. We talked about that last time. And the content subscription is there, but you said, don't rely on that. Don't punt. It's not the same thing. Don't punt because of that. I've actually thought recently we should get rid of that. Because honestly, people don't even they pay for it but they don't watch it. And I think it holds people back from actually attending and they're missing out on what they don't know that they're missing out on. We won't get rid of it, but it's hard not to think about that. But it is not the same. No, it's not. And your intention will be to watch all the things, but because your time isn't cut out, you didn't leave town, put an out of office in your email and stay there for three days. It's just really hard to be , oh, I'll watch all this content. The intention is always there. And I can speak from my personal experience, things just get really complicated when you don't have dedicated time to really process. Yeah. And are we even recording the pre day content? No. No. So there's no pre day content That's a good point. Getting recorded. Yep. I'll be recording my session, but it won't be the same Right. It's gonna be abbreviated. And I know sometimes people are , well, it's Phoenix in the summer. I was just in the Midwest two weeks ago. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Right. Ruggy there. It was no different. Let me just tell you. Yep. It's a different type of heat, but it's no different. , I much prefer this dry heat. And I think humans are existing in every conceivable climate on the planet. So please don't let a little climate thing or preference hold you back from where you should be. Liked it. You're not gonna be sitting outside all day. No. Inside air conditioning. Absolutely not. And if anyone knows how to do air conditioning, it's Phoenix. Yes. Yeah. We got that covered. And the conference center does it very well. Yes. Bring a jacket. Yeah. I do wear a jacket. People are , why are you wearing a jacket? , because it's freezing in here. Mhmm. Good point. Okay. So make sure you get registered for that if at all possible, even if it's a stretch, stretch on your time, a stretch on your budget. I promise it will not be something that you regret. And the last thing I wanna bring up here as far as what's upcoming for the community is the next iteration of our finance class. So this is a virtual class that's specifically related to the finance tools inside Rock. So if you have people on your finance team that are new or that need to better understand how to use Rock's finance tools, Super accessible class. It's virtual. It's just a couple of days part part of the day itself. So there's plenty of time. There's lots of q and a built in. It's a great class for your finance team. So consider who might benefit from this in their role or in their new role and make sure to get them registered. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Rockcast. We love being able to share the vision of where we're going and what we're doing. And just a reminder that this is just not a platform. This is not a piece of technology that's agnostic and sits in the corner. This is a community developed and built discipleship tool. It's a platform that allows you to to modify it to what you need to do to reach people and help them move forward. This is something that is being built as a ministry to impact the world, and what you do is important. And your role in this community is important, and the core teams working with the community is creating something that just really doesn't exist anywhere else. So thank you for being a part of it, and thanks for tuning in to another episode of Rockcast. Do a church that loves the idea of using Rock but hasn't taken that leap yet? 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