RX 24 - Leading Up - Navigating Technical Leadership in Ministry - Adam Hann

Transcribed Content

All right, welcome everyone to session number two, the final day of Rx. Please welcome Adam Hand to the stage. All right. How are guys doing? So I know that I'm standing between you guys and lunch right now. Sorry, my iPad locked up. Cool. Well, guys, thanks for being here. And this has been an interesting talk for me to work on. So about a year ago, we happened to be on Rock podcast. And afterwards, I can't remember if it was Emily or someone was like, hey, can have you do a talk on leadership and technology? And they were asking me to do it last year, and I already had a talk. I was like, I don't think I can do two talks. That's not what I'm normally good at doing. So I've literally it's been sitting in the back of my head for a year. And I was even telling someone this morning, still am trying to figure out what I'm trying to say. And I look out in the room, and I see so many of you guys I know that could probably honestly be giving this talk as well. So my hope today is to just kind of communicate some of the things that I've learned over the past few years. But to do that, I want to give you guys some context here first. I'm so tired of using PowerPoint. I know it's great. So I'm trying Canva. So this is my first foray into TriNet. So we'll see how that goes. Hopefully, I don't have any issues with that. So a little bit about me. I'm the digital director at LCBC Church. Hopefully, you've been able to get into some of our team's presentations. The team's doing some really cool stuff over the past couple days here. And we, just for context, we're a church in Pennsylvania. We have 22 locations across the state. I've been on staff for over eighteen years at LCBC, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. This is a picture of my family here from around Christmastime. Instead of doing matching pajamas, we do something more functional like matching Carhartt or kind of close to Carhartt hoodies. We had another one with the Carhartt beanies, but I was like, yeah, I'm going to pass on that picture. So most days, you can find me dropping in Fortnite, playing some Fortnite in the evenings. I know, honestly, there's actually a decent amount of Rock people in the Rock community that play Fortnite, and I think there should be a little chat in Rocket Chat that's Fortnite players so we can squad up and go get some ELIMs. Or you might find me building Legos with my son, Lincoln. So I want to tell you a little bit about my story. So let's back up from this picture and go back, I don't know, twenty plus years or something like that, which is kind of hard to say. That's me on the left there with that red shirt, the real tall guy, and a bunch of my friends. And this is me, I don't know, maybe my sophomore year in college. And I went to this school out in Indiana. It was a Christian liberal arts college called Huntington University. And somehow, I had been doing music all through high school. I was doing, like, in computer science classes in high school, went to Huntington with a CS degree to do computer science. And I was also, like, the campus worship leader at the school as well. And I can remember my sophomore year, and I was sitting in what was called business mathematics, which I can tell you is not a fun class, unless you like business mathematics and it's, you know, Rodney, maybe you like that kind of thing. But I was just sitting I can remember it clear as day. Was sitting in this class, and this thing came over me that's like, I am not supposed to be here. And I couldn't shake it. I kind of was wrestling with it for a little bit. And I went and talked to my I forget what they call him, like the professor you kind of get paired to when you go to college and kind of help you get used to college life. He was one of our ministry professors, and I was like, I feel like I'm supposed to be a worship leader. Like, I think that's what I'm supposed to do. And Huntington, they didn't even have a worship program. Like, it was nonexistent. It wasn't like a thing at that time. And they're like he was like, Well, why don't we try out some ministry classes this semester and you can figure it out? And I remember going to my Doctor. Lehman going to Doctor. Lehman, my computer science professor, and I was like, Hey, Doctor. Lehman, I'm gonna switch my major to a ministry degree, and I want to be a worship leader, want to play music. And he's like, Okay, yeah, I mean, I can see that. I mean, he knew I was doing this for Huntington. He's like, I really see in the future a need for leaders in technology and churches. And I was like, Yeah, I don't want do that. I was like, I just want to be a worship leader, you know? So it kind of went on. Of course, my parents were like, Hey, you could be doing computer science stuff, you're gonna go work for a church. My mom's in ministry, so we knew there's a little difference between being a developer somewhere and working for a church. So they had all kinds of questions. So I went on and pursued the worship leader stuff. And so here's me a few years later. This is at LCBC Church, and I'm leading worship for young adults. And this is how I got started there. I actually did an internship that I had to do for college there at LCBC. Was all worship. I was on stage every weekend. And I started my journey at LCBC, And oddly enough, they could only hire me part time. So then they hired me to get more hours. Was doing part time IT work. I was terminating cables. I was basically dedicated to our Kidman team because they had high needs when it comes to technology. And I started down this journey, and what's been interesting over the years is I've just constantly found myself at these different points where I'm trying to help move our church forward with things. So around this time it was when Facebook came out and Twitter, which makes me feel really old saying that out loud. And I remember, you know, I was sending our executive pastor and our senior pastor emails like, Hey, we should be doing this. We should be on these platforms and meeting people. And then one day they're just like, Hey, yeah, just go run with it. Just go do it. I'm like, Okay. Can I just add that to my job title now? So it's just been funny. I found these spots, these pivotal points in my career, where I'm just trying to help move us forward with things. So then fast forward a few more years, and this is 2019 at NewSpring, Rx at NewSpring. And this is me doing a presentation, kind of like today, talking about our attendee onboarding process. And we had just moved to Rock. We had just actually literally just implemented the AOP process in Rock. And if you were to rewind all the way back to February whatever, Adam leading worship on stage, I would have never thought I would be here doing this, or even today, honestly. Or having people ask me questions like, how did you guys do that? Like, how do you get leadership buy in? How do you get your ministry teams to do what you guys want to do or whatever it might be? So what I want to do today and the reason I share this story is just to show you there's not been any formal training in how I've gotten here, and probably like many of you guys have just figured out along the way. So what I want to do today is to share a little bit about some of the hurdles I've had to overcome and some of the challenges I've had to face to get to that point, to see, and hopefully that will be helpful for you. So I kind of categorized these as leadership problems, and leading in a technical way can be challenging and very rewarding. And the types of things that we get to work on can have such a cool, large impact at scale. But it's also technology is very confusing for people. How many of you guys have ever tried to explain something to your senior pastor and executive pastor and it's like, you're saying stuff and they're like they just gloss over. Yeah, this workflow is not working. I don't understand this lava. There's this bug that we found in Rock. We've got to wait for the next update to fix it. And they're gone. It's like, yeah, I don't know what that means. There's that challenge. There's a reward and there's a challenge with it. So here's some of the problems that I've had to personally wrestle with over the past eight or nine years in this role. So the first one was this understanding. So in general, people just don't understand technology very well. Even in 2024, people just struggle understanding it. And that's fine. There's different adoption curves and different science behind how that happens, but sometimes people just don't understand the complicated nature. And the way that plays out personally for us, or at least for me, is we're working on a project, we have a deadline, all a sudden we hit a roadblock. Everything we do in technology is new work, in my opinion. Like, we're always solving a new problem, and there's always a new path that we're venturing. So because of that, it's like, yeah, well, I've built a workflow before. I've built this type of report before. But we've never done this thing. But we think we can do that in two weeks. It's kind of like the mythical trying to figure out how long a project's going to take. And you hit this roadblock and it's like, man, how am I going to explain this, that this is going to delay us and not lose credibility? That's a big thing. We want to try to continue to lead well. So understanding is a thing. Effectiveness is another one. So maybe you wear multiple hats at your role. Or maybe you're managing a team, maybe you're like a player coach. So you're doing some of the rock work, but then also you are coaching a team. And it's hard to context switch. It's hard to be, I'm in this sequel, I'm in this lava, I'm diving into it, shifting gears. Okay, let's talk about how what you said wasn't appropriate to that other team member. That's kind of a big jump to make sometimes. And so it's hard you might feel like it's hard to be effective that way. Another thing might be value. Like, how do I communicate the value of a technical solution? Maybe you want to move to Rock Mobile. Maybe you want to move to Rock from your current platform. How do you effectively communicate this type of investment and what it's going to take and where this is the return we're going to get over here? And sometimes it's hard when leadership or other team members that you might work with, maybe they want to see it first or whatever it might be. That can be a challenge. And the last thing is priorities. Maybe you're kind of on the other end of that spectrum where like, hey, we were in rock, we have had some wins, and now people want a lot of different things. And I'm not sure we're working on the right things. So how do we know that we're working on the right things? Because sometimes I feel like we're doing work, kind of like what John says, like the admin features. They're kind of like the devil's work sometimes. Is this really helping ministry move forward, or are we building this for a squeaky wheel on our team? So how do you determine priorities? And then the last thing is am I a leader? Sometimes I struggle with feeling like a leader, like am I really a leader? It's hard figuring out how to manage and lead technical things at the same time. So I don't know about you guys, but those are all things that I've felt over the past ten years in this role as we've built our team, things that I probably still, if I'm honest, feel of the day at times. So I just want to share a little bit of what we've learned and how we've been able to try to get unstuck the best that we can. So the first thing, honestly, what you have to do is start with yourself. So what type of leader do you want to be? And how are you going to create margin to give yourself time to think? So just ask yourself, where can you put time in your week where you're just setting aside a time to work on yourself, to think strategically, to think through the things that you want to do? And it's totally fine. You might find yourself in a spot where it's like, I don't know if I want to lead. I really like just doing the day to day technical work stuff. And I would have a conversation with your boss or your supervisor if that's the case, because you don't want to find yourself in this position where you're unhappy and it's like, Man, I had more fun over there, and you're maybe not being as effective for your church or your organization, when really what you want to do is like, I just love coding. I just want to build workflows or whatever it might be. So just really be honest with yourself. To do that, you've got to create margin to give yourself time to think. You also need to spend some time just figuring out what is the root of what you are experiencing. So if you feel tension, if you feel like there's a problem, which one of those problems that I said earlier might you be experiencing in that way? It'll give you a plan on how to attack it, maybe how to get some help around that. Also, just use assessments. What's awesome about ROCK is there's that whole free assessment package in there. Take the DISC profile, take the conflict, take the emotional intelligence. Start to learn more about yourself and how God has wired you to figure out how you can lead and move forward. We're a big fan of Work Ingenious. We've had everyone on our team take the Work Ingenious assessment. I have the whole team map. Guys, I can tell you, I hate tenacity. Like, you know anything about Work Ingenious, tenacity and enablement, they're all the way at the bottom for me. So seeing that helped me understand, Oh, this is why I love starting things and why I hate finishing things. And I'm always I'm wondering invention, so I'm always probably annoying my team because I'm like, Guys, what if we did this? And they're like, We've to get these other 10 projects done. So knowing more about yourself will help you as well. And then just ask God what He wants for you as you work on yourself. Cool. So the next piece in is strategy. And this is an incredibly important piece of understanding how to lead well and how to be effective for your church. So really, at the end of the day, you have to figure out what vision do you have for your church and how can you leverage technology? So what's your mission of your church? Know, LCBC is to introduce people to Jesus and to together fully follow him. So that's our mission. So what I'm trying to figure out then is how can we come along as a digital team to support that mission? And then even personally, what's my own personal kind of like strategy behind that? Like, how do we want to approach our way of supporting that vision for the church? And so it pairs alongside with what we're doing, so it's important to work on that vision and creating your North Star that you can keep pointing back to when you have tough days, when you're trying to filter through a decision to go back to that vision and that North Star of what you're trying to accomplish, and then share that with people. Share that with your supervisor, your boss, make sure that it's in alignment and congruent with where your church is going. You don't want it to feel opposite of that. So here's an example. This is from November 2017. I actually found this on the plane when we were on our way out here, and I actually sent it to my boss. I was like, Look at this. And this was us sitting down. We were on a previous CHMS, previous giving platform. I think we had at that time, somehow we had an in house custom built app. I don't know how. We were in shambles. And this was like a whole afternoon that we spent off-site at a local college just brainstorming like, Hey, livestreaming, we want to do livestreaming. Like, how do we start doing that? What hurdles do we need to overcome? I can't see what the second one is. I think it might be church management. LCBC Network was this idea that we had, which honestly, the award that we won earlier is tied to an idea that kind of stemmed from the LCBC Network thing. A mobile app, how do we get into a mobile app? This thing we were calling Church in a Box, how do we start new little tiny churches across the state of PA with an Apple TV? Texting platform, dashboards, reporting, intranet. All this stuff ended up circling around, like us moving to rock and us navigating us there. And I remember sitting down and brainstorming this, I thinking, man, are we ever really going to get there? Is that going to work? And it's crazy to look back on that now and to think of all I mean, it doesn't look exactly like that, but to think of the wins that we've had along the way. And that strategy helped shape us and move us forward. So just along with strategy, what problem are our systems solving? So we need to really understand the technology that we're bringing, what they're solving, and just how are you leveraging your website and app is another important piece of that. So real quick, here's an example. This is something that we've worked on in the past year. I'm sorry that the type on there is incredibly tiny. So think of that image from 2017. This is now the more mature version of it, where we have this continuum. We have faith curious people in Pennsylvania on the left, and on the right, have attendees actively pursuing next steps. And these are all the technology platforms that we have, all the different things, all the way from external platforms like the Bible app or YouTube or things like that, ads and social on the left, or website or email SMS strategy or app. And for all of these things, we have what's it for? Like, who's the audience? Who's supposed to be getting this? What are the jobs it's supposed to accomplish? How are we going to measure if it's successful or not so that we know that we're doing the right thing? And then at the base of that is rock for us. So we're using that as our unified source of truth for all of our data, and it's funneling into all those things. So just want to show you, that's an example of defining the experience that we want to have for attendees, how we want to leverage our technology. So that way, a ministry team comes to us or a leader and they're asking about why we do something a certain way, we can go back to this and be like, hey, this is why we want to use SMS this way, this is why we want to use our mobile app, and how we're going to lean more in on personalization and these type of features versus something else that we might want to do in it. Cool. And then the last thing for strategy is just be willing to change and adjust. So like I said, a perfect example of that for us is with our mobile app. Back in COVID, we moved to a new app platform. We were making a content play. We were all in. Like, hey, content's going to be how we drive people to the app. And it just didn't work for us. We were like, this is not the right strategy. And so we've pivoted now, and we're saying like, hey, we're going to create features that we're calling it a companion app that enhance the experience of when you interact with LCBCs, same way that I walk into Starbucks and I order my drink on the Starbucks app, even though the barista's right there in front of me. I sit down at my table, they call my name, I go up and get the coffee or Target, and I can order something and pull in their parking spot or I can get it delivered to my door, I can walk into the building and get it, I can scan my app at checkout to get points or whatever they do. And so there's just a strategy around that. So for us, the app is an example of like, hey, we had this one strategy, and it's like, cool. But that wasn't right. Now we know that, and now we're going to adjust and keep moving forward. And that's our new North Star. So the next big thing then is communication. And being able to communicate effectively efficiently and effectively is a game changer with leadership. And John was even saying that a little bit. I think on the first night, as one of the warrior types, one of the things might be like, hey, we have to work on communication. And this has been a huge thing for me. And honestly, I can't remember which meeting it was in that John shared about West Kal's newsletter. By far, the best thing I've subscribed to in the past year is her newsletter, And she has so many great tips on how to communicate leading from a product or technology standpoint. So a few things real quick around communication. Refine your elevator pitch. So can you explain your technology framework in thirty seconds? So for us, if I were to go back to that other chart and just talk about ROC, so we want to ROC's for delivering staff, volunteer and attendee experiences that allow LCBC to manage and measure the effect of all core aspects of our ministry. That's why we use ROC. ROC can do that for us. That's my less than thirty second elevator pitch on that. So learn how to refine each of your platforms, each of your technology solutions. If your leader walks up to you, how are you going to talk about that? Or an elder or someone from the church, how are you going to communicate that? Paint a picture of the future. Where do you want to go? So much of what I've done over the past eight years is, first of all, I've created my own problems every step of the way. So I remember when we were in F1 and I hated all the forms and registration process there, And then I fired up a Formstack account and I started like, Hey, look at this, do this. And it created a ton of work for me. And we're like, Oh, man, this is way better. We didn't know this could be better, you know? And obviously, it was not sustainable doing that, but it was a way where you got to this point where you're like, Man, wouldn't it be cool if we could do this, this, and this with our registrations? Like, Hey, there's this thing called Rock that we could do that, and their data would sync back into our database. And each step of the way, I'm just always trying to, like, how do I help people see where we could go? And I'm not trying to make vaporware, which is a phrase that people like to use today, or false promises. I try to paint a picture in a way like, hey, these are the types of things that we could do. We can do personalization. We can do segmentation. We're not doing all that stuff yet in Rock. We have plans to get there and do that, and we've laid the foundation now that we can strategically start to go over and tack those things. Work on simplifying complex technical issues. So I talked earlier about communicating about a deadline. How do you do that in a way that you simplify why it's working? So for example, we launched this daily experience in our app at the beginning of the month. And we quickly found we had this weird kind of bug thing going on in our Rock instance where many people had multiple personal devices on their account, and they were the same device. So we were sending out daily push notifications, and people were getting them three times. And so quickly, my boss was like, hey and my boss is one of them, of course. It always works that way. And he's like, why am I getting three notifications? My wife's getting them. Everyone's probably getting these notifications. It's like, well, probably not everyone. So we dug into it, and I had to figure out how to communicate in a very concise and nontechnical way to our leadership team, hey, here's the problem. Here's what we think is going on. We've handed this over to our rock partner. They're coming out with a solution to help clean it up so that it stops happening. And then we're working on a plan to how to fix it in the future so it doesn't keep happening. So you've got to really work on that muscle of how you simplify complex technical issues. And our default is to kind of over explain things, or at least that's my default. I'm like, man, I can tell you all the reasons why this is messed up. And again, you see the glaze comes over the eyes. It's like, oh, they've checked out and I've lost them. So work on that. And then the other thing I would say is just tools and resources with communication is lean into the other team. I lean into our communications team all the time. Like, hey, can you guys review this email before I send it? Make sure that this is grammatically correct. Now I have Grammarly for that, thankfully. ChatGPT, like, I can't tell you how many times I've just dropped an email. We were joking about this with some people last night. Like, can you make this less angry and put something through ChatGPT? So just use the resources around you and the people around you do that. Also, other churches, like use each other. Hey, how have you communicated this before to one of your leaders? Can you help me? Do you have a document that says these things? Again, so many of you guys in the audience I've learned from, and we've borrowed things from you guys to help us with our communication. Oh, yeah, real quick. For our website, this is kind of one of the ways that we talk about it. This is kind of off that bigger chart earlier. It's like we're communicating our primary customer for a website, our purpose, our primary platform for connecting online with people in PA. What's it for? Showing up in a generous, curated, and comprehensive way for faith curious people and those looking for a gathering experience online or in person via search, ads, or email. So this is just, again, working on that complexity. The website does so many different things, but we're trying to kind of pare that down so that people have a simple idea who it's for, what it does, the jobs, and how we're going to measure it. Cool. All right. The other thing we need to do, the other thing I've done at least, is get help. And this is potentially the most important piece of this whole thing. So you need to find an advocate. You need to find someone who is above you in a leadership role it might be your boss, it might be someone else, who will be an advocate for you in the conversations that you're not a part of. And fortunately for me, my boss has been that person, but over time, I've just learned how to make friends with our executive director of finance. I sit down with him, I talk about problems, about how to think, hey, how should we spend money on this? And just having those conversations, building that relationship with him has created another advocate in him. So when I go like, hey, it's going to cost us $70,000 to build this you know, like that type of thing. There's this joke now when I walk into our finance team and I'm like, Hey guys, how's it going? Hey Adam, what do you need? You know, type of thing. But you've to just find a way to develop an advocate for you on the next level up or on your leadership team or whatever that looks like in your church's context who will represent you, who might even understand technology a little bit better than other people on the leadership team, so that when a question comes up like, Why are we spending all this money on rock? Why do we do this thing with our app? Someone's there to kind of do their best explain and advocate for you when you're not in that conversation. That is such a key piece, and it just takes intentional relationship building to do that. Find a consultant or community expert. There's been so many times that we've brought people in from the outside. Actually, my boss is one of those people before he was on staff back kind of with some social media stuff before I was doing digital team. I kept telling our leaders, We've to do this, this, and this, and you know you can't be a prophet in your own town. And so we had a few people come in, and they sat down and verbatim, literally, they could not have said it more closely to the way that I was saying things. And then our leadership at the time was like, Yeah, that's a great idea. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to lose my mind. There was a moment of joy. I was like, Yes, we're going get to do this stuff now, and I believe in this. And then there was a moment of like, I'm gonna go cry in the corner because I feel really ineffective and that I couldn't do that on my own. But there's just the reality of having a community expert. We have the privilege of having someone that's a key part of the Bible project, that's a part of our church, And he's been our community expert recently, where he's come in and that previous chart where we had all of our kind of technology platforms, that's his world. He's lived in that world professionally for many years, and he helped us think through in how to develop that and become that community expert. The other thing, too, I'd say with getting help is just make sure you pick the right vendor or rock partner. There's so many great rock partners and vendors. You guys can see that this week and in the past couple days in the vendor hall. Really take the time to get to know who you're working with and that they align with how you work. And just because one doesn't work for you doesn't mean that vendor is necessarily bad. Each of our churches work differently. We all have different priorities. We have churches that are maybe more slow and strategic and others that are like, Hey, just want to get it done right now. We have this opportunity to jump on it. And there's not anything necessarily wrong with that, but you've got to make sure you're working with the right partner to do that. So take time when you're making an investment to build that relationship with a vendor or a partner. Make sure that they're partnering with you in that, and take time to do that because that will help move you ahead so far when you know they have your back, they believe in what you're doing, which is so huge. It's been huge for us to know that they'll show up and deliver. And then the last thing I'd say is just put in the work and be patient. Like I said, when I stepped in this role, I think it was nine years ago, we were about to go into a capital campaign. I was the digital team did not exist. There was no I was leading myself. They were like, Hey, you're in charge of the website and the app, and we're about to do a capital campaign. We need to build a website for that, and we want to do these two weeks of 20 fourseven prayer, we need a solution for that. And I was like, What did I just sign up for? I remember sitting in our pitch meeting to our executive team for the case for moving the rock. It was literally a three hour meeting. We had to take a break in the middle it. And the meeting ended. I mean, we couldn't have had a better slide deck, everything. It was so good. We had all the alternatives, everything in there. And we get to the end of the meeting, and our senior pastor's like, Yeah, we're not gonna do this. We're not gonna do it. And we're like, Oh, my gosh. Like, what? Like, we couldn't have done that any better. Like, we really couldn't have done it any better. And so I went home, I was talking to my wife that night. I was kind of defeated. And I'm like, What are we going to do now? And my boss James, he calls me, he's like, Hey, guess what just happened? It had been snowing that day in Pennsylvania. And he's like, I was out cleaning the snow off my car. And our senior pastor walks out and he goes, James, do you think we should be doing this? And here's where the advocate piece comes in. And he goes, Yeah, I think we should. It's the right move for us. And he's like, Cool, let's do it. So be patient, put in the work. So the next day, the conversation was, You ready for this? You know what this is going to take, because we were very ingrained in our current church management software, and it was going to be like grinding gears to move us over and to think differently about how we could work. But it's been so rewarding on this side of it, even to have opportunities like this to talk about what we've done, or to see the team here presenting on some cool projects that we've been able to be part of. So with that said, if you want to get in touch or get ahold of me somehow, here's some of my information.