Podcast Episode 79: Episode 52: Special Edition Arran France

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Get to know Arran, one of our Core Team members, and discover some of his favorite memories from his first trip to Arizona.

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 ROTCast. We're very excited to bring you a new style of podcast today. We are speaking with our UK office and Aaron France, who has been technically a member of our team since this summer and not technically a member of the team for a long time in some fun ways that we get to really explore today. I'm Emily Forman, and here with me are Jon Edmiston, Nick Airdo, and Aaron France. So, Aaron, you had a long adventure to get to where you are today. Where should we start? Should we go way back to the beginning? Yeah. Yeah. That sounds fun. Yeah. Start at the beginning. It's always a good start with stories. Yeah. That's probably true. So, yeah, at the very beginning, it was probably late twenty fourteen, early '20 '15 and Rock wasn't even in a one point zero release yet. It was still in beta. And I was just trying to explore what Rock could do for my church back home, a very small church of about 300. Okay. And when you say you were exploring that, what was your role at the church at the time? So I was an intern primarily focused on communications. And I was just excited about the possibility of moving away from a spreadsheet. That's basically what I was looking for, something better than a spreadsheet. That is serious was also with Rock, was the oh, at the time it was a bit of a rough diamond. ? Rock is, , an amazing piece of software now. But back then, it, , had a couple of rough edges. And that's kind of where I jumped in, just trying to see what Rock could do and maybe smooth some of those edges out. John, that was about the time you first ran across Aaron. Right? Yeah. He was very active in the community. Even back then, we, , had some community going and it's very active. And I remember when we had the first concert conference, we were , yeah. We got somehow we have to get Aaron out here. That would be amazing. And I I forget how you got the the funds Yeah. That was a really I know that was a really coincidental kind of event. My mom had put some money in a savings account for when I turned 18 and had forgotten to give it to me. And John kind of approached me and said, hey, can you is there any chance you can get out here? And I was , I don't think I can afford it because I was an intern. But then somehow I stumbled across this bank account. I was , this is the exact money I need to get a flight out to Arizona. And I was over the moon. And John kind of put me up in his house, for that kind of couple of days. That was that was really the start of the adventure. That's when it kind of became real for me. , wow. This is this is what is Rock is and sort of the community is . And what's crazy is I think for us, it sort of made everything come real too because it was a a group of people who knew each other from other areas for the most part. There were a few new people coming in. But you said, it was a little rougher on the edges. It was still a lot of vision, and we were working really hard to bring that to fruition. But when someone landed on our shores here from across the pond, then suddenly we realized, well, this thing's getting legs. Yeah. And Yeah. Ahead, Aaron. So, yeah, that was about the time that I had decided to pursue a career in software development. And that was really off the back of my involvement with Rock and my encouragement from John and Nick. So yeah, at that point, that was kind a life changing juncture for me that was brought about because of that kind of feeling of community and because of Rock and the vision that came with it. Because you had plans to do what? What were you studying? Yeah, well, the kind of trajectory that I was on, know, the reason I was doing this internship was kind of with some vision for becoming some kind of pastor in the future, going on to theological college. But Rock kind of helped shape that identity around, , what am I good at? Where do my skills lie? And yeah, I guess kind of inadvertently, you and John kind of fed into that process of me figuring out, , where God was taking me. Wow. That's really cool. That's an amazing thing to hear how all of that came together at the same time. There's a definite, hand of divine movement in that. I I don't think I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, but you are not sitting in our offices where myself, Nick, and John are sitting. Where are you right now? Yeah. I I'm sat in my living room in The UK. Yeah. My sort of pseudo home office. So when you say the Spark offices in London, you you put them in quotes. I did. Yeah. It was kind of facetious. But, also, we're really, really happy to have Aaron joining us and and being located exactly where he is because we know that Rock isn't something that is owned by people, and it's not owned by a country. And and so the ability of it to flex with the needs of churches all over the world is really key and crucial to us. And it helps increase our strategy of always having at least one Spark employee awake Yes. At any given time. Yeah. Yeah. Know I've got a few hours that I cover there. Yeah. Yeah. Between you and Shavam, I mean, I don't think there's ever a point when there's not a Spark person awake. We're all good. Yeah. So, Aaron, this was about, what, four or five years ago that we're talking. And you went to that first conference and met what was then a very small community. How how big was that conference? , a hundred It was 50, I think. 50 people. Yeah. We thought that was hot stuff. Oh, yeah. That was big. I mean, it kinda was because we were just starting. When you see people now that have a badge on their conference name tag that says they've been to all the conferences, that is a growingly small group of people. Yeah. And now that I think about it, maybe you're right. Maybe it was more a hundred. I think it was just under that. I thought it was in the nineties or something. Yeah. That's probably right. I have bad memory. But anyway, that was in Arizona. We had that. Yeah. So we got airing out to Arizona and we showed them everything that we do in Arizona. Took him out shooting. And Yeah. I had the full American experience. Went to In N Out. That that's my favorite. We have that trip probably. In his favorite breakfast place. Oh my gosh. That was the next trip. That was the next trip. Just to be honest. Get ahead of ourselves We'll circle back to his favorite breakfast place. So then from there, you came back the next year for the conference, but then you actually stayed for quite a while longer. Right? Yeah. So that was my first year of university and we'd kept kind of in contact and I was trying to still be involved in the Rock community and building Rock. And we'd kind of come, , come to this agreement that it'd be awesome if I could come out for a little while and be involved and be at the office. And I got some money from my university to help fund that trip and you guys invested in me as well. And so I was out for about five weeks in total in the summer in Arizona. Awesome. Always ideal. Hey. We put you up in a high quality hotel. It was awesome. It's it's been renovated. Up in a five star place. Five star. The service was unbelievable. But you could tell that they really love me for who I was. Well, that is very true because the front desk lady did love you, I think. And may still. Yeah. Yeah. It was a heartbreaking summer, I think. Yeah. For her. They have since remodeled the place and renamed it. But the the key benefit is it was very close to our office. Yeah. You could walk. I mean, it's just across the parking lot. Yep. Yeah. It was a two minute walk. Which is delightful. Walk if you do it at the wrong point of time. Yeah. I was gonna say it's delightful in a 15, no doubt. So you stayed with us for a while, and that was, when you got to try some new Arizona experiences, such as the highly recommended breakfast location. Yeah. My my friend had said before I come out that I needed to try IHOP because it was amazing. And I didn't obviously, I'd I'd never been to IHOP before. So I I I told John that the one thing I wanted to do whilst I was out was go to IHOP. And he kind of looked at me a bit quizzically. I was , are you sure? I don't know. There are better places. And I was , no, no, no. My friend told me this is the place I have to go. So we did. And it was probably the most underwhelming breakfast I've ever had. There goes our IHOP sponsorship. Yeah. It's over now. My kids still talk about that. Every time you drive on that, buy an IHOP. Remember we went to IHOP with Erin? Yeah. That that that was definitely a memory I won't forget. Didn't she get up close and personal with the Arizona wildlife that summer too? Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know where we had been, but John was driving back to his place and we ran across a rattlesnake literally in the car. Yeah, we we kind of drove over it a little bit, but to finish it off I can't believe I'm sharing the story. John got an axe out of his garage and we kind of we beheaded it and we preserved this rattlesnake head resin. We tried to. Wow. Yeah. It wasn't successful. Yeah. It's really a trophy to I don't know what. Yeah. It didn't work out well. And it somewhat upset my wife who's very afraid of snakes. And we put it in the in the in the laundry room. It was there for, , two days. She wouldn't go in there. No. That's that's horrible. And it wasn't an axe. It's a tactical hatchet, so just for the record. Oh, well, that makes everything better. I think I'm in Heidi's camp on this. Yeah. Plan had been to, , take it back with me to The UK, but I don't think we thought that through. I mean, can you imagine going through customs with this rabbi at school? Oh my gosh. I can't imagine a story you could make up about that that would have made that okay. I still feel bad about that. That didn't come out. Of all the things on the planet to still feel badly about? Well, we learned a lot. We learned that it looks great when you pour it wet, but the that the head still has air inside of it, and it'll eventually bubble out and create all these bubbles. So, this a chemistry or a biology lesson? I think it's more of an arts and crafts lesson. Oh, crap. If we could do it again, I have another plan. I think we'd have to pour it in into all of, , the mouth and nose and and kinda paint it on so you could close-up the the the sockets. Then As a fan of arts and crafts, I highly reject this as a form. Some listeners may need to know this important information. And I mean, it looked great that going in , I was dreaming about it that night, this thing, oh, it's gonna be so awesome. It's gonna be so awesome. We woke up, take the thing off, and it's , I mean, for listeners, , this is really crud to John because the moment that it wasn't working, he was already thinking our ideas of how we could rescue it, how we could do it next time better. So that that's the kind of people working on Rock, , the innovators. Yeah. Well, when you come back, we'll find another snake, and we will try it again. This really fits right into our core values around here. Accessibility, community, craftsmanship, and innovation. I think in some way, that story really hits on all four of those in a really bizarre way. Yeah. And we have plenty of snakes, so accessibility won't be a problem to a snake. Great. And that project, I guess, is better in community because if you're solo chopping snake heads and doing arts and crafts with them, you might get locked up. Yeah. It always feels better to have someone with you when you're dealing with snakes. Aaron, I may have a guest room the next time you come out. I'm not sure I can put you through that again. Great. Thanks. Well, we have a guest suite for him. Oh, well. That's kind of calling it more than it is, but That's funny. Okay. So we've covered two trips to Arizona, and who knew that your story with Rock included, , snakeheads and IHOP, but it did. Trip also had the conference that we took him to in California. That's right. That road trip, good American road trip. We had a good American road trip. We did. Yeah. That that was really, , the highlight aside from the snake head and IHOP of that trip. I I didn't realize that you guys drove so far. Yes. We're it's a huge country over here. Yeah. I think, yeah, if I'd driven that distance in The UK, I would have gone from, , the bottom to the top and maybe back a little bit. Oh, I bet you're right. Yeah. See here, , going to California is not that big of a deal. It's just six hours. And not very visually exciting either. No. But at the nighttime, we had quite a on the way back, we had quite the interesting biker gang and dead bodies on the road and Yes. Oh, there was a shooting, wasn't there? No, he just crashed. Oh. But it was the Mongols. It was a huge biker gang was going to a funeral and actually had to go to additional one after that night. Yep. And that was late. We were driving back pretty late. Yeah. And so happier news, we took Aaron to Disneyland. So he had the Disney experience. Which one's better? The snake head or the Disney experience? Yeah. Yeah. So as much as the snakehead ties into Rock's core values, I have to say Disneyland kind of does just, , kind of Nice to meet you. The post. Right. Alright. And that was the day after our conference, which, by the way, I think had grown by 50 to 75 people that year or so. Mhmm. Felt really big to us. We had to kind of rearrange the room we were at there in Bel Air, and that didn't that feel much bigger than the first year, Aaron? Oh, oh, definitely. I mean, the first year, I felt I was connecting with a lot of people that I had kind of seen in the community and it felt it felt small. It felt you could kind of know who everyone was there. But the second time around, I was , wow. Who are all these new people? It felt it was changing from people that were pursuing Rock and people that are interested in pursuing Rock. And it felt it was a much wider group of people we had there. And I think that really took at least me by surprise. Remember we were scrambling at the end of the first day to try and figure out how to address the needs of the people we hadn't expected to come to the conference. And we kind of rearranged some of our programming on day two to make sure that they could get that introductory evaluative type of information before they went home. And the thing that really stood out to me from that conference was the first conference felt it was a lot of John and other people that were kind of new in the community sharing vision, but also sharing best practices. But the second time around, it felt it was people sharing what they had done, what they had achieved. So we came, , we came here last time around. And since then, in the past year, we've experimented with this and experimented with that. And this is our take on this process. And it felt it was really a community driven kind of experience. That's a really good point. I think that was the first year that I noticed that the growth was happening and we started to kind of get a hint at where this thing was going, just a little hint. But after that conference experience, I remember we had a day at Disney to kind of detox. And I remember walking around for eight hours that day and not being able to speak because the conference had been so overwhelming and our staff was so small. And it was such crazy hard work to keep up with it that I remember being completely speechless. I know, dear listening audience, none of you may believe this, but it really happened and Aaron was witness. Yeah. I can confirm that happened. And there was another bizarre thing that happened at Bismag. We ended up going off the same ride, , six or seven times in the row row. It was not , it was the tire. What was that? The rapids? Yeah, I think that was Emily. That was my fault. It was awesome. Little addiction to grizzly rapids there. It was because, okay, here's the reality of it is I kept getting soaked and no one else was. And so I, , developed this sort of vendetta that the entire team had to be soaked, and it was the end of the day, so there was no line. So we just had to keep going and going. And since a lot of the team here is on a DISC score falling into sort of the s category, , I could easily convince them that that's what we should do again because I don't have much. So I just brushed off a little bit of my D and said, come on, we're going. Yeah. For you, it was a little bit putting your finger in the flame and going, ow, and putting it back in. Ow. Ow. Because you just kept getting was soaked. It was still me. Yeah. Yeah. Finally finally, I had to give up. Actually, I had to buy a shirt at the store before we left to drive home because I was so soaking wet. Yes. Yeah. Wise move. Yes. But I maybe that dousing recovered me because I remember that drive home being awake the whole time, and we told all kinds of crazy stories to try and keep because, John, you were driving. Right. And so we were trying to keep you awake. So I ended up being chief storyteller, I think Yeah. On that trip. Heard a lot of interesting stories. Yeah. I remember you did, , little audio effects with them as well. , the cat, and you're, , using the window to, , kind of mimic the sound of the cat. Yeah. That was a dog. I I can still remember the story. Yeah. It was a Kinda creepy. Tiny little chihuahua. It's yeah. Some stories should only come out when there's been too little sleep and too long of a conference. Yeah. Emily is working on an audiobook of her favorite stories, so look forward in 2019. Yeah. That's right. Okay. So that's conference one and two in your two first trips out here. Let's fast forward to the next year. And what were you during doing at that time? Because you were in school when you came out and went to the California conference. Where were you the year after that? So California conference was Willow Creek. Right? And so I I Chicago One was Willow Creek. That was the third year. So are we on Chicago? We are. Right? Yes. So that was me winding up my degree at that point. And I think I've kind of zoned out a little bit from the Rock community because I was trying to focus on finishing up my degree and finishing that well. And I was just kind of jumping back into the community and I just wanted to stay connected and really kind of know what was going on. Still wanted to be a part of that. And you'd been running a Shoulder with a Boulder blog previous to this that we didn't mention at all. Can you give us a little info on that too? Because that's one of the things that you had to wind down just temporarily a little bit. But what tell us about starting that up. Yeah. So that that starts way back in the beginning again. I was kind of exploring Rock, and I realized, the q and a at the time was the only kind of community tool we had. And that was fantastic if you had a question and you wanted to kind of receive some information back. So how do I do this? Or is this the best way of doing this? It was good for getting some direction. But there was no kind of reverse of that. What if I want to share something with people and I want to help them achieve some kind of goal or share a best practice. It's not a question. It's more of a kind of informational, piece that you want to share with people. And I kind of fit there was a podcast actually, I think it was, was it the only video broadcast? It was about being a go giver. The first time you guys mentioned that. And you had a little slide deck and you said something about the importance of the community being willing to give and share. I kind of went away from that thinking, well, no, I'm not a developer, but maybe there's something that I can do because I just kind of spotted this niche. So I just went and set up a basic blog and I came up with the name Shoulder the Boulder and I bought a domain and it was nothing fancy. And I kind of just put it out there and said, Hey, if anyone wants to share anything with the community, I've done this, or I think this is the best way of doing that, or this is a little kind of thing that I put together, then they were welcome to share it there. Very cool. So you were taking a little break from a few things and and they were, , carrying on status quo for a little bit because you were focused on finishing up your degree, which you have since then. But you were at that Willow Creek conference and just for reference in size of growth, that was up to about 300 people. So what was your perception when you came back to The States A Year later and saw that? I kinda wonder what I missed out on in the, , meantime because the growth was explosive. There were so many, vendors and partners that I hadn't heard of. There were so many people that were kind of rising stars in the community that were sharing things on various tracks. And I was wowed with some of the things that churches had done in particular Willow Creek and their care center. They had some fantastic stuff that they were doing there. And that was a really cool experience getting to kind of see how Willow Creek were leveraging Rock to serve the community around them, how they were being go givers. That was cool. Yeah, that was a good conference. It was a really good conference. So you're only there for a few days and you flew right back out then on that one. Yeah. Yeah. I had another bizarre American experience at my Airbnb. Ended up rooming with rooming with Taylor Cavalletto. Yeah. Being woken up in the morning by a gunshot, that was bizarre. It's Chicago. That's very common. Yeah. I I Just kidding. Didn't realize quite where my Airbnb was located. That's funny. Do you feel you need to mentally prepare yourself before these trips to The US? I think I've gotten better. Yeah. I think I've kind of decided that, , whatever happens in the American States in America, as long as I come back alive, it's fine. Oh my gosh. That's a probably perfect perspective. We just try to give you a story every year. Maybe a couple. Yeah. My friends don't believe me some of the time when I'm sharing the things that happened to me. That's the book. This guy could write the book. Right. Well, if if we need to have a special, , video conference with them, we we can tell them the stories. We and you have video of a of a lot of this. So Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Okay. So now we're after Willow Creek. You go back. Your year is starting to look very different. Tell us about that year that you had, and then we'll get around to the next time you came back here. Well, so yeah. So I was finishing up my degree, and I I guess the thing to say here is that you guys kind of I was looking for work and you guys had kind of said to me, well, have you guys considered coming to kind of partner with us and collaborate with us? And that was a massive deal. And that really helped me finish my degree because I knew where I was going. It kind of gave me a little bit of sense of purpose. And, , towards the end, I was , , it's okay, Aaron, if you fail your degree, because at the end you will still have somewhere to go and people that value you. So yeah, that that was that gave me a little bit less pressure. So, yeah, that that's kind of what happened post conference. Yep. And, , I mean, honestly, when you look at the full picture of it, it feels you've been a part of our team for a very long time. So that was maybe a formality. Yeah. Well, it still was, , a big deal to me because I felt , , I went from, , if we go way back to the beginning, , where I started, someone that was just trying to, , share and make things easier and be a part of the community to someone that you guys really kind of invested in and helped me grow. And I think that's kind of had the reciprocal effect on Rock. I think Rock has grown as a result. Yep. It's been a it's been a very exciting ride, and it looks it's just picking up speed. So you had some interesting personal life changes during that time too. Yeah. I did. Yeah. So I remember having a conversation with you in Disneyland in the queue, quite a one-sided conversation. You were barely speaking because of the conference. Yeah. Sorry about that still. I was sharing with you that I was thinking of proposing to my girlfriend at the time and come back around to the conference at Willow Creek in Chicago. And I had just got married that that kind of that month. So that that was an interesting kind of what what can happen in the year. Yes. Definitely. And let's see then. Now we've come back around and you've attended your fourth conference, which is the fourth conference. We've only had four, and you've been to all of them. I you definitely get the longest traveled best traveled award for someone in our community. Yep. So this year, we were at Southeast Christian, and we had 450 people at our conference. And you were more tied into what was going on from the community and the staff perspective because of your role, but that had been just a few months, really, that you'd been on staff with us and moved your focus from studies to to Rock full time. What was your perspective when you showed up at the conference that year this year? So I think the thing that one thing that's worth sharing is that I was amazed by the level of preparation required to pull that conference off. So I've kind of had a little bit of insight into that second conference planning. And I didn't realize quite how much that process of putting on the conference has had to grow as a result of the number of attendees. I realized it's kind of having that insight perspective of the staff that, , it takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of planning and there's actually a lot of preparation for everyone to prepare their talks and all the travel, the logistics of setting it up because these are done in host churches, right? Right. Not , , opening up the, , garage and saying, hey. Come hang out here. It's it's a military precision kind of operation that's required exponentially more people to pull off. Yes. And thankfully, we had more people to do that. I would have been probably deaf, dumb, and mute otherwise. So I I definitely appreciated having a larger staff, and everyone really jumped in and helped out a lot with that, and it made a huge difference. But it it is definitely a different event than it was when we talked about the one at CCV. Mhmm. Huge. I remember feeling when we when I walked into the main auditorium in between sessions and all these people were coming out, I remember feeling a fish swimming upstream and thinking, oh my gosh. I can't even shoulder my way through here. I'm gonna have to knock someone over because there's no room to get through the doorway, and I've got to get in there because of whatever the next event deadline is. And also, I didn't recognize all the faces, which was I thought a big difference because you can I mean, how many people do they say that you have the capacity to recognize and know on different levels? I've read those numbers before. I don't remember what they are. I feel for me, it's three. Well, that's good. That's how many people we've got right here. But it had grown so much that I distinctly remember that feeling of, oh, we've moved from the ability for us to know everyone as a tribe or as a community to having people in common that we know. But at the same time, that's when the community started to nurture and know each other and really they were their own thing. They were their own Yeah. That was pretty incredible to see. So I'm pretty excited to see what comes around next year when Aaron will, I'm sure, be joining us at the conference again. Yep. Yes. Definitely. I think you made it a condition of joining the team that you had to come to each conference, which was a given to us too. Oh, that'd be my condition for him too. Yeah. If I had to pick just one. I think that's essential. I think your perspective is so unique though, Aaron. It's really interesting to hear you talk about it because just your physical location, your age and your career aspirations when you ran across Rock and how that all changed. And then you're being a part of the community for such a long time. You have the perspective of a lot of different roles inside the Rock ecosystem, and it's it's just very interesting. So you have a lot of really valuable insights that you continue to add to the staff here. And we're really thankful to be able to work with you on a regular basis. Mhmm. Definitely. I also had a lot of fun visiting you in person this year, which was cool. Yeah. That that was a an unexpected but really kind of awesome, experience to have you fly over here and be able to see my part of the world. Yeah. It was very cool. I'm glad it worked out to have a short trip over. My husband had to be in the area, we wanted to take our high school aged daughter along for a quick fall break trip. So it was really fun to connect and meet Catherine and introduce you to some of my family, and it's just amazing how small the world can be sometimes. Yeah. And I think I'm I'm really thankful for the fact the world's got smaller. ? Actually, as part of one of John's talks at one of the conferences, he talks about how culture and perspective shifts over time and how if Rock was kind of in the world in the 1800s, then I wouldn't be able to be involved. Can you imagine my experience coming over to The States and not only being supported by IHOP, but also not really having a frame of reference for all the things that you do that are part of a society and part of your culture. And yeah, if it really feels I'm, , kind of born in the right time, this project's born in the right time, I'm thankful to be able to be part of it. Yeah. This is a really cool age to be doing what we're doing. So tell us a little bit about what the average workday looks for you. Yeah. That's that's cool. So I've shifted my day to be able to be a part of, , what goes on. So I do have a small amount of overlap with Arizona at the other end of the time spectrum, if you will. So you guys are on minus seven and I varied from plus zero to plus one. So I work eleven, so I get up late. And then I work through till about seven my time. And that kind of gives me a chance to connect with you guys. So the first part of my day is kind of solo and that's the day that's most productive. I get to knock tasks out. And obviously because Rock is across the world and particularly across The States, various people wake up at different times of the day. So I can help with Siobhan maybe a little bit earlier on if we need to kind of chat to each other. And then the churches that are in the East Coast start coming online. And if I'm involved with one of them, then that's when the messages start to kind of pop back and forth. If I've got my one on one with one of you guys, then that typically happens about 3PM my time. So when you guys are just getting into the office, then I'm kind of starting the downward trend of my day. And then, yeah, so the last part is normally the bit where I'm kind of chatting on Asana or sending tasks back and forth or sending Nick messages , Ah, what do I do? And then, , the cycle finishes with me getting up the next day and getting the replies to some of that stuff in my inbox. Yep. That seems we have a real pattern down, which is good. But I know people wonder, , what what would that look for Erin? Alright. So I'll wrap this up for us and tell us a little bit about when you're not doing Rock, what are the kinds of things that you to do? That is a good question. So I do a little bit of development on the side for different other things. So my church is tiny, even smaller than what I mentioned at the start. My church is about 50 people. And we've got a really cool tradition where someone has opened up their home every Sunday to have movies. That's a core part of my week. Every Sunday evening, we have a movie. He recently got rid of all his movie cases because he had too many. And we have a kind of voting process. And that used to be go onto a shelf and pick something and say, I want to watch this. But in the digital age, you've got an iPad app where you can scroll through them. And it went from really simple, grabbing a Blu ray case and saying, I want to watch this, to, oh, let's watch this one. No, let's watch this one and kind of fighting over the iPad. And so I wrote a small app that allows people to vote on their phones and kind of see his collections. That was a cool project that I did, but I still kind of tinker with a little bit. Me and Catherine are kind of gamers. That's how we kind of started our connection as More Than Friends. It was in her living room doing a cooperative game and arguing a little bit over it. So that's part of what we do. My wife's really into crafts. And so when she's doing that, I'm normally doing other things. So that's when I'm doing my coding or reading a book or tinkering with Rock on the side as part of my non kind of core hours. And to clarify, are the arts and crafts your wife is into including snakes? I was curious about that, actually. Yeah. I I have to say she hasn't beheaded and then kind of preserved the snake head yet. But, , if we ever come to Arizona, I'm sure that she'll get involved in that. Yeah. No doubt. A tactical hatchet. You can get them on Amazon. Can you get them on Amazon everywhere? UK. Yeah. No? I don't know. Well, you can have it preshipped to John's house and pick it up and carry that through customs with you. Well, if the hatch is there, then that explains the snake hatch shortly. Right? Right? Surely. How would I not have this if I didn't have this? There are lots of options there and lots of options. Hey. Thanks for joining us so much for our podcast today. We look forward to connecting with you again soon, and I know the community will love to hear your perspective on what's going on now and what's been going on. Alright. Great. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Erin. See you. Today's show is produced by Emily Forman. Nick was our recording engineer who turned the dials and pushed the buttons. Jim Michael handled all the audio post production mixing. There are amazing show notes, you can find at Brockrms.com/connect, were transcribed and written up by Michael Garrison. 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 features. 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