Podcast Episode 189: Episode 162: Special Edition with Scott Ballard

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Listen in to this Special Edition of #RockCast featuring guest Scott Ballard from the Summit Church. Explore their transformative "Whole Disciple" strategy, fueled by Rock. Discover the dynamic fusion of technology and faith in nurturing disciples. Don't miss this enlightening episode!  Show Notes:The Summit Church: https://summitchurch.com/Share your Story: https://community.rockrms.com/get-involved/role/share-your-ministry-storyRX24 Conference: https://rx.rockrms.com/Content Subscription: https://community.rockrms.com/subscriptions Scott’s talks:        It’s Time to Get Personal:  https://community.rockrms.com/subscriptions/rx23/its-time-to-get-personal        What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: https://community.rockrms.com/subscriptions/rx23/what-you-dont-know-can-hurt-youPodcast with Catie Pershing: https://community.rockrms.com/connect/podcast-episode-160-special-edition-with-catie-pershingRock SponsorsWe are thankful for our Rock Sponsors 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 that explores the intersection of technology, ministry, and community with Rock RMS. I'm Emily Forman, and with me today is Scott Ballard from the Summit Church and Lori Yocum from our Spark staff. Welcome, Scott. Hey. Thanks for having me. We're thrilled to have you. So let's first have you tell us a little bit about yourself for those in the community who may not know. Why don't you share with us your your title, the work that you're doing currently at the church that you're at, and kind of how you got there. Yeah. Thanks. I'm at the Summit Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. We have several campuses. My job is the director of digital strategy. Basically, it means that I oversee our project management team as well as our Rock team. We're day to day just basically building, hopefully building really cool things in Rock and helping bring more structure to process and stabilization to process. And we really are trying to build that well. I came here to the summit about three years ago after serving at the village church down in Texas for twelve and a half years or so, and just God called us to North Carolina, and we couldn't be happier. That's incredible. Well, we're thrilled to have you here on the podcast because a lot of people in the community may be familiar with you or may have seen you, for instance, at the conference the last couple of years. Can you tell us how you've been involved in the Rock community? And and if someone's , how do I know that name where they might have seen it? Gosh. I have been involved in the Rock community, I think around 2016 till now. Been on rocket chat, been at all the conferences. If they were silly enough to attend one of them, they probably saw my face in there maybe. Yeah, I try to be real active in the community as much as I can and try to really help others as much as I can. Yeah. You between all that maybe between all that, they they may know my name. Yeah. And you speak at the Rock Conference for us too, which is incredible. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. I love doing that. I try to take a a different approach sometimes on my talks and just remind us why we do what we do because that's just a big passion of mine and so That's awesome. Now at our last RX, you guys walked away with one of our Gold Circle Awards. Can you tell us what that winning submission was and how you utilized Rock to enhance the ministry of that award? Yeah. Absolutely. We won an award for our women's conference app. So every year, the summit has a women's conference. The app specifically was designed with one of our partners. And the way that it served our ladies is basically became an outline map day of, I'm here, what do I need to do? Where do I need to go? What's up next? How long do I have for lunch? And the cool thing was it was all dynamically driven because when the women signed up for breakout sessions, were put in groups. And so we automatically displayed those and showed them where they were based on their selections. The women really just raved about it. And it really started us kind of down a trajectory with our app space where a lot of ministries are interested and we've had a lot of wins and successes with it which is to serve people and our staff really well. That's exciting. Now you're talking about your app here, but your website also runs on Rock. And as the director of digital strategy, you've done a lot to make sure that Rock is empowering your front end CMS tools and the back end of Rock. Tell us a little bit about how those strategies play out for you across the platforms. Yeah. We really look at our digital audience in two categories. You're really to basically tear it down to the foundation. You're either logged in or you're logged out. But at the core of it, we really divide it out by, hey, you're part of this family. You attend one of our campuses. Therefore you find benefit in logging in versus somebody that's just coming trying to find maybe a location or they're new to the area. We've kind of created a different experience for them. So that's kind of the audiences we've looked for on the web. Now, with our mobile app, we have the same logic built into it, but we have a little bit even more strategic focus on the people and where they attend and the information that's relevant to them. So we try to keep that in mind. Sometimes we do it really well and sometimes we learn a lot of lessons in the process. But that's kinda how we look at it across platforms. Well, Summit Church has been leading the space of really pushing into what's possible in personalized digital ministry across web and mobile for a while. So it's exciting to see the maturity coming to those platforms in the way that you're using them. And and it's exciting to hear that your other ministries are starting to see what might be possible in the light of what you were able to do with the the Women's Conference app. Yeah. For sure. So the Summit Church is working on a discipleship strategy called the whole disciple. What is this, and how is Rock, supporting and enhancing the strategy? And what unique features does it provide to help with those discipleship efforts? Yeah. It's a great question. We, are really for the first time, at least since I've been here, from what I understand, first time in the church, really putting a formalized structure around the identity of a disciple of Jesus. The Summit's been doing these things in various ways for a long time and really leadership over the last several years has just looked at it. They really want to take serious the part of our mission which is disciples making disciples across RDU and around the world. And they've done that by this this kind of structure, a discipleship pathway called the whole disciple. And so it really is based on five identities. Being the worshiper, someone who seeks to know, love, and obey God above all else. A family member, someone who lives with the local church as a family. A servant who gives themselves for the good of others. A steward who uses their time, talent, and treasure to know God and make him known, and finally, a witness proclaims Christ in word and deed. And so, really, the the initiative itself is just putting before our people a continuing reminder of these five identities and what we're doing and which identities they're tied to. So the idea is that no one is ever going to be a % maybe in all five areas. Obviously, that's the goal. Right? But, , where where I'm weak, where our people are weak, we hope to encourage them to take one step, whatever that step is, and and that's really what the whole disciple is. That's really encouraging and very interesting to help people visualize and identify where they are and then understand how they can continue to take those next steps and provide the visibility into it. So how are you using Rock to support that? Well, we have some of this built in Rock to date. A lot of this, what we're talking about, is coming. We are working with our partner to really lay out not just an immediate solution, but really a long term plan where everything that we're doing in conjunction with our website, our app, any future digital spaces, really, I guess, the backbone is the whole disciple. So why are we doing x project? Well, it embodies these identities. And so really the way that we're hoping to use Rock or planning to use Rock, I should say, is how to support each one of those identities. Some are very measurable, some are not so measurable, but there are things that our leadership team has identified as key, I guess, I hate to use the word metrics here, but at the end of the day, they're measurable steps that people are taking. And we wanna tie that into Rock and what we're asking people to do. So a common example of this really is , why we do volunteer management in Rock. So why do we keep track of it? Well, of our identities is being a servant. And one of the ways you serve is serving your church. One of the ways you give through Rock, becoming a steward. That's financial. That's not the only way you can become a steward of what God's given you, but those are certainly two tangible examples of of what we're doing. Again, with the long term goal of we're planning our, I guess, next iteration of our our login website and app where, as I was saying earlier, we're in people with the next step, whatever that is. And it's not , hey. You're not giving. You should give. Mhmm. Maybe that's it. I doubt doubtful. But maybe it's just reminding them of what a steward is and why we give. , why why how do we view our our finances? , maybe somebody's involved, but not not involved in a small group or part of our church family, which, , we call membership. And whatever that step is, it's awesome to be able to have a platform that I can push that information in a way that's helpful and encouraging. Because again, my whole heartbeat behind why Rock is awesome is that we get to really make ministry visible and supported in a technology tool that's kinda in the background. And it really empowers Lord willing, it will empower our staff to make better choices and set up better conversations and know our people better. So that's kinda how that's the plan right now. That sounds a very interesting plan. The opportunities for digital personalization and then for face to face or phone call based personalized person to person ministry will be incredible because all of that will be tied to the same system. So that's that's gonna be exciting. You'll have to keep keep us all up to date on how that progresses. Yeah. I think and we I think in talking, I think, with Laurie too about this process, I was sharing with her, and I shared in one of my talks at Rx twenty three, is this reality that I think large churches take a lot of the blame for people quote unquote being easy to fall through the cracks. Mhmm. Mhmm. And I don't I don't necessarily disagree with that a %, but I definitely don't think it's the scapegoat that everybody makes it out to be. I really think your processes, no matter if there's 200 people in your audience or 2,000 people in your audience, if you don't have the backbone to support those people and how they're coming in and where they're going and what they're wanting to be involved in or what they didn't even know about. I think we're just we're all missing because that's really what makes people feel known and connected. And I would argue that even in a large church, you have the opportunity to know your people in a way. Now, you may not know their cousins' cousins' aunts, dogs, and you would maybe at one of the churches I grew up around, but you would know that they're there. And that they have two kids. ? And and I've talked on this extensively, but that's that's really the awesomeness of of Rock is that we can support that endeavor. It won't be perfect, but it'll be a heck of a lot better than having nothing That's right. Underlying it. So And you've mentioned process quite a few times this morning on our conversation. It's just really interesting to consider how the process and the data and the the goals and strategies you have have to come together to really create that magic. Yeah. And I think I think, one of the things I'm trying to change at least at the summit and and hopefully whomever else is listening is that I think historically, we've looked at data and ministry as separate items. Mhmm. And Yes. I think there's ways that we've done that that are very outright outspoken. But I also think there's a lot of subtle ways that still plague churches and ministries because, , you on one sense, you have heavy process people with and they forsake people, or you have heavy people and you forsake process. And I just am a firm believer that you can't do either of those things. It really has to be a pendulum that's really in the middle. And you can't leave it up to people who don't think digitally, who don't think technically about why they're doing what they're doing. And you also don't want to, I guess, handicap them from doing the ministry that God's called them to do. And I think there's a there's a there's a nice balance to do both. Mhmm. So why do people why do people check-in? It's not so that we can put a bulletin board up and with a number of how many people are checked in. No. It's so that we know and care for our kids and know who's in our care. , why don't we register for events? Because we wanna know who's interested in coming. Somebody somewhere felt a call to sign up. Do if they even have came? ? So it's all there in front of us. I just think having Rock, having a system Rock, actually not having a system Rock, having Rock is what supports this. So So you were talking about your, whole disciple, back being the backbone of what your church is doing and the steps that you're taking to utilize Rock in in your strategy. Something that you've already rolled out, just actually pretty recently, if I have my my math correctly, was an app, feature, that allows people to connect every day back to the church. So what is that app doing? What are the pieces of it that allow the people to come back in and it's not just a Sunday church? Yeah. We've we, I'm really excited about this this project. Actually, I gotta give credit where credit was due. This was a brainchild of our pastor JD who just prays and loves the word and models that super well for us as a staff and a church. But he came up with this idea where there's a lot of apps out there that segment off different aspects of the spiritual journey and whether it's a Bible reading app and whether it's a prayer app and whether that and they're all great. , there's so many great tools out there at our disposal, but JD's heart really was birthed out of a desire to really get membership or really get our church family to know and not forget our missionaries overseas. And so he's got a really heart, really big heart for missions and obviously the summit does as well because of that heartbeat. And this app combined bible reading, which we were already doing our own kind of bible reading plan that's there for our people. It combined it with praying for a missionary. So it displays a missionary every day. We tied it into the Joshua Project. So it it, , shows an unreached people group every day. And then, , there's prayer requests from our people that show up there every day. And then we can kind of use this other feature, which is praying for events and different things going on in the life of our church. However, we wish to do that. And it's really quick. I mean, it's designed to be a really quick but focused time with the Lord each We're using Rock in really cool ways to see how often people are doing that and and how many regular subscribers we have doing that. And and we're just getting started. Right? I mean Yeah. This is this is just the first kind of step toward a direction that will eventually tie in to one of the discipleship identities. And so that's that's it. Now, Scott, you compared this to several independent stand alone apps, but all the features you're talking about together in that daily discipleship concept are inside your main church app. Correct? Correct. Yeah. They're they're all native Rock mobile, which is a really awesome thing. We don't have to manage these prayer requests in four different systems, or we don't have to manage these missionaries, which we take their identities and safety and security into into account in a way that, but it's been really cool, even within our sending team to see these missionaries pop up because, really in the past, it was just a it's a physical PDF that they would hand out and it was, , it's not dynamic. But these our team is managing. That team is managing through content channels with the hope of eventually getting to the place where they can post those missionaries can post real time prayer requests. So the event of of all the things going on overseas that are unsettling, Yeah. They could they can ask our church to pray. The notification pops up on the phone. That's that's kind of the the next phase of that. But, yeah, everything that we have in there, the bible reading, the praying for missionaries, unreached people group, our our church members, church family members, it's all just content channels and and Rock genius. And how convenient for your people that they don't have to have multiple apps that they're getting in and out of as well. They have one place to go and one login to get behind to be able to participate in these things. So that's that's great. Yeah. And, I mean, that was really the goal we set out with is, , JD was he didn't he he's not trying to be YouVersion and some of these other apps that are fantastic out there. Mhmm. He's just wanted he wants a way for our people to have a focused prayer time Yep. In the morning or whenever they choose to do it. That just really centers us around what God's doing in through the summit Yes. Mhmm. Which is awesome. And those other apps are supplemental, I mean Right. , to that. But you can centrally see the ministry that's happening that you're a part of within the Summit Church, which is Correct. An incredible thing to have the the visibility into on that level. It pulls so many pieces together that might not otherwise be in the same location. Right. Makes that big church feel small again because what's happening inside and outside. I agree. So, Scott, in one of your RX twenty three sessions from this past conference, you said something about Rock that stood out. You said we have the privilege of sitting in a room talking about a platform that's the biggest safety blanket possible. And this was in your, time to get personal, presentation, which someone could still find online if they have the content subscription, and we encourage them to. But what did you mean by that, and and how are you doing that at the summit? Yeah. Kind of that ties into, , what we were talking a little bit about earlier and just making a large church in in the process, I guess, the side of the process is to really be that safety blanket so that if people are falling through the cracks, they land on that safety blanket and they don't go all the way to the ground. So example of the safety blanket that I'm talking about is a desire to have a volunteer pipeline where we know when life happens, a lot of our people who are serving, they have to step in and out of service opportunities because of job changes or family situations or locations where they live changing. Whatever the reason may be, we have that safety blanket underneath us so that those people don't have to start back over at square one. Right? I mean, we have plenty of opportunities that are more suitable for you and whatever schedule. It doesn't always mean that you're being unfaithful just because you're, , something changed in your life and you had to step out of an opportunity. So that's one, I guess, hanging fruit area that I just view Rock as a safety blanket. Also, I mean, again, I to speak in word pictures, but I think safety blanket is here too. , I don't want our ministers to walk into a meeting with the family and kind of walk in blindly. And in such a way that can end result further that narrative that people aren't known at our church or it's just a a business basically with a cross on the wall. Whatever those sayings are that people tend to grab hold of. I want our ministers to know who they're talking to and life situations. And and so they don't talk about something that could potentially hurt them, but they do talk about things that have hurt them, that they've disclosed in some way or the other. It's really unfortunate as a church staff when one staff member meets the couple, they have an extensive conversation and another one weeks later acts this couple is the first time visitor. Yes. It just that's what I mean overall about that statement. And I think Rock does a great job at that, whether it's taking notes and, , knowing who you're knowing who's serving, just knowing your people. And, of course, people can pull out a pocket knife and cut a hole in that blanket if they really want to, but I at least wanna make them work for it. ? That's right. That is a great word picture. You you are the master of the word picture, which is incredible. So Depends on who you ask. My team my team has heard pretty much every word picture, and some are great and some are terrible. So But they even the terrible ones, people don't forget. They'll remind you of that, which means they know they can still come back and say, hey, Scott. This is what we talked about. It was a terrible word picture, but I still what you were saying. Right. So, Scott, one of the things that that we're talking about is making the big church feel small and personal. In fact, in one of your talks at Rx, you said, if we're not careful, we'll overengineer something and we will forsake the simplicity of knowing someone. So you were saying that in your staff, you have tech staff and you have people staff. And how do you use Rock to help your people staff? How do you simplify it so that they can get those stories in? Yeah. I I think I would rephrase that maybe a little bit, in the sense of we have a staff who loves what God's allowed them to be a part of at the summit. Some have a more forward facing people interactive job than other people do. But I'm a very firm believer in that, man, our IT guys are awesome and they're ministers. In some way, shape, or form, what they do impacts people and enables people to hear the gospel clearly or see the gospel clearly, Lord willing. But I I think it all starts with trust. I mean, I think I think overengineering a process means that you get caught up maybe in your world too much and you're not you're not going over and understanding their world all that much. And is a reality that it's different. I mean, there's a different calling on me than there is on a pastor on staff, but the heartbeat and the mission and goals of why we're doing what we do have to align. And the only way that happens is through relationship. And so I think Katie said this in in her podcast recently on the Rock podcast, but she was talking, I think, about how, , they went down a path at Woodman Valley where they were building it the way they wanted to build it. And she talked about the value of of kind of flipping that on its head. And and that really resonates with me because we're we're in that , the summit is very young in the sense of rolling out a project or a process that is easy to use, that's not complicated, that's not complex, that you don't have to update in 17 different ways. And by doing that, we make it very easily easily approachable, for our staff who aren't technical. And, , I think sometimes I know I'm guilty of it. I I'm , man, did you read this, or did you watch this tutorial video? And the reality is they probably did. Maybe they didn't, but it shouldn't it should be easy enough for somebody to to pick it up and just get it done so that we don't have a bunch of ministers and pastors that are really functioning admins Mhmm. And they're not having much time with our people. So that's that's really the heartbeat behind that statement of of over engineering something. It could be awesome from a Rock standpoint. ? We could leverage, , eight different features of Rock at one time. But do we need to? , , one of my biggest, I guess, examples of this is, , there's a lot of bells and whistles available even now through the check-in experience with kids. But what can I do to minimize any impact possible on a family member outside of just checking their kids in? Because I don't want our families walking into the worship center stressed out. And if it's anything my house, trying to get five kids dressed and out the door and ready for church, I already am coming into the parking lot, coming into the building just, I don't know, just nerves rattled. And if I encounter any technology obstacle in that moment, it's just gonna be extra frustrating. And then it's gonna take half of the service to just calm down to a place where I can really engage with what the Lord's doing and what he's teaching me through our pastor. Really just worship, remind myself that I'm a worshiper of God first and foremost. So that's a good explanation, I think. Yeah. Well, as we wrap this up, Scott, are there any stories you could share with us about sometime that Rock really made a difference in a family or a staff person's life as you're doing the work that you're doing this ministry with with your tools and technologies that are part of your role? That's a great question, Emily. I think one of the real just easy low hanging fruit is not really , I guess, for me, didn't seem an earth shattering moment, but ended up being kind of this gospel moment around our student camp this summer. So our student camp, we used Rock Mobile to develop this app experience for parents to be able to check-in remotely as they pull into the parking lot. In years past, we've had lines and plates and all this stuff. And there was a family that I was aware of. Through some pastors at our church who had been just they're just neighbors of theirs, friends of theirs, kids play soccer together, whose kid was coming to camp for the first time. They're nonbelievers. They have a pretty high position in a marketing for in marketing and technology position here in the in the triangle. And simply the ease in which our app worked for her to manage her kid and know about what's going on at camp and get updates and just was that security blanket we talked about earlier, but also just was , man, they are serious about creating a great experience for our children. ? And it ended up leading to some pretty strong gospel conversations just because she was enamored with the level of technology that she encountered, which spoke volumes to me and our team, and people were able to celebrate that with us. Her kid was able to go to camp and have an amazing experience. She, as a parent, was felt very much informed and able to see everything. And so that put her at peace. And then, again, the gospel conversations continue. So I would say that that is is awesome. Right? Absolutely. I'm sure I hope and pray there's more of those stories as we continue to build out Rock here at the summit, , that we can put tools and and resources and experiences in in our staff's hands and from a day to day standpoint that that ultimately impact their ability and time available to them to have gospel conversations and care for the men and women and kids that God brings through here. And we're willing to call Summit home. Yeah, I'm just I get really, really excited about thinking what's ahead and how Rock empowers us in a way that, frankly, I've never had a technology do comprehensively Rock has done in my time. Usually, at a TVC as well as here at the summit. So I'm just grateful for you guys, grateful for the team. As a community member, I would encourage community members to share stories, share wins with their with the the teams that they've worked with to remind them that their work is doing really, really good stuff. And yeah. Scott, we really appreciate the time you've taken to share some of the experiences you've had as you're working inside the Rock area. You're connecting pastors and and, the vision of Summit Church with some of the technologies that can move that forward. A lot of people look up to what's being done at the Summit, and you're always careful to point people back to the reason we're doing what we're doing. And it's so apparent that there's just a ministry heart behind you, behind the Summit Church, and the work that you're doing with Rock. Thank you for taking the time to connect with us and share that with the Rock community today. We really appreciate you. And thank you to our listeners. Thank you to our listeners for tuning in today. And, we just encourage you to, follow this podcast so you can get the latest updates. And reach out to Scott if you get a chance and tell him thanks for doing what you're doing. We appreciate the Thurrock community and, the fact that you're following, listening, engaging, and doing ministry right where you're called to be. 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.