Podcast Episode 132: Episode 105: Special Edition w/ Scott Ballard

Description

Jon, Emily, and Nick have a conversation with Scott Ballard from The Summit Church on this Special Edition Rockcast. Scott has been an active member of the community, and shares his journey in the church technology world and his introduction to RockRMS.

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 for another special edition of Rockcast. This is the podcast where we introduce you to the community members, the core team, and those who make up the Rock community. We're so excited for the special guests we have here with us this morning. In addition to Jon Edmiston and myself, Emily Forman and Nick Airdo, we have Scott Ballard from the Summit Church in North Carolina, who's been an active member of the community for quite a while now. Scott, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, it's glad to be here. So, Scott, let's see. You've been to several conferences. You've been around the community for a while. I think people probably have bumped into you in Rocket Chat for a bit. And they may even know you from your previous role inside a Rock Community Church. You're currently with the Summit, but you started with the Village Church, and that's when you first ran into Rock. Is that right? Yeah, that's correct. Spent, , twelve and a half years on staff at the Village Church down in Texas, and then, , we the Lord decided to see how much I trusted him by moving my family in the middle of the pandemic last year. So we moved out here. We started our trek out here at the March, and we became official residents in North Carolina on May twenty seventh of twenty twenty. And I would add, Emily, , some people don't know this about me, but my twins that we now are legally part of our family, we started fostering them during one of the Rock conferences. So I consider them Rock sponsored twins. Yeah. They're a couple of Rock babies, so And how old are they? But, yeah. They're now three. Yeah. So that would have been, I guess, twenty eighteen, 20 17. I remember you coming up and showing me pictures of them at the Rock Conference. It was such an exciting time. Yeah. Yeah. They were tiny at the time, and now they're eating me out of house and home. So it's great. And just getting started on that end, no doubt. Exactly. Exactly. So how did you first run across Rock while you were in your role at the Village? Yeah, so to be really honest with you, Rock, I still view as really an answer of prayer to the church, the big church, the big C church. And what I mean by that is, , we were with a different solution at the village for years and coming out of the corporate world, I have a digital marketing background. , was really confused when I came over to Church Technology World and just realized that there wasn't a lot in the space that really benefited the church. It always felt the product was the one that was benefiting. And I ran across Rock years into being on staff. I was starting to get frustrated with some of the things we were running into, not being able to customize and things of that nature. I was meeting with some local other mega churches in the area who were kind of sharing the same sentiments and came across Rock. And from the moment that I heard kind of the heartbeat behind what Rock was, really the community aspect of it, really the church helping one another and really pouring into a product, man, started to really perk up. I want to say it would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of '20 Let's see, I think 2015 ish maybe, or 2016, I can't remember the exact year. Someone shared a link, I believe it was another church that was kind of in those meetings, and we just kind of started to dig into it. I said, man, once I started to hear the heartbeat, I was hooked. So, yeah. That's exciting. Sometimes I look backward and think, it seems that was a long time ago. And then other times it seems it was just so very recent. Yeah. So, that's incredible. So, Scott, you had spent some time introducing Rock at the village church before God called you to the Summit Church. And they already were on Rock at the time, but it sounds maybe they weren't quite to the same stage that they were yet at the village when you left. Can you tell us a little bit about what that looks ? Yeah, yeah. So, , one of the funny things that I often tell people about leaving the village is , man, I love the village church, , I love it. Still have dear, dear friends there. And I felt I was kind of gonna get to sit on the front porch with my, , sweet tea and just kinda, not coast, but by any stretch, but just we had kind of been through the bumps and the bruises of onboarding into a new solution from another solution. And so then, , part of the joke is , not only did I move during COVID, but, , I've kind of came to a place where we were in a lot of ways resetting the foundation. So I would describe what I walked into at the summit is , there was a house built and most of the rooms were pretty, but the foundation underneath it was somewhat crumbling because of what the church was experiencing at the time. There was a desire to invest more into the system than what had previously been invested both with time and money. There was a desire to kind of catch up, so to speak, from a technology standpoint. And really when you look at a lot of those factors together, know, I think the summit had been on Rock for a little over a year, maybe a year a half. And I was really kind of going, okay guys, I know the house looks pretty and I know you have your own bedroom, but we really need to tear this thing down now because if we keep on this path, the foundation's gonna fall out from underneath it. And, , the house is gonna crumble, , cracks were starting to show, so to speak. So really in so many ways, , we're redoing the majority of what was already done in the system to get it to a place where we're confident moving forward. Sounds a time of a lot of opportunity and a lot of challenge. Yeah, for sure. I mean, , one of the things about Rock that's beautiful, I also think is a little bit of a double edged sword in that, , in our experience here, , when I came in things access to create data views, , everybody on staff had access to create data views. So to give you kind of a rough kind of comparison and I did this in the interview and I'm still shocked that I said yes to the job but, , I did an assessment of data views here. , at the village we had, , roughly, I don't know, maybe a hundred data views. I don't know if even that many at the time. The summit had 1,500 Wow, my goodness. Databuse. , the reason for that is again, it goes back to kind of seeing the big picture of how powerful a Databuse really is in the system. So we probably had, , in some places we would have things 18 different data views that had to do with membership versus, , really leveraging the power of Rock to build that. And it's not, again, that's not pointed at one person, it's just the reality. Having too many cooks in the kitchen means you get a lot of biscuits made but having too many kicks in the kitchen can also be a really bad thing too because , you don't always pay attention to what the other one's doing. Right. Which in turn led kind of where we are with data views. So that's just one microcosm of a lot of other things. We talk about that in master classes, specifically that example is that those data views, making them strategic gives you exactly you said, a solid foundation to move forward from. Realizing that that's a hard thing to do because that means that you have to take a lot more leadership in the beginning. I know I caught myself in my previous experiences on previous systems that we wrote, that we did give everybody access and it created a mess. So that's how I learned that we need to kind of control that and make them more strategic. So it's a hard thing to implement that way because you're in the middle of a firefight. So sometimes you feel you have to let go of that, but you'll always regret it. Totally. And I think, , I remember back, I don't know how many data views I ended up going back and deleting in , year two of the village that I thought I needed in year one. And so it's just, that's part of the, , really understanding and , for me it's until I get in and see the implications of something I'm clicking around in. Yep. And then, , that's the impact on other areas of Rock. , sometimes the delete button has been a really close dear friend of mine, . And sometimes it hasn't, , and I'm scrambling to pull old copies of things. But, , what's interesting too, John, is that, , I think sometimes what I've noticed, and we did this a little bit at the village in the beginning, it's , you've got to start paying attention to what it really takes to do this well, ? And it's not always just financial, it's , you've got a plan. And I tell churches this, was even meeting with a church here locally in Chapel Hill last week about Rock. And, , I told them it's , it's one thing to have a budget to spend on Rock, which, , yes and amen, obviously you guys care about that as well as the rest of the community does. It's another thing to make sure that you have the time invested to care about Rock. That's very Yes. And because , , it's not this thing that's just gonna, I mean, , it's gonna, it could run kind of over here in the corner, but nobody's interested in technology that just kind of works. It's , it really needs to, maybe that's not a true statement. I mean, you're always want things to work. What I mean is , you want it to work well for your context. And so, I was telling this team of, , at this church, it's , , what we're doing with Rock isn't what you have to do with Rock. But in order for you to do what you need to do with Rock, you need to not just expect to throw this on one person's shoulders and, , and kind of live and die on that vein, so. It's very wise. And we see that too. And there's certain churches that, you said, just run it. They get their check-in. They get their, maybe a couple other little things that they want, but they're really not getting the value out of it that anywhere near what you could get out of it. And for some of them that's okay, I think some of them have that expectation that doesn't match the level of effort they put in and that's not a Rock thing. That's just , you could replace it with anything and it's gonna take a little bit of effort and a little bit of money if you wanna do amazing things. Yeah, when you start to shine, when you shine the mirror on process, it's the process's problem. It's not the system's problem, you Right. , and a lot of times I just feel , not just with Rock, mean, there's other solutions out there where I just feel it's now the church's way of putting lipstick on a pig, ? And it's , well, what happens when the lipstick rub, , gets rubbed off? It's , you still have a pig, , and everything, , every tool that you use is shiny for a little bit, you And unless you're well established with how , you're gonna not just build a process, but how you're gonna sustain that process. Yeah, I just think that's where your real work and time investment really happens versus , how are we gonna get data out of this system and into this system? It's , well, your data in is data out, right? Terrible data in is terrible data out. Unless you guys are working on a new version of Rock where you , immediately upon import, it just fixes all my problems. That would be a cool feature. Would love the magic wand feature, but I feel that might be in the dark arts, not in the brightness. Almost kind a mobile phone. how many people, including all of us, Oh, well, as soon as I get that iPhone, I can do this. My life will be different. I'll have all these things. Everything will be automated. Everything will be great. Six months after getting the phone, you're , Yeah, can take pictures. It can do all that stuff. It's just I haven't put the effort in. And most people who have a smartphone basically check email, take pictures, and watch Facebook. But it can do all these other things that we've sold ourselves that my life's going be different. But because I didn't put the effort in, I haven't achieved it. Right. And you mentioned, Scott, there's the effort of keeping your processes clean and your tools and technologies that support them clean. But then there's also the effort involved in if my technology and tools should be supporting the vision of the leadership of this organization. And we know that the vision of leadership has to proactively change to be front running, and it has to reactively change to things the COVID situation. So if we want our processes and our technologies to support the vision, we can't even get it set up to a perfect setup and get our processes regularly cleaned. We have to be able to be flexible and to keep adjusting to those. And so there is a constant need of personnel, of funding, of attention in order to make sure that the tools don't stagnate. Absolutely. And I think that's one thing that's really great about the summit from what I've been hearing from you is that you guys have a vision and kind of a mandate. Can you talk to a little bit about , what are you guys planning to try to achieve with ROQ? Yeah, so, , one of the beautiful things to me about ROQ is, , is really how everything is tied together. Meaning , , I view myself as a minister, whether by title or not. I feel God's given me the gift set to love and appreciate technology through the lenses of ministry and the opportunity to love and care and shepherd others that he's bringing to the Summit Church, either physically, , as in they're sitting in a seat or they're participating through, , various resources that we provide online. And so, , one of the things I'm excited about here is we're in the process of building a website that really is leveraging that personalization in a way that's not limiting people's experience, but it's really driving people's experience. And those are very different things, , I'm not looking access to something based on what we know about them. I'm looking to invite them into something based on what we know about them. That's something I'm super excited about working with, , toward here is really having a website that is not just easy to use, easy to find information on, but really plays an integral part in the disciple making process, which is such a key foundational element of the summit as we wanna be disciples making disciples. , and in fact, , I get really, really excited and reminded of really the Lord's kindness to provide a solution Rock that allows us to walk people through that. Because, , you guys are well aware, and I'm sure most of the community is well aware of what happens when your web experience is separate from your database. And for so many years, , just kind of having to maintain that in 17 different places, , just really made that experience really difficult. And so I'm really excited to work to create what I believe is one of the is going to be a really nice, not just experience for the Summit Church, but I think it's really going to help some other churches in the community see the potential in building a really well integrated website. So Yeah, I think that's one of the things that we're most excited about too from the Spark side is that I feel Summit has a lot of these ideas and visions and the plan is to put those into Rock. And so I think it's been great to see a pattern that, that many of those tools have been existed from a long time, but no one's has actually taken it to the next level. And we're really interested in tracking that progress and showing that and celebrating it with you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're excited about it as well. , and I think also just to add to that, , we're also in the midst of a project using Rock Mobile, which I'm really excited about as well. And similarly, , that kind of experience will be there but it's a much different experience than what, , a person would experience on the web. And we purposely did that, , we really the app to be more geared toward the people of the summit. And I'm really excited about, , some of the things that we'll be able to kind of showcase that ROT Mobile can do, that aren't easily accessible right now. Know, and I think, I think just again, , the whole heartbeat of the Rock community is we're in this together, ? And if there's something that we can do and spend money on that's gonna ultimately benefit more and more people and more and more churches, then yes and amen to that. And that's what's great about the church space is , if we were out in the secular world, one organization might say, Yeah, I want that feature, I need that feature, but don't give it out to my competitors. And it's a completely opposite here. It's every church is , yes, I need that feature. Can I help fund that feature? Oh, by the way, we love the fact that everybody now gets to use this and we all get better. And that's what I love about, , working with churches. Yeah. Amen. Well, Scott, tell us a little bit about this family of yours that you moved from Texas to North Carolina and what you guys have been up to in your new home. Yeah, so, , my wife and I, my wife's name is Lynn, and we've been married a little bit over twelve years. We have five kids. So, we have three biological kiddos. We've adopted two children, the Rock babies. So I have a 10 year old boy named Grayson, seven year old boy named Rhodes, a five year old girl named Bronsi, and the twins are boy girl, Aiden and Azra, and they're three. And, , the one request that the kids had when we told them we were moving from Texas was, they said, Dad, do you think we'll have a tree in our backyard? And I said, Yeah, buddy, I think we can do that. And, , the Lord gave us an amazing place in the middle of the woods. So it's literally I wake up in the morning and I'm camping somewhere, . So just that we're really enjoying this crazy season called spring. Don't I've heard about it. But in Texas, in Texas you usually go from winter to summer and sometimes on the same day. So, , it's been nice to be able to be outside and , the temperatures be a little bit more consistent and whatnot. So, but yeah, we love it. I've seen some pictures of your kiddos on, some of your social media. It seems they're great little helpers around the church too. Yeah. They've been, , the girls came and they've been practicing all week. They're welcome to the Summit Church. Yeah. And so I brought them to they were greeting people on Sunday morning at one of our campuses here and they quickly got distracted by the playground, but for about five, seven minutes, were awesome on the little greedy team. Sounds a good start. But yeah, yeah, they're loving it. I mean, yeah, just, I said, , I never in a million years thought I'd leave a great place the village and really had no intention to, and the Lord has been really kind and faithful to bring us here and excited to see what's going on. Well, we're so excited to have you still in the Rock community, looking for ways to give back and provide and help grow the whole community, and really apply some incredible strategies to new things that can be done. Collaboration is absolutely the key. Thank you for your investment in Rockin' and the community. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for joining us this morning. We've really appreciated getting to know Scott, Scott's family, the summit, the village a little bit more. We just enjoy that behind the scenes, and we know that's what makes the community work, is that we're all a bunch of real people doing real things for the Big C Church, and we appreciate your contributions. Thank you so much for joining us. Yes, really, really grateful to be here, so grateful for you three and the people that are, , not represented on this podcast. Just, , I think, know, one of the things I love is thinking about the gospel impact of what I get to do every day. Yes. , and I think you guys embody that really, really well. And it's just, , it's been a joy to get to know you guys personally and professionally. And I'm just really grateful for y'all. Because I know it's not always easy to do what you're doing and, , especially in the early days, , to wonder , why? , what's next? And how are we gonna get there? And you guys have just been such a gift to not just our church at the village or now the summit, but just the church. And I know if somebody had the opportunity, they would say the same thing through you. So thank you. Thanks, Scott. Appreciate that. Thank you. Likewise. Yeah. Well, thank you so much to everyone that's joined us for this edition of Rockcast. We hope that you've enjoyed it and look forward to connecting with you next time. 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 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.