Podcast Episode 1: The Security Wake-Up Call and Your RX26 Playbook | Ep 225

Description

This week a major PHP exploit went public. While admins worked hard to roll out the patch, AI was already reverse-engineering it within minutes. Jon, Emily, and Nicole unpack what that means for your church.Jon covers the latest security wave (19.7, 18.7, and 17.11) and why we won't be patching three major versions anymore. Itʼs another critical reason to stay current on the latest secure version. With Early Access and the grant program, thereʼs no reason to be behind.Emily shares how to get the most out of RX26: set your out-of-office reminder, build your schedule, plan sessions as a team, join a community dinner, stay out late in the Renaissance lobby, and look for someone who needs a friend.Listen now and share it with your team before heading to Phoenix. Visit the show notes to download all the resources talked about in this episode. Don't forget to join the Rock Cast Rocket Chat Channel to see what other churches are saying about this episode.

Transcribed Content

Welcome back to ROTCast. On today's roundup, we have three very practical segments. The first is the security updates that you need to act on. The second would be the feature retirement habit that can save you from a bad upgrade date. And lastly, we're gonna wrap up with how you can get the most out of Rx 26, which is less than two weeks away. Oh my goodness. I wish you hadn't said that. Know. I have two feelings, excitement and, honestly, a little dread. I was gonna say dread. Is dread one of those? , we're not ready yet? Yes. We're never quite ready. I mean Yes. You could have all the time in the world and you never be quite ready. That's true. So, John, I'll start with the thing that we cannot wait on it. Tell us more about security updates. Yeah. So, , interesting. As we're speaking right now, the Internet is actually on fire. Oh. Yes. And so this is kinda where recording a podcast isn't super fun because everybody gets to listen to it in the future, and we're we're we're recording it in the present. But as of this morning at 10AM Eastern Standard Time, a major PHP exploit is being patched. So the patch just came out at 10AM Eastern Standard Time. And this is not a little problem with PHP. This is a major, major problem, full takeover of the system from remote with no access. It's officially a nine point something, 9.2, I think, what it's rated, but security experts are actually saying it's a 10. Wow. And so this is really interesting because, again, this is what we've been predicting for, , eight months. It's a little bit different this time because now with AI, the patch comes out at 10AM Eastern Standard Time. Immediately, and it's already happening, AI is reverse engineering it to figure out how to do the exploit, and then it's immediately being put and run on on on all these systems. And PHP is a is a little scary because it's a it's not a bad language. It's a good language, but it's kind of an older language. So that means there's a ton of servers out there that are not really being patched or are not really being updated. And so some of these servers have a lot of user data still on them. And you might think, oh, what a terrible day for system administrators. And it is, but it's actually a terrible day for all of us because all of our data is in these systems. And also, ironically, I mean, if you if you think through the the analogy to to Rock, they're only able to patch certain versions. So now they're fairly generous. They're doing four years worth of versions. But if you're on an older version, not only do you have a problem because you have to update your application to a newer version of PHP, which could take some time, but you're not gonna be secure in those older versions. So it's a little bit crazy right now. And I think this is a really great reason why a few things. One, we have to be stay... Keep up on our latest versions because we can only pass so many. In fact, we're gonna be talking a little bit about that. And and my my points today haven't switched. , this was written actually yesterday. But before I knew about this PHP thing, so it's just ironic how they... It just links together. Mhmm. So we have to stay up with our our conversions. However, I think there's another cool story that's happening at the same time is that Cloudflare and many other web application firewalls have already put in place protections. So if you're behind one of these web application firewalls, and Cloudflare is not the only one, there's there's several, They're actually protecting your server even though you still have Mhmm. , a bad situation. So I think it really heightens the need to have content application firewalls that can protect us in situations this. Because even the administrators are... , literally, a lot of administrators woke up very early this morning to prep for rolling this out, , immediately. And when I say immediately, I think within seconds. Yep. And they're hitting the, , is this release? Is this release? Mhmm. Because they can't get ahead of it. You might say, well, , get ahead of it, system assured. They can't. As soon as it's released, the bad guys are playing immediate, , game on. And so it's a very interesting thing. And there's rumors that there's a few others coming out, not necessarily for PHP, but for other major frameworks. So kind of a scary time to be alive, but exciting, I guess. But transitioning into Rock. So last week, we released another wave of security releases. So you should now have access to '26, eighteen seven, and seventeen eleven. So those are there. You should already have those installed. If you don't have those installed, , you you gotta get on to the pace of that. And there's more waves coming. So we're already working on the next wave, and there'll be at least one more wave, but probably many more. So we're doing them in waves because, , these are important, and we don't wanna wait too long. So we could wait till, , , for two or three months and then release it, but we feel , , every day that they're out there. Now some of these have been in the product for for a very long time. So but every day we know about it. We want to make sure that it gets out, so we're doing them in waves. And our our internal pen test, AI pen test that we ran has been very, very effective. We recently had a community member talk about two that they had found, and were already on our list. One was already fixed, and that one was in the current... It was in the process of being fixed. So I really feel the tools we have in place are are being very effective. And there's two more technologies we wanna bring into bear to look at this, but we're holding off on doing those until we get these fixed because those would probably just find the same duplicates would just make triaging way harder. So once we get through our wave, we're gonna implement two two other options, which should be pretty exciting. So you just mentioned the updates that came out last week and said these should already be installed. If you're a church database administrator, what's the timing you're looking for? , how should people approach these new security patches that are coming out? What does testing look ? What does the application look ? Can you explain the timeline you would be using? Yeah. I'd do it that day. Yeah. , I'd probably... I mean, if it's me, I'd probably just do it in the middle of the day to tell everybody, hey, we're gonna be doing a security update. , Rock will be down for a few minutes. I mean, as soon as they're out, you kind of just need to know about them. Yep. So basically, don't wait. Yeah. Don't wait. Treat it as most important, urgent, get it done. Yeah. For somebody who's maybe not on the technical side, what should be their takeaway from this conversation? Just the importance of understanding that if you run a Rock version, you gotta keep it up to date. And if that's outside of your comfort level, then there's partners who can help with that. Probably would actually, too, be looking at a web application firewall. , I know there's some specifically tailored for the Rock ecosystem out there. So, , you can look around, ask around, and and find those. I think that's a very important layer of defense. That said, web web application firewalls are not ... , they can't save everything. , they're they're trying to get the big things. And it's also not something that I would really recommend people go do themselves. Because a web application firewall, and this is ... Speaking from experience, I've done a lot of research into this. It's not something you just flip a switch and all of a sudden everything's good. That's what the marketing tells you. But if you do that, you're going to put a whole bunch of false positives on top of your system, and it's gonna break. Your system won't work. So it's really something that you have to tune to your application. So you have to say, hey, these are real problems, and these aren't problems. Because they all work off the same rule set. It's a... It's very interesting that the rule set is open source, and they all work off of it. And some of those rules are very, very specific, and some of them are very broad, super broad. And so the more you dig into it, the more everybody will tell you. No. You have to kinda tune it to to your application. So if you just go and just go on, just gonna flip this switch. I think the other thing that... To know about web application firewalls is some of them rely on hosting a lot of your infrastructure. So there's some that say, you have to host in our infrastructure. Your server has to run here. So that's the highest level of exclusivity. The next layer down is, well, you don't have to have your server here, but you have to host your DNS with us. And that's always been personally a of a problem for me. I really don't wanna host my DNS just anywhere. There's a lot of other things that DNS is doing that I kinda wanna have access to. And moving it is not easy. It's kind of a pain. So I've always looked for one that I didn't have to do that with. And then so the the lowest one is... Or I would say the best is, , you can host your DNS anywhere, but I think one of the most popular ones, have to you have to have your DNS with them. So, yeah, it's again, everything is, unfortunately, it's not an easy thing. So, that's where if you, again, if that sounds hard to you, just go find one that's already done and people have already put the work in to make sure it works correctly. But security is hard. Yeah, your team has been doing a lot to keep everything secure. Yeah. And it's a changing landscape. , a lot of this bug inside of PHP, it's not a new bug. It goes all the way back to, I don't know which version, but it's way older than four years. And so I think a lot of times people can get frustrated and say, well, why wasn't this found? Because it's millions and millions and millions of lines of handwritten code. Yeah. And it all takes is for one line of code not to be right, , literally, or even one part of a line of code to not be right, and you have this problem. And to expect humans to be able to catch all of these, did the PHP team do a bad job? No. I mean, I think over time, their track record is really good. It's a it's a platform that runs 70 to 80% of the Internet. So they've done a good job. But now we have these super advanced mega tools that can... I say... I think the analogy I used last time was that it's a metal detector that can find any needle in any haystack. And so now it's , well, why is there a needle in the haystack? I mean, that's kind of an unfair thing to say. But it's just a new reality that we live in. And I think this will be a transition that we move through. On the other side of this will be AI has already , scoured all these things and helped us find all these things. So we should be living in a much better future. I keep thinking of the security landscape as the wild, wild west. Kind of is. And I think we're going to... Maybe we're... That's changing now, going to go to being more of a cultured civilization, but it's just gonna be a weird transition. Mhmm. So all I do... What we can do is do our best. So more waves are coming. But what I would wanna say is, hey. If you're not on 19 right now, you you need to be. That's that's what I would say the bar is. Because 20 is coming out, and 19 is is kind of where we need everybody to get to. And I think the thing that we have to also talk about is we can't keep patching the number of old major versions that we do. Just as PHP can't patch everything that has ever been done, we have to draw a line too. It's a small team that we're working with, and trying to get this on all those versions is very difficult. You might think, well, it's , oh, I'll just copy paste that back. It's not. Every version is a unique creation, and just pulling those back in is not as easy as it sounds. So right now, we are patching three major versions. That's what people think, but that's not actually true. We're actually patching five major versions. So people know about 19, 18, and 17, but what they don't realize is 20 is in alpha testing right now, so that has to be patched. , we can't not have it in that. But the team also, whenever something goes to alpha testing, we're already working on the next version. That's 21. So 21 has to also be patched. So when every time we make a code fix, we're literally having to engineer it into five major versions. And, again, some of these are very easy to do. Some of them are not easy to do. But even the easy ones are made difficult because we have to go do it in five places correctly. And if you miss one of those, you have a problem. Sounds surgical. Yeah. So it's not something that we can keep doing. Mhmm. And that's why we need everybody to get to 19. So it's if you have a problem in five houses, a plumbing issue or something, you might fix the same weaky problem in five houses, but the plumbing's different in all of them. Yeah. That's all... , every house has a slight difference in their plumbing. And in code, there's these dependencies that go everywhere. It's kind of cables going everywhere. You change one, it's , well, that affected this one. Some And of these problems are so simple that it can be easier, but a lot of these are not. Now some people might say, well, 19, I need early access for that. And again, we've always said there's no reason not to be on early access. We have a grant program. We have everything that you need. There really is no excuse not to be in '19, and '20 is coming out. And again, we can't keep patching all these versions. So I think we've been saying that, we're gonna keep saying that and keep warning you. We do realize this is a new world, so we're back the waters until you can transition the new world, but we can't hold it back for too long. That's good to know. For our listeners, I'd love to hear, , if you're still on version 17 or 18, maybe about the blockers that have been stopping you from updating to v 19. And then if you drop it in the ROTCast channel, I'm sure the community will jump in and do the thing that they're best at and help you unblock those things. John, can you tell us more about the feature removal? Yeah. So, we've talked about this a lot, but I kind of want to keep bringing it up because sometimes people don't hear about it or sometimes we forget about it. In that in every product, there's some times when you have to remove things. It's kind of pruning. It's almost a biblical concept, right? You have to prune the vine to get more growth. And at this point, we have about fourteen years of development in Rock, and there's just some things that we gotta take out. And so these are features that are rarely used. Some of them are not used at all. Some of them are just things that were needed for a time. Some of these things are things we need to remove because they are not supportable in the new next gen world. So some of the libraries that we use, their authors have said, hey. Yeah. We're done, and we're not gonna make this available in dot net core. And so we're kinda stuck on some of those. So we've been very open about this. We've been very trying to communicate really well about that. So I don't know when we did it. It was a long time ago. We added a page to the release notes. That's the, , feature removal page. So if you go on the... In the new release notes, if you go on the upper right, there's a little drop And inside there, there's a feature removal that you can go look at. And we list everything by version, what's going and leaving. And so you just need to be looking at that. Most of those things I don't think are gonna be a problem. I don't think most people are using them. But if you are, you you need to go check and plan for that. How do you recommend a church triage or or plan for that? A church admin? Maybe they have one of those blocks on the page. How should they approach that? Well, in most of the blocks that that we're removing, there is a alternative block. Most of those blocks were... If you're still using it, you probably have decided not to use a new one and and manually put the old one back on. And we're just saying, hey. That's going away. There are a few things that... There's there's one Lava command that we're getting rid of. It's rarely used. Literally, it runs C. You type We C in it and it does removed it from the documentation, I think, a year or two ago. So most people don't even know it exists. We put out a warning that, hey, we're thinking about getting rid of this. Is anybody that's gonna cause a problem? There's a couple use cases that were given to us that says, yeah, but I'd to do something this, but I can't. So I use it for that. We've actually made lava filters for those use cases that we were told about so that you can now do it through a lava filter, which is a much quicker, , more performant way of doing it and so much easier. So again, it's not we're just ripping it off and being , hey, pound sand. We've listened. We've decide... , tried to figure out, , why is this needed? And then we would go try to find alternative solutions for that. And so those new filters are released now. So to give transition time, we really try not to do this. It's not something that we are trying to make our lives easier. We're just trying to make the product manageable and in some ways up to date. , some of them are blocking being up to date. Mhmm. On the future retirement page, is there... Does that include things that are in the future that will be gone? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I think it goes all the way up to '22. Okay. '20 is the one I... '20 and '21 are the ones I'd be looking at. And I think '21 is probably the bigger one. There's more things in there that... We're saying, hey, we're get... Eventually, I forget which version it's in, but I it's '21 that we're getting rid of the old event registration pages. Now, will just swap in the new one for you. So, your page won't break, but it will be running the new version. Now that's something I think everybody's... I mean, feature, the next gen version of that has been out for a long time, many years. And so I think everybody's running the new one. But just in case, we live in an abundance of caution, but sometimes we go too long. And now it's just the time that we've gotta clean this up. It's kinda spring cleaning. You gotta go through your house and purge a few things. And there's been some things sitting on the, , coffee table for a little too long. It's time to get get rid of them. Yeah. That makes sense. Alright. So our listeners should go there. We'll leave that page in the show notes for them to easily access. Let's move on to the last segment that we have today, and that is how to maximize your Rx experience. I know people... The weather will be great here. But I know people aren't just coming for Arizona sunshine. So, Emily, can you give us the roadmap for how people can make the most of this experience? Yes. It's a really exciting event. We look to it... Forward to it every year. I know I use the word dread. It's simply because events are never quite, , perfect. But we really look forward to it. A lot of effort and time has gone into it, and we hope that everybody can get the most out of it because we know it's an investment. Right? Your organization's investing and sending you there. The very first thing I would say is put your out of office procedures in place that you would do if you were going on vacation. You don't want to be pinged by your team all the time for the things that you would be if you were in the office. So pretend you're on vacation, set up all of your out of office processes, your backup people, and try to be interrupted as little as possible. Hopefully, no emergencies during the time, but reduce the likelihood that you'll get those interruptions because it's very hard to context switch. You might find yourself on your computer in the hall missing some critical elements. So start there. And then I would say, get a plan ahead of time. Right? So we're very close to releasing the full schedule, which will allow you to then save those sessions that you want to attend. So that will come out on our, community mobile app here very shortly after this podcast is released or maybe just before. Make sure you download it, log in, look through those sessions, and start to favorite the ones that you want to go to. Now you're gonna run into some conflict in that. There might be more than one you wanna attend. That's okay, and that's normal. If you're coming with a team, plan together, divide and conquer. And that's gonna be an important way to maximize what you can see. We also have a content subscription so that will allow you to catch up on things after the fact if you couldn't get everywhere. One of things I would say too is that if you're stuck between two and you don't know which one to go to, a little contrarian tip I would say is go to the one that you're least excited about. Because the content subscription is one of those things that I think we all get excited about and we all get and we all watch some. But sometimes, , our schedules get busy, and we don't watch as many as we intend to. And I think if there's one that you really wanna see, you're gonna be more likely to watch it on the content subscription than that one that was maybe just slightly not as good. So, , as a psychological kind of , , hack, I would potentially go to the one that's maybe you're a little least excited about so that you'd be more likely to watch the one on the content subscription later. Yes. And as you're thinking through that, I would also say block some time when you get back to watch the things on the content subscription. Because I know I'm guilty of it. I we probably all are to some degree of thinking, I'm absolutely gonna watch that after the fact. And then you get busy, know, things pull you away, you might either take longer to get to it or you might forget to watch it. So block some time. I've heard some churches actually do that. They schedule a time with a wider group when they get back to watch two or three of the sessions. Subterranean. Yeah. That way you can kind of cherry pick them based on what you think is gonna be important to them. And you might have some leaders or people on your team that aren't able to make the travel investment or the time commitment, but just know that our keynotes are all going to be available very shortly after they've been delivered, and they will be pushed out through our social channels. So keep an eye out for that if there's a person that you have on your team that you'd to help understand, , the state of AI right now and how that's impacting Rock or potentially, , the vision of Rock. Maybe you're trying to really work together with someone, a new leader on your team, and they just don't understand. Be prepared to grab those links out of social and send them with a good explanation. And maybe if if they don't have a lot of time in this particular position, you might even earmark for them the points that they wanna watch inside the video to make it more likely that they would. Yeah. And I I totally love our team because it used to take two weeks for us to get those videos published because it's a lot of work. It gotta sure get them in. These are huge files. You have to cut, edit, and then render them out, update them. It takes a ton of time. And now we have a whole team that's just back there while it... While the conference is going and publishing them, and then silly as it sounds, just even getting them up to social medias, it takes time, and now that's all, , being taken care of. , there's a huge team behind the scenes that's really passionate about what they do. And so if you see them at the conference, , maybe give them some encouragement because Definitely. It might look easy on the outside, but it's really not. No. They're working very hard to make that happen. Okay. So we've got planning under control. Let's talk about people. One of the best things about the conference is this is the event all year where everyone in the community has the opportunity to get together. So there's a major amount of collaboration, relationship building, and other activities where you can connect with people. So I would say a few things. One, make sure you build in those connection times for yourself. Right? Try to have real conversations. I've heard some people say that sometimes the hallway conversations they have are one of the most critical and important points of the entire event for them. So don't miss out on those. Look for those opportunities. The other thing I would say is not everybody is familiar with the event. Many of our listeners are, but a lot of people come for the first time doing one of two things. Making this investment for the first time with their organization, trying to go all in, but they're a little overwhelmed, or potentially even trying to decide if Rock is the right platform for them. And this is a great way to understand the community power. Those two categories of people can come into the conference and be swept off their feet with excitement, but as the conference goes on, overwhelmed and might feel they're alone and everybody knows a lot more than they do and they'll never catch up. When in reality, we all know, we all started there too. So make sure you look for people who feel they're, , maybe are demonstrating or being overwhelmed or frustrated or look they don't have anyone to talk to and reach out. That's the beauty of this community is is that's been done so many times, and you can be a part of replicating that. So look for those people. They they also need your help. That's a good point. Oh, go on. I know there's some things we're doing to help build that Fossil's connections. Can can you kinda cover some of that? Absolutely. We do quite a few things. One great example is our community dinner program. I think this is maybe the third or maybe fourth year that we've done it. But in the evenings, knowing that some people don't come with other people at their church, and mealtime feels really awkward if you're eating alone at a restaurant somewhere. Dinners are kind of on your own. We have a community dinner meetup, and right in the lobby, we'll have people standing around with signs for some of the local restaurants. You can even pick the kind of food you if you want. Join a group, and you'll all go out to dinner together. So it's a great way to meet people. And, honestly, even if you come with a team, you work with that team all the time. Why not take advantage of the opportunity to meet with others? So I would say, , hop in on that. And those connections are so valuable. And you're gonna get value from that meal, that time at the meal, but that's just the start. , you've made that connection. Now you have that connection for, , literally the rest of your career in the church world. That's right. And we've seen that. , there's people who meet up at the at the conference because they've been doing it for years. Yep. And it all starts by just having that one connection or two connections. Yes. And then it continues by someone in that group taking the initiative to say, hey, let's meet up. Right. So you could be that person too. Maybe there's a group you went to master class with or maybe you're part of one of our community hubs, regional or topical, or maybe there's just a group of people you met at a previous conference. There are lots of ways the community connects, and you might be the spark that helps put something together that, , builds and bridges those relationships and invites other people in. Yeah. So that's one opportunity. We also always to have our birds of a feather meetup earlier in the conference. So on our first community day, I believe, we have birds of a feather opportunities. And what we mean by that is certain roles can group together in certain rooms and kind of talk about what they do and how they're using Rock and get to know each other a little bit. So if you happen to work in IT or if you happen to work in family ministries or other areas, you can get together with people at other churches that are doing the same thing. And the cross collaboration there is a really powerful opportunity. Do it early in the conference, then you kinda get to know those people. You might even divide and conquer some session, , viewing with them as well and sync up on the other side. So that's a great opportunity. I would also say there's a fun event on the first night, Vision Day evening on Tuesday. We haven't really announced what it is yet, so it's kind of a surprise, but it's a community event and we haven't done one this before. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah. Definitely recommend that you come to that. It's gonna be at the Renaissance Hotel close just off the lobby. So if you show up there, we'll get you directed. So after dinner, come back to the Renaissance for some really fun community time. Teams put a lot of work into this. But some of the best times are are staying out late. They are. In previous years, people are out till 2AM. the lobby is just Yes. Booked. Yeah. Rock closed down that lobby. All those churches, the Renaissance lobby. Yep. I think a lot of times the hotels are , what's going on? , they just really each other or something. We're , yeah. Yeah. It's lots of fun. So I know sometimes if you're introverted, that might be the time you just feel you need time to regenerate energy, and I say just push through. , go out there. It's so much fun. You won't regret it. It's a limited time thing. Yeah. You're gonna be exhausted. Lean into it and make the connections. And, , if you are an introvert, there might be a little extra planning you can do going into this. Sometimes you find yourself, , awkwardly staring at a person. You're in the same space. You don't have anything to say. But wait. You can come up with some conversation starters ahead of time. At the event, we've put some information on badges that help you understand how many times someone's been to a conference, where they're from. A few of those things are great conversation starters to ask someone, , what their experience is . But also, , hey, what are you most excited about at the event? What are you coming to see? And just kind of create some conversation starters. You need about four or five total. Stick them in your back pocket, and that'll kinda help get the ball rolling. And once it's rolling in a friendly community, then you don't really have to worry about it. The conversation just flows. Think if you see a group of people late at night in the lobby or even in the hallway and you see them clumping talking, just realize any one of those circles is waiting for you to join. , it's unlike anything else. Just jump in and go, hey, guys. , are you what's where are going to... What's next session? Yep. That's a great point. And when we say the lobby, we do mean of the Renaissance Hotel. Yeah. That lobby, if you haven't been in there before, it is huge. There are so many spaces and, , little spots that different groups can get together and do all sorts of things. So that's the hangout place. Whether you're staying there or not, no big deal. We will be taking over that lobby, there's plenty going on. Yeah. So just know any circle is open for you. And if for some reason you have a circle that you want closed, there is no closed circle. So that's off limits. Yeah. Don't do that. Yeah. That's not what this is about. Other events might be for that, but not this one. I doubt that would ever happen. I've never seen that happen, but just in case. Yeah. Mhmm. One other point I would say is if you're coming and wanting help on something, you're not sure how to approach a problem in Rock, we do have Rock star consults that you can sign up for ahead of time. You have to sign up for them ahead of time, in fact. So we'll be sending out more information on that, but you can meet with your very own Rock star team and get insights into how to solve a problem you're trying to approach. So that could be a great connection and also a great solution for you. Don't forget the vendors. Our sponsors come and they invest so much in coming to this event, and they they know they're doing it to help support it. You may not realize that this also helps bring your ticket cost down. So they're investing in you, and they're investing in Rock. And, and there are so many great vendors that are there. It's much more difficult to talk to vendors and understand what their services and products are when you're not in the same space. It's so much easier when you're there. So plan some time to get into the sponsor booth area and talk to the sponsors about the things that they're doing. There's some really cool and exciting opportunities in that area, and it's a great way to round out your Rock experience for sure. And I think it's important for people to know too, , our goal is to break even on this. Yes. We're not trying to make a ton of money on this. ... So you said, that sponsorship money is there to pay down all the costs of an event. And I think people knew the costs of an event. It's crazy. Sometimes we have someone say, hey, I just need a meal ticket for someone. And we tell them , well, this is what the the meal costs per person. And they think we're being a little ridiculous or blowing it out of the water. But no. Food costs at places this are... Would make your head swim. It's almost a racket, but... Kind of is. Yeah. And some of it's the way they they they do their charging. , the facility cost is low and the food is ... Yes. So... But Wi Fi is a racket at conferences. I can just tell you that. And so we've chosen to scale back on Wi Fi and rely on people's data connections That's right. And focus. , you should be watching that. Right. Should be fully engaged. Will help remove distractions for you. Right. And by doing that, a ton of money. Yes. Absolutely. Which would have been born out in your ticket costs. So Exactly. We're saving It has to go someplace. It does. And that is... Wi Fi at convention centers is literally a racket. Yep. I totally agree with that. And so it'll be a little bit different on that front this year. I will say, last year was my first RX. And everything you said about first time attendees and all the emotions they go through is so true to a tee. And it just... It was so helpful, , knowing that Rock stars were there, knowing that our team does so much to implement, opportunities for connection and relationship building. Definitely take advantage of those and, , prep yourself to step out of your comfort zone because that's a great way how you'll maximize your investment in this event. Totally agree with that. And I would say, , again, to reiterate, look for people to encourage. Right? There will always be someone Nicole, you last year, any encouragement just means so much more. So true. Right? You're when you're waiting through, , the confusion. But I remember running into someone at a hallway at one of our conferences, and she just, I could tell she had the the deer in the headlights look. And I had somewhere to be, but I just... I felt I needed to stop. And I said, hey, how are you doing? How's the conference going for you? , I introduced myself and she just said, , my my organization sent me and they want me to come back with things that are valuable. And she goes, I don't even know where to start. I think I'm just gonna leave and go home. And I said, oh, , no, no. Let's get you connected. And I reached out to someone that I knew had certain commonalities with this person and messaged them and said, hey, need you to come connect with this person and help them. They need a buddy for the conference. And they got connected and it all worked out and that church was very new in the Rock space and they were thinking maybe Rock wouldn't work for them, but they stuck it out. And I think it was because of that connection at the conference. It wasn't with me, it was with someone and I could help connect it. So we all have a role in helping everyone have the right Rock experience. I remember back to when it was a few years ago, the person came again, new to the Rock community, didn't know anybody, came alone. Probably a little bit me, a little bit more on the introverted side, and they were a little nervous. And they got connected, threw themselves into the conference. By the end of the conference, I don't think there was a person who hadn't met this person. I was , the transformation was awesome. To this day, they're very active in the community. And it just almost felt a metamorphosis that happened at the conference, and it was so cool. And I'd say the success of that was because they put aside their fear, and they put aside their wanting to be comfortable. And for a few hours, which is all the conferences, it's three days, but it's really just a brief set of hours, they're willing to put aside their fear and being uncomfortable. And it really was a huge thing for them and their church and the community, because I think we all are better because of it. Yeah. I'll say that one thing that I've been doing to prepare myself for conference is I keep praying , Lord, just help me see people that, , need to be connected or need to be seen. And I think that's exactly what you did in, , the story that you just talked about. And what a success story. you found somebody who needed to be connected, who felt some... Who felt a bit overwhelmed, and then you were able to plug them into the right person. And then, , that set them up for success. And that person allowed themselves to be interrupted in their conference experience with whatever they wanted to get out of it in order to assist and really come alongside someone for the duration. Mhmm. So, , that leads into another point I would say, which is look for opportunities to serve. Mhmm. There... An event this, there's always an extra, , set of hands could always be helpful. And sometimes that's in obvious ways and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's in helping connect people. Sometimes it's in stepping into something that looks , oh, this looks it's a little messy or choppy right here. How can you help with that? Right? So look for ways that you can get involved and be a helper and a leader in the community. And there are probably a lot of opportunities at the conference. Yes. We will not ever turn down help. Yeah. And everybody who comes to this is perfectly well trained because the conference is basically a three days weekend service. So you can greet, you can usher, you can say hi, you can... There's... You're you're perfectly trained for this. We even have check-in. Oh, man. Okay. So if I if I have to say what one of the things I'm most looking forward to at this conference, it's gonna be the check-in experience. It is gonna knock people's socks off. Yeah. We tried to... Rx is called Rx because it's supposed to be... You're supposed to experience Rock. And that's... That was very intentional from day one. So every year, we try to make sure that we try to do experience based. I think every year we get a little bit better at it. And this year, I think we're leveling up in some really great ways. Yeah. That's gonna be a lot of fun. What are you most looking forward to, Nicole? Check-in is good. The relationships, definitely. I am really looking forward to the surprise community activity. I think that'll just be so much fun and so many good laughs will come from that. And then everything else I'm looking forward to, we can't talk about. Yep. Just hard to pick. There's a lot of fun little surprises we have. Yeah. We definitely hit some golden nuggets in there. The team's been cooking. Yeah. That's for sure. What are you most looking forward to, John? I don't know. There's there's been a lot of thinking on my part going into some of the keynotes Mhmm. Especially the first one. So it's probably eight or nine months of just thoughts. I'm kind of interested in seeing what people's response is. Mhmm. Because I think we're we're... The topic of AI is... I don't care what your level is. No one... It's it's a guessing game. It's a it's a it's a cloud. And we're just... I think we're trying to peer and pierce through this cloud. And I just think it's a really interesting time to be alive, and I'm I'm just curious what people's thoughts are gonna be. Yeah. And I I bet people don't realize the amount of work that goes into the keynotes on vision day that you put in, the duration of time, the span of time that you work on that and the research that goes into it, it's very significant. Yeah. I'm so interested in seeing what people's thoughts are and the dialogue that comes after that. Plus, I'm just really looking forward to just seeing the community and the friends that are there. I can't wait for the late night sessions. Already thinking back to the ones we've had in the past and it's just been so fun and encouraging. Yep. It's fantastic. It's kind of... I just have always compared it to being a really big family reunion of a family that really loves to get together and and can only do it, , irregularly. So Yeah. Definitely something to look forward to. I'm also really... This is small. Well, not really small. I'm looking forward to the Rock star training that's coming up and, , especially when they arrive super early on the first day to help us make sure that check-in experience runs super smoothly. We always do a little, a powwow talk, and I feel looking forward to that. So... A lot of fun. So more updates are coming on the conference, right, with the mobile app, our surprise community event, so much more. Where can people follow along to get that information? Yeah. For the entire everything Rx related, you should be in Rocket Chat following along. We'll post some updates there. But also, we'll be utilizing social media a lot. So Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn X, probably Instagram is if you wanna, , see the entire experience happening, that's the place to be. So give us a follow there. And then, yeah, make sure you stay tuned for the schedule that's coming out very soon. We'll also leave the Feature Retirement page in the show notes. Anything else that I missed? It's not too late to register too. Right? Of course. Bring everybody that you can. Horst Schulz will be there. We didn't. We're also looking forward know. That's something that we're also looking forward to. I'm looking forward to meeting him. He's... I've read a lot of his books and he's just a brilliant guy. He sure is. And I think his topic is so perfect for the church. Hospitality and making people feel Yeah. Good, but at the same time having... Bringing process into that. It's not just an accidental thing. Yeah. And if you haven't registered yet, John, as you mentioned, do it. You still have time. November third through fifth in Phoenix. There's no better place to be than Phoenix in November. That's great. I think we'll wrap up on that note. Let's get in. Hopefully, we'll see you all in just a couple weeks.