Episode 058
🔥 Revolutionizing Ministry with AI: Unleashing Digital Marvels for Churches & Youth Ministries 🔥
August 17th, 2023
29 mins 8 secs
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About this Episode
🔥 Revolutionizing Ministry with AI: Unleashing Digital Marvels for Churches & Youth Ministries 🔥
Are you ready to embark on an extraordinary journey where technology and spirituality converge? Welcome to our groundbreaking Hybrid Ministry Show, where Nick will delve into the transformative power of AI in the realm of Church and Youth Ministry digital marketing, media, and content creation!
In this awe-inspiring episode, we unlock the secrets of AI-driven tools that will take your ministry to new heights:
[OpenAI.com](openai.com) or ChatGPT - The revolutionary AI language model that empowers you to craft captivating sermons, impactful blog posts, and engage with your congregation on a whole new level. Say goodbye to writer's block and embrace seamless content creation!
Generative AI in Adobe Photoshop Beta - Witness the creative prowess of AI as it collaborates with you in Photoshop, co-creating jaw-dropping artwork, banners, and designs for your ministry's online presence. Unleash the true potential of your artistic visions! (Adobe Creative Cloud: https://www.adobe.com/?sdid=49F59KY6)
Express.Adobe.com - Transform your storytelling with AI-powered video editing! Experience the ease and efficiency of crafting compelling videos, testimonials, and ministry updates using Adobe's Express platform. Say hello to stunning visual narratives! (Get Adobe Creative Cloud: https://www.adobe.com/?sdid=49F59KY6)
CREATIVE CLOUD PRICING
•$419.88/ AnnualizedAutopod.FM, an Adobe Premiere Pro Editing Extension - Elevate your video editing game to celestial heights! Uncover the brilliance of AI-assisted editing with Autopod.FM, streamlining your video production workflow like never before. (Try AutoPod: https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com/)
AUTOPOD PRICING
•$29/Month
•$348/Annualized
Join our expert guests, seasoned ministry leaders, and tech visionaries, as we explore how these AI tools seamlessly blend with your spiritual mission, enabling you to reach more souls, create impactful content, and connect with your community in ways you've never imagined.
Prepare to be inspired, amazed, and equipped to revolutionize your ministry in the digital age. Hit the 'Subscribe' button now and share this video with your fellow ministry enthusiasts. Together, let's embrace the future of ministry with AI as our guiding light!
🌟 Don't forget to like, comment, and turn on notifications so you won't miss our upcoming episodes packed with more cutting-edge insights! 🌟
AIinMinistry #ChurchTechRevolution #YouthMinistry #DigitalTransformation #HybridMinistry
🎥 YOUTUBE
https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
📱SOCIAL
TIKTOK:
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
INSTAGRAM:
http://www.instagram.com/hybridministry
🗒️ SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/058
🆓 FREEBIES
FREE Animation Effects for Adobe Premiere Pro:
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis
FREE E-Book:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
SHOWNOTES
Water Warz Reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cuh_R6DtuMm/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2F
TIMECODES
00:00-01:59 Intro
01:59-08:46 AI TOOL #1: [OpenAI.com](Openai.com) | ChatGPT
08:46-12:30 AI TOOL #2: Generative AI - Adobe Photoshop Beta
12:30-18:31 AI TOOL #3: Express.Adobe.Com
18:31-24:18 AI TOOL #4: AutoPod.fm | Adobe Premiere Pro Editing Extension
24:18-29:08 What Does AI Mean for the Future of the Church?
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode and addition of the Hybrid Ministry show. In this episode, I want to give you four different artificial intelligence, also known as AI tools that I think are going to make my life infinitely easier as a church communications, church, social media, and content creator. Moving forward here in 2023 and beyond, I truly believe that we are just at the beginning and just at the precipice of AI and artificial intelligence. And so I want to give you four tools that I think you can use that are not that complicated and that are not that scary. So let's go ahead and let's dive into that today. Hey, if you have not already though, please leave a rating or a review, a like, or a subscribe to our YouTube channel. We are on YouTube, we are on TikTok, we are on Instagram.
(01:02):
Link to all of that in the show notes. And in the show notes, you can find our full and complete transcript for this episode, which is going to be episode number 58 in the link, uh, to the, in the link in the show notes, you'll also find two freebies. We have a freebie four, number one, your, um, free eBooks so that you know how to create a TikTok completely from scratch on your cell phone, no other, uh, devices or things needed. And secondly, if you are using other devices or if you are using a video editing software, i e Adobe Premier Pro, which is what I typically use, we also have a freebie for your, um, motion transitions that you can get 100% for free. Check both of those things out in the show notes. But without any further ado, let's dive in and talk about why and what these four different AI artificial intelligence programs can be.
(01:58):
Let's go. All right, tool number one is open ai.com chat, g p t. This is the one I think that has gotten all the rage here recently. And I just wanna show you, if you are on YouTube, you can go ahead and see this. If not, I'll go ahead and read it for those of you on the podcast. But I literally, I just signed up for this, um, account. So, you know, full disclosure, I haven't been using it a lot. This is not something that I've used at all. But, um, we are in a, a series in my church right now at the time of this recording called Party Starter. And we've been doing short videos. You got to see me edit some of those, um, if you've watched or listened to any of the most recent episodes. But I typed out a prompt that said in chat G p t that said, create a paragraph worth of copy for Cross Creek students' YouTube video about being a party starter.
(02:54):
So that's just generic, right? There's not anything like in particular or any particular video that I was gonna use this for, but here is what it it spit out for me. Are you the life of every gathering, the spark that ignites the fun and the ultimate party starter? Couple emojis. Join us at Cross Creek students where we embrace the art of celebration and revel in the joy of bringing people together, more emojis. Our YouTube video's all about honing your party, starting skills from electrifying dance moves to unforgettable icebreakers. Discover the secrets to turning any event into an unforgettable fiesta and watch the energy soar as you take center stage as the ultimate party catalyst more emojis. Don't miss out on the laughter, the comradery, and the unforgettable memories. Hit that subscribe button and let's unleash the party animal within you to more emojis. Hashtag party starter, hashtag unleash the fun hashtag Cross Creek students.
(03:52):
So if you're on YouTube stream, you can go ahead and see this, but what I think that this can do for church, um, social media people, for church content creators, is I think that it can help give you a starting spot for things like this for copy. This is for copy for YouTube video. I'm sure you could put in prompts for copy for a website. I'm sure you could put in prompts for captions for a short form like TikTok, Instagram reel, YouTube short video, uh, podcast episode descriptions, all sorts of things. And what it's going to do is it's going, I mean, here's the thing that that is, uh, it scares people, but I think it, I, I believe there's not a ton of reason to be scared in the land of like this taking over the world is all this is doing is this is just sourcing the internet and it's using the internet as its research database, so to speak.
(04:49):
And so like these words and some of this like, Hey, hit the subscribe button. Like, they're just getting that because every YouTuber in America is saying hit the subscribe button. Like, this isn't something new or something different. You know what I mean? And so, uh, I don't think that like it has a while. It feels like it has a mind of its own, right? Like really what it's doing is it's just sourcing other places and parts on the internet. And I wouldn't use this exact copy, but what I would do is this is good, right? And I would take it and tweak it and it included things like, you know, this phrase in here, unforgettable fiesta. Like, I would probably not include that, but now I probably will, you know, and there's a million different emojis in here. And again, I wouldn't naturally write that way, but I see a lot of people doing that.
(05:35):
And so maybe that's something that's beneficial and, uh, doesn't hurt me, you know, to include it. And so, uh, I think that this can be a great springboard and starting spot for churches. Now, where I think it can get dangerous is when this is like, this is all that we're doing, right? And there's, there's no more, um, creativity, ingenuity outside the box, and we're just simply copy and pasting. If you do that, wow, it might seem like a easy for you and quick to use tool. The reality is your brand isn't gonna have anything unique about itself anymore, right? Think about it like this is sourcing off the internet. So if you copy and paste this, you're just like everything else out there on the internet and there's nothing unique about you or your brand, and maybe in some cases you don't need that, you like, uniqueness is not necessarily gonna be the goal.
(06:28):
But in other cases, I do think that you want to make sure that you stand out. Why would someone go to your church as opposed to the church next to you or the church down the road if all the churches, you and the church down the road, the next church, the next church, the next church are all just using chat g p t to fill in all of the gaps and all of the blanks. Well, my question to you is like, what is gonna make your church something that they're interested in, attracted to, or, you know, planning on going to in, in the future? And so that's where I think this can operate and start as like a springboard. You know, I've told you I'm a youth pastor and so I use a lot of, um, pre-written content or curriculum, and I use it as my like, original source of study.
(07:12):
So I might, uh, download a curriculum that we either bought off the internet or that we subscribed to or something like that. And I might look at it, I might get the verse from it. I might get the theme from it, I might get the idea from it. I might even have, uh, the original author wrote an illustration and that might jog my memory to create some sort of illustration that that matches in my own life, or one that makes sense. Um, like, oh, they're going this direction. Can I think of a story in my life of something like that that happened? You know what I mean? And so that's a similar thing how I see ai. It's a starting spot. Um, and it could in some cases be an ending spot if it's good enough. And if you get good enough at prompt writing, granted, I just opened this account and so this is my literal first prompt I've ever asked chat g p t about.
(07:59):
So I'm gonna get better. And that's gonna actually, I think, be a skill that is gonna be marketable in the future, is your ability to write prompts and write things with, uh, open AI and chat g p t, um, or other AI systems. But this is just, like I said, this is just the beginning and something that I think can make your life easier as a church content creator. 'cause what we know, and one of the things that we hear a lot, one of the pain points of digital and social is, I don't have the time. Well, these things help reduce some of the friction and some of the barrier to entry that it takes for you to have the time to do some of these things. And it's gonna help wipe away some of that, and it's gonna level that playing field and let you have more time doing what you feel matters most in your career and in your job.
(08:47):
AI resource number two that I think you can be using in your church is generative AI through beta. Now, at the time of this recording, which is Monday, July 17th, Photoshop has released a beta, uh, version of its of its software, um, that if you are an Adobe user, you already have sitting in your Adobe Creative Cloud. If you go into your Adobe Creative Cloud and you look, uh, off to the left, I believe, um, there is a thing that says, uh, beta. Now I can't find it. Oh, there it is. Um, well, that's under create. Now, all apps, um, there's a, oh, right here, beta apps, there is a spot for some, some beta things you can test features and things that are currently under development. And so I downloaded the Photoshop beta, uh, version. And in that, uh, Photoshop beta, they have generative things, which is ai.
(09:50):
And so you can highlight and create a little portion of it. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see this video of me using it for the very first time I created a, a TikTok or a short of it. And these are the results. So for our staff picnic last week, we did a hot seat portion, a hot seat segment. And so, um, all I did was I said, create a background engulfed in flames, and then a seat, I included a seat in it. And so here's a seat right here. If you're watching on YouTube stream, you can see it. And then all I did was I typed in the, the text hot seat right above it. It was also a staff picnic. And so I said, create for me a, um, picnic background, and this is what they created. And then I just dropped our logo right in there on top.
(10:33):
I used, uh, another software called Sidekick that I get from D Y m download Youth ministry. And we had name picker right here. So typically I would put this c in the middle, but since I knew there were gonna be names right here, um, I, I just left that space blank. What happened was they actually ended up using this as the like landing slide for the entire event. So as people were walking in, whatever, and I didn't like it 'cause I was like, that C should be lower, right? I created it for the, the name picker that I was supposed to go right down here, uh, below it. All that to be said. And actually it was funny too, people were like, what is this right here? What is this like thing on the, on the picnic table? And you know what I would tell them?
(11:14):
I was like, I actually don't know. 'cause AI generated this entire graphic. So all that to be said, Adobe Photoshop AI with generative, uh, the gener, the generation, I don't know what they call it, generative fill. Um, that is another hack that I think you can use. I actually also built, um, a banner like, uh, a standup banner for first time guests that says, first time start here. And I built the ba the entire background using Adobe, uh, ai. And what I think is going to, excuse me, what I think is gonna be cool about it is I think that, um, it will take, it will reduce the amount of time I'm using to find backgrounds and other like elemental things. Um, not the Pixar movie, but elements of graphic design that I need in some sort of Photoshop background. So if you are an Adobe Creative Cloud, uh, user, uh, I would, I would a hundred percent recommend you downloading this and checking it out and just adopting it as your primary Adobe Photoshop file right now. Um, and just start playing with it and just start getting used to it and some of the features that go along with it.
(12:31):
Okay, AI thing number three is the new express.adobe.com. So I actually stumbled upon this searching for Adobe Photoshop beta. So if, again, if you're an Adobe subscriber, and if you are, uh, watching this, you can see this on my screen, but over here off to the, the left, I found, uh, just kinda like putzing through some stuff, I found some different categories over here. And under this, uh, under all under these all apps thing, under mobile, I found this thing right here called Adobe Express. And so I click it, um, and it took me to, now granted, right now I'm not able to replicate it or recreate it, um, but it took me to a, just a website and I was like, huh. And so as I played around on here, um, Adobe Express, yeah, hit launch, it took me to this thing right here.
(13:34):
And if, then it takes you to just this website and it's got just sort of like these Canva vibes, right? And so you have Instagram Square Post as a template, you have video as a template presentation, resume flyer, Instagram story, logo, infographic, webpage, and like it has all the elements. You can also start one from scratch. And so like, if you just click on one and you wanna create, say, an Instagram, uh, post from scratch, you can upload, uh, footage from your device or whatever, or you can use some of these free things free included with your Creative Cloud software. Um, so like, let's say I wanted to use right here, this basketball thing, and then you just get in there and you just, you just start creating it, right? You can, um, remove background, you can blend, you can affect, you have adjustments, um, highlights, brightness, contrast, all these things, all of the basic things that you can edit with.
(14:35):
And then at the end of it, uh, you can, you can create a completely, um, free, if you have the thing downloaded, a completely free, um, version of a graphic or a video or an animation or something like that. And so this is something again, and here's what I don't know, I don't know if this is considered AI or not, but it's a new feature. It's an Adobe Beta feature that I discovered that I found out, and then I thought, man, this is actually useful. And so last week at our church, we did a thing called Water Wars. And so if you are watching on the screen, I'll also put the link in the show notes. Um, but if you want to go check it out, you can, um, making myself a note so I don't forget to put it in there. You can go check out what, uh, what, what that thing looks like, what my water wars video that I created, uh, looked like.
(15:30):
And so, uh, it's right here in this folder. And so it's just a basic graphic with a little bit of sound and animation, just a reminder and, uh, you know, something basic, something simple, but something that would've taken me some time to create an Adobe Premier or, uh, completely something from scratch. I'd have to go like maybe to like motion array and download some sort of template, but now through the subscription that I'm already paying for as a church content creator, a church social media manager, through that subscription, I'm already having access to this other protocol and this other, um, thing over here, this other program that they're beginning to create. And so I think they're gunning for things like Canva and some of these other web-based design things. But like I said, you, if you are already a subscriber to it, you already have access to some of these things.
(16:26):
If you do not have a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, um, I, I just looked it up, you can get it annualized for about $419 a year. And let me just say that in years past, you are gonna need to hire somebody who had, uh, who had knowledge of this program without generative AI and without express.adobe.com, without some of these things. And you were probably still gonna have to buy for them church, uh, softwares to use. All right? And so now for less than $500 a year in your overall annual operating budget with a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, you can have it for 419 80 $8 a year. I'm not an affiliate, I'm not getting any kickback from this, though. I should, but this will help your church, I believe, reaching out into the next generation and reaching out and doing things in a digital way with, with hybrid ministry.
(17:26):
Now, you may need to hire a person that does know how to use this, or you may be a person on your staff that already knows how to use it. Either way, this is worth the investment. If you ask me. And there are other apps, there are probably cheaper things. But here's the thing, uh, if, if you don't already have, uh, a top of the line software like Final Cut Pro or something like that, I would recommend that you make some sort of investment. I'm an Adobe fan, I'm gonna recommend them, but you should use something and you should use more than just a free, a free version or a, a, you know, thing that you get off the internet, um, using like Canva or some of those things completely for free, because the more free stuff you have, you have to string it all together. And it doesn't always like communicate or talk. Meanwhile, everything under Adobe's umbrella, you saw this with some of my last videos, everything under that umbrella, all works together, talks together and can be created together. So, um, I would, if if you're not already doing that and you're looking for a recommendation, that would be my recommendation to you.
(18:32):
Okay? Item number four. And this one, frankly, might be the one that I'm most excited about. It is called Auto Pod. It is an Adobe Premier Pro. So video editing extension plugin, it's 29 99 a month, spits out to be about 300 bucks a year. And it gives you, um, three different features that I think all three are really, um, useful and really important and really potentially relevant for your social media and hybrid and digital presence. So I'm gonna actually show you all of them. If you're watching, I'll also talk through them. It has three. So it, it falls in, uh, into your extensions section right here. And you'll see there are three different features in it. The first feature is the jump cut editor. So you click that open and what it does is it pops up this little thing. It already has my, my info saved.
(19:32):
And so I tell it the silence cutoff level. I tell it to remove silences longer than, um, however many seconds, and then it will create jump cuts for me. Now granted, what I'm about to show you is this is based off a video with, um, with a backing track on it already. So you know what, that's probably not the best example. Um, but if I put in, like, if I put in the original like source file without the backing track, which is what I'm gonna do, um, I don't wanna do that. Uh, I'm going to get rid of that. Now if I do that, I can, um, do this jump cut editor.
(20:20):
Oh, now it does have some, it does have some funky requirements. Like, like you can't have, um, gaps in your sequence and you can't have your like video overlays. All right? So like, I gotta get rid of all the overlays and all the graphics and all the animations and all the things. Uh, what I did last time was I just highlighted all of them and hit command C or command X actually. So it was cut, so it removed them, I animated the sequence, and then I just dropped them right back in at the same, at the same spot. Um, so if I put all of my sequences together on the same line, if I remove any of the other sound effects or any other things, I just have a standard. If you're watching, I have a standard video line, um, and a standard audio line. So now I'm going to create these jump cuts. All audio tracks must start on frame zero. Audio track three does not start on frame zero. So it's reading, it's seeing this little baby, uh, sound effects. I'm just gonna try and highlight anything, delete 'em, and now try it. There we go. All right, so now if you see it encoded and it, and it, if you're watching it made very small cuts, but you'll be able to go in here now and you'll be able to see some of these jump cuts
Nick Clason (21:43):
Adds value life, someone who starts the party recognizes the increase they have and they use it wisely. So with that in,
Nick Clason (21:53):
So with that in mind, um, that now some of those like zoom in and out, those are mine. I've already done those. Okay. But it made those cuts for me. So I most recently was editing one of these. I can show you that one. This video right here. I dropped everything in and I just asked it for jump cuts, and then I was able to go through and I was able to do my zoom in and zoom out. That's how I do a one camera setup. Um, but give it variety, right? I don't have a, a multicam setup, but I have a one camera setup and I just zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, zoom out every so often. And so if you're watching, you'll be able to see this right here. There's that angle, and then I'm in, right? And then as I'm in, I come to the end of this sequence and I boom, zoom right back out.
(22:35):
You see that? And the way I generated those was through Auto pod, through the, the jump cut editor. All right? The other thing that it'll do for you is if I go back over here to this original one, um, you can do a social media clip, uh, thing. And so if I want to take it from right now, it's wide screen, 1920 by 10 80, if I wanna take it to 10 80 by 1920, auto reframe it, give it an end page, offset it and all that stuff, I create this clip. Now look, boom, now it put it in this, the right sequence size, and it reframed it for me. Now, if you go back a couple videos, when I was creating social clips, I was doing that manually, but now Auto Pod, it'll do that for me completely on its own. The third thing that it does that I'm not gonna be able to show you because I don't have a Multicam setup, but if I had a Multicam setup up, um, as really good for podcasting.
(23:31):
And so if I had like maybe a wide camera with two people in it, and then two cameras, one set on each of the people and they each had a audio source, you put all those sources in just on different layers. So layer one is, say me, layer two is my co-host, and then layer three is, uh, a wide, I would do a Multicam editor and it would just clip it all up so that it knows when and who's talking. And it would put, you know, focus on my camera when I'm talking and focus on my co-host camera when they're talking. And then the wide camera every so often, that used to all have to be done manually. And now through ai, through Auto Pod, it's able to sense the, um, audio and like, um, decibel levels on certain audio tracks and make those decisions for you.
(24:19):
All right, so in conclusion, what does this mean? What I think it means is, I think wherever you are in your journey with ai, listen, I get it. There's gonna be a lot of people that are freaked out by it, and it, it can be freaky. But also I hope that through this episode you are able to notice and see that it's helpful and it can be a helpful tool and one that's useful and beneficial and can actually save people time. Here's the reality. I'm a pastor, I'm a youth pastor, and my last year of this job has felt a lot more like a digital content creator than a youth pastor. And so my hope is that some of these tools actually free me up to do some more of my pastoral duties as opposed to sitting behind my computer and learning how to do some of these things manually that I've had to learn over the last year.
(25:10):
And so with the advent of ai, it's gonna make, hopefully my job easier. Now I get it. If your primary and sole responsibility at your church is to be a content creator, you might be fearing for some of your job security because you're like, this is doing some of the elements of my job. And I definitely get that. But what I think, and I heard this on a podcast, I can't remember who, or I would link it. Um, if I find it, I'll link it. But what I, what I remember is they said like, Hey, be the, be on the front edge of this, right? Cut on the front edge of this stuff. And if you're a content creator, start using it and don't be afraid of it, but instead use it so that you are able to be on the front edge wave of this.
(25:53):
And, for example, auto Pod, it's probably only gonna get better Beta Photoshop, it's in its beta version as it releases and launches into its full form, they're going to create more and better features on it. And I wanna be a user so that I know how to use it now so that the learning curve isn't as steep for me, that's just a personal preference. But honestly, I should have dropped this episode six weeks ago or, or two months ago. But here's the reality, I didn't have the bandwidth or the margin. Um, because we had summer camp going on and we had family vacation and some of these other things that I didn't have time to sit down and start playing around with it. It was only up until last week when I had a little more time to open and find Adobe Photoshop Beta and to find this express adobe.com thing, which I didn't even, I didn't even know I was looking for.
(26:43):
Um, and Auto Pod, honestly, I heard that from the Pro Church tool show probably two or three months ago. And I sent myself an email and it's been sitting in my email inbox to explore it. And I didn't have the bandwidth to explore it up here until last week. And so I get it, like the learning curve can be steep, but the quicker you're able to force yourself into that space, if you can give yourself an hour a week to just explore new things and learn new things and not be in creation mode, but be able to find yourself and be in exploration mode, those types of things will help you be able to be innovative and creative and on some of the front edge lines of these things. Not because being first to market is the goal, but because these tools here can help make you more effective as a digital content creator.
(27:31):
And if you're more effective and your church is more effective in this digital strategy, you hopefully are reaching more people with the life saving and eternally perspective. Um, you know, eternally perspective creating
(28:22):
If you are on YouTube and you wanna see the full transcripts, some of these other things, hit the link in the show notes down below in the description. If you're on a podcast and you want to see some of these things, hit the link in the show notes as well and it'll take you over to YouTube, take you to my TikTok, take you to my Instagram, come hang out with me. Let me know you're there. Ask us some questions if you have some, we'd love to do another q and a episode here in the soon to be near future. But don't forget free stuff in my, in my, uh, description as well. As always, don't forget, stay hybrid.