Podcast Episode 124: Episode 97: Special Edition w/ Charlotte Dean

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Jon & Emily are joined by Rock Star, Charlotte Dean on this special edition of Rock Cast.

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 the Rockcast podcast. I'm Emily Forman. I have Jon Edmiston here, and we have a very special guest this morning that we're excited to introduce to the community for a little backstory. I'm sure you've all met before Charlotte Dean of Bridgepoint Church in St. Petersburg. She is a data coordinator, a member of the Rock community, and not just that, she is a Rock star. Welcome, Charlotte. Thanks, Emily. It's great to have you with us this morning. We really appreciate your time. So, Charlotte, you've been a member of the community for how long now? Probably going on silently for about two years, and then kind of full force, about a year and a half. Yeah, I went to my first Rock conference before we were actually on Rock in 2018, and then we migrated over to Rock in January, February of '20 '19, so that's when I've really been heavily more involved in the community. It's so interesting to hear you say kind of quietly and behind the scenes and then full on. So was that in line exactly with your move to Rock, or did that lag a little bit? I think it was pretty much right on our migration over. I, for the longest time, would kind of creep the chat channels and just look and screenshot things and say, oh, this sounds cool. I wanna do this whenever we fully deploy into it, and that kind of stuff. But then, of course, when we were up and running, I had so many questions, and the community is the best place for that. Do you remember the first time you posted a question into the community? No. But I'm pretty sure Jim or Daniel answered it. Odds are really good. That's funny. What was your perspective about posting questions ahead of time? Because you said you'd been stalking the chat, which I think everybody comes in that way, right, watching it and trying to get their perspective of it. What were you nervous to post questions in there? A little bit. I mean, if you're you're looking from the outside in, sometimes it can be a little intimidating, and people just don't know what, maybe what the best channel is to put something in, or ask it, and I think a lot of people just jump right into the general channel, and then other people start saying, Hey, this channel is actually better for this question. And it's just learning how everyone ebbs and flows in the community, because some people will live in the LAVA channel, but never touch hosting or something of that nature. So it's just figuring out where you to live in it too, and I'll bounce around. Because I do, I'm heavily involved in our Rock instance where I am the Rock admin. I am, , the Rock champion here at my organization. So I'm touching everything outside of hosting, and so I'm constantly in all of them. You just have to dive eventually. Mhmm. So do you remember the first time you answered a question in the Rock Chat? It was shortly after we migrated, and I think it was in check-in, or maybe even just the general channel, where someone just asked something, and I was , oh, I just read that, or someone just answered that. And that's just what that is, is putting back in what you've received out of it too, and just passing that along so it can just continually grow. And it's a massive snowball that's still growing every day. So it was sort of a fluid movement from asking to answering. Absolutely. And still asking questions. Right? It isn't that you have the answer to everything, it's that there are some questions, but some information you might have that you can pass along? A %. And I think that can be applied to anything too. If you're not learning, what are you doing? , if you're not trying to constantly look and say, Well, I want to learn how to try and do this, you're not growing at the end of the day, whether it's personally, relationally, professionally. We would all just be sitting still, and that's no fun. No, can you share a few of your personal Rock related goals that you have right now for learning? Well, I'm attending master class that will be next week, so I'm about to be inundated with a lot of knowledge. So that's been a goal of mine for a while. I'm also we're looking at we're not currently our website is not currently powered by Rock, Rock, so we are looking at what that looks for us to eventually be able to transition that. I'm diving into learning more of the CMS side of things and seeing how content channels relate to each other and content channel types and learning that, and eventually just being able to really engage our people with our organization in a more fully way through our website and using the data that we have to be able to further helping people, our people here, get closer to God, which is our mission statement. We help all people to get closer to God. And if we can do that with utilizing Rock and the data that we have, why not? It's just it's there. So, yep. I'd love to get some feedback from you after the class on what you learned. Because you have a lot of knowledge already, but what additional you learned and what other ways we could make that class even better. I think you're a unique person coming to that. You have a lot more knowledge, and I think most people coming to the class will have. So getting that feedback, I'd love to get that from you. Yeah, all for it. That is interesting because if there are gaps in things too, right, that maybe we don't have that information as readily available externally, there might be some other things we can do to help support that in general. Yeah. I mean, that class' biggest struggle right now is just the amount of content and trying to We took it from three days to four days, now we're still having trouble trying to get it in four days. So a certain point, the class just can't take anything more, but it'd be good enough if we have the right blend in there too. That's good. Well, Rock is not a small application, so there's definitely quite a learning curve. I think that can look a little intimidating sometimes. So I love talking to someone, Charlotte, that's come up that curve and has seen a lot of personal growth, has seen their organization benefit from things. It's really interesting too hearing you talking about things from the CMS side, because we do find that a lot of churches come in for the database functionalities and the growing feature list there, and then start considering, Oh, well, we can use this data externally and communicate more personalized to our attendees, to people out in the community. We can have a different kind of experience and consolidate our data as well. Absolutely. It's a bit of a mind shift when you first transition from one software or database system to another. And it's being able to look at it and go, How can I further this for my ministry and our ministries here? And then also for our people, to where, at the end of the day, they are learning and growing further in their relationship with God through our data and everything else that we are putting out there. , it's easy to look at Rock of just a database system, but it's not that. It's so much more than that. It can be your website, your database, but also just how things are handled and processed. And I kind of fell into this in general. I do not have a background in IT. I do not have a background in anything of that. I actually have a degree in political science. So, furthest spectrum on this scale. And then I fell into loving systems and processes, and Rock has just fueled that even more since we have been fully on it since last year. That's great. Process is really important to us too. It's interesting to see how sometimes your tools impact the processes and even the way you approach problem solving. Absolutely. When you look at it through a process lens, and a lot of the times when someone comes to me and says, Well, I want this, they're really asking for something in the middle, and so I ask them, What's your end result? And then I work backwards to be able to determine the process, and then again, forwards to actually build it. Whether that's a workflow or a content channel. And I keep using content channel because that's what I've been working in a lot more, and learning so much more about. But workflows, once you get the hang of workflows inside Rock, your powers are limitless almost, behind what you can do. Yeah. They're a dangerous tool. Very dangerous. But you're right. A lot of times people will ask for something that isn't exactly what they need because they're mentally anchoring that off as something they already are familiar with or something they know. So they're extending that in their mind when really they should be considering something entirely different. They just don't know it exists. So you're filling a very unique role that I think a lot of people in the community can relate to inside your church where you're helping to kind of translate people's everyday ministry processes and needs into a toolset and come out with some really powerful, exciting things built just the way they need them. Absolutely. Yep. A %. Well, Charlotte, you have a great family. Tell us a little bit about your family. Yeah, so Justin and I have been married for almost nine years. We met at the University of Florida, so we are avid Gator fans. We are excited to see a little bit of sports action back on the television lately. And then, you said, we live in St. Petersburg, Florida. We have two daughters, Avery, who just turned five, and Payton, who just turned one, which a lot of people might remember Peyton because I was the crazy one that came to the Rock Conference last year on maternity leave. So, it's crazy to think now that she is one, and we are just, I think it would have been just around this time this year that we were all in South Carolina. That's right. Yeah, she's a little Rock baby. She is, she is spunky, that's for sure. Both of my girls, they are very, very spunky and full of life and energy, and it's really awesome to see. What are some things that you to do in your free time? Yeah, so I mentioned we're avid sports fans. My husband follows more anything than more than I do, but I will watch it. Right now, we are heavy into the Stanley Cup playoffs because Tampa Bay Lightning is in the finals, so we've been watching that against the Dallas Stars. I also am a crocheter, I have been crocheting for almost ten years now. My mom taught me right before I got married, and that's been fun to do and a pastime of mine that I'll, , we'll be watching a game or watching TV and I'll be crocheting. I also do really enjoy cooking, and always trying to find new recipes, and enjoy hosting, which hasn't done a lot of that right now. But I really do enjoy opening my home, and serving people a good meal, and just gathering around a dinner table, and talking, and fellowshipping, and we are big board gamers as well. And usually, a dinner will turn into a game night, So That sounds fun. I am about a I can be there in about six hours. What's for dinner? What kind of games do you guys to play? Our favorite game is a game called Carcassonne, and it's very similar to Settlers of Catan, which I've actually never played that, so I just say that it's similar because that's what my husband has told me. But it's a title strategy game. It's fun. It has expansion packs. We also code names, which is very fun, and also fun to do with your spouse or a really good friend, because it's best used when you really know someone really well, because they're , oh, they're to understand this clue to be able to get it right. So those are two of our favorites for sure. Oh, that sounds fun. So, Charlotte, if you had to give some advice to someone who's coming into the Rock community and maybe has been stalking the chat channels for a little while, what would you tell them about getting involved in the Rock community in a more engaged manner? Just ask a question. Just get in there. Even introduce yourself right off the bat. The New to Rock channel has blown up lately, and people are hopping in, and I love seeing other Rock stars go in there and say, Hey, so and so, welcome to the channel. We're so glad you're here, and just engaging with them. But just don't be afraid to jump right in. What's so cool about Rock and this system is the community behind it. We talk about it constantly. It is just this nugget of wealth and knowledge behind the system, that moving from another platform, I never saw before. I was only familiar with one platform before moving to Rock, but even with that, there was no community involvement. It was dialing up a number, and trying to get support that way, whereas not only are you getting knowledge, and you're getting information when you're in the chat channel, but you're also connecting with people that do this with you, or that do something similar to you. And that's been, that was a hard thing for me. It's , I don't know anyone that does what I do. It's such a weird, , paradigm to even think , okay, so what do you do for a church? , do so what do y'all do Monday through Thursday, or Monday through Friday? , you're telling me you go into the office and you do something? And people just don't realize what all is behind Sunday that isn't even Sunday related, too. So then, you add in a system that helps run your ministries. There's a huge community behind that, of just you're being able to connect with people that understand where you're coming from, that understand what you do, that understand sometimes the frustrations behind it of , well, I really want this, and I just wish my people would understand this more so. We're all in it together, and we're all in it at the end of the day to make the big C church ultimately get to the goal of telling the good news of Jesus and who he is and who he is to us, who he is to our ministries, who he is to our families, and eventually just telling that to other people. So it's just, just jump in, ask a question, read the manuals. I wish I would have looked at the manuals sooner and more in-depth than before we launched John Rock. I had training, and the training was great. But the manuals, it's always there, and you search them, and you find stuff. I mean, I think I have four manuals pulled up on one of my windows right now, whether it's the Lava, or Workflows, because sometimes you're in it so much that you forget the simplicity behind it, and then you go and you look and go, oh, that's actually how it's supposed to work, so why am I trying to make something more complicated than what it really is? That's great advice. And the camaraderie you're talking about between people doing things at different churches in such unique positions is really powerful, and I really think we saw that play out in a unique way this year in 2020 when suddenly every ministry is relying on people in your position to back them up. Whether that happened before COVID hit or not is suddenly , there's there was a lot more pressure this year, and to go zero to 60 on learning and growing and developing tools independently would have been much harder than inside the camaraderie of the community sharing things. And, you said, even just having an outlet for some of the challenges, and being able to talk to some people that really understood. Oh yeah, and that's a lot of the times too, is I'll hop in a channel, and I'm not necessarily trying to figure action in a workflow might do, but I'm trying to think through how would you do something this? This is what I'm trying to do. How is everyone else getting there, and how have you done it in the past? Especially with reopening, how are people doing children check-in now? How are people doing service reservations? How are people trying to best serve their people in a easy and safe way, and just talking through it. And you get so many different perspectives because we're all across the country. , we're all up and down the East Coast, but then there's a lot of West Coasters, and it's You get tons of different knowledge when you just jump in and you ask a question. There's , something my mom always taught me is there's no stupid questions. Just ask a question. And no one's going to attack no one's gonna come after you and be , that was dumb. No, it's not, because we've all had the same question. It's welcoming someone new. It's saying, hey, what? This is how we approach this, or this is how you handle this. And that's another cool thing behind this is one person can do have an end result two people could have the same end result and get their two different ways. And then go, oh, if we combine these two ways, that's actually more efficient, , taking this piece from this version, and this piece from this version of And then you come and you come out, you both come out with a better product or a better process than what you entered into the chat with. And it's just, it's that teamwork almost. It's you have your own mini team behind you, ? I'm not I, again, shout out to Jim and Daniel because they, I mean, they have helped me so much. And then, , Tim Lemons, and there's so many Rock stars and people out there, and rising Rock stars, that take the time out of the day to answer those questions, and that's really, really important, and really cool. It is. And you touched on something that is kind of changing, and I think we need to keep encouraging it, and that's when someone asks a question and someone answers it, now people are putting more answers on top of that. It used to be, oh, someone answered it, and then they move on. , they don't wanna, , answer it a different way or have a different option. But I love the fact that other people are continuing to answer it in a different way, you said, adding a little bit of different spice to it. And so I would just encourage you too, if you've already seen an answer in that question, don't stop. You might have a different answer to it. You might have a slightly different way of doing it, and jump in and add that. And don't think that there has to be one answer for every question. There's probably 10 answers for every question. Absolutely, and I think too, I love that mind shift of instead of let's all looking at it of answering, let's all look at it as collaborate. There you Let's get in there and collaborate together. Let's, we're not all trying to solve each other's problems. We are collaborating together as a big team, and, , to eventually help further everyone else's missions and goals through our own organizations. And that's what's really, really cool about it. And I know I have grown so much from being a part of the Rock community. I can't speak from anyone else, but I can't imagine that they would say anything different. Well, you're a real inspiration, Charlotte, the way that you have woven yourself into the community. You lean on the people who've gone before you. You help pull up the people behind you that haven't had the same level of experience yet that you have. And so we really appreciate the effort that you put into that and appreciate you sharing your your story and a little bit more about yourself with us today. Absolutely. I loved it. Well, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Do a church that loves the idea of using Rock but hasn't taken that leap yet? 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