Podcast Episode 178: Episode 151: Technology-Amplifies the Church's Message

Description

Join the core team Jon Edmiston, Emily Forman and Nick Airdo as they discuss v15.0 which is days away from Early Access release. Learn about the Grid, Content library and the amazing things that are happening in the Rock Community.Show Notes:Classes: https://community.rockrms.com/classes RX Registration: https://rx.rockrms.com/ (Invite your friends)Roadshows: https://www.rockrms.com/roadshows Next Generation: https://www.rockrms.com/video/nextgen-introduction Rock Stars: https://community.rockrms.com/rockstars

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, the podcast that explores the intersection of technology, ministry, and community with ROCCRMS. I'm Emily Forman and have here today Jon Edmiston and Nick Airdo to share with you about what's going on in the Rock world. Nick, tell us a little bit about the latest version of Rock, what's coming and when. Yeah, we have been testing version 15 and it's been in beta for about two weeks and that beta is wrapping up. So we are going to be releasing 15 for early access in a matter of days, probably a few days after this goes live. And that's pretty exciting because we've snuck in some Obsidian blocks in there. Again, we've replaced a block or two and the old block is still sitting there, but the new block is very cool and has some new features. I don't wanna say it. Otherwise people will go looking around at it too closely. There's a lot of Obsidian blocks that are complete. Some of them are in the products. I think you've been holding back for a future product, but we're trying to get as much as we can done, which is Yeah. So there's been a lot of work going on in Obsidian in a special branch that we're doing for next versions of Rock, maybe V16, V17. And along with that, there's lots of infrastructure changes that go into that thing. And we're gonna talk about that at RX, but there's some cool, big stuff that just recently got pretty much ironed out. Can I say what it was? Sure. It's the grid. The grid is such a powerful tool. But John, why don't you explain? Oh, well, I think it goes back to what we talked about the last RX is that when you're creating a next generation of a product, you have to start with the foundation. And so sometimes that's not the most exciting things. Because everybody wanna get started. , let's just start. Let's rewrite this block or that block. Well, more than half our blocks are grids. I think a grid in any application Rock is very important. The current grid has been invested in quite a bit. And so in next gen, it's the same thing. So we've spent a lot of time thinking through what should a grid do in a modern web application? How should it function? Especially now that we can unlock more capabilities on the client. And so we've spent a ton of time. In fact, a lot of the performance improvements that you've seen in previous versions, we've been preparing for the grid. And I think even talked about RX, just putting that mindset that we can do impossible things if we just keep trying and believing that the impossible is possible. And so that's kind of what we've done. Now it's for the most part there. Of course, we're never gonna be done. There's a few things we would to add in the future, but we're really excited about it. And we are gonna show some of the capabilities at Rx. So we won't talk about some of the specifics here, but trust me, you're gonna wanna see that. It's gonna make you smile when you can see what you can do with the grid. And I do think, and maybe this is a little spoiler, we might start prioritizing. In fact, I don't think I've even told Nick. Might need to start prioritizing which blocks we work on. Because I think when people see the grid, they're gonna say, I need the grid on this. I want the grid. Forget those detail blocks for a second. I want those later, but make that a grid. Make that a grid. Even on the internal stuff, we might accelerate Oh, for sure. We still got a little bit of work to do on the grid. We need to polish up some code gen on it and some but we're really excited about it. And I think you will be too. So that's coming. Also, , what we're working on right now is the the content library. There's a lot of features for v 15 I'm sorry, 16 now that we're working on. Some of them we'll tell you about at the conference, which are super exciting. But the one I think we can talk about right now is content library, because we've talked about it quite a bit. And I think it is a little bit of a change in vision about content for churches in that we believe that it's in the best interest of the big C church to get this content out to as many eyeballs as possible. And so sharing that content is the easiest way to do that. So if a church has authored an article and it's on their website and say they get thousand views over maybe a six month period, we believe that by sharing that content with possibly 600, seven hundred churches, you can 10x that easily, maybe even 100x that easily. And then that's in the best interest of the big C church and it gets that content reuse going. Thinking about it, one might think, well, what is that type of content, that duplicate content on perhaps a hundred sites? What does that do to your search algorithms? Or SEO algorithms. And we've done a lot of research there. And Google has clearly said that duplicate content in of itself does not provide a penalty to your SEO. I mean, they're very much on the record saying that. What they do say though, is that it could impact SEO in terms of where the click gets or what URL is shown to the person. It's going to go through their algorithm and say, okay, well, I've got five options here. Which option am I gonna give this person? And so we're if it was only on your site, there's only one choice. If it's on a hundred sites, well, now they have to try to figure out which one are they gonna prioritize. And that may not be yours, but in my mind, or I think in a lot of our minds, it's, well, they're gonna try to get it to the most appropriate person, which probably is gonna be geolocation. But if we think big C church, that's still a win. the SEO doesn't really get impacted. It's just perhaps your specific site's SEO might get impacted, but it might get impacted positively too. But again, if our first goal is , how do we get as many people on the planet to view this content? It's not a net negative there. What is the net positive though is, in a sense, forget SEO, that's cool, it's helpful, but really the power of the Christian community is the sharing of the people, the gospel message, the gospel job, or the job was given to the people. So let's empower the people to share this content. And that's one thing I don't think, as a church, I was at a church as part of the communication team and the IT team leading those efforts up, don't think we did a good job even there of saying, Hey, this is for sharing. A lot of times we show content on the website, a depression article might be , Hey, here's a depression article if you're depressed. Maybe 10% of the people are, but 100% of the people know somebody who is and could share that content. Then not only share the content, but provide tools to follow-up so that person can go back and say, Hey, I just wanna check-in. Did that article help you out at all? And train them how to share in appropriate ways. And I think we need to change the messaging on a lot of our sites to say this content, don't think about yourself. Think about who could you share this for? Because again, I think I've said it, we're all selfish enough to go, Oh wait, I need that article. we're not gonna forget about ourselves. I guarantee you, at least I won't. But we often forget about others because we kind of live in the me mindset in our head as much as we don't want to. And so we feel by putting those strategies in place, getting this content out to hundreds of churches, that it'll have a dramatic impact on the capabilities of this content, on the impact of this content. And also recognizes that a lot of churches, they can't make that content themselves. They don't have the teams to do that or the capability or capacity to necessarily do that. So why not share it? And this also goes beyond, our vision for this goes beyond just articles and devotions. It's things , okay, what are the best books to recommend to somebody? What are the best YouTube videos to recommend to somebody? Because content isn't always up to us to generate. It's really about curation and how as a church, we help somebody find that content? I hear a lot of people say, Well, the sermon is for the new believer. And after that, after you become a new believer, then it says in the Bible, need to get off the milk and feed yourself. And hey, think that's great. But does that mean that we then have to send these people out to say, okay, go hunt, track the animal, hunt the animal, kill the animal, skin the animal, butcher the animal, cook the animal. I mean, it seems a big step. Why don't we give my kitchen with some recipes? I get it, we can't spoon feed, but we can at least bring content and curate it for them. I think there's also a lot of danger about sending people out into the likes of YouTube to find spiritual content. There's a lot of great content on YouTube, but there's a lot of weird stuff too. And that could really get people off course. If the church can help curate that for them, I think that's a good thing. And so the content library is more than just articles. We want to put other resources in there. And again, this is all, every church will get to select what they bring into their instance. It's kind of the going to the Walmart and picking out what you want to put into your small store that then you'll sell, or going into the warehouses and picking what you want in your small store for your people. So you can totally have control over that. But we're just trying to make it easier. Right now it's a lot of work and it doesn't have to be. Yeah, and if that sharing of content is a concern, if you think it's going to be concerned with your leadership, start preparing them now. Start a conversation, pass along some of the details we just talked about, because it is more important to share, not really focus on your single church. Yeah, and I think a lot of times the concern is more so in the middle. There's people in the middle who have SEO knowledge. And again, if you're working at a secular business, absolutely SEO is a totally different mindset. The criteria, the rubric you would use in terms of deciding how and when and how much SEO is totally different because you're actively trying not to get them to go to the person next to you or your competition. And the church is radically different. Yes. First of all, it's not the job of the organization necessarily to be the hero of the story. It's the hero of the story are the people. The church is not supposed to be the hero the story. It's supposed to be the empowering, guiding, encouraging voice of the people, not the hero of the story. And I think a lot of times we, as quote experts in the world of SEO or marketing or whatever, we come from the, maybe from the corporate world, I came from the corporate world and we bring these best practices and they're good. That's good knowledge, but don't clone your knowledge from the corporate world. Let it inform, but still use your brain and say, okay, well, is a vastly different. It can be more different industry vertical in the world. And you've got to use that experience in a unique way. Because the hero of the story is not the church. It's not the church organization, it's the church of the people, the church being the people. And I think sometimes, I mean, I've been guilty of it too. We almost rob the job of the people. It's , well, I can go pay for online ads and I can do this. And it's kind of cool because it even works while we're asleep. But that's not the job. The job is to build up, encourage the people. If we do that, the impacts would be far superior. I believe if Apple and Target had the rabid fans of the church, they would do things really differently. I'm not even sure they'd be doing SEO. I think they'd be going , We got these rabid fans who will literally light this world on fire if we only give them a torch. Give them the torch. Because you might argue, Well, the Apple has a pretty enthusiastic fan base. It's nothing someone who's just been baptized, not even close. You give that person a torch, they're going to light the world on fire for good. So I think it's about bringing that out and encouraging that. So content library is a cool technology piece, but it's more so a vision and strategy. And I think it's going to take time to communicate that. It's a lot of the features in Rocket, sometimes the technology is the easy part. It's the strategy, the planning, the process, that's the hard part. But the more we keep talking about it, I think the more it'll make sense. This is actually one of the features we've wanted since almost one zero days, but it's we weren't ready for it. if we first have to do the basics, we got to get our arithmetic very well complete. And now that we have a lot of that, we'll keep working on arithmetic, but we wanna move to more advanced things. Mhmm. And that's something that you're not seeing in other platforms that are intended to be databases. That's one of the differentiators that we have here is we are community based. We are definitely ministry focused. And whenever we can start combining that in new ways to empower the people of the church around the world, that's what we want to be here for. That's the stuff that we're passionate about and that's what keeps us going. Yeah, because I really do think church management is digital publishing in this space. Yeah, you have to track groups and check-in and all the giving and all, Got it. We get that. And we'll keep innovating in those spaces, but I think if you were to only stay in those spaces, you're missing out on perhaps the biggest impact that we can have today, which is using technology to amplify the message of the church. And if you look at the beginning of the church and the way the gospel spread, it was all what we might call today grassroots. Right? It was all people who were their lives were transformed and they could not help but share it with the people around them despite incredible odds and obstacles. And people are still the same. That's still possible. But in all the noise and all the clutter, are we giving the right tools to the people to be able to continue sharing the gospel in that wildfire kind of way? Yeah. And making it as easy as possible. Mhmm. Well, it is that time of year where our podcasts are gonna start having things , oh, well, we can't say that because at the conference, or, oh, you you really should come to the conference where we'll elaborate on that a little more. And we are very excited about this annual event, this one time a year when our whole community can come together and share what they've been building in Rock to empower their ministries and and see what's going on with some surprises that we kinda keep under wraps so we can unveil them and and the exciting vision of where we're going. So that conference is coming up around the corner. It's hard this year because it's earlier than normal and we keep having to look at the countdown clock and going, oh, right, it's coming. Yeah. That's a nervous clock. Kinda wish I hadn't put that on my little LED board in my my office because it makes me freak out about twice a day. The one thing I would put out about that is , I know lots of you are excited about the conference. I would say you have a role that maybe you haven't been told you have, and that's, you're the chief inviters. So don't assume that the people that you want to be there or the people that you interact with are coming, ask. We really need you guys to go out there and ask. Because I think there's a lot of people on the fence that are , Yeah, I don't know. , yeah, travel, , it might be a little on the warm side. I don't know. So I would say pick 10 people that you work with in the community or maybe even on your church and just make sure The church ones are a little easier, but the virtual ones, just ask them, Hey, you go into RX? And in every action inside the community, if you're helping somebody, maybe you don't even know them, just say, Hey, you come into RX? I'd love to meet up with you at RX. And if they seem on the fence, help encourage them across the line. We really want this to be the biggest conference ever. I think we're probably on that track, but we really want it to be even bigger than We want it to be as big as possible because we know when we bring people into the community and they meet together, it just grows the community. It just richens the community. We just really want that to happen. I think if we could add an extra, say 50 or a hundred to the conference, it's not that much more extra work on us. Right. we have to do this work anyways, so let's maximize the capabilities of how many people can reach it. So be out there, ask people if they're coming, if there's certain things holding someone back, try to talk through those. Yeah, maybe they're , well, it can't afford the hotel. Maybe you could share a room if you're coming alone. Yeah. Great idea. That's a really good idea. But yeah, don't let finances be the thing that prevents you from asking them because God always makes a way. Yep. And one point I wanna make is the conference is not all about the content. I mean, the content's incredible, don't get me wrong, but it's not just about the content. So thinking I'll just get the content subscription later is not a couple things on that. You're gonna miss out on one the only time to really be a part of the community in action live. Right? And the connections that you make there really empower that Rock experience going forward. So the in person part is just an essential element of the conference. And if you haven't been, it's hard to even describe what that's . It's just something you need to be a part of. The other thing is, and I know this because I can raise my hand and say it's me too, but we don't watch everything on the content subscription. We have the best of intentions, but it's really hard to carve out that much time. At the conference, you have your time carved out for you. Later, you have to fit it in and around all of the other things. And it's great to have that reference and you can't be in multiple rooms at the same time. Right? But it really sets you forward to be able to be a part of the conference itself. It's not just the content, it's the connection. And I think it's the best investment in money and time you could make. I mean, just even, again, you said, forget the content that comes from the core Spark team, just the networking opportunities. Absolutely. you could not even go to one session and just network the whole time. And it's the best investment on the planet for you. Add in the other things and it's unreal what the impact will be. Plus I think most people, I'd say almost everybody leaves more encouraged what they're doing because of the connections that they get from the community and the support and just the care that you get from people around the event. And you said enriched, you'll be enriched. You'll have so many ideas and relationships to fall back on and follow-up with after the conference to ask that follow-up question to that person because them now. Yeah, it's hard to describe, but it's the best thing all year. It really is. There's so much sharing. You can start eliminating some duplication of effort. Other churches are going to be working on the same things you are. They're gonna have different inflections and things to consider, and it's just a really empowering experience. Speaking of the conference, this is about the time we have to pick our rockstars because we to celebrate them at the conference. We have just finished that. So I think I'm really happy with the rockstar community in the last year. I think there's a lot of people who've really motivated themselves to step up. I think we have the largest Oh, I know we have the largest rockstar community ever. You'll find out at the conference how much larger. So we're really excited about that. But I would say too, it's now's a good point. You might say, oh, I just missed it. No, you didn't. Start now. It's never too early to start. It's really not it's really not that hard to be a Rock star, honestly. some of them are are work incredibly hard. But if you just put in a little bit of effort every month, every week, you can easily be a rockstar. That unlocks a lot of other neat perks. You get to hear about things ahead of time. They have special meetings every quarter. There's leadership sessions that we give. There's a special time right before the conference that we talk with the Rock stars. Have more access because they are the leaders of the community. And so I'd really encourage people to think about that. And it's a kind of a neat little goal to achieve. They have their own channel and chat, is kind of cool too. It's a community within a community. So I'd really encourage people to think about that. It's a really achievable goal. But again, some of our Rock stars, they go way above and beyond. But to cross the line into that is a very achievable goal. Think about that for next year. I know every year I have a conversation with one or two new Rock stars that say, I can't believe I got into the Rock star group. I'm so excited. And it isn't that they haven't been doing incredible things in the community. They just had this idea in their heads that, as you mentioned, Jon, achievability, they didn't see themselves as in that league or whatever it was, however they defined it to themselves. And so they just kept showing up and engaging in the community and helping people because they were driven to help. And they found themselves members of the next rockstar group. Every year I hear from people that say, I'm so excited. I didn't realize it was something that I could do. And so I'm saying, you can. And there's lots of ways to do it. You can go to the community site and it tells you all the different ways to get But as we are going through the process of, , it's a very objective process, but as we go through the process of determining who's making it to Rock stardom, I was noticing this year that, oh, these are some people here that typically never would have been considered because in the past, one of the biggest things was chat points, which is a great way to become a rockstar. But we've given more opportunities and more different options to recognize input that people put into the community. And so I was noticing, Oh, this person really doesn't have, I don't think any chat points this year. But what they do have is they've talked with a lot of churches who are interested in Rock. And that's a significant investment and that's a very helpful thing to the community. So it was really kind of cool to see that there's a diversity of different talents and ways to become recognized as a rockstar. And so I was pretty happy with the changes that we've made to be able to recognize people who are helping the community in a way that maybe in the past was a little bit hard to see. I'd to highlight one of those opportunities. It is roadshow season right now, and Spark Development Network, the nonprofit, does not have sales teams or support teams. So a lot of people have been involved historically in chat, which is the community driven support that is above and beyond any other support that's available from a product standpoint in in the church world. But on the sales side, one of the things that people do is, yes, have those individual conversations with churches, and that's critical. And we have a lot of wonderful people helping out with that. But we also have roadshows. And we had to kind of discontinue those for a bit during COVID, but they are back and we are definitely looking for more roadshow leaders. Just wanna dig dig into a little bit about what that commitment might look . It's really not incredibly hard, And it involves you networking with other local churches in your area that aren't on Rock, which is probably something that you already have those connections established. You just would be working with our team to set a date and a time and a location for a roadshow. And that roadshow is kind of a sales or , here's what Rock is. Here's how it works. Let us answer your questions. We provide the presentation and the speaker notes, so it's nothing that anyone has to come up with on their own. And then the person who's the host would host it at their church. And a lot of times we see multiple churches in a region kind of coming together for one location and supporting each other, being a part of it. They'll have a presentation and then do a Q and A afterward. And it's a great opportunity for churches to understand whether or not Rock might be a good solution for them. And that kind of kickstarts some interest that eventually grows the community. So it's a critical thing. It is definitely something that counts toward Rock stardom. We heavily appreciate and provide waiting appropriately for people who can lead roadshows. So if that's something you think you could do, again, you don't have to come up with any content. You just have to be available and be someone who appreciates Rock. It's a lot of fun. I mean, I have such good memories of when I did that. It gives you a great reason to reach out and then invite other churches in your area to come talk with you and ask you anything. Yes, it is. It's fun. And it's really most successful when you're inviting the people that your ministry has connections with in the local area. That's just the best way to do that. It's been a really successful thing in the past, and we're we're very excited. We just had our first one of the season yesterday. We have another couple that are booking their times and dates and some other organizations that we're talking with about hosting, but we still need more. So go ahead and reach out to us and let us know if you're interested in learning more about how to host a roadshow. The other quick update I have is we are filling up seats for our master class that's connected to the conference. So every year we try to host a master class right before or right after our conference event. So if you're already in town, you can extend your stay a little bit, but not have additional flight costs. And so during that time, we open up a master class and someone can stay over, take the weekend off, go explore a little bit, find out why Arizona is a kinda cool place, and then be a part of the next event. So that masterclass for this summer in July only has six seats left. It's a really popular time to come. Great communities are built there that you then take into the next event at the conference as well. So that's something you're thinking of. Don't delay. Grab your seat quickly because they are going. And when they're gone, they're gone. Well, we have had a lot to share today, and a lot of it's been conference focused. So what we're thinking about, what we're doing, what we're working toward, and we really hope to see you there. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts and help share the content that we're providing as we continue to talk with churches about technology, ministry, and community. 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.