Podcast Episode 196: Episode 169: Special Edition- Scott Solimine

Description

Today on Rockcast discover the tech journey of Scott Solimine from Nesconset Community Church, a small church thriving on Rock. Scott's advice: tackle Rock one bite at a time. Learn how he leverages technology to solve problems and what features matter most to them. Tune in for insights on small church innovation!Show Notes Rock Community Recipes: https://community.rockrms.com/recipesRock U Videos: https://community.rockrms.com/rockuRecipes: https://community.rockrms.com/recipesEarly Access Grants: https://www.rockrms.com/grant-applicationVersion Information: https://www.rockrms.com/releasenotesRock PartnersWe are thankful for our Rock Partners and their support of the Rock Community. Visit their websites through the link above to learn how they can help your ministry and confirm that those you work with are as invested in the success of Rock as you are!

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 this special edition of Rockcast, the podcast dedicated to sharing the stories of the Rock community. I'm Emily Forman, and with me today are Lori Jocham and our special guest, Scott Salamini with Nisconset Christian Church. Welcome, Scott. Hi. Nice to see you. It's so good to have you on the podcast here. We are excited to learn about what you're doing with Rock, but let's start out with telling us a little bit about Wisconsin. Thanks. Wisconsin Christian Church is on Long Island in New York. It's a multigenerational church that is passionate about seeing the kingdom of God experienced today. So the churches has a long history of over seventy years serving the community here on Long Island, but I personally came on staff about two and a half years ago. I came here to serve serve the Lord. So Awesome. Now can you tell us how you found Rock? Well, about seven years ago, I wanted to have a way to have a simple database to access both visitor and member information, just having a contact list that was better than Excel. So I just got on Google and I searched for open source CRM or open source church management, just all these kinds of words that hoping to find something. I'd used a very, very trimmed down version of an open source thing a few years before, and I liked it. So I thought maybe I could stumble across it again, and Rock kept popping up. And so Rock seemed big, but then when I was reading and digging into it a little bit, I'm , oh, it's open source, and it's something that I can get involved in and and learn from. And and it looked way more solid than an open source program, but I I I decided to kinda jump in with both feet. That's very cool. And what helped you choose Rock over some things that might have been a little bit simpler that you were looking at? So funny enough, the main reason right out of the gate at least was I wanted a feature that showed the person's information with a space to write notes about them because I have the memory of a goldfish. So it helps me to, , throw in a note something somebody said. So when I pull up that name, , oh, this is who we're talking about. And so I had no idea what I was stepping into when I decided to go forward with implementing Rock and how powerful it really was. I just saw a profile and the timeline feature, and that was enough for me. So would you say that you're naturally a tech person? You you're driven by technology? I'm certainly not a programmer or anything that or whatever even that, , field is, but I do love technology. I love specifically how it solves problems. Mhmm. So I would say primarily I'm a problem solver who uses technology toward that end. So, , I've played with things Raspberry Pis, , little, , single board computers to solve problems. But I I would everything I've ever done is copy paste. Everything is somebody did this, they solved their problem with this, and I'm just gonna take it and use it. So I I've always approached technology pragmatically. , what can I get out of this? What can I draw from this in order to do something greater than just ones and zeros? So it sounds you're a learner and and you to tinker with some things, and Rock has a lot to offer on that front. How have you gone about learning Rock and growing in that area? Learning Rock one bite at a time. I said, not having a programming background, I made sure whenever I saw something I didn't know, I would just be , I don't know what that means and move on. ? Even oh, I I wish I would have prepared a thought for this, but with workflows, the word for save is what again? Persist. It is persist. Yeah. So I didn't know that. So I had learn all of these things, , every step of the way. And so things Rock U videos were huge for me, at least especially the first view where John talks about the Lego set. Mhmm. I think that just , he was he's so good at casting vision. So, , the vision behind Rock was cast, and whether I understood anything else after that is a whole another question. And so but really where I made actual progress on learning stuff and growing my knowledge and my knowledge base was through recipes. ? There used to be an old website that was set up. I don't remember what the name of that website was, but there were some recipes on there. And then you guys the greatest decision I think you've made as an organization by implementing a recipe page. I literally check that maybe once a week or once every two weeks just to see, did somebody solve a problem that I didn't know I had or did somebody solve a problem I do have. Right? That's great. And so so then I really to take those things, kinda deconstruct them down. When when I first when I first started using Rock, the first workflow I ever built was a copy paste workflow from I I think it was actually Jim Michael Mhmm. Who made that, but it was it used SQL. It used all kinds of Lava, all kinds of things I had no idea. And I just kinda blindly followed what it said, and I was able to get it up and running. And so for weeks, months, years after that, I would go back and I would look at it and be , okay. So why did he do this step and try to unpack that and spend some time learning those things? So the Lord just blessed, , every step of the way to kinda figure out a little bit more and more every step. Yeah. That and a lot of elbow grease and tenacity, which are incredible traits. Thank you. Well, and A lot of elbow grease. And courage just to try something new. And this is what somebody else did. I'm gonna try it here too. So what are some of the key features or the tools inside Rock that you find the most useful for managing the operations at your church? So, , all of them have unique applications, unique situations that they've blessed ministry for. So, , what I would say out of the gate is the prayer wall. There's a recipe on it on your page, and the prayer wall has been transformative. So when I first got here, every time somebody would give a prayer request, there would be an email blast. As you can imagine, when you have that many email blasts going out, people are gonna eventually start ignoring it. Yeah. Right? And and the last thing I want them ignoring is prayer. Right? And and also understanding maybe this is a serious prayer somebody going through a serious situation or somebody just kind of asking a generic prayer. And so the prayer wall created a space where we invited people to go and to seek out those prayer requests and let us know that they're praying for those prayer needs. And so that, I would say, is the biggest one, is the prayer wall. But, , there's a lot of we use almost every tool. I know we're a smaller church, but we use probably almost all your tools. So we use the calendar and the registration page. We've created all kinds of helpful systems here at the church to implement registration and the calendar. Our administrator does that. We use scheduling, which has been huge here, taking away scheduling conflicts. Mhmm. The text reminder for that scheduled for that scheduled event. I wrote a recipe actually on, , kind of a weird hack way I did it before you guys implemented the system emails, system text, which I still haven't figured out, but we do check-in. My favorite thing is just customization. I'm always outside the box. I probably live outside the box a little bit too often. And so being outside the box, I'm always trying to think of something very specific to what I wanna do. , it's great this block is built, but, , I I wanna try to do something a little different. I want a little bit specific kind of data and these kinds of things. So again, that Lego set thing is is great. Sometimes I drop my Lego set. And when it comes to volunteers, how are you using technology to simplify things for your for your volunteers? , again, I was saying in the beginning with with technology being pragmatically something that I use. So my thought with technology is always , how do I free my hands to serve more? , what is something a robot could do that doesn't matter as much, , and or matters, but is not something we wanna waste time, energy, and resources for? So let technology figure that one out, and let's care for the people in front of us. And so, , I I always think of McDonald's kiosks. ? A lot of people get scared of that. Maybe, , we're doing away with in person interactions and stuff, but I I think there's more of a an approach to you come to the kiosk and you get your data done. , you put your information in there, and that's done and it's fixed. But then the person behind the counter, instead of just kinda slapping your food on the counter, can bring it out to you, can can interact with you, can be more you focused. And I think the same thing in ministry is, , if we could free people where they're not worrying about how to do how to keep attendance in a very complicated way or log into a system just where it just makes sense, maybe click a couple buttons and and they're getting done with what they need to get done. So if that makes sense. It's it's really just kind of freeing people to serve the Lord. Absolutely. So a phrase that I have heard you say, and that you said you say a lot is hold tight with a loose grip. And because of this, you find that documentation or documenting is important. Why is that? It's not mine. Right? So it's the Lord's ultimately. Right? And so when I serve, that's what that saying means. Right? I'm holding tight. I'm a good steward of what I've been entrusted, but I hold it with a loose grip because it's not mine. So I need to release that onto the work of the Lord, but I also need to be able to release that into the hands of his people. Right? I understand this is the role of the pastor is that I'm not supposed to just be doing everything. Right? But releasing work into people's hands. And so I think it's one thing to solve a problem. It's another thing to solve a problem in a way that can be replicated. Right? And so I think this is why, , I'm not a natural drop breadcrumbs behind me guy. , I'm scrappy because sometimes my breadcrumbs can be super confusing. Right? I'm scrappy. I kinda get where I need to go in one way or another, but I think it's I've I've had to learn to create documentation and set up whole pages where I just drop a note, , okay. I just did this really complicated thing with Lava. Let me just write what I did so that way my future self or other people that are stepping into this ministry, and using this tool know somewhat of an idea of what we were doing, if that makes sense. Mhmm. So, Scott, in the Rock community, we have churches of a variety of different sizes and locations, and all of these things create, unique problems to solve or ministry issues to approach. Your church is on the smaller side in the Rock community. If you're speaking to the members of our listening audience who are a member or serving on the Rock team of a smaller church in the community, what are some things that you might offer them as bits of advice or things that have been really helpful for you in your role in your church? For smaller churches, take one bite at a time. Yeah. Right? , don't try to digest all of Rock, especially if you're me, not coming from a technology background. If you're the type that likes to read manuals, the manuals are super helpful. I am not a read the manual guy. , I to dissect. I to get out there and start working before I really know what I'm doing. So if you're that type as well, again, so different personalities, but if you're that type as well, understand that you gotta take one bite at a time. Ignore some of the features at first and just be aware of them. Maybe listen to the podcast. I do that to hear about the new features and stuff that come out and what you guys are planning and thinking about. But primarily, especially as a smaller church, you can think that it's all in you still. Within our church, that's, , a 25 adults. , we run about maybe one fifty to one eighty total with kids and everything. You would think we don't have the resources to have a programmer on staff, obviously. Right? But we have several volunteers who just graduated from school to one person was doing all front end work. And so we grabbed her and we said, help us make a calendar page that looks good, functions nicely. We gave her a little bit idea of how Lava works and functions, and boom, she built it for Fantastic. She made it pretty. And if you go on our website, it looks , , we hired a guy to do something, , really high end, and she gave us a day of her time. And so we've tried to do that. Again, one bite at a time is find people's gifts and get them on board with us. Yeah. But don't do it yourself. Fantastic advice. With check-in, for example, I didn't know it until recently because I just said, I don't understand this, and I made the children's director do it. But this when I came here, we sat down together, tried to figure it out together. So That's fantastic. So, Scott, we had a conversation recently because a Rock partner had reached out to us and mentioned that you were running on Rock fourteen four, which is one of our older versions that's in general release right now, and and recommended that we have a conversation with you. So we're really excited about what this connection means. And I think this also is something that can be inspirational for smaller churches that are currently due to budgetary reasons kind of locked in at an older version of Rock, but really are high engagement and high effort. Tell us a little bit about that. Specifically, how that would would bless us in a way, getting into a higher level? Is that what Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I I could just say specifically with this version. Right? You guys just implemented the passwordless login, And I think passwordless login is a huge benefit for a church with people that are just learning to enter into the technology space, right? And so for some people who we're inviting into that space, they don't have to remember usernames and passwords. They get frustrated when they go to the church website. They go to get their email. , they just punch in their cell phone number and it's solved. And so so I could say, I I literally just updated two days ago since we first talked and already working to implement that and and get that word out to those people that are going on Rock to go on on the website to look up their scheduling and these kinds of things. So it's freed us again. This is another one of those areas. It's just freeing us to do ministry. It's one less thing, one less pressure. And it's really nice being on the latest and the greatest. Yes. So Scott Nisconza has just applied for the early access grant, and and that's what has given you the ability to do that updating to the latest version. And so it's really important just to remind the community that that grant is available for churches that are not currently in the budget position to be able to donate at the recommended level, but are really engaged and involved and doing incredible things with ministry. That's the purpose and passion behind the Rock Project and the very exact purpose of our early access grant. So another great option for small churches that feel maybe they just aren't able to close that entire gap is to reach out and apply for a grant as well because it does unlock new ministry activities. And and it sounds you're you're ready to go. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I it's such a blessing. It's such a such an honor to serve with you guys. So in this way. Well, we're so thankful for you and thankful for the connection that we all made recently. We're excited to hear about what's going on at Nisconcert and that know that you can have a high impact in the story that you're sharing here with us today, the churches that may be in a similar position or may look at the community, which is so vibrant and active. And you don't really realize when you see somebody's face behind a recipe or in a certain area what their reality and context is. So thanks for sharing yours with us today. Thank you, Emily. I appreciate the opportunity to get on here and share for the context of the smaller church. Thank you. Well, thanks for joining us and our listening audience. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts so you can stay up to date and not miss an episode. Do a church that loves the idea of using Rock but hasn't taken that leap yet? With managed hosting, churches of any size can get access to Rock's amazing technology, hassle free. With just one click, Rock's managed hosting removes the roadblocks that might stop a church from switching to Rock by making the process simple. Churches get the ease of a SaaS church management system without losing any of Rock's powerful features. Are you ready to take the next step or share with another local church? Visit Rockrms.com/hosting today.