Podcast Episode 137: Podcast Episode 108: Perils of Applying Secular Digital Strategies to Ministries

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Join Jon, Emily and Nick as they discuss Rock version 12.4 coming to beta soon, RX2021, 2021 classes and the dangers of applying secular digital strategies in the church.

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 back to this edition of Rockcast. I'm Emily Forman. We have Jon Edmiston and Nick Airdo, and we are here to share all things Rock with you. We have, some exciting updates on events and classes and a great topic we really wanted to, we've been working on for a little while to be able to talk about on this podcast today. So thanks for joining us. Let's start out with an update on where we're at with, the latest Rock version. We are in alpha testing at version 12.4. And probably by the time this goes out, it will be in beta. And we're gonna try and do that for about two weeks, maybe a little less than two weeks. And one of the things that we're testing is a brand new updater. So the updater we've used for the last, since forever, Rock version zero, is basically been replaced, gutted, and it looks the same. It looks very much the same, except there's a small noticeable difference. When you click the update button, it gives you a confirmation box, which people are very thankful. We've gotten feedback on that. That's nice. Apparently somebody's inadvertently updated in the past. So this will prevent them from doing that. But there's lots of other benefits. It's much faster and it gives us more control. The way we wrote this, where we've kinda just taken it on ourselves instead of relying on this underlying system and library. Beyond that, there's lots of bug fixes and a few little small features in there that I do not have off the top of my head. Yeah. There's some there's some cool stuff. And I think another thing too is that as we roll out these updates, there's we're pouring concrete ahead of other features. So I think in a lot of sense, twelve four pours some foundation that is gonna be built upon in 13. So I would say internally, our our strategy has changed quite a bit about how we do the updates, and people are getting features faster. And even though they're dot releases, you're getting features faster. And I think coming soon, we might actually even re rename and rebrand how we call updates to make it a little more clearer. Yeah. an honesty check kind of. Honesty Well, know what I mean. , hey, this is a this new release, this feature this there's several features in here. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think if you think, well, gosh, it's been taking a long time to get 13. Well, you've been getting a lot of features in the meantime. And we're trying to be it's all in a in a in a strive to be more responsive to what churches need right now instead of saying, well, you gotta wait six months. Right. And it it doesn't mean that we won't have some release that are just microscopic bug fixes and emergency. Correct. We'll still do that. So, it's interesting though. Don't think maybe it's easy to understand that you're also pre pouring, you said, that foundation for the elements that are needed ahead of time before a feature is even visible. So there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to get that lined up and out the door in the correct order. Yeah. And I I would say there's actually a lot of work been going on in the last six to eight months that's pouring concrete for versions two years in the future. So there's a lot of strategic alignment and and moves underneath the covers on top of a lot of tactical decisions to get stuff features right out. It's it's it's a challenge to keep it all lined up and not to break anything. Yeah. Keep all the conveyor belts moving at the same time at different speeds and very interesting. Yeah. Well, some exciting updates. Last year, we sort of had a pause figuring out different angles on events, and and everything's full steam ahead right now. So there are lots of ways to get involved. And if you're really looking for a way to take your Rock experience or learning to the next level, you have lots of options now. Maybe more than we've had at any one given time at any slice in time. So make sure you check out the classes and conference options that are available. We have a page for classes now on the community site. It's one of the main menu items. You can click there and see all the different styles of classes we have, and then, go to those individual pages to find out, registrations and dates. So we have things open right now for the 100 series, that high level survey class. For those who typically listen to our podcast, that's probably a little lower, of a maybe a higher level, I should say, of Rock than you might need. But there may be some people on your team that it would be really beneficial if they just understood a little bit more about how Rock worked. So that's a great class to keep in mind for that. Whether they're new or maybe they're an admin that does certain things in Rock, but you just know if they could expand their understanding of what all was going on, it might help with the job they're doing. That's a great option. The masterclass, of course, is a a standard favorite and necessary. And don't forget that as people join your team, that's still there, and it's a great class to put people through. And finally, the sequel for Rock, which really launched within the last twelve months and has had great reviews as well. So we have multiple options on all those classes, as well as the conference. And we're so excited about the conference because it is going to be in person again this year. We are going to have it right here in Phoenix at the convention center we talked about two years ago. And, we've had great interest and response from the community and from sponsors. It's going to be an incredible event, especially with all the things that churches have been doing and learning about in the last year to reach their communities in new ways in challenging times. There's going to be so much incredible content. We do have an option for those who can't attend in person. It'll be a modified virtual experience. So definitely check out the website rx.rockrms.com to find out what those options are and and figure out, , what it is that you wanna do. But we definitely recommend if you're a Rock church that you don't miss the Rock experience because it will power your Rock work for the next year. Definitely. I mean, the lessons learned that you're gonna hear right from people who've been in the trenches is gonna be great. And, , I think there's a good inflection point now that we need to transition from that, but there's still a huge need. Mhmm. The virus might be tamping down, but the impact of the virus on in our souls is is just getting started. Right. And the fact that we're having this event inside, again, that the hotel convention center means that in the past, we've had to kinda kick people out of the host churches and say, alright. Enough getting together. , let the cleaning crew come in, and we don't have to do that this year. Yeah. So the connection opportunities, I I think, are gonna be really, incredibly powerful this year. Definitely. Looking forward to it. Well, we have a topic that's been, brewing on the minds and hearts here for a while, and we really wanted to be able to bring this to a podcast. So, John, why don't you introduce this? Yeah. So we've been spending a lot of time internally thinking about digital strategies for churches and ministries and, , how does Rock play into that? But even outside of Rock, what is, , a good digital strategy? Where are the components of a good digital strategy? And so we've been putting out some videos on that. And so but doing a lot of thinking and reflecting about that, especially over, looking at things in the past that work, but looking in towards the future of things that are needed and new things. But today, thought we could talk about something that perhaps doesn't work, and that's the the importance of of creating a digital strategy from ministry, but not taking too much digital strategy from the secular world and just applying it, , right out of the box in ministry and and the challenges that that that is. And so a few points to start with. Just conceptually, Christianity improves capitalism, but capitalism doesn't improve Christianity. Said another way, business tools can help churches, but business plans won't. Now those are a little bit of a blanket statement, so I'm sure we can all find, , that one thing that that doesn't fall into that. But I think these are are traps that sometimes I see, churches just reach right off the shelf and just wanna grab strategies, from the from the secular world and just apply them as if they're gonna work just as well or the same, within churches. So a few things. In companies, typically, that's the company that does all of the work in terms of outreach. ? You don't go to, , Procter and Gamble and and say, well, let's let our customers do all the outreach. Let's let them do all the marketing. Right? They might do they might say that. They might have these little programs, but they're they're teeny teeny teeny tiny compared to the the budgets that the organization is spending on on doing this outreach. In churches, it's exactly the opposite. Right? , it's the people who are called to reach out to others. Does the church have a piece of that as an organization? Yeah. There there's a little bit, but it's probably , I was kinda thinking what what's what's the percentage? Maybe 10%. So the church might be responsible for putting Google Ads out. , that's easy lure. You just throw in the water. , you you could do it. It's almost free. You might as well. But that's not your primary strategy. Your primary strategy is for your people to be transformed and for their lives to impact others, intentionally. It's not let let them just walk around and and see if they attract people, but it's for them outreach and share, , the gift that they've been given with others. And that's the primary, , strategy for outreach. And so how does the church come alongside that and provide tools, content, encouragement, challenge? That's, , what we need to be focusing on. But oftentimes, the church takes over and steals that role from its own people. And so in my, opinion, this is just my opinion, in in many ways in our society, government has stolen the role of the church, which was to love and care for people, who need help. Mhmm. And now in a sense, the church has stolen the role of outreach from the people. And now it in many churches and some churches, it's becoming, hey. , this is our job. We're gonna go outreach. We're gonna bring in these tools. We're gonna have these, discipleship paths, that are mainly for us to bring people closer to God, not for people to bring themselves and others closer to God. Discipleship paths are still needed, but the focus should be on helping that person and and then helping other people bring other people into that. Because we can't do it alone. , we need spiritual leadership to encourage us, challenge provide us the tools to make us efficient in reaching out to others. I was challenged a couple years ago that I I kept seeing in my in my own life. I kept inviting people to my church, but not inviting people to my god. Right? Which all seemed a little backwards to me. , why that seems a little bit of a cop out. It's easy for me to invite them to church and let the church take over and share the message and do all that. But I felt , well, , inviting the church is a good thing. , I should keep doing that. But why don't I talk more , how Christ has changed my life and how God has changed my life and the person I used to be? I feel that'd be a lot more of interest to the person, , than the organization, than the impact in my life. Because I'm sure they're seeking more a change in their life than a change in presence on Sunday mornings. ? They probably actually might even prefer their jammies on the on the couch. On the couch. Right. But they would be very interested in the life change perhaps, depending on where they're at in life. So people need tools and content and strategies and motivation and challenge, But we can't treat this as a corporation just selling its wares. , we're not selling a product. We're it's a it's a change of life, not a change of of of product. And I think as we look at that, , one of the the tools that a lot of people try to bring in, and it's not a bad thing, , don't read me wrong, but the the concept of the funnel is a bit dangerous, if just used applied, , just lock, stock, and barrel from the outside because it's typically focusing on the church doing the work versus the people doing the work. , you're you're trying to put people through a set of steps that gets them closer and closer to making a product buying decision. And that said, we're not the conversion experience does not map to a product acquisition experience. I mean, you look through the Bible and look through the people who converted their lives and transformed their lives, it doesn't really map to, , how do I decide, oh, yes. I need a car. What car am I gonna get? Totally different. Usually, it's radically different. And so to not take that into account, I think, provides a tool that might work in some cases, but not to the extent and maybe not the way that it could. And also, if we're not careful, the funnel has an underlying acceptance that not all people make it through the funnel. That's very true. Now that's okay. I mean, we know that everybody's who hears the the word is gonna, , could go the whole way through. Right? There's parables about this. But that's not we should not accept that as we should, , fight tooth and nail that every person makes it through. I mean, there's also, , word pictures in the Bible, , you will leave the 99 to go get the the lost one. So and that's not to say that the funnel, as used by some churches, is accepting that, but it does have this underlying even the shape of it says, well, not everybody's gonna get through. That's a literal thing, but it's we have to be careful about that. So another concern too is, , maybe a big thing in in the secular world is influencers. Mhmm. And I think the church needs to be very careful about that too because, , these influencers, while they can draw more people in first of the Bible tells us not to treat people differently based on wealth or or or other means that the the world would see. So be careful about that. But an influencer, if you're a carmaker and your influencer goes south, well, you , you're gonna split ties at and it's a slight black eye. But when it's for a church, it's that's a it's that lifestyle means a lot more. There's there's that just continues to show the hypocriticalness of of of this. So, , putting your eggs in that basket is a lot of eggs. And, , probably there is a draw to say, well, if I can get this one person, then they can reach everybody. Careful. , that that may not be exactly what we're supposed or called to do, but it also puts your eggs in a very, fragile basket. But I think in general, , we as the church, and it's no different in business, are always looking for a silver bullet approach that brings lottery results. Mhmm. Every business is that, but then we're the same in inside the church. We're always looking for what's the secret sauce. , what's the next book we're reading that's just , oh, if I just do this, we'll have growth. And instead, we need to be strategically looking at doing the right things the right way for an extended period of time. If we do that, we'll have success. If it's biblically focused Mhmm. If we just do the hard work. I mean, I think that that's the success in life is just are you willing to do the grind? Are you willing to be uncomfortable and extend yourself? And it's the same thing with with strategies. And so as we go to fill that role of in our churches of who's gonna help us with this, there's a big desire to just get grab someone from the secular world, and they've had success, and let's bring them in. And I think there's, a lot of a majority of that, what I see is, okay, this you can almost see it. Okay. Two years, they're gonna bring this person in. They're gonna stick around for two years. They're gonna change everything, often not using the the tools that should be used. This is the tools that are most comfortable with. It's gonna kinda turn in a mess, and they're literally gonna leave after two years because they found a different opportunity that's better. And so we have to be very careful. On the flip side, there's some people who've come from a secular world, done amazing things, changed the big c church in dramatic positive ways. So it's not to say don't do that. It's just to be very careful about how you do that. In fact, often, it's easier to take a ministry minded person and teach them these these tools and strategies than it is to take someone from the secular world and teach them ministry. And I think back through, my experience. I came from the corporate world doing ecommerce y business, from a technical and business strategy at at Honeywell. , I had a really great opportunity to work with the CEO of Honeywell. When he got the bit e business bug, everything turned e business. I got to participate on a team, a small team close to his circle on that. But when I came to CCV, , my first meeting with the senior pastor was here's my 10 ideas for digital strategy. In that meeting, all 10 of them got nixed. And they were good ideas. They legitimately, they were good ideas. But I think that was a pivotal part of my learning process. I am so glad that that happened. The senior pastor at the time was not a digital strategist. Right? Did not born in digital worlds, but he knew ministry. And he knew, even though he knew he didn't know that part of, , digital strategy, he knew what would what would work in ministry. And he knew that the ideas as presented didn't fit with the strategy of the ministry. And he had the confidence to say, hey. No. We're not gonna do those things. And it took me months to figure out that the ideas were good, but but the strategy behind the ideas was bad. And, I think there's this has to be this humility as you come from the secular world that that says, okay. I have I have some ideas. I have some tools, but I need to understand how they get applied. This is not just another segment of an industry. Mhmm. This is not another vertical. It's not the final from the financial vertical to the manufacturing vertical. No. This is completely different. And you have to understand that. I I would almost say as you come from the corporate world, you have not the right answers. You have the right questions. And so you have to be humble enough to ask those questions. And I think a lot of senior leaders just turn over those reins too much. They don't either understand that or they don't have the time. They're under a lot of other stresses. And they just say, okay. Well, you just run with it. You had you had a good track record in the corporate world. Just, , rinse and repeat. And that's a recipe for not success. And so I'm lucky to have worked under a senior pastor who knew ministry and knew to to not just, , go along with any of these ideas, but to teach and and bring that strategy to to me and then and then use the tools that I I maybe knew. And and, , , if I look back at those 10 ideas, I think five or six of them, we ended up doing. But we did them for a totally different reason. , one was podcasting. This was back in, , 02/2001, '2 thousand '2. And, , podcasting was kinda new. It was all audio back then. And so that was one of my first ideas. It's an easy one, slam dunk. Right? Well, no. Because I wanted to my, , reason for wanting to do podcasting was to so people could be, it'd be easier. You don't have to go get a tape. Right? And he's , well, that that's not really an outreach idea. , he's , our the whole ministry is around outreach. And he's , I wanna focus on outreach ideas. So that's a training idea. , that's not a that's not I mean, he's not saying that's bad. That's not what I wanna focus on. So over time, we could, , build the tools out to make it more outreach. , hey. If you wanna hear a message on divorce, here's a good message on that. Well, that's great because now the whole community is in it can come to that, get that, hear that, and it becomes an outreach. So I think that's super important too is just not to, , bring these people from the outside, let them run wild, and and not teach them the ministry. And I'd say if you are coming from the outside world, , please listen. , these you have a great skill set. You have a great understanding, but now you need to match that and grow that with the understanding of ministry. Because if you use it the same way, you're underusing the most valuable resource we have, which is our people, and you're not gonna get the results. And, honestly, you'll probably go someplace else in two years. But I think the people that I see that have stuck with it for decades and have had huge impacts have really taken their skill sets and understood ministry and applied them in those ways. And they've had huge success. So that's kind of , , my thoughts know, making sure not to use these secular concepts lock, stock, and barrel. If you're coming from the secular world, please, , listen. Even if your pastor is giving you the keys to go do whatever, make them , unpack what what makes them tick? What's uniquely what are they uniquely called by God to to do special within that church? And then think through put your tools aside. Think through, okay. Now what's the right strategy for this specific opportunity? , it's interesting. A lot of times, secular digital strategists are brought in because the church is really struggling with how to measure and drive engagement. And in the reading that we do about building communities and building staff and everything points to people who are really engaged need to be able to do two things. As a community or as a congregation, they need to be able to receive something, and they have to be able to give something. And so I think a lot of times the digital strategies when they're they come in and they're applied directly to the church, you mentioned, they take away that giving component. And that actually decreases engagement of communities over time. And if you if you study building people into groups, communities, congregations, staff, the that engagement of being able to give back is so critical that they've actually found that having accountability toward that engagement or toward that giving back actually drives engagement as well. And sometimes that's such an interesting thing because you think about accountability as being something almost almost has a negative connotation sometimes, and that's really not the case. And I think a secular digital strategy just can't take those things into account in the way that the church needs to have them. Yeah. In a sense, the church is completely backwards to the economy. Right? It's all about giving. Giving. Giving. Giving. Giving. More. More. More. More. And the the companies is all about getting. Right? , another thing we talk about as we go through these thinking about digital strategies, we, , we came up with the five c's, content, challenge, communications, connection. But one that's completely different, unique to a church is care. , a church has to care. It has to give something for absolutely no reason. If you think back to what the church used to do, we used to give money to to the poor who, , who because there weren't social welfare programs. These people are legally gonna starve if someone didn't help them. A company doesn't care unless the person is sitting in the target of a sphere of opportunity. Mhmm. Then we might care. , , if I if I make diapers, I might care and give some diapers away. But I'm probably not gonna go help someone, , find a home or pay their rent. Or if I do it, the the percentage of of my revenue or profit I devote to that is teeny tiny. I was watching Shark Tank the other day, and and this company came in. It's , oh, well, when we give, , , a tenth of a percent of our profits to, , charity, and if they listed the charity. And I was , what? You actually were it was embarrassing how small the number was. I I forget exactly what the number was. So was , that's embarrassingly small. And the sharks were , that's amazing. That's a huge number. I'm , really? And this goes to show you, , you get so accustomed. , churches, how much do they give away? I know a ton of churches that give away 10% just straight off the top just just to to other charities. And but if you count all the other things they're doing through missions and I mean, the number is is way huger. So I'm not sure that's the best way to say huger. I just made up a word there. But It's a memorable way to say huger. Right. But everything is about care, within the church. Right. The organizational goals are different. You have to answer to shareholders. You have to get a certain bottom line. You have to do all these things that are driven to enrich and grow a company. And and it's different in a church. We're shepherding souls for the long term. And small mistakes in an organization, you can compare quarter to quarter, you can make up your financial losses, but small mistakes in digital strategy, if they impact the care of someone and impact, , their their soul or their experience or interpretation of church, it's a different type of consequence. Right. And I used to think and say too on our teams that when I when we worked at at a church was that staff in a sense is a necessary evil. , the fewer staff you have, the better because we're supposed to equip others. and again, that goes back to even the outreach. We're supposed to equip others. Every dollar the church spends on marketing is a necessary evil perhaps because we should be empowering that through our people. That said, there are low hanging fruits out there that you just need to check the box and do, a Google ad. , okay. Yeah. We need to do that. And and to expect a volunteer to come along and put a Google Ad in for the church is not strategic and it's not that's that's just weird. So there's 10% of of the efforts, maybe it's the church's responsibility. But I feel right now in some organizations, it's 80% that the church is putting strategies in place specifically for them to to do the work versus to have others do it. There's a church too that we were working with, and one of the big things that they wanna do is create stories, have people put their stories in about how, a specific serving event might have helped or or or changed them. And I think that's great too, but when we have people author their own content Mhmm. Not only is it completely shareable to their, , people, if they write that, I'm sure they can share it with others. Right? That we should encourage them to even post it into their social social media. Natural engagement. But as we write things ourselves, I know if I'm writing something a training document, I'm learning and I'm getting excite more excited about what I just And and so it actually deepens our interest and our enthusiasm when we took the step to write that. So now it's gonna help me and I'm probably gonna go talk about it more, But it also makes it shareable. Other people see it. And so it's those types of strategies that yeah. The secular world kinda has stuff that, but the it's almost they're just throwing scraps out. ? And I think we've even seen that at the conference When we have had some secular, organizations come in, maybe the background check companies are more secular based. They come in, they go, hey, we go to a lot of secular conferences and people talk about community. , everybody basically talks about community, but this is completely different. This is real community. And I think that's just one example of how the church is too. Mhmm. Or at least it should be It should be. In a healthy church. Yep. So I guess to wrap it up, just, , there are we need to have these digital strategies. Be careful about just taking one off the shelf from the corporate space and then just applying it lock, stock, and barrel. Mhmm. There's good tools there. Business tools can help churches, but the business plans, lock, stock, and barrel will probably not help you and could damage. Don't look for the silver bullet. , just grind out Do the hard work. Good strategy, the right way, for the right amount of time, and focus on your people and not don't try to take that role from them. And as a community here with Rock, with Spark Development Network, we definitely have structured the way that we do things to try to be more inside that community realm, to really line up with the way churches are working so we can have shared strategies. So we're under some of the same constraints and the same freedoms and the same opportunities that churches are. And I think that's been really valuable to us to keep us the perspective shared, to be able to also share what we learn as we as we go through things. And there are a lot of organizations, , our we talk about our ecosystem is our core team. It's the churches in Rock, and it's also the Rock Partners. So Rock Partners are set up as secular organizations in in most cases, but they're committed to helping churches. And and they're really committed at a different level than other organizations. And so we just wanna remind the churches that are working working with organizations in the Rock community, whether it's Rock related services or similar kind of parallel services. If if this is an organization that is promoting themselves within the Rock community, make sure they're a Rock partner because there is a big difference between those organizations that are contributing financially and committed to the sustainability of what we're doing here at Rock, which in turn is is creating the tools that you need for your digital strategy at your church. There are some organizations that are fully supportive and committed to this the future of Spark and Rock, and there are others that see the community as a great opportunity for business. And and it is. And the Rock partners are realize that as well, but they want to ensure the future success, and they really have a different motivation. So take a minute, take a look at the organizations you're working with, check out our Rock partner page, look for Rock Partners and sponsors, and see if the organizations you're working with are as committed as you are to the future health of Rock. And if they're not, consider working with someone who is or consider helping having the conversation about why Rock Partnership is so critical to this community because it is a little bit different than other, models that are out there. So we rely on you, and we hope you can rely on us. And we really appreciate your tuning in here again with us today and allowing us to share some of the insights and thoughts that we have. Have a great day, and we'll see you back at the next Rockcast. 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.