Podcast Episode 169: Episode 142: Special Edition- Brian Davis

Description

Special Guest and Rock Star Brian Davis joins us on RockCast today to share how ONE&ALL church is creating a personalized experience for everyone, what they innovated that won them a debut, community selected Golden Circle award and how they use simple things to connect more people to their mobile app. Show Notes:If you have a story to share: https://community.rockrms.com/get-involved/role/share-your-ministry-story Learn more about Brian's Church ONE&ALL: https://www.oneandall.church/Register for RX2023: https://rx.rockrms.com/rxregister/rx2023 

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, and we are here with a very special guest today. Laurie Jocham and I are happy to welcome Brian Davis to our offices here in Phoenix in Sun City, where he's gonna tell us all about his Rock journey. Welcome, Brian. Thank you. So let me make sure I get this right. You're with One and All Church. Yep. And you are the digital communications director. Yep. You're very present on the chat channel, so some people may have run across you there or at many Rock events, but we're so happy to have you here telling us about your Rock story yourself. So first, tell us a little bit about One and All Church. Where, where is it located and, just how how you are working with Rock there? Yeah, we are just outside LA, we're down in Southern California and we've been running Rock there for about four years. And it has been amazing for us to get it up and running before the pandemic and then have it as a resource through the whole thing. It has allowed us to do a whole lot of things we didn't even know were possible before we got into Rock. So you say we, and I know you have a great team there. What is your specific role and how do you interact with Rock there? I oversee the team that does everything Rock related. So our mobile app, our website, work on the emails and all that kind of stuff there. But we also have a couple of great staff members, Randy, who does a lot of the coding there. He's our IT guy, but he spends a lot of time building out most of the things in Rock. Most of time when people say, Wow, you built that in Rock. It's , No, Randy does almost everything. And then Audrey does a lot of the work working with ministries, on training, and she makes sure everything keeps moving. Very good. When were you first aware of Rock? Did you hear about it before you were at One and All, or did you learn about it while you were at the church? I learned about it while we were there. So we had hopped around between a couple different church databases, and we knew the one we were at the time was not working about four years ago. We just kind of kept on hitting roadblocks, and we were finding clever ways around them, but we realized we were spending more time climbing around roadblocks than actually getting things done. And so we started looking around for something that was more flexible, something we had a little bit more control over, and we found Rock. And at first it was a little intimidating because we're , okay, now we've got all the control, do we really feel we can manage this or are we just gonna break it? It wasn't until we went to the Rock Conference where we saw , okay, there is a lot of power here, but there's a community here to help us guide that and we can make through it, we can figure it out. And we took it on bit by bit and now we are where we are now, which I never thought we would get as deep into it as we have, but it's just been a very gradual process. Well, that's really interesting when you say you didn't think you'd get as deep in as you are now. What types of features did you launch with? How did you envision using it at first? Our goal was just basically, let's start where we were with our last database. So let's get the basics down. I guess one of the good and the bad things is because our last database wasn't really up to what we needed to, we weren't utilizing a lot. So when we started off, we were just trying to get the, let's get check-in done, let's get the financial systems up and going, let's make sure community groups are working. So those kind of were kind of our main pieces. And then from there on, we started building out the workflows and some more customization, eventually switched our website over and then our mobile app, but now we're kind of dreaming towards the future as what else we want to do. And what made you decide that it was Rock? You said you were on a journey of trying to figure out what was next. How did Rock become the decision? There were a lot of options, and four years ago would have been 2018. So the feature set that Rock had was distinctly different than it is today. When we were looking at the different systems out there, our main goal was to kind of gain some independence in what we wanted to do or what we could do. And so one of the things that really appealed to us in Rock was the fact that we were going to own the database. Were going to own what it was running on. And that was a little scary at first, but we knew with that came a lot of independence. We weren't gonna be going to our database companies saying, please, please, please, can you build this for There were still gonna be things we wanted to add and things that the Rock team or another provider could help us with. But at the end of the day, if we really wanted something, it could be done either by us or someone we worked with, we weren't going to have our hands tied. So I think that was one of the main advantages. And then once we got into it, we saw just the amount of features that were available from the very beginning. We really didn't have to add that much to it. And what we did have to add, or what we wanted to add was doable, relatively doable within what we already knew. And then we were just able to learn more and more. So as you've attended the Rock conference and you've seen all of the features that are coming into Rock, and you just said that you were dreaming about what you're going to do with it in the future, can you give us a peek at what you're thinking, some of those ideas? Yeah, I think one of the things that's really excited me from the very beginning has been the idea of adding more and more personalization so that the person who's on the website or on the mobile app or even receiving an email get something that's really tailored to who they are, what their journey is, and can really provide some very concise action points. A lot of times we spend time trying to figure out what's the message we can send out everyone to try and get them to attend this thing or join this community group. But if we can start tailoring down to what's the exact message that's going to appeal to this person or this demographic, this set of people, and make sure we're providing those very clear action points, I'm excited to see kind of that process take hold. And we've started a little bit of that with our mobile app, providing a lot of personalized content there, and it's provided an opportunity for us to kind of get that footing in It's , okay, let's get these action points in there, and then let's start building those out. So where we're planning to go next is start adding it to our website and our emails, build out what we're doing in the mobile app. And then as we were working on it, Rockstar coming out with their own personalization features. So now we're going back going , okay, now we have this whole new tool set of features, how do we tie that in? Where do those line up? And I'm really excited to get those going as well. That's exciting. And you're right, we're right in alignment from a core perspective, and that's what we're leaning into, and that's where we see ministry moving and being critically called to. So it's really fun to do that in the trenches with churches, which is one of the reasons that you're here visiting us today is to kind of share some ideas on those fronts and work together and collaborate. Yeah, it's been neat to see as our leadership has seen what that personalization looks , their eyes light up. And it went from the mobile app where that's where we really have that logged in experience. The mobile app being yet another place to find things to now they're leaning more towards , Oh, this is a unique experience that we can really drive people into, saying, Go to your mobile app, you will find your next steps to get involved here at ONE plus ALL to grow closer to Christ. And as we start building, as they get more, the leaders gets more confidence in that, they're starting to see , okay, a lot of what we need to be doing is driving people that way into that mobile app, where they can then connect to whatever that next thing is. That's a great point. You mentioned that your leadership is getting excited because they can see it. And a lot of times, we will dream these whole big dreams of things we can do, and we wanna get all the resourcing, all the options, all the planning, everything in place when what we might need to look for is an iterative win so that we can create the vision for someone that doesn't have the background context that we might just find already sitting in our heads. And it's hard to share until there's something tangible in front of you. So that's a really great point. Yep. Trying to get that process. We've excited where we are now. We're seeing where we can go to the future and then just slowly adding things in. And we've got an amazing leadership that's on board with this entire process, but also has been great about kind of helping us to direct as well, knowing , okay, this is what's coming for the church as a whole. And then we can kind of pivot towards, okay, how do we make sure that ties in well? If we have some events coming up or they're great about coming up with ideas, ways to add new content to the app that's maybe not directly tied towards the discipleship process, but we did our Christmas tree lighting a couple nights ago, and we put the song lyrics in the app. That wasn't a huge discipleship element, but it solved a small problem of getting those song lyrics in people's hands when they're outdoors and we didn't have a projector set up, and it helped people open up the app, see what was there, and next to the song lyrics, they have their action points of getting involved in a community group or signing up to serve at the Christmas Eve services. So we're trying to find all those even little wins that help to drive people back towards them. I was going to say that sounds perfect. We talk to a lot of churches all the time that are solving needs in with their digital tools, but people don't know they're solved. So how do you get the people to the tools so that they can start interacting with the things that benefit their spiritual journey individually and in a personalized way? And so that that's a really great option. I haven't heard that one before. Yeah, some of the other stuff we're doing is trying to get daily devotionals in there. So we've got a great set of pastors who come in and record a daily devotional and we're good about getting those updated. Those elements can then be tied back into the personalized content. We also have been tying our sermons into the personalized content. So let's say the pastor comes and speaks about serving, we'll make sure to align that content. When someone goes to view that sermon or view the sermon notes about sermon serving, they're going to see those action points of here's the ways you can follow-up. So it's all about taking these elements and really reusing them in as many ways as possible so that that content that they initially see in the mobile app kind of gets refiltered and recycled back around as many times as possible. Because that's what it takes sometimes, a reminder , oh yes, I've seen this four times, now's the time to do it. Yeah, we call it seven times. You need to see it seven times before you've been told something. So that's brilliant way to use that. Yep. Definitely. So you're talking strategy. You're not just talking tools, and you're not just talking content or personalization. There's a a key strategic element. And getting all those things aligned takes time. So sometimes we'll talk with churches that are frustrated because they seem stuck at one of those hurdles. So it just it's important to know that they take time. And I think that's where the quick wins really help with that because it's easier to get alignment with the the leadership and the resourcing and the things you need if people can start to understand where you're driving. Yep. And just start moving. I spent the longest time trying to figure out what was the structure and all the elements we to get this thing going. And eventually I just had to start saying, okay, just build something. If half of it's wrong today, I'll fix the other half tomorrow. And at least we can start that iterative process. And even now I'm going back and looking at some of things , okay, would've done that differently, and we're two months into it, three months into it. Okay, we can always go back and fix things and see The content, The system is still relatively new, so there's not a whole lot of stuff I gotta go fix. Let's just keep this thing moving. Yeah, keep that momentum going. How often have you ever seen a system that never needed to be tweaked or updated? So you could totally get paralyzed in the planning upfront. You should just go to market at some point. Yeah, and in some ways the fact that you have to keep tweaking it means it's a good system. If a system doesn't need to be tweaked and improved, probably wasn't ever being used. Nobody's on board with it. No one cares. So I kind of look forward to that in some way. When someone comes to me and says, actually it needs to be doing this. You're , you're right, that's a better way to do it. That means people are responding to it and seeing it's at least moving us in the right direction. Yep, and that's kind of a reflection of just the whole core process in general. Features imagined on the core side, right, on the product team, and they finally have to go to market with it because they can't make it everything it could ever be. It has to be something today. And then churches come back and say, yes, but I could use it this way, and I'd to do that. And that's where the magic really happens is taking the tools and the ministry moments and weaving those together to create something really unique, and that is iterative. Yeah. So, Brian, this year, one and all submitted and won an award at the conference, for a Rock ministry innovation. That was the Gold Circle Award. It was community judged and community awarded. Really exciting thing to be a part of. The first, award ceremony ever for those awards, and you did get a gold record to hang on your wall, right? You got that. Tell us a little bit about the feature or the tool that you built that won that award. Yeah. First off, wanna this is another one of those elements that Randy did 90 of the work on and I'm grateful to be here to take on with the credit. Shout out to Randy. Great job, Randy. It was originally a project that that other section of the work was the idea from our guest relations team or guest team that they wanted to have a way to follow-up with people who showed up on the weekend. And on its face, you can do that a lot of different ways, you could set up an automatic email that goes out, but we wanted it to be a little bit easier to edit than that. We wanted to be able to change it relatively quickly. And we wanted it to be something where it was more or less a of a set it and forget it on our side. So that we could set up a whole drip campaign system, and then the ministry could go in and tweak the wording week by week if they wanted to, add new things that happened. So the core of the concept was that someone could basically join this group or join this process, and then through the span of a number of days or weeks or even months, automated things would happen. Some of those would be emails sent out, text messages sent out, or connection request would be created. And that covered a lot of our use cases. And essentially each one of those things is a content channel item that someone can go in and add content into. And when put in the right place, in the right order, we have some background processes that happen that go and check and see basically which people should receive each one of those things each day. One of the exciting things about it was it really did take that process of that follow-up and hand it back over to the ministries so that they could do their best work. So some of it is sending out an email, which is somewhat personalized, we personalized the email, but some of it was sending a text message from one of our assigned text message numbers, which started a conversation in most cases, or just asked people, Hey, how can I pray for you? It was an opportunity to get that interaction going with the pastor for that campus. And then the connections, a lot of the connections we set up were just basically a way to ping the pastor to say, Hey, give this person a call, Call their phone number, even if you just left a message, that's probably above and beyond what they would have possibly imagined we were going to do. Make that connection and make them feel known. So it's really handed over that to our pastors and they've done an amazing job with it. It allows them to know who's coming in, follow-up with them, and we've been really excited. So the same system, we've been able to use it for a couple of different things, for follow ups, for baptisms and all kinds of other things. And it is one of those systems, which I guess this is in some ways a good thing. We were able to set it and kind of forget it. The ministries have been able to work with it and iterate on it almost on their own. And now we are coming back going, okay, are the bells and whistles we wanted from the very Yes. Well, and nobody's falling through the cracks when they come through your front door. Right, yep. We know everybody's at least gonna get a text message, at least gonna get a phone call, at least gonna get an email. And then that is kind of the starting point for them. Some of the stuff I would love to do is tie that back into our personalization system then. Rather than them just getting our welcome to one and all, they get something that is, hey, welcome to one and all, we see that you have young kids, or we see that you're in this phase of life, here's the opportunities for you to get plugged in. Something for next week, right? Yeah. For next week. And if someone does want more information on the details of that, there is a presentation from Rx on the subscription that Randy gave. Yep. Yep. So you'll hear it directly from Randy's mouth, right? Yep. Someone wants to know more about it. Yep. And how do you pronounce his last name so when they look it up? Alfrecht. Randy Alfrecht. K. Alright. Now I'm gonna ask you a personal question, about using Rock because I love the stories where, the ministry stories that you get to capture. And, there's a lot of things that happen in a church that those are the stories that you're telling on a Sunday morning. At Rock, we're looking for those same stories. How did Rock help you in your ministry or a ministry in your church do something? What is one of those stories you can share with us? Yeah, I think one of the ones that's kind of near and dear to my heart was a project we worked on. It was one of the ones that the kids department came to us with. They do a great job of providing content out for the students and then to the parents. And so we've set up some content channels for them to be able to upload that on a weekly basis, but they wanna take it to the next step. They wanted, after someone checked in, they wanted the parent to get a text message and tell that parent about what the child had learned and just provide some follow-up questions for the drive home. We provide handouts to the parents, but there's always that kind of lag of, is this parent gonna follow-up? Are they gonna remember? And I'm guilty of that. I've got a five year old and a seven year old, and how many times do I take that piece of paper and put it in my back pocket and forget about it? And so it has been heartwarming for me after we got that system set up. The kids team has been able to continue to add content to it for different age ranges, for different stages of life, so that as a parent, I get a text message on the drive home saying, My little one learned this and my older one learned that, and here's the conversations you can start. And it's heartwarming every time. One of the roadblocks we ran into as we were kind of brainstorming, What do we do? Was one of the age groups of kids are nursery aged kids. Oh, sure. And the time that the kids team is spending with them is very intentional and they pray for them, but they're not teaching them for their babies. And so we were trying, what do we do for those parents? And so one of the ways we pivoted was for that age range, we set up just a range of 20 to 30 different messages, essentially just encouraging the parent for you did something big today. You got up, you got your kid to church, you invested in yourself, that was the best investment you could have made in your nursery aged kids life. And that was , that took that whole thing of , Oh, cool. The original goal of this and going, wow, that's a whole another element that we hadn't even thought about going into it. And maybe one of the most important elements is helping to enrich those parents. So it's really exciting when I get those text messages and know that's going on, not just for me, that I get to pour that into my kids, but that it's going on for the other parents too. Billie, you are speaking straight to my heart as a parent and also as a former children's pastor. Those are beautiful ways to connect parents to what was happening while they were away from their kids, but also to support them. What a what a wonderful idea. Absolutely. Well, Brian, we just love the contributions that you make to the community. ONE and ALL is known for kind of selflessly sharing ideas with people and for interacting in a lot of ways, and and we're thrilled to be able to partner with you in some collaborations today and that you could join us for this podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us and to share your thoughts with the community today. Thank you. We appreciate you. Thanks. Do a church that loves the idea of using Rock but hasn't taken that leap yet? 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