Podcast Episode 177: Episode 150: Special Edition- Greg Reade

Description

Tune in to this week's Rockcast! Greg Reade from Christ Fellowship church in FL talks with Jon Edmiston and Emily Forman about how they use Rock RMS to enhance their ministry and effectively strategize for the digital age. Don't miss this insightful conversation on the intersection of technology and faith! Show Notes:  Greg's church-Christ Fellowship: https://www.christfellowship.church/10th Ave North Band-https://www.tenthavenuenorth.com/ StoryBrand by Donald Miller- https://buildingastorybrand.com/

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. I'm Emily Forman. I have here with me today Jon Edmiston and a very special guest that you may know from the Rock community. Help me welcome Greg Reed, the executive director of communications and digital from Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Greg, we're so excited to have you. Hey. So excited to be here. It's incredible to be able to talk with you. One, because Christ Fellowship's been doing awesome things on Rock, but you've also been doing these things on Rock for a long time. So your church has been running on Rock since, I think, 2018, which is pretty early on inside the Rock community. And we've had a chance to kind of grow with you and your systems as you've been introducing more and more features and the way you use them over time, and we're just really incredibly excited that you have the opportunity to share this with the community today. No. I'm excited to be here. It has been a huge part of our ministry, so I'm excited just to talk to you guys. Well, before we get started, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to your position there at Christ Fellowship? Yeah. I've been in Christ Fellowship's world since 02/2006. So I actually came on as a worship intern. So most people don't know if the band tenth Avenue North. They were they actually came out of Christ Fellowship, grew up here, and they ran all of student ministries worship. And this first summer they went on tour, I got hired as an intern who, honestly, I had been singing for about a year. So I had to come in and take their place as a worship intern. It was kinda tough. But really just found home. Honestly, I had grown up in small church, so big church was a shock to me. But really kinda just found home, place of love. So I've done kinda work through student ministries and worship. Then a few years in took over eventually took over all of our creative teams for the weekend, which included communications and marketing. And then really coming out of obviously, COVID shook all of us up, and we spent , our teams, especially creatively, had run so hard during COVID. But in that same season is when I really jumped into online and kind of, , everyone was gone from the building. So it was , how do we produce an amazing experience for people at home? So I just kinda became a learner and just studied and really just got really passionate about how we were reaching people who weren't coming in our doors. Obviously, when they did, that we gave them the best experience and that we leveraged digital to help reach them. But, really, I got super passionate about the idea of I had kind of been creating weekend experiences. And then I got this feeling of , wow. , that's awesome. But there's so many people who don't come to church at all, and they're never even seeing this experience. How could I, , how can I kinda bring my passion into what could we do more to reach those people before they ever come in the front door of our church, which kinda threw me into the digital world? So about two years ago, I took on our, 'd already taken on our online campus. And then about two years ago, I took on all of our web and app and digital teams. So it's been, yeah, it's been awesome. It's been an amazing a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of learning. Wow. That is a very interesting progress that you've made through different roles that you've had. Yeah. And and I'm sure that provides a lot of insights for you as you're considering the experience of the person on the other side, either in the seat or on the other side of the camera for the online experience. Yeah. Yeah. It does. And I think that was a huge piece of , when you design an environment a worship service for so long, you think so much about who's the person who walks in for the first time, what do they feel? And I feel what I've kinda helped our teams try to do digitally is, , how do we experience how do we take that same idea and move it into a digital environment and just think, , how would people experience this? How would they feel and move forward from there? So digital strategy, I know, is a topic that, is near and dear to your heart as you just kind of have touched on here. Can you explain what that means to you? There are a lot of definitions circling a lot of things that, people say on that front. How would you define digital strategy, and how are you working to implement that at Crystal? Yeah. I think it's funny because I remember when I got in this role, I googled that term so many times and got so many different ideas and read so many papers and articles. But I think one of the biggest things I've learned is really, , you gotta gotta take you gotta take away the word strategy. I mean, sorry, the word digital. , because the fact is we say digital strategy, but, really, , digital is a means to work out a strategy. So it's you first what I realized is you kinda gotta take away the word digital and say, , okay. What is our strategy? Because for years, we had tried to implement a digital strategy. And I think what happened is we didn't stop long. We kinda said, here's our digital strategy. These are all the things we're doing, but we didn't stop long enough to be , what is the strategy of our church? How does digital align to it? And then how do we move forward? And I think that's the thing I see now is tons of churches are deciding how they wanna leverage digital. And to me, if it lines up with their strategy, then go get it because the strategy is what, , is what is most important. So I think for us, it took, , it took me not as much working with the digital team, but coming back to leadership, coming back to our senior leadership team and having conversations about, let's get back to the basics of, , who are we? What are we trying to do? How are we trying to reach people? And then once we have that strategy of, , this is how we see people progress kind of through their discipleship pathway, through their journey through church, Now let's figure out where the best place where the best places to leverage digital. Because I think I know when I stepped into it middle of COVID, and there was such, , a divide, especially coming back from COVID of, , here's our online viewers, here's our physical viewers. And it was , no. , they they see Christ Fellowship as one entity. They don't see them as this different, , oh, that's online team. This is the campus team. So I think for us, it's , let's get set on where our strategy is. And then let's say just we'd say physical strat , what's our physical strategy for church? What does it look on Sunday? What does it look? So I think for me, it was so important to get around the idea of, , what is our strategy? , I would say for anyone else in the seat, , make sure the senior pastor's on board with, , what is their strategy? What is their strategy? How to accomplish ministry? How to move people forward? So I've talked to a few churches. It's , hey. Our strategy for online is to get people to campuses. , that and I'm , that's great. Because if your strategy as a church is, , we wanna create as many campuses in this region as we possibly can, then I'm , you should. Then you should leverage digital and move them. It's , it's not right or wrong. It's just what is your , how does it align with your strategy? So I think for me, what it really it really means is, , how do we find our strategy, and then how do we leverage the best of digital to actually accomplish that strategy? Where we've learned that is, hey. If we know community is a huge part of our strategy, okay. Great. Now how do we do that? How maybe can we do that differently than we've been doing it? So all of a sudden you introduce a digital, , group and it's , hey, that's so much easier to attend. It takes away all the barriers of finding childcare and putting the kids to bed. Well, now all of sudden someone who can never attend a physical , group or maybe just didn't want to, now all of a sudden has this awesome opportunity. So I think for me, it's always been that start with strategy, start with where your senior leadership is, and then figure out how you best can stand that up digitally. So really then it's the support of the technical tools that you have and the digital tools to help implement your church wide strategy, which makes a lot of sense. So tell us a little bit about how what the role is that Rock is playing as part of your digital technology base or your tools. Yeah. And I think for us going back to 2018, we had so many different I I would say we had a lot of tools in our toolbox. what I mean? So, I mean, planning centers there. We had church management at that time. I mean, it's and and nothing talked to each other. So, I mean, everything from where accounting was to where, , worship and volunteers were to where we're background checking people. So for us, we knew, , our search was how do we create how do we either create or find someone who has one tool that can really become out what I've said is, , the backbone of our systems. And I think that's what we found in Rock. And I know , took the step of early adoption of we think this is it. Let's go with it. So I think for us, what we were looking for is what is something that we could basically be the backbone of everything we do digitally? And really, is what Rock is. I mean, everything from, , our website is built on top of Rock. Our app is built on top of Rock. I mean and to create the most personalized experience, almost all emails are coming from Rock, all information about anybody. So we've even , we've worked with you guys implement to create more and more pieces of it so we can keep more information in Rock. ? We just recently rolled out Rock Rock metrics. So it's , hey. Here's another system we don't have to keep. ? We're using another system before that. So for us, it really has become the backbone. All of our content's in it, And, , we create , more and more work with with you guys to create, , what else can we create to replace? Basically, every time we have another system that's not in Rock, it's , okay. What what can we create to replace this? Really, again, so the user , for me, I'm always I always tell our team, , user first. We want them to have the best experience they can. So, I mean, think about us. When you have to sign into , when I'm shopping and it's , oh, well, you made an account, but now you gotta make an account on our app instead of our website. , that's that is a it's a barrier. Most times, it just makes me go , okay. Forget about it. So I think for us, it's , , when we have a volunteer we're working on right now with you guys, , hoping that we can move this, , maybe an LMS. But it's so for us right now, , our volunteers are trained in a different system. So it's , oh, wait. But I got this Rock username, but now when I have to watch a video, have to put in this other username, remember a whole another password. It's just another hindrance to them kinda moving forward in their process. So I think for us, we've always thought user first. So we know the more that we can move under kinda one system, one backbone. So all of our giving records, everything is in Rock. And then we think about so the user, and then we honestly think about our staff, , even for our staff. ? I think the thing is we focus so much on the user. Sometimes we forget, , our staff, we have a staff of 400. All of them have Rock accounts. All of them have to have to somehow interact with Rock almost on a daily basis. How do we make that the best experience for them? How do we equip? Because I think sometimes we may create a great user experience, but it's kinda at the deficit of now our, , now our team has to, , log in to seven different systems so the so the user experience is great. But it's , how do we actually make a Rock a great experience so that, , they're excited when they get to work to be , I have a piece of technology that it makes it helpful, that makes it great to do my job. And really, at the end of the day, that really helps me better connect with people because, , for us, we don't want a, , a connections role on our team spending ten hours inside a computer. We want them on the phone with people reaching out to people. So for us, it's , do we how do we really take those barriers away? So when someone asked me, my first answer is , Rock has become the backbone of all of our systems, and we're continually figuring out how to , anything that doesn't fall under it right now, we're always in a conversation of, , how can we create it so that it can be there? Because it just makes for such a cohesive experience. That's really great. Greg, where do you see your website going? , where would you see what what features what do you wanna see in maybe, , two years on your website? Yeah. I think for us, obviously, personalization is continued push to, , how do we continue to personalize and personalize? , I'm a I'm a big Lululemon fan. , I love I try not to shop there too much, but maybe one item every few months. But I always tell our team, I'm , the experience. , if I'm on their web browser or their Mhmm. Or on my computer or their app, , it doesn't miss a beat, and it knows exactly what I want. , it feeds me. , that's what I was looking for before I even think about it. So I think for me, I think, , for us as we as we think web, obviously, mobile is a huge part of it. , 90 right now, on any given average, 97% of our web traffic is mobile. And that's a thirty day view, ninety day view, 20 view. So even for us, we've we've pushed our team to, , anything we build in Figma. It's , start with the mobile, then we'll think desktop. But for us is we're just we're trying to do our best to create a personalized experience. So we want , obviously, from a strategy of website, we always want that website to be outsider focused. So going back to that strategy, for us, we went through, StoryBrand, Don Miller. It's a phenomenal book. Mhmm. We went through the whole StoryBrand process, with our senior leadership team, with our senior pastors during COVID to kinda just say, , what is our , what's our script? , what is it that we want from people? How do we position them kinda as the hero of the story? And we're this , if you've ever listened to story brand, you kinda say, , we're this guide Yoda and Star Wars kinda helping Luke move from, , step to step. So for us, we want our website to be that. They come on it, and it doesn't scream church. What it screams is , oh, these people kinda get what I'm dealing with. Mhmm. , so we make sure so think for us, it's always the outsider focus, but then it's really about personalization. , do we get , if it's someone who's got kids, , how is that the information they're seeing? ? If I'm a guy and I sign , I'm on, I don't wanna see information about women's ministry. I mean? Unless it's, , reminding me that Mother's Day is coming up and, , I should send a card or do something. I think for us, I mean, the way we look at web is really personalization. Honestly, we're still having the conversation of, , I think apps are great. I think, , mobile websites are , most people are still choosing mobile websites for for us over app. So we're having to put just as much thought into it and just as much kinda what's the user experiencing, how do we make it as personal as possible. And then, , , most of that is not possible without a sign in, so we're really pushing hard. , how do we value the sign in? How do we give people enough value that they wanna sign in? So for us, , we moved with Rock. We've moved any kind of thing that we wanna register for. We've tried to leverage that in Rock so that someone's , hey. I wanna sign that queue up for camp. Well, , to do that, they'll they they will make a username. They'll be okay doing that for there. So we just try to add as much value as we can behind that username so that we can get to a place of personalization. Okay. So personalization is kinda your key focus for the next year or two. I would say for the next year or two, it's our our continued focus because, , think about anything we do outside of Church World. It's that. , every every app, every business is trying more and more to create a personalized experience for us. So it's , how do we do that? How do we and really, to me, when I say personalization, it is providing someone the next step. It's , how do we just give them the most relevant next step? Because I think people come in church, and many times we have, , we have a lot of calls to action in the church world because we have so many different people on a on a so many different journeys. So I think for us, the idea to personalize it and be able to someone to know, , hey. My next step is baptism. That's great. But that's not the next step of the guy next to you who's been, , a Christian for eight years and, , has been baptized and serving in a group. I think for us, personalization gives us it gives us the ability to help someone take their next step. Mhmm. Yeah. That's really interesting. And when you talk about that personalization and putting information behind the login experience, , that's something we hear a lot about from churches. They're just saying, how do we get people to log in? And you mentioned just having the strategies that provide value for exchanging that personal information are really important. Yeah. All , all of our groups as well is behind that. So, , if you're in a group, all of your content, your chat , you can chat with your group, all of that is behind the login, which has helped people go, , yeah. I value that enough. I wanna be a part of that, so I'll log in. Mhmm. And which And we're not perfect at it. We're still, yeah, we're still working on it. We're not perfect at it. Of course. But that does continue then to provide additional information to make your personalization better as you go over time. Yep. Yeah. Of course. Yep. So, Greg, how would you describe some of the upcoming projects or initiatives outside of that web personalization focus that Christ Fellowship's looking at right now as it as it comes to Rock? Yeah. As it comes to Rock, I think for us, , we are making that shift of, , there's a lot of people coming back to church. , we're kinda I don't wanna say I'm always afraid to say, , post COVID because people are , what does that mean? But I think we are. , we just, , we just came off our largest Easter in history. So we're done saying, , , since COVID, it's our large we're back to, , no. We're we're back to our biggest Easter ever. It's not a COVID thing anymore. I think for us, we are seeing we're seeing tons of new people. So, I mean, we're obviously really focused on how are we how are we using Rock and processing through, , new people. The other thing we're doing a lot of we just came off Easter. Still from COVID, we have a lot of people who are just re I would say reactivating inside Rock. , hey. I've been, , home. I've been out. It's been COVID. So we're focusing more on that than we ever have. We've never really been , hey. what? This Easter, how many people, , were in Rock that haven't been around and all of sudden reactivated? We always focus on new people or new. So for us, we're kinda not that we're losing our focus on who's new coming in door, who's just accepted Jesus, but also, , who's all of a sudden popped back up that it's been, , eight months since we've seen anything, and all of a sudden they've come back to church. Well, , I think about in the business world, that's that is easier to go after than someone who's brand new. Right. So how are we releveraging in a non creepy way of, , hey. We saw your back. what I mean? But just helping them, , hey. It was so good to see you. ? And sometimes that's even , hey. Here's a call list of 10 people at your campus who haven't been around for eight or nine months, and this last weekend, they checked their kid in. , it would probably be great. They're not gonna get anything special because they're already in our system. , it would be great for you to just reach out and just say, hey. It was so good to see Tim, , in fifth grade this week. It was awesome to have you guys back. ? Is there anything you need? Is there anything you can help with? Anything we do? , just that again, , how can I add value? And I think when people hear it in that way, obviously, it's less creepy than , hey, you've left a pair of pants in your cart, , in your empty cart, and it's , do you wanna buy it? what mean? Because that's what the world's using it for. So I think for that, I think, obviously, the other thing, , we're actually in there's one thing we're doing right now with you guys that's really exciting. We're, we're in this big focus. The vision that's been cast for the next four or five years for our church has really been this idea around next generation that we've said get there first, , in the race to the child's heart, , first one that wins. And we've seen, , last, I think, ten or fifteen years, we've seen so much. I would just say, , we've lost a lot of kids that have just kinda walked away from church or even families are working from church. And we believe that, , the next generation is the gen is the best one yet. So we're , how do we actually reclaim that? How do we help them? So even right now, , we're and we know so much that it's about parent. How do we focus on parents? How do we equip them to be the best parent possible? So even for Rock, obviously, what's behind the scenes, we're helping target parents so much more with different, , things. But even right now, we're working on something cool of, , , I'm a parent of a six year old and a three year old. And every Sunday, I pick them up and I get in the car, and probably every other parent who's taking a kid to church is , hey. What did you learn? And they're , I played with Cheetos. ? It's it's , what? We're, , piecing together, , there was a lamb and ? So we're on this project right now with Rock that we're developing. Basically, about, , sixty to ninety minutes after a parent checks in their kid, they get a text with just a a short, , two questions. , here's a sense of what we taught , what your child learned today, and then here's two questions you can ask them. Cause I think that really is, , for some of our parents, , I wish I knew the conversation to have. Because honestly, that might be the parents' most spiritual conversation of the week. They just came to church to go , okay, I checked the box. what I mean? So I think for us, we're that. So excited about that of, , kinda setting up automate , automatically. If you were here this week and your kid was here, , our service time varies. So we're kinda trying to find what's the right time to drop that. But I think, again, that shows a parent too, , oh, , you care about my me and how I'm raising my kid and come on , we always tell parents, , we get one hour a week with your kid and maybe two. So it's , we're we're a partner with you. We're not , we can't take responsibility for their spiritual dis discipleship. , that is you, but we wanna do the most we can to equip you to do that. So I think it's right now, we're a lot of fun creating that. Obviously, early conversation with you guys about an LMS because we know so much of what we're learning is even most churches right now are seeing a huge drop in volunteer retention. ? Mhmm. The COVID has hit that number. I there's not a church I've talked to that's , we have more volunteers than we need right now. If anything, it's been , yeah, we're trying really hard. I've heard, , hey, we we had to close a room with kids. We don't have enough. But I think a huge part of that is, , training them, onboarding them. How can we do that quicker? And honestly, how can we do that just valuing time more? I think the days of , oh, you wanna sign up? Cool. Wait three weeks. Come to a, , an orientation. We'll do it all. No. and we even see that in employees. , when you hire someone, they're , don't put me in a room for two days and tell me everything I have to learn. , give me a YouTube video and let me just watch video. ? It's , that's what we I mean, it's either we either learn how to do something on YouTube now or I'm I'm learning younger and younger that more people just go right to TikTok to learn something. But I think, , what we're building out with you guys on or hoping to build out with the LMS is just helping people walk through this processes faster. What can we learn? And us knowing, , , there's accountability. , people have done this. People are moving forward. Yeah. The other thing that we've been so excited, we have a huge leadership college, and we see more and more churches building in kind of this school leadership something. We just built with you guys, , an awesome onboard experience of, , how we onboard them, how we handle all of the , what could feel cumbersome and technical. Again, that helps our teams. A, it helps our people who are applying for that because it's , oh, this is my same username. Use everything. Great experience. But our team's also , yeah, I work in Rock every day, and this makes my life so much easier than using another piece. Yeah. So I think it's a lot of exciting a lot of excitement going on, yeah, inside our world. Yeah. No small shortage of things happening. And Nope. Some pretty exciting ways that you're able to connect with. You mentioned earlier on the the users or the people groups that you keep in contact as you're building things. You keep in mind the the external congregation, your staff, and your volunteers. And I think it's interesting in what you just mentioned in the the features that you're leaning into that you're focusing on those individually inside each of those as well. Yep. Even right now, , for Easter, we tried out we're just even in our advertising, we're using digital ads pushing back to Rock forms to try to capture that info earlier instead of, , hey. We're capturing this from Facebook, then we gotta move it in. So we just kinda ran that. Easter was kinda the first time we set that up and ran it. So I'm excited to see numbers because we had yeah. Stuff performed really well. So I'm excited about what that's gonna be next. Oh, yeah. That'll be really interesting to look into. Yeah. And then it saves us. It's they're in Rock right away. We're not having to move someone. , when did they come in? And two, it helps us better use our advertising money of, , yeah. That worked. , they're in Rock. ? And we know when someone, , then , someone's , hey. I gave my life to Jesus. Right? How did they first get in Rock? And you back up, and you're , it was an ad eight months ago. what I mean? So it's just really cool to see that. Definitely contest the effectiveness of the ads that you're running. Yeah. Exciting. Yep. Well, Greg, what kind of advice would you give to other churches that are just now looking to start enhancing their digital ministry? Maybe they've come out of COVID now. You've mentioned that a couple times. They have their budgets and their congregations into a more stable place, and they're trying to get their minds around this right now. Yeah. I think for us, I think one of the things that we really had to, we had to kinda be honest about what digital experiences are gonna look . Because I think coming out of COVID, people expected , obviously, a move back to physical, but it was they looked at digital ministry through the scope of online church. , how's the stream on the weekend? And that number is what counted. And I think for us, I've really tried my hardest to say, , anyone I talked in the church world of, , you gotta take down the wall between online campus, physical campus. Again, because those people don't see you as, oh, that's their online team. That's their physical team. No. , they see you as your organization. , I always talked about I shared this story a while ago of, , I was trying to buy a pair of jeans from Express years ago. And, , I shopped online, which I normally don't do, but I'm , it's just time. And I found, , the best pair. I but I was , I don't know what size I am. I'll buy two different sizes. Well, anyway, I went to return the size I didn't need to the Express store, and they were , you can't return that here. That's you bought it online. It's actually a different store. And I'm , are you kidding me? , you're Express. , whether I'm looking at you online or I'm looking at you ? Fast forward now, I walk into Target, and I'm , hey. I just picked up this toy. The online price is this. And they're , oh, great. I'll just put that in for So I think for us, we're , we don't think Target. Sometimes we think about Express. So I think taking that mind down to think of, , we have to look holistically at our people. So, , if you're in digital ministry, my piece is, , you can't just look at the people who are watching you online. , you have to look at everyone in your church and say, how are we levering digital to reach all of them? Because they may attend Sunday, but everything else they do during the week is digital. Whether it's they're on a Facebook page, they're on Instagram, they spend their whole life on digital, three to four hours a day on a device Yep. That to me, we give away that device. , we we track our calories on it. We do coaching thing. , I think about some of the biggest apps right now, mental health. , the church should be in the place for mental health, not some app that's gonna help you through it. But I'm , but we're not even trying to get into an app. So, , what do we create to reach someone that? I mean? So I think for for us, I'm just trying to help people say, , how do you how do you look at your whole church instead of just this segment of, , people you might think are digital? And then my other thing has been really just, I would say, cross functionality. So I think a lot of circles, I'm not I'm not coming from the digital background. No background in web. No background app. But what I've seen is, , I think in pockets, have some churches who, , there's IT running the app world. So they're building a product that they think they've thought through everything. This is how it should be used. Then all of a sudden, there's, , an adult discipleship team that's , well, I don't wanna use your app because they don't I don't need this. I actually need this, this, and this. And I think for me, I would just what I'm love what I would love to see in churches and the thing I'm trying to help people anytime I talk to them is, , get , that team needs to be working closely. So, , right now, I mean, we spend a ton of time marketing marketing communications spends a ton of time with our online, , ministry team, with our digital web and app team, and also with our with our connections, engagement team. We're spending a ton of time with them saying , okay, how do we look at someone's, , experience through Christ Fellowship? Not even someone new, not someone just digital, even a physical experience. , how do we leverage all the things that we have digitally to actually make their experience way better than just focus on, , when they're here on Sunday, we'll try. So I think for me, that's probably my biggest thing I've been I think I've kind of been beat up when I see it. I'm , ugh. , we shouldn't be , we're better than that. But I think that's what I've seen inside some is, , either, , either an IT or a digital team is taking the lead on something, and they're not going back and saying, , hey. What what's the actual problem? What do we need? Or there's an adult ministry. , they're running with, hey. We found a new app. We're gonna go use it and be , ah. , can we just integrate that inside what we're already doing? what I mean? Yeah. So I think it's finding that middle ground of how do we actually help. And even for our, , our online team, the one thing we always say is, , yes. We're pastoring a community of people online. They don't live here this is church for them. But we're also saying, , how do we help our teens that are caring for physical think think digitally better? So we're coming to them , hey. Have you thought about doing prep for marriage, , digitally? There's a bunch of couples around that, , they can't make every week. Can we do it digitally? Or not even that, could we just is there a different way to do it? And I think those are probably the three things we've approached. I don't know if I stole this. I can't remember if this was, , reading a bunch of different ones. But really quickly, I think what I've seen is basically this idea of, , three approaches to digital. Okay. The first one is this idea of digitization, which is basically, , I'm just converting something from physical to digital. And I think that was the first step for the church, but it's , if I'm a business, I'm , okay. I used to mail you a bill. Now I'm gonna email you a bill. It didn't actually change. , I was giving you the same bill. Now I got it to you faster, which mean, hopefully, I got paid faster. But, , it it didn't really it was more of the delivery method. So I think for us, we've been , groups is awesome. But it's , well, all we really did with a Zoom group is say, , we went from a physical environment to, , now we meet online. Yeah. Then you kinda have this step of which I think is okay. I think it's okay. I think that's the first step, but I, , we can't stop there. I think then it's this idea of, I would say, digitalization. And I would say that's when we're , okay. We're using some digital piece to improve the process. So it's , we're not just , now we're leveraging Rock instead of a Google Sheet. Instead of , hey. I made a note of someone's connection card. I'll stick it here. We're , no. Now we're using digital to make that an easier process. And most of the time, it makes an easier process, I would say, the the end user, but also the person, , on staff who's trying to figure it out. But then I feel and this is the place I feel we all need to get is, , this idea of digital transformation of, , hey. We're completely rethinking, how we do things. , I think about when Amazon came on the scene. , it wasn't just we're gonna be an online store. It was , we're gonna rethink everything. And I think for church, , that is where I'm , how do we get how do we get there? , how do we get to the place when we're not just thinking, oh, how can I have a group that meets digitally? It's , no. No. No. , how can I help people find biblical community in a way that we've never thought about? And I think for me, that's where I'm trying to help any team who's thinking forward to the future of, , don't just try to replace what you're doing physically with a digital environment. I feel that's basically what COVID was. We're basically , okay. We have no building. So now it's the computer, but we're gonna do everything the same. And we learned some stuff in there of , oh, what? Now we can do a class at 08:00 at night because you're not driving here. You're gonna find a babysitter. So, , things got better because of that, but it also was our whole world was shut down. So I think sometimes we're , oh, that worked in COVID. It was , well, yeah, but , else was thinking about anything else. So I think for us, it's , how do we look forward to how do how do actually how do we use digital to actually transform what we're doing? And I think, , I talk a lot. I love church, but I'm , we've done church the same way for a really long time. And I think we can't just focus on, , we're just gonna keep doing it now. , instead of opening the doors, we're opening YouTube every week and people could watch church. , it has to be different. Even though I think there is a pocket for that, but I think there's so much more we can do. And for us, , the thing I obsess over is people's user , their , what is their need? And I think for me, most people I think at face value, we owed only we kinda know we think what the need is. We think they may even think what their need is. But I think for us, it's , what is it that people are actually looking for? Because I think for me, COVID especially, , behaviors changed everything. I mean, I've never , shop online more than I've ever shopped. I barely ever go to the grocery store anymore. , that changed everything for us. And obviously church was affected the same way. , there's people who are , yeah, I just, I don't need to come to church anymore. But I think the other piece of it is , people's needs haven't changed. their deep down desire, their need for hope, their need for purpose, the anxiety they deal with, the peace that they need, that hasn't changed. And I think for us, it's , how do we actually meet that need? And it might not be in a church service on Sunday because they're not coming. But it's , we've kind of kicked around. , what if we created this YouTube video that actually, , help people through, reprocess the other day? , if someone's having anxiety attack, what if we created this this piece of content that just helped them through , it helped them breathe. It gave them scripture that was maybe not, , here's the here's the book and the verse. It kinda was scriptural, but they didn't know it was scripture. Didn't put our church name on it. And it was just but, , if you look on a Google search, people all the time are on YouTube trying to figure out how to get , how do I get over anxiety attack? It was , well, this ten minutes could hopefully guide your breathing, guide your but it's , how do you actually start leveraging digital for things that of trying to meet needs? So I think for us, that's how just we're always, I would say, not just in the digital world, even around, again, strategy of ministry. How do we keep thinking? So I was starting our groups team of, , your job is in groups. , your job is to help people find community. Yeah. So it's for so long, that's been groups. But, , what if that looked different? , we're in a conversation right now around this kind of idea of cohorts. , what if we did these two or three week, , hey. Twenty one days to be the best dad possible. , that's actually way more attractive than an eight week group study or an eight week, , class that meets every week on debt. ? So I think for us, we're just thinking about how do we how do we really meet the needs of people, and make sure the things that we're actually are doing are meeting those needs. And if they're not, , being honest, be , hey. They're good, but we can do it so much differently. So I think for me that those are those are the pieces of advice. I know it's a lot, but that I'm thinking as I talk to other churches. And, , we're still learning. I'm always calling churches of , hey. What are doing with this? What are you thinking this way? Cause I think for us, everyone is still in that path of, , trying to figure it out. I mean, it's a COVID has kinda opened up a world, and I think, , I think there's a lot obviously, , I think the frustrating part for me is when I see the business world just take such great opportunities to to disciple people in the thing that they're doing when I'm , man, we need to be doing that. what I mean? And I think that's where I probably get the most, , I read a quote a few weeks ago as a tweet of, , , you're gonna get discipled somewhere. You are. And I think we use that as a church word, but the fact is you're gonna get it through a news feed. You're gonna get it through a, , a feed on your Facebook. But, , how does church leverage to be , yeah, let me help you with that? So, yeah, I think the need yeah. Just hitting the needs of people is so important to us. Well, I can tell it's a subject you're really passionate about, and it's incredible to be in community with your organization and to have the Extended Rock community because churches are all dealing with the same challenges and how to minister to people right where they are today. As you mentioned, people are the same. Their ultimate needs are the same, but so many other things have changed. So thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this topic and, for just being really open about the things that you're doing at Christ Fellowship to help move this forward inside your digital ministry context. We appreciate your time today, Greg. Thank you, guys. Grateful for you. Thanks, Greg. 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.