Podcast Episode 12: Episode 205: Product Grooming & the Giving Landscape

Description

In the final 2025 episode of Rock Cast, Jon, Emily, and Nick talk about product grooming and the Community's responsibility in it. As the team continues to prune and refine the software, you can look forward to more change towards meaningful innovation.They also dive into Jon's articles on X covering the role of AI in digital ministry and an honest look into the evolution of the giving landscape. You can find links to his articles in the show notes and share them with your pastor!

Transcribed Content

So you're ready to dive deep with Rock? Don't just be inspired by this episode of Rockcast. Get hands on. Sign up for that Rock Masterclass certification you've been considering with the training and community connections you need to increase your skill set and gain confidence that you're looking for. Sign up at rockrms.com/masterclass. Welcome back to Rockcast. I'm Emily Forman. John Edmundston and Nick Airedo are here with me today, and we are going to catch you up on the last podcast of 2025. Is this when you're gonna sing Christmas Carols? That's what I thought. I did that on the last one. Make sure you didn't listen, go back and no, I'm certain I did not hear that. Oh, you must not be subscribed to our podcast. No, So make certainly sure that you subscribe. In fact, I sit in this chair and listen to him. Maybe it got cut and they put them out on Spotify. That must be what happened. No, I do not think so. Well, alas I think some people are joining the naughty list. Not the podcast where that will be happening, much to everyone's relief. Instead, we are gonna be talking about If community voted for that, would you do it? Because I do believe I could get some votes. I'm sure you could. We're gonna just skip right over that question. I think I have access to the voting machine. Agenda of this podcast. This isn't Dominion. The reason we're skipping it is because you have access to the voting mechanism. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Alright. Unfair. I I call unfair. Okay. How about we talk about what we're here to talk about? Are we all good? Sure. Do we have an carols. We do have an agenda, Nick. Thank you. Absolutely. We're gonna talk about the latest class schedule that's been released for early twenty twenty six. Not as exciting as Christmas carols. Correct. We're going to talk about product grooming. So hang on. We'll come back to that. It's all about Rock and how to optimize it. Then we're gonna talk a little bit about some articles that you've been working on, John, and where people might be able to find those in case they're interested in your thoughts on that. And we are going to wrap up with no. Not Christmas No. No. No. We're going to wrap up with what we're looking forward to each of us here about next year. I'm looking forward to Christmas carols. You may launch into a Christmas carol at any moment of your choosing. However Okay. You just give me permission. I might not have been the smartest thing. Let's let's talk about our class schedule for next year. Last podcast, we mentioned setting goals. If you one of your goals happens to be a little bit more Rock knowledge, this could be an easy way to get started. Go ahead and just book that class because you can register starting now. We have a sequel for Rock class in January. That class is online, and it's best if you have gone through the masterclass, but you don't need to know a lot of sequel coming into it. You just need to have some familiarity with Rock. It will also give you some insights into the data structure behind the scenes in Rock, so that can be really helpful on a lot of levels. I was just reading feedback from the last SQL class and it was really impactful for a lot of people. Some of the feedback was on, I was surprised at how much more I understand Rock just by understanding going through the SQL class. That is very common. They learn SQL, they learn the data model, but they understood Rock better because of understanding the data model, which I thought was 100% true, but also awesome. It's one thing to teach people SQL, but it's another thing to teach them how the data model impacts the product itself and features. Yes. And let me just say that we have people come into this class that are very nervous about it. And they say, I don't know anything about this. I'm not a programmer. I don't know how to code. This feels out of my league. And they leave saying exactly what you're saying. Oh, I understand Rock better. That was actually a really great use of my time. And this seems a lot simpler now that I know what I know. My intimidation factor went down. Yeah, maybe if you I was trying to think of what other types of technologies would tell you if you're ready for that kind of class. Was thinking maybe if you knew some basics of Excel formulas, if you can sum and you use that and you enjoy Excel. You can kind of take your reporting to the next level. Yeah, well, I'm just trying to think about You what would can something your mind around it. I mean, because you have no interest in anything technical then obviously Well, SQL's for sure. How basic, how simple the basics are. you can really do things quickly, the basics. So don't be afraid to stick your foot in the water. If you're interested but intimidated, try and lower the intimidation factor. Effort everything is all that matters in life. We do have our next on-site masterclass coming up in February. So while we have one or two virtual options during the year, the on-site Masterclass is really great experience for a few reasons, but there's a great opportunity to build a connection with your classmates. And we found that that just stands the test of time. People that went through Masterclass three years ago are still in contact with each other and helping solve problems, and they've developed friendships, great camaraderie. So that's a really powerful thing. Also, that's held right here at the world headquarters of Spark Development Network. Yeah. And it's a great time to be in Phoenix. It is a great time to be in Phoenix. We usually do some things after hours here because we can, that just aren't possible to replicate in a virtual setting. So it's just a very, it's an incredibly powerful experience that can be not only helpful to your Rock knowledge, but also helpful in building that kind of network that is so critical inside the community. So definitely encourage you to do that. And also don't forget, if you have been masterclass trained, but you have different people transitioning on or off your staff that are needing to understand how to administrate Rock, don't forget to send them to the masterclass. It's not a one and done at an organization. It's look at someone's position and what skills are required. And if they need Rock training, that's a good way to get it. Definitely would make your life easier. Oh, that's a great point. The more your coworkers can do, the better off you are. And if you have someone on your team that just needs finance training, finance and Rock, how does it work? We have a finance class March. So that could be a great option for you as well. More classes to come. Of course, we have check-in class and lava class, and we'll be posting those schedules soon. But you can go ahead and get a head start on twenty twenty six classes and training right now. Great. Great. Alright. We are still not going to be talking about Christmas carols. Instead, we are going to pivot to Rock products grooming and how to optimize. Yeah, so it's an interesting term, product grooming. And that's basically just a part of what we call product management. So we always hear project management. This is product management. How do you manage a product over time? And with Rock hitting over ten years of existence, it's time to start getting to move to a new level of maturity. We've been around the globe, all the features have been hit many times and polished many times, and that's a good thing. That's going to continue to go on that. But we need to, now we're starting to hit the point of inflection where we need to level up some of these features even further. And every time you do that, things change and they have to. So we really want to make sure that we label this as intentional stewardship. we're being very intentional about stewarding the product, making sure that it's not just a continuation of what is, but it's an advancement of what it could be. And so looking about long term maintainability and also ensuring that we have the best features, the best user experience. And so that is about change and product management is about managing change. Now, what we're not talking about is getting rid of major features. So when we're going to go through and talk about this, some of it might, you might get kind of scared. It's , Oh, are we getting rid of check-in? Of course not. No. But there might be some micro features and some micro settings and some user experiences that will change. Some of this has already happened. And we're gonna give a few examples of that. We're not talking about the macro features, we're talking about micro features and micro user experiences. So we want to make sure, again, all this is supposed to add value, we're not trying to take away value, but you can't just keep adding and adding and adding and expect You not to just topple sometimes have to groom. A good analogy is this, is in the Bible when it talks about pruning, right? Prune the vine. And why does God prune us is so that He can create more growth. And the same reason that if you don't prune your grapes, your grapevines, they'll eventually not produce and not produce in the levels that could be if you groom. So that's exactly what we're doing. We're taking out our little nippers and we're pruning the vine. And it's not we're making a big prune, it's going to be a constant pruning. However, we know that sometimes when we move cheese, a majority of people will love it and there'll be some who don't. And I think it's important that we communicate this grooming process and that we talk about it. That's what this is. So, one tiny example of this is, recently we did some changes in group scheduling. A lot of people group scheduling. Some churches came to us and said, Hey, this is a great feature. However, it's really, really hard to use on mobile. In fact, it's pretty much impossible. Now I would say, well, that's not the primary use case for this feature, but it does make sense that you should be able to do it. So there are a couple small features that are , don't even try it in mobile. Please don't create a workflow in mobile. Wait till you have time to go back to your desk. So some features , Yeah, absolutely not. We're not going to support that. Some features are , Yeah, but it's kind of a diminished user experience because there's just nothing you can do. And then a lot of features , No, it should work on mobile. And I think group scheduling is probably in that middle set. you probably shouldn't, but you should work. And so they came to us with some really good ideas on that. And lots of churches agreed. It's not any one church. That's right. Sometimes that church will fund it. Well, it doesn't mean we're only doing it because that one church, trust me, there's other features we'd rather do. I would rather not just keep working on features we have, but when they bring us this with valid use cases, it's , well, yeah, of course that makes sense. And we don't do it specifically for the funding. So that changed because it used to be more of a drag and drop experience. Now some people say, Well, I really the drag and drop experience. And that's, I understand. However, I think if you look at holistically, this is the better move. Other products ours do it the way that we implemented it too. So, and again, there's always going to be a case that you could say, Well, in this one experience, it was about drag drop. So it often revolves about removing or deprecating rarely used features. There are some features in Rock that no one's using. There might be one church or two churches. And so, of course, we're always going to impact some. So sometimes we might remove some minor things. We want to overall simplify overly complex things in the product. There's very few laws in physics, but one of them is entropy, that systems decay over time and last what? Energy is put into them. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're trying to prevent entropy. And sometimes we had to, again, snip off the branches that aren't adding value. Sometimes it's about merging similar features to avoid redundancy. Two features started off kind of going in different directions, and that over time, when people wanted requests, they kind of start coming back towards each other and eventually they merge. Sometimes we want to go, what? We don't need both these things. Let's just take some of the features of this, add it to that. Boom, done, get it out. So sometimes it's removing redundancies. Sometimes it's just replacing old patterns, whether they be code or user experience structures, they need to be taken out just to make a good product. What we don't want our product to turn into is one of those one man bands that has all the things. Everything hanging off of it, clanking as you walk around. You can't even walk anywhere because you're And making all the some of these old features can really stand in the way of new innovations. So sometimes there's new things we need to bring in, and there's , Well, we can't do it because of that. Sometimes what we do relies on other libraries that we use, and sometimes those libraries get deprecated, or sometimes they get abandoned. So then it was , Oh gosh, well, tough decisions need to be made. Grooming is something that we need to do to have a healthy product, and it is moving cheese, we understand that. So this is why we do it. And so it's something that we need to normalize and talk about and communicate. It's something that we're trying to do a good job at communicating. However, sometimes we're talking about very micro things. Right. And sometimes we might remove a block setting. Well, it's because we took four block settings and made it six and they're slightly different, but they're in conflict with each other. Yeah. So we can't give you that other one because it got slightly changed. It's very hard for us to communicate that minute level of detail. We're gonna try our best, but you also have to have some forgiveness on that. And all of this is stuff every major platform does. , Apple does this, Microsoft does this, Google does this, every product does this. And again, this should be very rare that it'll be impactful. We'll try to communicate as clear as possible. And we'll provide when possible grace periods. So we'll hopefully provide migration paths. We tend to do that really well. Sometimes on big things, we'll give you a legacy. Sometimes we even do it in three phases. We'll give you a preview of the new one. And then we move preview to normal and the old one to legacy, and sometimes then we get rid of it. Sometimes we just go straight in. It's so much harder to do the phased approach. We do that when necessary. We try to use data driven insights. We obviously don't have access to your system and that's a good thing. We don't want access. We feel privacy is very important and we respect that privacy. Some products, if they're SaaS hosted, they know of course exactly what you're doing. They're tracking every click and they should, we're not doing that. So sometimes it's through surveys that we do, or we'll give people queries and say, Hey, can you run this query for us? That would just give us a little bit of insight. It's optional. A lot of it though is just by talking to the community. Every day, all of us are talking to several people in the community and getting input. So sometimes it's through that. The more you participate in Rocket Chat, the more your voice is heard. And as you level up into being a rockstar, then your voice is heard and listened to even more. And a lot of this is, some of the times we change just based on strategic alignment. where does this feature fit in Rock's core mission? Is it blocking future enhancements? Again, sometimes these libraries, they get deprecated and we have to do something. That's beyond our control. Yeah. And as we move from one platform to another from our web forms platform to our Obsidian platform, , some things can't make the leap and some things have to change. So, again, we're talking about as minor stuff as possible. We're not addicted to this. We're not trying to change the world and change everything on everybody. We know that there's training involved. We know there's a lot of staff that maybe you have on your staff that don't change, and we're trying to do that. So another example, to start talking about it, is the connections feature in Rock. It's one of the most loved features within Rock, but it's time for it to get some love. And 2026 will be the year of that. So there'll be our goal is to have two major releases in 2026, '19 and '20. These are goals. And it's really hard to change our cadence. The changing of the cadence is really hard. So if you're on a treadmill, and all a sudden you want to go from walk to run, what do you do? You don't just go three to 12. You kind of, well, you can't really do that. We're going from three to twelve and we're praying. Bear with us. So once we get the cadence, I think it's gonna be fine. But getting cadence is gonna be a little difficult. So connections will be a part of both of those features. So in the '19, we'll have some new features, and then 20, we'll have even more. One of the things that will be changing in connections is, and this is a very micro change in a sense, is that today there's this concept in connection request. Connection request can be in a critical or idle status. What does that mean? It's kind of, that's a problem. it's not super well defined you can adjust it kind of yourself, you gotta do some lava. It's a little weird. And so we're gonna get rid of that. And in lieu of that, we're gonna provide you two different things. One is, is it past due? So we're gonna That's very definable. Yeah, we're gonna add a setting to allow you to define that. So you'll be able to provide settings that will determine when a request is past due. And there's a ton in Rock, spirit, there's a ton of settings to configure that. Probably too many. But I think you'll all the options. And there'll be also the concept of due soon. So getting array of critical and idle statuses, and we'll be providing a due and do soon setting. And so we feel that's gonna be much more clear for people. It's gonna be provide a lot more accountability. I think some of the accountability today is there, but it's a little bit, Well, what does that mean? And we really want to simplify that. So for instance, you'll be able to have a real time scorecard of where the connectors are. And we wanna make it super clear. If you have a red line next to your name, you have past due things. Bad. It's the Scarlet letter. it's very simple. if you have at least, if you have more than one past due request, you have the Scarlet letter and pretty clear. And again, that's to help with accountability. Now, as we talk about product grooming, obviously this is a lot on us, but it's a lot on YouTube. You need to lead these changes. And so now as we communicate it, this is a good time for you to start communicating with staff. Don't wait for the future to come out. Don't run the install and then let that be the time that people discover That the won't make them happy, which won't make you happy, which won't make us happy. So we're all in this together. So we're trying to do our best to communicate that, but you need to communicate it too down the chain. And I think when you do that, there's different ways. don't say, well, critical nidal status is going away. Of course, you just poked them in the eye. Just say good news. There's some really cool new tools coming that are gonna provide accountability and simplify how we can show the status of where things are and encourage these connections, which are basically people falling possibly through cracks. And the cool thing is we're gonna have this concept of do and do soon. And their question is gonna be , show me all everything about it. Well, I can't right now. it's just a little too soon. I'm just casting vision for it as before we do the rollout, I'll show you that. So just please help us by communicating that. And I learned that a lot too when we were transitioning the church I was at to Rock. I was asked to do a staff presentation of it very briefly and I casted vision , okay, we're gonna change the engines on this plane mid flight. I'd prefer to land the plane, but I don't think you wanna wait three weeks and not do any ministry while we change the engines. So we're going change it in flight. So expect some turbulence. It's not going to crash, we'll be okay. But expect turbulence and just know that's going to happen. That's natural. Man, when we did experience it, just a teeny bit of turbulence, it was actually went really smoothly. But we little turbulence on the week of, and people are , Is this that turbulence you're talking about? It's , Yes. And I was just amazed. I mean, wow, that actually really does work when you had a time call the foul. That's one of the terms we use here a lot. It really does work. Those are some great insights. I love the fact that you mentioned this is not unique to Rock. This is what every platform and every product has to go through. But most don't talk about it quite as transparently as this. So the thing I think to keep in mind out of all of that is these changes are strategic, they're minor, and they're infrequent, and we all get to be a part of that change management that will make things better. Yeah. And if we believed in voting, which I just found out we don't, Christmas carols, we could vote , do you not want any changes? Because it'd be very easy for us not to do anything. Right? Right. And just to atrophy. Right. But that's not the way we are. That's not who we are. No. And that's ultimately not what we believe the community wants. Right. You can't be innovative and not change anything. Exactly. As long as we keep that as clearly communicated and in the right places as possible, then we're in this together. So John, you have an opportunity to see many angles of many things in this space. And one thing that you did a deep dive into this year was AI for a lot of good reasons. And you've been you're a thinker. So you've kind of synthesized a lot You your have thoughts? I have thoughts. And so if people have not been following you on X, this might be a great time to do that. If you aren't aware, John puts articles out, and there have been quite a few, I think maybe maybe seven or eight Mhmm. That you've published on AI in the last maybe half a year that are the result of some of that research and thought product that you've been working on personally. Yeah. And I'd say if you're not on X, there's two ways of view X, as a social media platform or as a knowledge platform. And it is both, honestly. I see it as a knowledge platform. And it takes a week or two to get it dialed in for that. Because any of these tools will give you what you want. But when you first show up, don't know what you want. As soon as you start telling it what you want and you have to actively do that. don't look at things you don't want and look at things you do. And if something comes up in your feed that you don't want, you have to click it and say, I don't to see more of this. And then it starts to tune X isn't there to show you garbage. It's there to show you stuff you want. I couldn't imagine doing my job without it. It's where I get a lot of announcements of what's coming and peaks at new technologies and new ideas. So to me, it's critical to what I do. And it has a new article platform. So I thought about other places. I think some of these thoughts don't really belong on a Rock branded platform because it's not Rock related. Some of them are just my personal thoughts on technology. And I don't want that to be necessarily seen as a Rock thing. A lot of the articles are not. I think AI is interesting because we need to be obviously solving AI for the tools and what we do as technologists. But Almost as important, if not more importantly, we need to be helping our pastors understand what's coming so that they can help adjust the culture. And I don't think most pastors understand what's coming. And they have to know that so that they can help guide and lead the culture and their congregations. And so most of the X posts are on that. What culturally is this? How's this going to shift? There's even , how does this possibly relate to end times? Who knows? I'm not saying what I'm saying is a 100% right, but there's, man, there's some things that align. They're , well, that's interesting. It certainly is interesting. And the audience for these articles that we're referring to right now is primarily people in ministry. Yes. Or interested in ministry impact with AI. Yeah, if a topic really is Rock related, I'm gonna put it more into the Rock blog or something that, or other platforms that we publish that stuff out of. But I would encourage you, to get on X, give it two weeks, intentionally groom your feed. If there's something you ever you don't , just tell them you don't that. And you'll find you don't get that. And be careful, you might think, well, is Sometimes some food is wholesome, good food, and sometimes it's bubble gum. Just even if the bubble gum, this I could ignore the bubble gum. Otherwise you're gonna get more of it, and you're gonna find yourself going down a path of just wasted time. And I have that problem too. There's some pretty funny memes on there. It's , you watch too many memes, you're gonna get a lot more of them. And so sometimes you have to go tell it. I know I just looked at it and I thought it was funny, but I'm gonna say, don't want more of that, because I'm here to get my knowledge. So try it. Be careful though, because again, every powerful tool has a downfall, has a danger to it. A chainsaw is a very powerful tool until it touches your body. Yeah, keep your foot out of the way. Yeah. Right now, there's been a lot of stuff out there in AI. I hope to get an article on intentional prioritization framework, because I think that's a valuable tool that we use internally that can use inside your organization. So there's a lot of good content. One of the other articles that's gone out recently is on church giving. And that's a passion of mine. And it has been for it's not a new thing for me. No, it's as long as I've known you. Yeah, it's probably at least twenty years. I'm doing church technology for almost twenty five years. It took me a while to kind of, back then giving online was not a thing. So it took me a while to understand that, but learning so much about it. In those early days, was very difficult and none of us really knew much about it. And it's really changed. I think the first season of it, pioneering season was just , what can it do? How do you make it easy? The second phase was ramp up. how do we get most many people using this? Yes. It's good for them, because giving is not about money, it's about trusting God. And so it was a really great tool for showing people how to trust God. And then I think we've entered another phase now. So we had a pioneering, the growth, and now there's this monetization phase. Because of that growth, I think people have moved in and understand what's to profit from this. And I think things have changed dramatically. And the point of this article is really to help educate pastors on that, because I think a lot of them started out in either the pioneering or that growth. And so things were different then, and things have drastically shifted. And I think they just need to understand that. Because I think giving is not just If there's features in Rock check-in, a great feature. Giving is different. That's an act of worship. It's something that's very, very close and matters in our spiritual disciplines. And I think if we don't have integrity in that, we should have integrity in everything we do. That's right. But that is something that needs even the highest level of integrity. And I think there's some things there that pastors need to understand. Well, thanks for sharing that, John. Your position and insights into variety of different things is different than people who are actively working in the ministry sometimes. So having access to that kind of content could really help round out some of the concepts, opinions, and thoughts that those working directly in ministry might be having. Yeah, and I think about it as a football game. I've played on the field, thirteen years on the field. And now I have the ability to sit on the sidelines I have a different angle, right? And sometimes I'm up in the broadcast booth and I have a different angle. Sometimes a lot of times I'm still in the field because I thrive to work in the trenches with the churches. But sometimes when you have this different perspectives and those different angles, you hear and you see different things. I mean, I was at an event recently and happened to be sitting behind some people who worked in the giving industry. And I was listening to them talk about their marketing and their strategies. And it made me a little bit wanna throw up because this is the bride of Christ that they're talking about. I kinda wanna be , No, that's cool in the business world, I've been there too. And I would celebrate those as great ideas, but this is something different. And I think that's an example of sometimes the different perspectives I get to see. And I'm just trying to call it foul. Trying to throw a flag. Well, thanks for sharing those and making them available. We'll put some links in the show notes if you are interested in learning more. Well, this is the end of the last podcast of the year. Christmas carols. I hate to disappoint, but no. Unless what you're looking forward to most in 2026 is a Christmas carol, then It actually is. That you would to sing No. Then we're probably not doing Christmas Carols right now. And Nick, what are you thinking about? What are you most excited about next year? For 2026, well, selfishly, I'm going to probably talk about a few things that I've worked on that specifically persisted data sets. I was just looking at a persistent data set the other day and I thought, Oh yeah, who created this and when? And I realized, oh, you can't see that information because it's not what we call a proper model in Rock. Well, I got to fix that. So now in version 19, you'll be able to see that audit details. I know it sounds silly, but when if you need it and you needed to know who changed it last, now you'll be able to do that. So that's my first one. The second one is the outreach toolbox. Now I don't, I'm not working on it. I only heard of it and I'm excited about it. That one's got me super excited. And again, I don't even know the status of it, but it didn't stop coming along. Come along. It didn't stop me from telling my senior pastor who I got to hang out with this past weekend about it and got him excited about it too. So a couple other ones, chat messaging from a workflow. So being able to send a chat message from a workflow action, I think that's going to be pretty cool. I'm sure you guys will love using that in version 19. And then two others, the new release cadence, again, just because it's going to force us to change a couple of processes and some internal processes that I think will be for the best. I'm excited about that. And then last and certainly least is the fluid engine upgrade. Only because I was the one that had to go through that and bring us from version 2.5 to 2.25. And it's an interesting animal. And so getting that thing upgraded primarily was driven through a bug. , we needed to fix some bugs, but it's also a little nerve racking based on how that engine works. And it's fearfully and wonderfully made. And I I didn't create that engine. , we're we just use it. So yeah, if you don't upgrade components, it can be costly to do it later on. So it's good that we got that thing kind of back up to the modern era. That guy who does the library is outstanding. He is a brilliant engineer. And one thing I wanna say is we support him. So when you donate to us, we're donating to these libraries that we use. We love the open source model. Want to be stewards of it. And that means that we support them too. That's a great point. I'm not sure we've talked about that before, but when we use those open libraries, we want to donate. Yeah. I would suggest you do the same. How good of a testimony is it that when churches are out there donating to the open source frameworks that they use? what a testimony. I think it's gonna Rock many of these people's world when it's , wow, church is that generous? Wouldn't Yep. It be cool if they were , Do know who my biggest donor base is? Churches. Wow, yeah, that'd be pretty cool. Amazing. John, what are you looking forward to next year? Definitely some of the strategic changes we're making internally. There's a lot of things that we need to shift, and I'd love to get some stuff off my plate. And we have some really great young leaders, and I'm looking forward to where they go and take us. Also the connections feature, think is gonna be a game changer. I think what it leads to is ministry and people who don't follow the cracks and people who get connected and maybe stay in church when they wouldn't. I love the way God works. Even this week, , some new tech came out from 37 signals that I think will have a really cool impact on on our, maybe not the initial rollout of connections, but the next one. And I just love how God has everything in the right time. So definitely the strategic changes, I think the Essentials model is gonna be so exciting. I don't know, there's a lot of things out there that haven't come across the finish line, that might come across the finish line that might be really interesting. But the thing that if you could be praying for, if I could ask for Yes, please. Yes. And it's not the Christmas carols. Is this for people, for God to bring the right people? Yes. As great as our team is, and as we're heading in the right direction, we still need so much more help. So be praying for those grads. Be praying for those who respond to our job openings in the Phoenix Valley. And we still need a ton of help. And help spread the word. If people in your congregations that are technologists and that have a passion for ministry, send them our way. I can't imagine right now how many hands would be too many. So we'd love to hear about that. Now we do prefer people to be here on-site so they'd have to potentially be open to relocation. But if someone that that might fit the bill for, let us know. Will round Well, out thoughts as well about next year. And I'm also really excited about the team that we have here and the direction that we're headed on that. I think the thing I'm most excited about is the work that we're doing on essentials. The ability for churches to use quality technology when today they feel stuck or they're just not effectively reaching people. There are so many churches that are midsize that are using a mishmash of so many different tools that people are literally falling through cracks and the church doesn't know. And this essentials work that we're doing is going to help them be able to better minister to their people. I was just looking through some things the community said just this week and has told us about why they love Rock in a recent survey that we did. And I'm hearing things , , now as a pastor, I'm able to minister to hundreds of people where I was capped before, but I'm able to have that same quality level of ministry that I couldn't do without the platform. Or things as a church, we're able to shepherd people, not just push things out, but to help shepherd them individually through their personal spiritual journey. Those things can be available to more. And I'm just That's a big passion of mine. So I'm super excited about that. I'm always excited about the opportunity to engage with the community in person. So to me, that's every Rx and every in person masterclass, and then, , the occasional other opportunities that we may get to connect with individuals throughout the year. And that's an energizing real fuel to the fire for me. Connections enhancements was also on my list. So Oh, nice. You got there first, but I'm I'm excited about that. Again, it's a very people focused feature. And I'm really interested in hearing about some of the application and feedback of the new communications tools. So as those become widely used, I'm really excited to hear about the ways that they're being used. Yeah. Flows will be a game changer for I'm super excited lot about that. Yep. All in all, I'm really looking forward to next year. It's gonna be a good one. There are some ways that you can continue to be involved next year as well. So please don't forget to update your commitment to the new $4.45 recommended minimum donation rate for next year. That's critical in helping us be able to bring the right people in, be able to roll these features and strategies out to the community. And then also, you can help us spread the word by hosting a roadshow, we'd love to have your involvement in that as well. And if you're looking to be a Rock star next year, check out the get involved page on the community site. We are looking forward to adding more people into that group every year. Thanks so much for tuning in for a whole year here with us of Rockcast, and we look forward to all that 2026 has to come. This episode of Rockcast is brought to you by Rock sponsor, Wi Fi Presence, helping churches use technology to connect better with people, drive guest stickiness, and inform pastoral care. Connect with Wi Fi Presence today at rockrms.com/sponsors.