🎙️ Unraveling Generation Alpha:
Generation Alpha, born between 2010 and 2025, is the first generation to be entirely immersed in the digital world from birth. These tech-savvy and highly connected individuals are growing up amidst unprecedented technological advancements, shaping their worldviews, values, and relationships in unique ways. Join us as we dissect the defining characteristics of Generation Alpha and explore how they differ from previous generations.

🧭 Navigating Future Ministry Challenges:
As Generation Alpha matures, pastors and church leaders must prepare for new ministry challenges and opportunities. How can the Church effectively communicate timeless truths to a generation that processes information differently? What strategies can we adopt to ensure that biblical values remain relevant in the fast-paced, technology-driven lives of Alpha kids? Nick share insights and experiences that shed light on these crucial questions.

💡 Embracing Innovation and Adaptability:
In this episode, we emphasize the importance of embracing innovation and adaptability in ministry. Discover how churches and faith communities worldwide are already leveraging technology to engage with Generation Alpha on digital platforms, fostering meaningful connections and nurturing their spiritual growth.

🌟 Building a Generation Alpha-Inclusive Ministry:
Join us as we explore practical tips and strategies for building a Generation Alpha-inclusive ministry that celebrates diversity and encourages genuine connections. From utilizing interactive multimedia content to designing age-appropriate digital discipleship programs, our experts share actionable advice to empower pastors and leaders in reaching and discipling the Alpha generation effectively.

🎧 Tune in to the Hybrid Ministry Podcast and join the conversation on navigating ministry in the era of Generation Alpha. Don't miss this opportunity to equip yourself with the insights and tools needed to effectively minister to the next generation of faith pioneers.

🌐 For more resources, articles, and discussions on ministry in the digital age, visit our website at HybridMinistry.xyz

🎥 YOUTUBE
https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick

📱SOCIAL
TIKTOK:
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick

INSTAGRAM:
http://www.instagram.com/hybridministry

🗒️ SHOWNOTES
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/057

🆓 FREEBIES
FREE Animation Effects for Adobe Premiere Pro:
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis

FREE E-Book:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

⏱️TIMECODES
00:00-02:30 Intro
02:30-07:25 Meet Generation Alpha - Who are they? When were they born? What do we know?
07:25-10:38 Three Interesting Trends about Generation Alpha
10:38-18:06 How Generation Alpha will shape the church in the Future
18:06-19:00 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):

Nick Clason (00:07):
Well, hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Clason, thrilled, excited, pumped, and Jack to be with you. Another episode in the Cross Creek Mug. Listen, I'm gonna take this rig back to my house at some point in time, but I brought this in, um, 'cause I did those Adobe and Photoshop episodes and, um, that was a little bit for me, selfish and two-pronged. Um, but for those of you not watching, I'm in my office, uh, drinking some coffee this morning. Um, freshly roasted Burundi from Burundi. Did it on my back patio last night. Didn't get the chaff off as much as I would've wanted to. So I'm gonna be working on that here in the future. Uh, in this episode, we are going to be talking about all things generation Alpha. Now listen, we've been talking Gen Z a lot, but we are gonna, um, shift the conversation even younger because Gen Alpha is currently, um, thought to have been born between 2010 and 2025, meaning they're not even born all the way yet, .

Nick Clason (01:17):
And so we're gonna talk at them, we're gonna talk about them a little bit. There's a few statistics and things that are interesting about them, but they're not fully formed and they're not fully developed yet. And so these are just a lot of things that may just be conjecture, things that we're looking at ahead in the future, curious about. So join me as we dive into that, and here's why, because I think that the younger generations tend to formulate and bring about formation to the older generations and the older demographics. So as always, you can head to the link in the show notes, http://www.hybridministry.xyz/057 for full transcripts. It's also gonna have a link to our YouTube channel where you can subscribe, like rate review, a rating or review in the purple podcast app would be amazing. We are on Instagram, we are on TikTok, we are all the places. And Link in the show notes will have your chance for a 100% completely free ebook, as well as the video transitions that you can get in Adobe Premier Pro. Without any further ado, let's dive into why we need to look at and learn from Generation Alpha for the future of the church. Here we go.

Nick Clason (02:30):
All right, so Generation Alpha, that is a new demographic younger than Generation Z, right? We had Generation X, generation Y, which we have nicknamed and colloquially, colloquially called the millennials, and then Generation Z. What do you do after Z? Well, you go back to the beginning. So now we're in Generation Alpha. They may have a new name, they may have something, um, that they're called in the future, but for right now, we are referring to them as generation alpha. So right now, I am a youth pastor. If you're not in youth ministry, you may feel like this isn't even a thing that is worth worrying about, but just for some frame of reference and context, right now is actually a really clear year in my mind because middle schoolers are generation alpha and, um, high schoolers are Generation Z. That line, it's an arbitrary line that you draw right between like generations, but most researchers would draw that line, like I said, 2010.

Nick Clason (03:28):
So you do a little bit of quick math that makes it like a 13 year old. So you're looking at sixth grade, seventh grade, maybe some eighth graders, and then ninth grade and on up. They are younger. But similarly to look at the gap between Gen Z and millennials, we called them, um, some people have called them millennials because they're zrs, but they're also millennials. So they got kind of attributes of both generations. The same thing is gonna be true of the lines, the edges of these arbitrary drawings. Couple of things that are worth noting that I wanna share with you. Um, I got, uh, I looked at an article from exploding topics.com/blog/generation alpha stats. I'll drop the link to that for y'all in the show notes. Make sure you go check that out. Most of this stuff comes from there, but they have it linked to deeper research where they got their information from.

Nick Clason (04:17):
So go ahead, check those things out. But children between ages of eight and 12, okay? So that's upper elementary, lower middle spend on average four hours and 44 minutes in front of screens every single day. Just think about that for a minute. Four hours and 44 minutes. And while you may be listening to this and thinking, man, that's crazy, that's a lot. How much time are you spending in front of a screen every single day? I mean, right here is my office, I'm sitting in front of a screen, I have another screen, I have my phone, I'm, I'm in front of this eight hours a day, right? Not to mention TVs, not to mention phones, but what really struck this cord for me, what was really making me want to dive into this a little bit more is this the actual screen itself. So we were on vacation last week.

Nick Clason (05:03):
We were in Florida and we had a tv, just like every room in the America on vacation in hotels or condos has a a tv, right? And there was a problem with the TV though, because the TV only had basic cable. My kids don't understand basic cable, so they would wanna watch TV and they would ask to watch a certain show, and I'd say, bro, I I can't get that show on the TV for you. I can't make Phineas and Ferb be what they play. I don't even know if Disney Channel does Phineas and Ferb anymore. It was mostly big city Greens is what was on. And so instead, my kids as opposed to being like, oh, okay, like they didn't get it. They're like, well, okay, can we watch Phineas and Ferb on your iPad? So I have a seven year old and a four year old.

Nick Clason (05:45):
And so one of them adopted my iPad and one of them adopted my wife's iPad. One of them watched Pho and Ferb, one of them watched Mickey Mouse Funhouse. Meanwhile, in the master bedroom where my wife and I were staying the TV in there, I couldn't get it work. And I had, I host a podcast about hybrid ministry, so you'd think I of all people should be able to get this thing to work when I couldn't. My wife was like, well, it's a lost cause. So since I couldn't, the two of us also were just like on our phones, right? Like, um, at the time of the vacation and, and you know, we're gonna be a month in advance or so on this, uh, when I actually post. But, uh, it was n b a free agency. So I was like, checking woe notifications if you know, you know, Sean's notifications from the Athletic and just watching like, uh, YouTube and podcasts and things like that as they're, you know, analyzing the Fred Van Veit signing in Houston and Dylan Brooks and in Houston, and you know, Chris Middleton back to The Bucks and all these things, right?

Nick Clason (06:34):
So I'm just watching it on my phone. My wife's, you know, she's over there on reels. That's her normal anyway, she's not a big like TV person. She's more like scroll some reels, you know, for her like entertainment, so to speak. So the four of us, my, my wife and I, and my two kids, all of us were on screens, but not the biggest screen, not the TV screen. And I think I, to me, it was like just this eye-opening moment. First of all, I can't even go on vacation without thinking about this podcast, right? But it was this kinda like eye-opening moment, like, man, none of us are watching tv. We're all just on smaller screens. What does this mean? So it caused me to just start asking some questions about the younger generation, um, gen Alpha. I think that these are gonna be related to Generation Z as well.

Nick Clason (07:16):
Uh, so I wanna share with y'all a couple of stats. So let's go ahead and take a minute, dive into what some of these, um, fascinating generation Alpha stats are. Let's go. All right, so like I said, according to the exploring topics.com blog, here are some of the stats from Generation Alpha. 47% of Gen Alpha say that they prefer to split their free time between screen time and being outdoors. 47%. So right about half prefer screen time and outdoors. And I think, like if I were to inspect that and ask some questions about it a little bit, really what I'm saying is like, indoors equals screen time and outdoors equals outdoors, which is, you know, normal. The question is like, is there, are there things inside that Gen Alpha are navigating, using, spending time on that are not screen based? The next thing I wanna show you is it says Gen Alpha use an average of 4.2 streaming services.

Nick Clason (08:13):
That's Gen Alpha. Frankly, I use Disney plus, I use Discovery Plus I use Netflix. Sometimes I use Prime, sometimes I use Hulu. Sometimes I stream off the E S P N app. Sometimes I use like Sling. I mean, I'm up to seven. So while you were like, man, that might sound like a lot. I, I don't think it actually sounds like a lot at all. I have tons of different streaming services, and quite frankly, I've cut the cord with cable years ago, and every time I go on vacation, I'm reminded like, yeah, I don't want cable. Like, that's not what I want, right? Like, I enjoy my streaming services, part of the problem. Now, streaming services, you add all the costs together just as much as cable or more. And so I'm like, I don't know if this is actually saving me any money. 'cause there's enough platforms out there now that they're diversified across all of 'em, you know?

Nick Clason (08:58):
Um, additionally, 59% of gen alphas say that watching TV and movies is their favorite weekend activity. 50% name it as their favorite afterschool activity. And 70% of eight to 11 year olds consider TV and movies to be among their favorite activities. So just think about that. Screen time, gen Z, all that stuff is part of what, um, how they're spending their time on screens. It is wild. And lastly, 38% of gen alpha gamers want a video game that allowed them to build or create. And I think there's something there talking about Minecraft, talking about Roblox types of games. They like to be contributors and creators to the moment, not just passive consumers. You know, my kids, they watch, um, some YouTube, uh, we have YouTube kids, we try to have all the blocks that we can keep 'em safe out there on the internet. But the, my son has recently gotten into watching people play video games.

Nick Clason (09:59):
And I'm like, bro, why don't you play a video game yourself? So this weekend I downloaded Mario Kart so that we could have some family Mario Kar battles, which has been pretty fun. Uh, but it's kinda like my kids, uh, seven and four year old, it's kind of their first time ever playing, um, video games, right? And so, um, they're now getting to experience what it's actually like to, to play it. And then I got home from church yesterday and man, they, they had been playing it for hours up to that point. So pretty fun. Um, pretty exciting times. But what does all this stuff mean? So let's dive in to talk about some big ideas and pictures of what this might mean for the church going forward. All right? So let's talk about what this might mean for the idea of the future church.

Nick Clason (10:43):
So philosophically speaking, as you're listening to this, you might be thinking Gen Alpha, I don't have to care about that. I don't have to worry about that. I'm not in youth ministry. And while that may be true, um, because even some of these kids aren't even born yet, right? Uh, gen Alpha, the lines I've read are 2010 to 2025. Birth years. We're in 2023 at the time of this recording. So there's still two more years of gen alphas to be born, to be popping out people, right? So, , what does this mean? You might be thinking, and here's here's why I think this matters, because philosophically, churches and cultures tend to gravitate towards youth. Watch any movie on Hollywood, watch any movie on tv like you're going, the the main character you're going to find is somebody who is young. And so younger generations tend to kind of carry the weight and carry the day as it pertains to culture and culture.

Nick Clason (11:32):
Building youth shapes culture. So if youth shapes culture, then we need to look at what the youth and what the younger people are doing, um, gravitating towards what the trends are, and then what this might mean for us as a church going forward. Because here's what's gonna happen. If not, we're going to become less relevant. We're gonna become more antiquated. And if we are not because we're trying to attract people and, and make Jesus attractive, but because we're trying to be, as Paul said, I, I become a Jew for, for Jews, a Greek for Greeks to, so that I may win some in accordance and for sake of the gospel. And so that's what we're gonna do. Uh, we're going to, um, try and meet people and reach people where they are, where they are spending their time. So philosophically speaking, culture tends to trend younger. So what does that mean? And what are some of the things that we can just right now look at, grab and move forward? Let's go ahead, take a look at that.

Nick Clason (12:32):
So practically speaking, I have three practical ideas for churches. So the first thing is make things optimized for your phone. Listen, if your website is already not optimized for a phone, like you need to probably stop listening to this right now and go make that happen asap. That is a very crucial and very important part of ministry, I think in, uh, 2023 and beyond. Also, what are ways in which you can invade the phone, not in a creepy way, but in a meaningful way to generations that are not at church in the moment, right? So like both, how can they engage with the at church? So one of my favorite things is the YouVersion, um, bible app, the notes section where they can take notes, follow along, but also like Bible reading plans, short form video, um, short, short form video based content pieces for social media, TikTok, reel shorts, um, that are both funny, fun, relevant and, um, biblical and things that are gonna help them like grow more, uh, as a disciple and as a follower of Jesus.

Nick Clason (13:35):
So both, what can you do for phones in person and what can you do for phones, um, while they're not there. The other thing I think that is worthwhile is as much screen time as people are spending, how can we as a church offer for them moments not on screens at church. So like, we most recently went to summer camp a couple weeks ago and we offered and challenged our students to adopt the low sell slash no sell challenge. And we rewarded students who took part in that because we thought they would get more outta camp if they were on their phones less as opposed to more. But here's the thing, we didn't just do a blanket no cell phone policy because kids use their phones for alarms. Kids use their phones for cameras, kids use their phones for all kinds of different things. And quite frankly, so do you, and so do I like my phone is my g p s my phone is my daytimer, my phone is my like, you know, I got a question.

Nick Clason (14:29):
Look it up. Like my phone is, is a lot of things to me. And I think that's part of the problem is we a lot of times equate screen time to just simply social media when in the reality screen time is a lot of things. Like when I travel, my screen time goes through the roof, not 'cause I'm spending more time on my phones at my vacation destination, but because I'm traveling and I got my Maps app open the whole time and my screen is counting that against me. The second thing is, can you incorporate video games? Students are spending more and more time on video games. So both that could be like in your environment, especially if you're a youth pastor, that's not a foreign idea. It's, it's been around for years. Honestly. I grew up in a ministry that had video games offered to me as a teenager, but can you also, um, maybe incorporate video games in things like Twitch streams or YouTube gaming, like those types of things.

Nick Clason (15:17):
And can you use that to both, um, let students watch and, and view and participate in from a passive view perspective and or can you flip that script and give them opportunities, platforms, times to come in stream? Things like, can you find a way to incorporate that into your ministry to create a wider pool and a wider reach? Because just think about this. If you invite someone into to stream on one of your platforms, they're gonna cross promote that. They're gonna tell their friends that they're online, like all kinds of fun stuff like that. So, so start thinking and asking yourself, are there ways to incorporate video games? That's one of the ways that Gen Alpha is using, especially things like Minecraft and Roblox. One of the things that I thought was awesome during c o we built a dedicated for our own student ministry Minecraft server, and it was really cool.

Nick Clason (16:08):
Like it was a really cool thing. Um, you know, covid and, and you know, our leaders not really getting it and getting into it helped it, you know, not have as much traction as I think it could have maybe should have. Um, but, but things like that are so cool, so niche. Are there ways to utilize that for the advancement, um, of your student ministry culture, advancement of the name of Jesus, the gospel, all those types of things I think worth que are, are worth questioning. And the third thing is I think we need to start discipling students through it and not away from it. If you're anything like me, you've grown up in, you know, early nineties, uh, mid two thousands almost all of the things were like challenging students to, to lay things aside, like turn your phone into a dumb phone, all these things.

Nick Clason (16:53):
And I think those are good things. I think if you, if you feel so inclined to do that personally, then you should do that. But I think, like I said, phones are not going anywhere, right? Um, but how do we help disciple people through it? Um, because they have it, right? Like, I'll just say this as a parent, I am going to hold off on getting my kids a phone for as long as humanly possible. I say that right now when they're seven and four. I can't tell you what it's gonna be like in five years or seven years and where they're at with that, but I don't want them to have a phone. 'cause there are dangers on there that pornography addiction, things like that all can stem from a simple device in your pocket. That being said, many, many of our people have them. So how do we help navigate them through it? How do we help create within them good digital hygiene, um, good practices to navigating having a phone and living in the worldwide web in the 21st century and using it for good and using it to reach people for the gospel. So I think that's a shift that the church needs to start moving towards is less, Hey, cut it off, go cold Turkey instead. Hey, you have it, but with it, here's how you can use it.

Nick Clason (18:07):
Well, hey everyone, thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this episode. I hope you found it helpful. As always, link in the show notes for transcripts, links to the YouTube video if you wanna watch that. And TikTok, Instagram, YouTube shorts, all those things go like, follow, subscribe, uh, all the places. Um, we love hanging out with y'all. If you have a question, head to our website, http://www.hybridministry.xyz and send us a question. We would love to answer it here on the pod at some point in the future. And don't forget, we got a couple freebies in the show notes as well. So go to the show notes. That is going to be your one stop shop for everything that you need. And don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.

Follow Us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
Show Notes & Transcripts: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/046
FREE E-Book: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

SHOWNOTES
THE ARTICLE BEING READ & REFERENCED:
https://youthministry360.com/blogs/all/how-to-be-present-with-your-social-media-presence

MY STUDENT SOCIAL MEDIA:
https://www.tiktok.com/@crosscreekchurch?lang=en

10 FREE SPIRITUAL PRACTICE TIKTOKS:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e4n40o5080lblih/Spiritual%20Practice%20TikToks%20-%20Nick%20Clason%20and%20Bailey%20Fore.zip?dl=0

TIMECODES
00:00-02:18 Intro
02:18-07:24 How to be Present with your Social Media Presence
07:24-12:19 How do we Show Up Where our People are Spending their Time?
12:19-12:58 Don't post Announcements on Social Media
12:58-14:01 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Well, hey there everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I, as always, am your host, Nick Clason. Thrilled to be here again with you. And just let me let you know little bit of a shorter podcast today I'm actually gonna do something a little different, a little unique. I recently wrote an article for YM Short for Youth Ministry 360, um, titled How to Be Present With Your Social Media Presence. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna drop the link to that here in the show notes, but I'm actually just gonna read it for you, um, and also give you some author commentary as I, uh, am reading it through. So expect like a 10, 12 something minute pod. You probably already saw that. If you already downloaded this, if you're on YouTube, welcome in. Glad to have you. Excited to be with you.

Nick Clason (00:48):
And here's why. Honestly, um, this may release the week before, week after, not sure yet in the order. I'm doing a little bit of some batch pre-recording because my family and I are getting ready to go to Disney and I'm looking to just completely unplug from work, from this, from podcast side hustles, all the things I'm doing. Uh, so excited about unplugging, excited about getting ready to send and go and be with my family in Disney. Um, that being said, I, the, the craziest thing about this article is I wrote it, I can't even remember how long in advance, and then it dropped months later. Like I, I wrote it, I know when I lived in Chicago and it dropped just a couple weeks ago now when I'm living here in Dallas. And so my life has changed immensely. And when I heard it, there were elements of it that I was like, oh, that's interesting.

Nick Clason (01:34):
Oh, I don't know if I would've said it that way. And then there are other things I was like, yeah, I definitely still agree with that, you know, so I thought it'd be fun to bring to you all because I wrote it before, I think I wrote it before we even had a podcast going. So these thoughts, like, just think about that. If you've been on this journey with me listening to, to me in your ear ball holes for a while, think about this. These, these thoughts that have been ruminating inside of me and brewing inside of me. Uh, anyway, all that to be said, show notes, hybridministry.xyz. Subscribe to us on YouTube, follow me on TikTok Act place. And Nick also five star review if you would be so inclined. And without any further ado, let's dive into how to be present with your social media presence.

Nick Clason (02:19):
All right, here we go. How to be present with your social media presence. Read by the author himself, Nick Clayson. Here we go. Incarnational ministry. Did I lose anybody yet? Now before you go dust off your lexicon, you probably already know and embrace this as a characteristic in your life and in your ministry, right? Here's the thing. And I said this cuz I knew that, that pastors, youth pastors, who's ever gonna be reading it, primarily, this is a youth pastor. This isn't aside by the way, in case you didn't know primarily youth pastors reading this. They embrace and embody this, this characteristic, this idea of incarnation ministry just may not use it. You know, super frequently in our vocabulary anyway, in the gospels, we see Jesus going to be with his people that he encounters. So if our ministries are going to be a mirror of Christ's incarnation life and incarnation ministry, we are required to go and be with the people that we're ministering to.

Nick Clason (03:16):
And if you and I were youth pastors in the nineties, well we'd probably be found at the mall sitting next to a Chinese restaurant that's handing out free samples of their bourbon chicken and browsing hot topic on our way out the store. You know, you remember, however, if your towns anything like mine, well, the mall I just described as a of it, former of its former self. So where are all the teenagers hanging out? According to some statistics, 45% of Generation Z report that they're online, as they describe it as almost constantly, 45%, 24% of teams report feelings of discomfort if they go more than just one hour without access to the internet. And finally, on average, generation Z allocates two hours and 55 minutes per day on average to social media. So let's just be honest for a minute. The mall has gone to there, and let's be honest and frank, our pockets, it lives on our phones and the students that we're trying to reach and spend their time, they're online.

Nick Clason (04:26):
Regardless of your opinion of whether or not you believe that this amount of screen time is healthy, advantageous, it's probably not. It is where our students are spending the majority of their time. Let's pause for a minute. Um, a quick aside from this, I was in a recent Barna CoLab group on how to disciple Gen Z and their, they're sharing some recent findings, super interesting, super fascinating stuff. One of the things that they shared, um, actually it was a guy that they interviewed from a church and he said, uh, if Generation Z is the first digitally native generation, then generation alpha right behind them. By the way, if you're youth pastor, that is fifth and sixth, seventh, eighth grade, maybe not as high as seventh and eighth grade, but definitely like sixth, fifth, and on down. So they are the youth ministry of the future.

Nick Clason (05:13):
So if generation Z is the first digitally native generation, then that means that generation Alpha is the first digitally dependent generation. Crazy to think about. And so a lot of times, let's be honest with our generational age gap and difference, even as I'm a millennial, even as some fellow millennials, Xers, boomers on up, what is our constant, like, what are we constantly asking generation Z and younger to do? We're asking them to get rid of their phones. We're asking them to disconnect and unplug from technology. And while I think that there's advantages to that and it's advantageous for people to learn the disciplines of being able to break away, find some silence, find some solace and solitude, um, away from social media culture, away from online culture, I think all of that is well and good. I just think that you have a generation that is dependent on it.

Nick Clason (06:06):
It is literally their alarm clock. It's their calendar, it's their actual phone. It's where they communicate with all their friends, whether it be text message, Snapchat, be real, but it's, it's their their map, it's their navigation system. It's the way that they check their grades. It's how they pay for their school lunches. Like it's everything. It's not like, I'll give you this example. I am recording this podcast when I'm recording it in preparation for my trip to Disney World. Everything at Disney World is now online. It's in the my Disney Experience app Genie Plus, which is the replacement of Fast Passes, lightning Lanes, um, checking into my resort, making mobile food orders, like everything is on my phone. And you are at an amusement park with your family trying to unplug, trying to disconnect Bif, do you have to be on your phone? And there are people who are like, I'm done.

Nick Clason (06:56):
I'm not gonna do that. And that's fine. But the reality is we are moving more and more towards that than we are away from that. And so if this generation is dependent upon it, what we have to do is stop villainizing the phone and we have to start looking at it as an opportunity to teach them and disciple them through how to have faith with a phone through that lens. And I think that's my heart in this article, and that's what's coming through. Let's read the next section. So here's a question for you. If in the nineties you would've gone hung out at the mall to connect with students and teenagers, how in 2023, which is one of the articles written, how in 2023 are you showing up where your students are? See, I'm not necessarily proposing that the digital church replaces the in-person experience hybrid far from it.

Nick Clason (07:47):
But if your students go home after school and spend almost three hours on their phones, which is what the statistics told us, then couldn't you make an impact with your students or your people online? All right, so here's some ideas how to do that. If you've been listening to this podcast any length of time you've heard it, I'm gonna say it in idea and then I'm gonna riff on it. So I'm gonna say idea number one, idea number two, so that you're clear, okay, idea number one, share a devotional thought. Guys, you can hold your phone out in front of you and you can give either a recap of, or you can give a completely new and different from, not different cuz come, gonna come from the Bible, hopefully, but different from your sermon or from the lesson that week or whatever the case might be.

Nick Clason (08:29):
You can give just a devotional thought, boom. Hey guys wanna give you quick encouragement, 60 seconds or less. People don't want longer than that. Anyway, you can do a deep dive into an encouraging, um, or challenging passage of scripture. Again, 60 seconds or less. I, I think maybe it was Mark Twain, I'm not sure, but it was him who said, Hey, I wanted to write a short letter but I didn't have time. So I wrote a long letter. See, it takes more time to make something quick, concise, and short. Idea number three, have fun, create fun and funny posts. Hey, if you're not following us on TikTok on our student ministry, I would encourage you to, you can go check it out. We are Cross Creek students. Um, hopefully now we are at Cross Creek students. If not, I may still have it set as at Cross Creek Church cuz TikTok won't let me switch my name over to Cross Creek students, but that's ultimately the goal.

Nick Clason (09:18):
I've had a hard time switching it over. But we do fun and funny posts. I literally, right as I was walking into this spare bedroom of my house to record this podcast, I was literally posting a video of a girl drinking ranch dressing flavored soda and trying to guess the flavor of it. Like it's just fun. And honestly, what I do is I toss out the invite on a youth ministry night. Hey, you wanna be on TikTok tonight? Sure. They all come into the room. I have six bottles of soda with weird flavors. I have a game cud up on my laptop. And another thing with the filter on on TikTok, it gets me like 20 pieces of video content that I just store, bank and pull back out later when I need it in my calendar. Idea number four, film answers to theological questions, right?

Nick Clason (10:02):
People are inspired by answers to deep things that maybe you don't wanna put online, but things that students are dealing with. Like, why do bad things happen? How do I develop a habit? Why, how do I spend time with God even if I don't want to? Why would I go on obeying him and living a life of sinlessness or the goal of that if he's always just gonna forgive my sins? Anyway? You talk about that every week. What's the point of it? What does God think about gay people? Does God require me to be a democrat? Does God require me to be a Republican? What would Jesus think of our current political landscape? You get the idea. Idea number five, encourage spiritual practices and disciplines. I don't know if it's gonna get accepted or if it's out yet, but I recently submitted, if it is, I'll drop a link to it in the show notes.

Nick Clason (10:48):
I recently submitted 10 TikTok videos. Actually, you know what I'm gonna do? It's on ym, um, or I submitted it to d y m I don't know if they took it or not. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna drop a link, uh, to that resource, the Dropbox resource in the show notes here, completely free charge. Just go grab it and use it. It's, uh, memorize scripture with me. Practice meditation, sit in silence, have a praise break, all kinds of different things. 10 different spiritual practices that that students or people or adults can use. It's not branded. So you can use it. Just download it and post it wherever you, uh, manage social media free for you. Uh, let's see. Are we on six idea number six, you can do recap posts or videos. Just take, literally you only need 3, 4, 5 seconds worth of of videos and you get like 10 of those real fast at the beginning of the night, um, or during your program.

Nick Clason (11:40):
And then you just put 'em into TikTok. Auto cut. Boom. You got a less than 22nd recap video. Phenomenal way to do that. Idea number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, less idea Number seven, give shout outs to leaders and volunteers. Figure out how to do that on social, whether it's static graphics, whether it's motion graphics, whether it's you talking graphics, whether it's voiceovers, give shout outs to leaders and volunteers. Finally, you can quiz students on their Bible knowledge. Uh, one of my favorite ways to do this is on the Instagram story editor with the story sticker, uh, uh, multiple choice story sticker. You can put it in there and you can ask them bible questions and test their Bible knowledge. Super fun way to go about doing that. Those are just some ideas to name a few. I don't know your context, but here's one thing that I do know, we're back to the article, is that I want you to notice that not one single idea that I mentioned above was an advertisement for an event.

Nick Clason (12:32):
We've gone into this, if you've listened to me for a while, you've heard this before. But what if we could use social media to encourage students to actually take the next step in their faith to engage with you or with your ministry, to challenge them to deeper more meaningful ways and a more meaningful walk with Jesus. It's not just another communication platform, which is what we often default social media into being. It's a means to help accomplish a more incarnation form of ministry. So that's it, that's the article. Love to know how you are using social media in your ministry context for more than just announcements to encourage people in their faith to show up where they are. But the bottom line is we are rooting for you. We are cheering you on. So glad you're in here. Hey, listen, if you didn't know this, 2023 is the year of short form video content, vertical video, short form content, less than 60 seconds. If you're like, man, I don't even know how to get this word out there, we got you right here. Link the description. If you're watching on YouTube or go grab our 100% completely free e-book titled, have I already ruined my Church's TikTok account? No. But this book will help teach you how to post one from start to finish all the way through doing it all on the phone in your pocket. So we're here for you, rooting you on. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being a loyal listener. And as always, we never forget.

Entire Show: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/038
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
FREE e-book: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

TIMECODES
00:00-01:55 Intro
01:55-06:25 The Instagram Usage Statistics of 2023
06:25-08:23 The Instagram Feed Grid for Churches in 2023
08:23-10:03 Instagram Stories in Churches in 2023
10:03-12:10 Instagram Reels for Churches in 2023
12:10-14:59 3 Things to do on Instagram in 2023
14:59-16:40 3 Things to avoid on Instagram in 2023
16:40-17:48 How to Utilize stories on Instagram in 2023
17:48-19:21 How to Utilize Instgram Reels in 2023
19:21-20:41 Instagram Content Strategy Idea for 2023
20:41-22:45 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I, as always am your host, Nick Clason. Thrilled and excited to be with you. We are going to be continuing on through our six part church social media framework and this is actually the very final piece, um, of actual social networks. The next episode we're gonna talk website, text groups, email list, um, which is a little cheating cuz it's more than six, I get it. But that's what we're gonna look and chat, look at, and chat through next week. We are gonna round it out with Instagram today. Excited to be with you Before we dive in, a, uh, would love to encourage you to hop into your podcast app hitter rating hitter review. That would be an incredible resource and an incredible gift to us. We will be thrilled if that's something that you will be willing to do.

Nick Clason (00:56):
So please take time to do that. Also, we are on YouTube, so hit the show notes for a link to YouTube. If you're watching on YouTube, we're a podcast. So hit the link in the show notes to check out our podcast episode, um, website hybridministry.xyz. And for each and every single episode, we provide for you 100% free of charge transcripts. So if you're on a run and you're hearing something and you're thinking, man, that was really good, I want to go back and look at that a little bit more. I want to extrapolate that out. You can head to the link in the show notes. We will link this exact episode to the link in the show notes hybridministry.xyz/038. Once again, thrilled to be with you. Glad that you guys are here. And without any further ado, let's dive in and start talking about Instagram as a part of your church's six step social media framework.

Nick Clason (01:56):
All right, let's talk Instagram. So, um, again, if you, uh, did not watch last episode, uh, or listened to it, I would definitely recommend going back and doing it because in our order we want YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram. And the primary reason for putting Facebook ahead of Instagram was, I personally have found it easier to start with Facebook link my two accounts, Instagram and Facebook. Um, on the Facebook side you can try and start linking 'em through Instagram side, but you're eventually gonna end up over needing to do your meta business suite. And that that's just the easiest place to start is Facebook. And so if you're starting from scratch, start with Facebook, but don't abandon or neglect Instagram because Instagram is actually an incredibly used and um, popular resource among Americans. So, uh, just a couple quick Instagram hit quick hitter stats before we dive into actual strategy around it.

Nick Clason (02:52):
In the US there are 127.2 million Instagram users, uh, in the United States in the year 2023 alone. Uh, Snapchat, conversely is at 89.5 and TikTok is at 89.7 according to stati statistica.com. I'll link some of the stuff in the show notes. Some other interesting, um, stats and statistics is the age breakdown is that male users are at 51.8%. Female users are at 48.2%. Um, the age breakdown on Instagram, 13 to 17 year olds are 8% of the usage. Um, where 18 to 24 year olds are at 30.8% of the usage. 25 to 34 year olds are at 30.3% of the usage. 35 to 44 year olds are at 15.7% of the usage. 45 to 55 year olds, 8.4% of the usage, 55 to 64 year olds, 4.3% of the usage and then 65 plus are at 2.6% of the usage of people on Instagram. Now that being said, you can see that the data skews young, but there's a giant, a giant spike between the ages of 18 and 35.

Nick Clason (04:16):
Again, my guess is as a church, uh, we did this, this thing with the unstuck organization a couple years ago with the church I worked at and uh, they said it well. They're like, you obviously wanna reach all people and be all things to all people. However, you probably also want to kind of hone in on a demographic and you don't wanna pick one over the other. But once you hone in on one, what you do notice a lot of times is that the other demographics are attracted to just you having some sort of vision. And so my guess is that the demographic, the target demographic that you're attempting to reach if you're a younger church or if you're going to at least try and reach the next generation with kids and students, is that you're gonna wanna squarely reach between 18 and 34. Like that is probably your prime shot and you're probably weak on that 18 to 25, 18 to 30 pre-k um, spot.

Nick Clason (05:12):
And the reason I know that is cuz just about every church in America is actually kinda weak at that. However, uh, I think that that is still squarely a good demographic to be, um, targeting and and trying to to go after. All right, some other quick Instagram stats, Instagram story, daily active users are at 50, uh, 500 million plus. Uh, the number of businesses on Instagram are 200 million plus. And um, there are 0.59% of Instagram accounts with over 1 million followers. So Instagram, as you can tell, are is still incredibly, um, active. It's still incredibly popular while is very much on the rise, um, and has been challenging Some of these legacy platforms like Instagram, like Facebook, Instagram still has a place, in fact, just like anecdotally, like I prefer TikTok, but my wife, she watches short form videos, but she chooses to do so in the Instagram reels section of Instagram.

Nick Clason (06:16):
Which leads us to our next section. Let's talk about some of the different features, um, that you can find and can use on Instagram. All right, the first feature is the Instagram feed. Now this is probably the thing that if you are just logging into Instagram for the first time, the first thing you're gonna see is the spot where people post pictures and you scroll. Instagram made the scroll endlessly. Like that was them. They made that, uh, popular and then they made all their social media sort of adapt to that. In fact, I remember the update when Facebook went from side swiping photos to you could click on a photo and you could swipe this way. They did that in response to Instagram. I don't know if that was before or after they acquired it, but nonetheless, like Instagram has been very popular and has made a lot of important headway in the world, um, of social media.

Nick Clason (07:07):
And so the feed is probably your legacy platform. It's also your social graph spot where you are following the people that you want to follow. Um, and so you get on there, you'd scroll and you'd see, oh, so and so just, you know, they just went on a trip to Brazil. I'm gonna check that out. I'm gonna like it, I'm gonna comment, I'm gonna share. That's what happens on the Instagram feed. I do also think that the Instagram feed was one of the first places where the highly curated look became popularized. And I do think that some of the platforms like TikTok, like Snapchat and even like be real, have um, swung the pendulum back is because they are pushing back against some of the highly curated social media, uh, places. And so they're looking to find a place where you can actually come in, be yourself, be real, show the unfiltered version of yourself.

Nick Clason (08:00):
And so the whole perfectly edited, perfectly airbrushed photos and curated. I think that that is starting to wane, especially with the newer and younger generation. And so while Instagram and its feed definitely has a position in this six step social media framework, I do think that it is probably one that has grown the most tired and people have grown the most weary of over the years. Let's talk about Instagram's stories. If you log into your Instagram app on your phone across the top, they're little circle icons of different accounts. Uh, and if you like navigate onto an account and there's like a little yellow, not yellow purple or like pink the Instagram gradient, uh, ring around it that indicates that they have a story. Well, when you log into your app immediately right across the top, if there are icons up there, almost inevitably that means that those people have used their stories.

Nick Clason (08:53):
So that was made popular by the social media Snapchat. It was an idea that you could post something that would last for 24 hours. And so a lot of video, a lot more unfiltered, a lot less curated, a lot more behind the scenes, a lot more just real life. And Instagram stories was an amazing platform and one that um, I think a lot of churches took advantage of and honestly can still take advantage of, like I think for example, really great strategies to just hand that over to someone on your staff once a week and have them do a day in the life. A takeover, a takeover Tuesday. Um, we do it at like on Wednesdays cuz that's our ministry night at our church. And so, um, someone is in charge of taking over the Instagram account either, you know, on a Wednesday all day during the day, uh, to lead into, you know, Wednesday night coming up for, for students or whatever.

Nick Clason (09:44):
So I think Instagram stories have grown in popularity. Uh, statistic I have here says that 86%, approximately 86% of Instagram users access their stories on a daily basis. So it's still a very popular feature and still one that's very much widely being used by Instagram users today. Let's talk about Instagram reels. The reason most of us are here, especially in 2022 with short form video content, Instagram also stole another feature. Just like they stole stories from Snapchat. They stole reels in that idea from the popular app. TikTok Instagram introduced reels into their platform in August of 2020. Um, it's the same basic premise of what you get on TikTok. Scroll endlessly use trending sounds, do silly dances. One thing that's interesting to note is about a year ago or six months ago or so, Instagram recently converted every single video on their platform from whatever it was over to a reel.

Nick Clason (10:43):
So for example, I don't know if you remember, there was this platform called I G T V Instagram tv. They're trying to kind of go after YouTube and the long form video pieces, however they went for vertical where YouTube was still focusing on horizontal. Every one of my and i I went in on I G T V when it was new. I used it a lot personally. I used it a lot in my ministry. They've converted all of those I gtv videos over to Rio so they don't sit under an I G T V tab anymore or over an I G T V app, which was its own thing. Which not sure why Instagram felt the need to add a whole nother app that you could still access through their normal app. Nonetheless, I digress. But now you can still find old legacy I G T V videos sitting under your Instagram reels tab.

Nick Clason (11:28):
That's where all of those have been converted and now that's where they sit. So, uh, Instagram reels, uh, has become very popularized and um, Instagram has gone in to say that we are, we are about reels now. This is our thing. They have recently come out with a little algorithm shift in saying that they do want to push, um, photos, again, not just reels. And so, uh, we'll dive into the Instagram algorithm change in a future episode, but for now, still know that in 2023 I think your strategy should be short form video content. And that does definitely and very much include Instagram real. Let's talk best and worst content strategies for Instagram. Here are three dues on Instagram. Do number one, do post pictures of people in your church congregation. A couple years ago, Brady Sheer went out and did this study. Uh, it was just an anecdotal study, but he took a, uh, cell phone and then you hired a, a photographer and they took pictures in the same day.

Nick Clason (12:34):
And, uh, the people could not really tell the difference between the cell phone photos and the actual like professionally graded photos. The point in the premise of that is that in your pocket you have the power of an incredibly strong camera that you can use to take photos of people in your church congregation. So take on a Sunday morning, on a Wednesday night, whenever your primary meeting time is, take those photos, post them and use them on the feed. That can almost be your entire content strategy for on the feed. Now there is a probably decent chance that you already have some sort of rhythm with a photographer, whether it be volunteers or whatever, who are regularly taking photos for you. Keep that going. I still think that pictures of people with smiling faces posted on your social media is still a relevant, meaningful, and purposeful content strategy in 2023.

Nick Clason (13:28):
Content strategy number two is repost your reels. So what I mean by that is, like we said, Instagram is all in on short form video content here in 2023. When you go to post a reel, you have an option to either add it to the feed or take or hide it from your profile grid most often, cuz I, you've heard me say in past episodes perhaps that I post three uh, TikTok slash reels a day. So I don't post all three of those to the feed, but I do choose one that I want to post to the feed. So for example, we will often have fun, silly, goofy content, um, but one of them is gonna be serious. And I often choose to post that one to the feed so that more of our church people are seeing it. So use the Instagram post to feed option as a way to supplement your Instagram strategy, especially on your Instagram feed.

Nick Clason (14:20):
Also use some funny content. We talked about this in the YouTube trends report, but essentially 63% of Gen Z followed a meme account in the last year. And, um, gen Z and and people on social media are looking for brands and people to repurpose and use funny meme based silly kind of content like that. So use that stuff. Use memes on in short form video, use static memes. Um, we do a meme Monday and I think that there's a market for that even if you're not youth ministry. So don't be afraid to be funny. Don't be afraid to lean in and try and create a laugh moment. Here's some things to avoid on Instagram. Avoid announcements and graphics. Okay? Those just simply don't perform very well and people do not get on social media to be announced at or have been told what's coming up next.

Nick Clason (15:14):
If all you're doing on your social media is announcing things and reminding people about events, change your strategy. There is a way to incorporate announcements but still use the medium of the day. So, for example, you can do trending meme sounds, dances, things like that, that are reals, that are tos. However you can do those that are funny about like the upcoming event. So for example, last summer or spring as we were leading into summer camp, there was a, a trending sound that I found that is something like, it smells like a public restroom in here. And I just created a thing with like a green screen background, like a cabin type vibe, right? And I said, P o v, which stands for point of view pov middle school boys cabin at camp. And then I posted it, right? That's a, that's a camp adjacent announcement.

Nick Clason (16:03):
It's different than just a graphic for hey Santa for summer camp, right? But, uh, it still gets to point across. So don't just post graphics and announcements. Also with whatever you do, avoid stock footage. You may now have photos of people send someone this week to take photos of people in your church and boom, you'll have photos of people. Please while you are getting things up and running on your website or your Instagram, avoid photos of people because it's disingenuine. It's not who your church is. It's not true representation of the people in your church. It is a paid version of the people in your church. So do not use stock footage, especially on the Instagram feed. What do we do about stories? I would still use stories. Um, and I used to be all in on a story strategy and try and posting something every single day.

Nick Clason (16:50):
Uh, you still can be, but with as many reels as I post now I can supplement kind of some of that content. We'll get that to that in a minute. Um, bond stories I would recommend using the just the Instagram stories editor. You can use things like the question sticker. You can use things like the poll sticker. The link sticker, which is an amazing resource to have. The emoji slider tool. Like how much do you like this? All the way up, all the way down countdowns. You can do takeovers, like I said. Uh, you can spam your stories during big events. Spam is just a turmoil, like you just overwhelm it and you have so many little dots across the top. Um, you can give it over to a friend, a volunteer, a student to, to post to, to make it feel like you are in the moment of the event.

Nick Clason (17:34):
You can also kind of create a little bit of FOMO with that. So I definitely recommend still using and utilizing your Instagram stories feature. It's a place where you can post content that doesn't have to go on your feet and kind of like live there forever. Finally, Instagram reels. You know that my preferred strategy personally is to post three Instagram reels a day. And when I say Instagram reels often I post it in TikTok first, then I copy the link, then I go to a browser that says download, um, download TikTok video without watermark, paste the link in there, download it, and then I go post it over to Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube shorts. Yes, there's a lot of manual work and very recently, and we're gonna do a review on this here soon, I've come across a, um, posting tool for you. And so right now I'm trying a third party service and I don't like it very much.

Nick Clason (18:29):
And I'll tell you why in a minute. In a future episode, I'm gonna also try posting some stuff through the native apps, um, of TikTok of the Meta Business suite, uh, to see if that does anything for me. However, I'm just gonna be honest with you, I like posting in live time. Yeah, sometimes it's annoying cuz it, you know, I'm reminded I have to do it and it pops up at a very inconvenient time, but I still like that idea and I can edit things right on my phone that way. Otherwise I have to do all of my editing, a hundred percent of my editing in like, uh, computer software and, and save it to a hard drive somewhere to access it later. And, and that's sometimes a little bit inconvenient, but you should be leaning into Instagram real content. You can use it to supplement what goes on your feet.

Nick Clason (19:13):
You can use it to supplement what goes in your stories and I would definitely recommend, um, going all in on it. So just a quick reminder and recap. What I do and what I use on my personal Instagram at our church is we do a me Monday, which are photos on the feed. We do a Tuesday message recap from the previous Wednesday. Remember, we're a student ministry. That's a reel. I also post that to my feed Wednesday night. I do a either a carousel post of 10 photos of students or a highlight video, um, of that night and post that to the feed. If I don't post a video to the feed, it's cuz I posted photos, but I'm still posting the reel. Uh, Thursday we do a recap video of the message from the night before. And then on Friday I like to do, um, a photo dump of the Wednesday.

Nick Clason (20:00):
So that's, if I, if I don't do it on Wednesday, I'll save it for Friday and do a photo dump there on Friday. Then I'll inter intermix, uh, different, uh, story stuff, like mostly just real, uh, stuff, things, honestly, I go to reels, things that don't perform super well, and I repost 'em to my story so that people still see them. Uh, and then I'll do a takeover once a week. And that's primarily our Instagram strategy for now. So most of it's kind of built out and happening over in Instagram reels, a few things on feed to make sure that we're still showing up and stories, but the most, most of it's all kind of happening reels. And you, you look here, like we do, uh, a photo dump and a meme post. And that's basically it for like static photo posts. Hey, well once again, thanks for sticking around to the end of the episode.

Nick Clason (20:46):
Hey, to all of you on YouTube, hello to all of you listening and your earbuds on a run. So glad that you joined us. We are done with social media. We have one final, uh, area. We're gonna focus on website and, uh, text messaging and email and how do those all work together with social media. And then we're gonna put it all together. So join us in the next episode. So we have done, uh, YouTube, we have done TikTok, we've done Facebook, we've done Instagram. We will do those other platforms, website, social media, uh, website, texting and email. And then finally, part six, we're gonna put it all together and say, Hey, here is your church content, social media strategy for 2023. So glad you joined us. Hey, if you have not grabbed your e-book, how to create a TikTok from start to finish. As you heard in this episode, it, Instagram is still very much in on reels.

Nick Clason (21:37):
So if you need to create some reels, uh, you can do that and learn how to do that through the TikTok editor and by posting a TikTok and do it all on TikTok, download it. Boom, go over post it on a reel. So there you go. There's your ebook. Go check that out at our website, link in the description below. Subscribe wherever you're listening, subscribe maybe wherever you're watching. So good that you joined us, we would love it if you could drop a five star rating or review just to help us get the word out. We want more people to become aware of the incredible message of Jesus, how important it is to be leaning into the hybrid hybridization of your church. I'll just add some friends over last night from our, from the church I work at, they're all a little bit younger and every single one of 'em was like, yeah, we want more hybrid. We're all trying to think and lean into that direction. So, uh, it is the wave of the future, so don't shy away from it. Try to lean into it. Try something new this week and don't forget, and as always, stay.

Everything you need at http://www.hybridministry.xyz
Follow Along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
Or on TikTok at: http://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Hybrid Ministry Discussion on the Barna E-Book Episode: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/006

TIMECODES
00:00-01:31 Intro
01:31-08:03 Assumption: Social Media isn't relational
08:03-15:13 Let's define Hybrid Ministry
15:13-17:24 How are real relationships hybrid?
17:24-20:00 The Best Hybrid versions in our culture
20:00-31:48 The Best Hybrid Ideas for Churches in 2023
31:48-33:00 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:03):
Well, what is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast, and now on YouTube. Excited to be with you all. We're gonna test out a couple of video options here. See how these go. I know it'll go fine. Mostly I'm testing to see how much extra work it's gonna be. But, um, would love to have you join us over there if you want to check out for video stream as well. Something that is just another option. So we have audio, we have video but everything, the home base for it is http://hybridministry.xyz of course, cuz hybrid ministry.com was taken. So I'm your host, Nick Clason, excited to be with you. And in today's episode, what I actually wanted to discuss was this idea of why should churches even care about digital and hybrid ministry? Like what is the purpose?

Nick Clason (01:03):
We all saw the pitfalls downfalls and the reasons why digital ministry was not a good example. It was not a good thing during Covid. And so we are now past Covid. We're able to live in a more semi-normal world. Why in the world should churches even care about digital? So let's go ahead and let's get this episode underway. So let's talk about some assumptions, right? Like, I think that there are some general social media specific assumptions that say that social media is void of relationship, right? Like, the point of it is, I, I I don't know, right? Like the point of it is maybe to post some announcements and try and drum up some external, some marketing, so to speak, uh, examples of people who might not go to our church and we want to get them connected to our church.

Nick Clason (02:08):
But there's an assumption that like the real, the main thing that's gonna work is gonna be relationships of people to people inviting one another. Let me just say that, um, I've been doing student ministry social media now for 12 years, and never once has anyone of the accounts that I've ever run really gone viral, so to speak. Like we've never had more than like an inordinate amount of followers, never had more like a thousand followers. I have had a couple Instagram accounts with more than a thousand followers, but honestly like, that was not from anything that I, or we were doing. That was more an inherited thing where the Instagram account already had a high level of followers and we were just sort of like the beneficiaries of that account already having a lot of followers. So my point is nothing we did really drummed up a lot of outside interest.

Nick Clason (03:03):
Okay. And so this assumption that social media is not relationship based and you know, the purpose of it is to, you know, get people from the outside looking in. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that is, I think that's, I think that's a benefit. I think that, um, like we said in the last episode, the church is in a unique intersection where what you post can be both discovered by the people that go to your church, but also because of the new discovery algorithms, which this is probably why in my 12 years we haven't seen this, because these new algorithms that are being made famous by TikTok and then adopted by Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube on reels and shorts are, um, new. Like this is a new territory for churches because previously your people followed your pages and your accounts, and if you wanted more people to follow it, you had to pay for it.

Nick Clason (03:52):
And I've, I have never done that. And so my accounts never really did that, where there were like a lot of people coming to discover our accounts. And so now we are in a unique intersection where people might actually discover your church. And what's more interesting is that all of these algorithms, there's a uniqueness where they start out geographically local. So first the algorithm from what we've learned is they're pumped out to your followers, which are then pumped out to their followers, which are then pumped out to the, uh, like your geographical region, which is why a lot of times you can geotag your posts on Instagram, on TikTok, and so you can put your city, and so the people in your city might be exposed to your information first, and then beyond that it'll, you know, go to the state and viral and whatever the case might be.

Nick Clason (04:44):
But, but the reality is, the, the closer that you are, the more likely that the people around you are gonna find it. And so therefore, if people in your geographical region are discovering your videos, there is an actual chance that they might hear the message of Jesus from you and then take a step to become a visitor or a first timer at your church. I mean, wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't that, wouldn't that be one of the goals that we're looking for here? Um, and again, like I said, I haven't experienced that in a lot of cases, and I think that's because that really wasn't an option up here until very recently. Um, however, there's still the argument that like, no one's gonna come to our church based off of that. And that might be true. And I think that it depends on your style of church, if you're, um, a more of an outreach centric church that you want that.

Nick Clason (05:34):
And so you're gonna be more gung-ho about this idea. And if you're more of a discipleship centric church, which tends to be a little more inward facing, um, not because you believe that that's more valuable and more important, but that just tends to be the vibe, um, that comes with it, then you are gonna prioritize some of those relationships more over, um, like, like cold leads or, or, you know, top of a funnel marketing type of terminology to borrow from the secular world. So, um, all that to be said, there's this assumption, there's this notion that social media, um, and social ministry is void of real relationships. And I would just, I would debunk that and say that I think that that's not entirely true. Um, I agree to a point that it can be done that way and, um, that, that this ministry, that this focus in your church needs some very particular and very, um, deliberate attention.

Nick Clason (06:34):
Like it cannot just, in my personal opinion, it cannot be put on autopilot anymore. It cannot be put on the back burner. There needs to be a person more than a volunteer and more than someone's like, uh, section of their full-time hours devoted to social media. Like you probably need a full-on person, um, not someone to do double duty. Like, like even right now, um, I am a youth pastor, but I'm like on a team of three and of the three, I'm the one tasked with digital and video and social media, website, whatever, right? Like that in and of itself is a full-time job. And sometimes my youth ministry duties have actually, like, you know, this week I had to make calls to interview students about baptism, um, and we're onboarding a bunch of new students to volunteer. Like sometimes those things feel like they're in the way of my digital stuff and that, that's out of balance for me personally.

Nick Clason (07:34):
Um, but that's my point in saying that this digital of it's all consuming, it just takes up such a gigantic portion and it it is vast and it is huge. And, um, and there's a lot of opportunity and there's a lot of potential. And so to just dump it on someone as like a, hey, 10 hours of your week, like it's, that is so hard. It's gonna be very difficult for that person to be able to, you know, to make, to make, uh, that 10 hours work for them the way that you're probably hoping that it would work. So in Covid, right, we learned that we're not built to be completely isolated. And so just social, um, and that's, that's the whole, that's the whole origin of this podcast is I felt like we were debating, um, when I started this podcast in late 2022, I guess mid 2022, um, we were debating between in-person ministry and digital ministry, especially where I was, we had, we were still working and operating out of a lot of the rules that we had built for C O V with the show that we had made for C O V D.

Nick Clason (08:38):
Like, we hadn't let that go. We were still producing it weekly. Um, and we had found a way to pivot from strictly online to a more in-person model where groups watched it in host homes. Um, and then they discussed the, the message afterwards. And I thought it was incredibly ingenious and innovative. Um, but there were a lot of people in our church that that didn't, and they were ready to just quote unquote go back. And, you know, we had a, a marketing guy, and if you listen to some of our first, I think like seven episodes, um, Matt was actually the co-host of this podcast. Uh, we both made cross-country moves. And, um, I, I don't know what happened to him. I never got him back, really. I mean, we still talk, but he would keep saying like, yeah, yeah, I just gotta get my computer set up, gotta get my computer set up.

Nick Clason (09:22):
And eventually I was like, all right, Matt's not getting his computer set up. I'm just, I I got a produce weekly episode, so I can't wait on him anymore, right? So, uh, here we are and I'm just kinda doing this thing. Anyway, besides point Matt marketing, honestly, genius guru in my opinion. He said, the world we live in is now hybrid. In fact, Barna did a study, we did a couple episodes on it, I'll link to them in the show notes, um, did a couple episodes on the findings that we found from Barna study, and they, they titled it the, the state of hybrid church or something like that. And what it said, what it found was that especially the younger generations, the generations that are going to be filling our pews and churches here in the next couple years, gen Z and millennials said a hybrid, um, version of church is going to suit them very well.

Nick Clason (10:11):
What that often scares us with on two fronts is, number one, it feels like we're shifting away from in person. And I think a lot of times in person, and I've talked about this multiple times, I think a lot of times in person, room or moment or feeling is for the, the vanity of the pastor, and not even in like a sinful or bad way, but just like, man, getting up in front of a room full of people feels really good and you feel like you feel like you've done something and you've been somewhere and there's, there's a shot of like adrenaline into your like arm every time you get up there to preach. Even I, I find myself like finding more value from preaching to a live room of, of humans with interaction, um, like just, you know, face-to-face interaction. Um, then I, then I do from a, a TikTok video that goes viral wave over like 3000 something views.

Nick Clason (11:02):
Like, it just, it doesn't feel the same. And I get it. And you know what? I don't know that it is the same. I think you have a much more captive audience, even in a room of a few hundred than you do, um, with a, a short form under 62nd video that that has over a thousand something views, right? All that to be said, I'm not proposing that, that you throw one quote unquote baby out with a bathwater. We live in a hybrid world, right? So I found this stat incredibly fascinating. 76% of American surveyed ha uh, have a friend that they've met online only they've never met in person. Right? Now, you might be thinking, how is that possible? Again, if you're older, think younger generations gaming and, and you know, chat rooms and whatever and whatnot. Like of course in the nineties chat rooms were pedophiles want to hang out, and they probably still do, right?

Nick Clason (11:55):
But, but 76% of Americans have a friend in some way, shape or form gaming social media that they've never met in person. Like I have an anecdotal real example. I have a friend named Dan that, um, for the first three to six months of our life, or not life of our relationship life, , uh, it was strictly online. Uh, many of you know I've told this story, but I started at my last church on day one of Covid and went immediately into lockdown. So the number of real live human beings at my church that I met was very, very small. The number of real life human beings that I met on Zoom after that was very, very large. And, um, you know, I had met a decent number of the staff, at least from my interview or on my first day on the job, but then to meet other people.

Nick Clason (12:49):
And Dan was a, just a regular church attender volunteer who led a, a hybrid, not hybrid, actually strictly online small group. I had a relationship with Dan. Um, and, and he even said, he's like, you are like the poster child for me, or the poster example of what it looks like for somebody who, uh, says like, you can't make friends with someone online. He's like, we totally made friends, you know, with each other online. And so these are examples, both empirical data. 76% of Americans say, I have a friend with someone who's completely online. And even in my own life, like I would say I had a real relationship with him, um, it would've been great to be sitting in the same living room or whatever, but at the same time, you know what, every Tuesday night, I just got my laptop out in the comfort of my own home brew, a cup of my own coffee that I personally enjoyed more than like a cake cup that someone was gonna gimme at their house.

Nick Clason (13:49):
And we sat down for small group. And you know, what was funny was like our church would do this thing where like you'd watch the live stream on YouTube, and this was the archetype for our student ministry. The group's team of course, stole it, but we'd watch the video on YouTube, and then everyone would log in to their campus specific zooms via a link in the description, and then a moderator there would break everyone out into breakout rooms. So they would sort of have control over the entire call, and then they would give a warning after like an hour or so that all the groups would, uh, be, be closing down by the moderator who's just literally sitting there out in the waiting room, just kinda waiting for people to be kicked out of their breakout rooms and reassign them or whatever. Super boring job I've done a million times youth ministry.

Nick Clason (14:33):
Uh, so a couple times those ended and we, our entire small group just jumped off and got into our very own room, and had group until like 11 or 12. We weren't, you know, at that point we weren't talking about spiritual stuff. We were just joking around, goofing off, having fun, whatever, right? My point is, relationships can exist in an online space. You just have to be deliberate. You just have to be intentional, and you have to be able, willing, willing to massage those relationships. So let's talk about, um, some hybrid ways that relationships can exist.

Nick Clason (15:14):
So some of you might know this, um, but a couple weeks ago, my, my wife's mom, my mother-in-law, uh, passed away from a two plus year long battle with cancer. It was, it was rough, man, like, not gonna lie, but, um, the thing I wanna kind of extract or highlight is the moment that the day that she passed away and that it became more public because of social media. Again, another example, um, my phone was flooded with text messages. My wife's phone was flooded like threefold, tenfold with text messages. Um, every single one of those people were people that we had met in person at one moment in time or another, whether they be a family member, whether they'd be a friend, whether they'd be a former colleague or work associate from another job that we'd been at. They'd all been people we'd met in real life person before.

Nick Clason (16:12):
However, the relationship at that moment existed in a hybrid space. Very few people in that exact moment were with us. I mean, I, I had to drive from Texas all the way back to Ohio, so the only people with me were me and my two kids. Um, and her, she was with her sister and with some family friends, and then everybody else reached out and provided love and care and support via text message that that is an example of a hybrid relationship. You know what I mean? Um, and, and some people were people that I work with now at the church I'm at at now. Other people were people I worked, worked with in the past that reached out either way, right? Like they're all people I knew, but they're all showing up for me in a hybrid way. So, uh, I wanna talk about a few, uh, examples of like other businesses that we might interact with in the world in with hybrid sort of interactions.

Nick Clason (17:22):
Let's dive in examples of real life hybrid interactions. My favorite of this is Home Depot, right? I interact with Home Depot at the store level. I drive up, I go into the store, I grab 98 cents of plumbing tape, right? Uh, that's an example of me interacting with Home Depot at a physical level. Okay? All right. So another example of course is me interacting with Home Depot at an online level. I might go on the website and I might see how much of a certain item is in stock that, but I'm not in the store. I'm completely in my house. I'm looking at all my computer on the app, but the, the app actually is my favorite feature. When I'm in the store. I almost never, like, if I walk around in the store for like more than two minutes and I can't figure out where an item might be, I immediately pull up the app, which often I've uninstalled from my phone, so I reinstall it.

Nick Clason (18:25):
Then I like, almost, the first thing I do when I walk into Home Depot is begin to reinstall the Home Depot app, find my local Home Depot, the one I'm physically standing in, and then I look that item up, whatever it is, to try and find it, and then it'll tell me exactly where it is, what aisle, what bay, and how many more they have in stock. I love that feature. That's hybrid. I'm in person, I'm in the store, but I'm interacting with a digital piece of technology, uh, you know, for my relationship with Home Depot. Another o another example is a dentist office, right? You go to a physical visit. But I love when a service like this has a great website, especially for being able to book appointments or being able to reach out. This last week, I brought my car to an auto mechanic shop.

Nick Clason (19:13):
I called them, not there, called them, right? That's an example of me from my house calling them. That's old school technology. You get it right? Then I show up, I'm in their office. But then when I was done, you know what they did? They sent me a text message to let me know that my car was ready. You see all these things, and I, I think like in a lot of ways, like when we talk about digitization or hybridization of church and of ministry, we don't even know what that looks like. So right now, in a lot of ways that's social media, that's video content, but the reality is like, some of this is uncharted territory. So for 2023, for right now, for someone just starting out, what are some examples? What are some ways that your church can live and exist in hybrid ministry?

Nick Clason (20:01):
All right, so like I said, I think a little bit of this is like pioneering uncharted territory, pilgrim's progress. Like, we don't know some of these answers, but, um, what are some examples of ways that your church can, uh, live and and be hybrid? So the first one is probably the most obvious one, and probably the easiest one, I would say is your Sunday sermon. Okay? So what are ways that your Sunday sermon can exist in a hybrid space? Well, first and foremost, right? You can, while someone is sitting in the auditorium, they can interact with and engage with your sermon notes, or they can interact and engage with, um, some self-guided like outlines or ways for them to take notes. So, like in my church, my pastor puts his notes on our church app. Um, it's honestly, it's essentially probably the manuscript that he's up there preaching with as I've looked at it.

Nick Clason (20:58):
Like, it's very thorough. Um, and my guess is that that's like a, that's a workload decision, right? Like he already built this. So if he just copy, if, if they or someone just copy and paste and put this into the app, uh, that's not that much more work for him. My personal favorite example is the you version events feature. So in everyone's you version Bible app that most people have downloaded on their phones, if not, definitely recommend it. Cause again, it's another way to interact with people in a hybrid way. Um, there's an events tab that you can create, like a self-guided sort of outline, and then people can, can take and add notes to certain headers or certain bible verses, um, that, that are related to or interact with the passage. And then they can also link out to like videos or other, like further discussions.

Nick Clason (21:51):
One of the things I try to do is I try to challenge myself to add one option of a, a link out from a u version event for deeper study or for more information, or for a longer YouTube video that I didn't, you know, didn't have time to show or didn't have time to look like fully, you know, unpack. I try to challenge myself to do that every week. Again, to just think hybrid, right? Brady Shearer has made this phrase famous, but the other, the additional 167 hours of somebody's week. So then beyond that moment, beyond that Sunday service, um, you can of course rip out the audio. Um, if you're already live streaming, um, you can have live stream, you can post those videos to YouTube. You can, uh, long form podcast content on a podcast feed. That's a way for it to be hybrid.

Nick Clason (22:45):
And then finally, ways for that to live on and, and find its way into that, that intersection of your church, people being reminded of the message and people from outside your church may be discovering and stumbling upon your message are short form Instagram reels, TikTok videos, YouTube shorts. Um, if you're already live streaming your content, you're sitting on a goldmine of social media content. You don't have to, uh, come up with as much social media content as you did in the past. You already have it. You have the short, or you have the long form video. Clip it up into minute segments. Find a good hook, get a good editor. And, uh, hey, if you don't have a good editor, but you're interested in it, reach out. Um, I'm interested in, uh, starting something, you know, kind on the side for myself to be doing this and serving churches in that, that way.

Nick Clason (23:38):
Um, I don't exactly have a framework for that or what that looks like. Hit me up on dms, on TikTok, or, you know, reach out to me via YouTube, all those links in the show notes@hybridministry.xyz. What about groups? What about relationships? How do you hybridize relationships, right? Because that's sort of the basis for this whole thing, is that social isn't, isn't built on relationships. And I would agree with that in the nitty gritty. Like when, you know, when my mother-in-law passes away, I want someone to really show up for me or really call me or really, you know, text me, um, not just, you know, interact with them at a, at a digital or social social media type level, right? But for a lot of people, the discovering of groups or finding their place or finding their people, that's half of the battle. And so if your church does not have some sort of group finder, I, I would highly recommend doing that.

Nick Clason (24:36):
If your church is about groups in some way, shape, or form that are open that people opt themselves into, then get yourself a group finder, a catalog, if you will, of the options available at your church for people to find and discover real authentic community. Because you and I know that community is really what changes things. It's what takes a church from their church to my church. So get on a group finder of some way, shape, or form. And then once you're in those groups, here are other ways that, that those groups exist and live in a hybrid sort of sense. You might use a infrastructure like Facebook group, you might use a GroupMe, you might use a group chat, or you might use some other tool feature that someone's gonna develop down the road. Maybe I'll do it and get rich, I don't know.

Nick Clason (25:23):
But, um, for the groups to have some sort of calendar of events, a place for them to have message boards with announcements, um, text messages to interact back and forth, prayer requests, all kinds of different stuff, but a place for the group to live beyond when the group meets, right? Again, the other 167 hours of that group's relationship. When is that? Where is that? When does that take place? The last area, so we talked about sermons, we talked about relationships. Now let's talk about information. You know, uh, churches more than just information people are distilled down to more than just the information that they, uh, put into their brains, okay? But like another example of ways that, that things can exist in a hybrid sort of way is some classes. So you already have your Sunday morning service. You probably already have groups. People probably can't devote too many more hours to the church, but maybe they do want to grow.

Nick Clason (26:24):
Maybe they want to grow in their knowledge of theology, or maybe they want to grow in, in a specific topic. Um, a dating marriage, right? Whatever the case might be. Your church with the 40 hours a week in your office can film some content and, and put up a catalog or a library of courses, like on a website or on an app, six week course, eight week course, something like that. So again, if someone's really committed, they may not have the time to drive back over to your church and sit through a class, find childcare, all the things. But once the kids go to bed, if they wanna pull up in their laptop and learn more, grow more in the area of theology, love, dating, marriage, spiritual gifts, right? Like you name it, you can offer a library of some of those content. I mean, products already sort of exist for that right now for churches, right now.

Nick Clason (27:14):
Media is an example of it. Um, but again, I've found that to be more small groupy content. So you can create something, you, if there's a need, you can scratch that itch, a leadership type academy. And you might even have like a leadership academy for high level leaders in your, in your, um, organization in your church that come together every so often in person. But then after they come together, if the primary goal of it is, is information and knowledge, um, and then, and information transfer, you can accomplish that for sure. You can accomplish that in a hybrid sort of way. Um, more than just short form video sermon content. You can provide short form, social media, TikTok, YouTube type content. Um, like about any topic right now, I'm doing like a little bit of a theology 1 0 1, like a deep dive into like certain areas and elements.

Nick Clason (28:06):
Um, and I'm putting posting on TikTok two times a week. It's a little mini-series that people probably just like randomly scrolling through, aren't gonna notice that they're all like interwoven and connected together. But in my mind they are. And so anyone who sees it, they're, they're gonna learn something more about God or about Jesus, or about creation or about salvation, or about the Holy Spirit or whatever the case might be. Um, because I don't have time to always get into all that, right? Like whatever our series is that's sort of driving and dictating, um, what's, what's being taught from the platform. But there are other necessary things that I think people, my students need to know that I don't have time for it, but this is a way that I can create time for it in the other hours of the week. Um, there are also examples and ways to do longform, you know, uh, styles not just short form.

Nick Clason (28:57):
So audio podcasts are huge. A lot of adults, something like 80 something percent of adults listen to three hours of podcasts a week. So, um, I think, um, Mariners, like Eric Geiger out of Mariners is doing a phenomenal job because the thing I love about him is he's conservative theologically for sure. Um, and so he's not just like out there trying to like get vanity metrics or whatever, right? But the thing he's doing is he's, he's finding ways to use the technology to teach deeper, more robust, you know, truth. And so he's doing a thing like, uh, a podcast called like the, the things that didn't make it into the sermon. Basically, if you're a pastor and you've done this before, you know that you, you prepare a load of content, but then you have to start cutting to get it down to a certain minute mark, right?

Nick Clason (29:46):
So he's doing a podcast on all the things he had to cut from his sermon, um, once a week to just dive deeper into more information. Um, and I, I think that that's brilliant. You know, I think that's a brilliant way, uh, to just add more value to the, the people in your church's, you know, life. Um, and if they're interested in it, that's great. A couple years ago, we, back when Facebook Live was a really big thing, me and another pastor on my staff, we sat, sat down for a thing called Tuesdays at two, and we just, uh, unpacked the sermon from sort of our eyes and our, our vantage point, you know? Um, and we would just have a conversation, um, as sort of interview style. And I mean, he was a licensed biblical counselor, so, uh, he was just a wealth of knowledge.

Nick Clason (30:31):
And so I, I almost operated more like as the host, and I would just toss him questions and let him sort of like unpack and untangle, you know, take the, the theology or the, the preaching and, and bring it down to more of like a boots on the ground level. At least. At least that was the goal. So all kinds of like ideas out there of ways that you can service and serve your congregation in a hybrid sort of way that is not void of relationship, that is meaningful and that people in your church will take advantage of. You just have to think hybrid. So I'd encourage you lean into it. Like I said, we're on the, a little bit the pioneering front because we had solutions for digital pre covid. It was mostly live streaming your service. Then in C O V I D, we all went full bore into it, and it was uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

Nick Clason (31:24):
Um, and so once restrictions lifted, we went back to what was familiar. Many of us went back to what was familiar, and I'll just encourage you to not abandon some of those things, but, but listen for and look for ways that you can show up in the other hours of your church members weeks. Those are gonna be what's important and valuable to them. Well, hey everyone, if you found this, uh, podcast helpful, please share it with a friend. Help us get the word out, http://hybridministry.xyz. We provide complete full show transcripts for every single episode that we've ever produced. Also, head to the blog section of that and you can grab our free social media checklist, what to do every time you post a social media, and our free complete guide to posting a TikTok from scratch, from start to finish. That is on there. And again, we are on YouTube now at this episode being the first one. Hey, to everyone on YouTube, check that out if you will get a link for that as in the show notes. And until next time, talk to y'all later. Stay hybrid.

For complete transcripts head to http://www.hybridministry.xyz
Follow along on social https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Or YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sonicsman8/featured

TIMECODES
00:00-00:32 Intro
00:32-03:23 The Church has the Advantage on Social Media in 2023
03:23-05:50 The History of Social Media
05:50-06:50 The Stars have aligned in 2023 for churches on social media
06:50-09:53 - Advantage #1: Content Creation is at the Core of a Church's Weekly Work Routine
09:53-12:51 - Advantage #2: Content Creation is at the Core of the Senior Leader's weekly job
12:51-19:05 - Advantage #3: Content Creation, and the sharing of it, hits at a preferred intersection for churches
19:05-20:52 - Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
What is up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. I, as always, am your host, Nick Clason. Excited to be with you wherever you are. Listen, I was gonna stay excited to be with you on this morning. I just got done with a little morning run, drinking a little morning coffee. Uh, but you might be listening to me in the evening. You might be listening to me while you're doing dishes. You, you also might be listening to me on run, wherever you are listening, said to have you with us, uh, this morning. Today, I wanted to talk about the three distinct advantages that churches have on social media in 2023. If you are anything like me, uh, the people that you follow, the algorithms that you're in especially if you've listened to the Pro Church tools or anything that Brady Shearer produces.

Nick Clason (00:52):
You have heard this before but in the event that you're not and I have some unique twists to it as well. I just think that wherever, wherever you are, wherever your role is, whether if you're like a ministry leader, a, a student pastor, a senior pastor, a church marketing person, a church communications person, whatever your role is, I think it's important to note that the church today in 2023 has a distinct advantage on social media, an advantage that they haven't had in, I would say, years. Um, in all my entire time as, um, a church leader, a pastor, youth pastor, I've never experienced or noticed an advantage much like what we have today. So, um, I'm excited to share that with you Before we dive in. Um, anything that you need show wise, you can head to hybrid ministry.xyz. Um, if you click on the, uh, articles or the blog section there of the website, that is where you can access our completely 100% free ebook and our 100% free checklist signing up for either one of those will get both of those resources into your inbox automatically for free.

Nick Clason (02:03):
So go check those out. We would love to have you there. And if you didn't know this, every single episode that we have, uh, has transcripts and is, um, put on, on the website into every episode's archive. And so that is a just completely 100% free resource that we make available to you so that you can go back and not have to listen back through, but you can read through. Um, and let me just warn you that because, uh, this podcast is still, you know, I'm still not making money on it. It's something that I am paying for out of my pocket. I have not, I have not paid Rev, who I use rev.com. I've not paid them to do the human transcription. Yep. So I'm still doing ai. Uh, so even sometimes I go back to my own archives to look for things, but, uh, sometimes it's a little bit hard to muddle through because it's AI transcribed.

Nick Clason (02:53):
So sorry for that. If you're out there, sponsor us, and, um, maybe we'll start springing for the human transcription so it's got a little bit more level of accuracy. Um, but hey, uh, head to the show notes for anything that we mentioned today. Um, like I said, grab our free ebook on, have I already ruined my TikTok account? A complete Guide to Posting a TikTok from Scratch. 100%. All that being said, let's dive in the three distinct advantages that churches have on social media in 2023. Let's go. All right, so 2023 social media. Here we are. Let's think about it. The church has a distinct advantage, one that they have not seen in a lifetime. I think of a lot of social media. So, um, social media historically has been a social platform, right? That's where the, the term social comes from, because humans are connecting one-on-one with other people on the other side of the screen.

Nick Clason (03:45):
So think Facebook started as a college, uh, on a college campus so that people could get to know one another, that they maybe haven't met people that they recognize by face. So it's very, uh, it was very built as a, uh, human to human connection sort of portal. But over time, it's evolved and it's become sort of like an, an online photo album. Different social platforms have taken on different life forms, Twitter, sort of like a micro blogging, uh, place to kind of like listen and look at things live. Like I, I use Twitter a lot for sports. Instagram was a photo sharing app. Um, and you could, you know, at its inception, you could only share one photo and it could only be Square. And so, um, part of the problem was that Facebook would, would really recommend you creating like, full online albums, like share your entire trip to Brazil with us, where Instagram is like, share the best photo from your trip to Brazil.

Nick Clason (04:36):
And then Twitter was like, while you're there, live tweet, right? So all of those had u had unique and completely different, um, purposes. Then throw in YouTube, which is the second largest search engine in the world. Some would say three behind Google images, but either way, they're all under the Google umbrella. So, um, Instagram, or I'm sorry, YouTube being a search engine, um, and long form video, that's a completely separate piece and style of content that is needed from Facebook, from Instagram, from Twitter. And then, oh, by the way, here, bursting on the scene is this brand new thing called TikTok, short form video, where people just do dances and goofy silly stuff. So what are we supposed to do with that? So you got photo albums, you got groups and pages over on Facebook. You got micro blogging and live tweeting things. You got Instagram, single photo sharing apps, eventually stories added in.

Nick Clason (05:31):
And then you got YouTube long form video, and they're all different. And so if you're a church leader, and if you're like the senior pastor and you're also keeping your social media afloat, you're just doing whatever it takes to like serve each of the platforms at its bare minimum. But now in this weird aligning of stars in 2023, I would say, because of the, um, prominence and popularity of TikTok, churches have a unique and distinct advantage that they have not had in years. And that is this short form vertical video content is now being pushed across all of the major platforms. Yes, Facebook, yes, Instagram, yes, YouTube, and obviously yes, TikTok. So your core four, your main four players that I would recommend that you as a church be active on, on social media. You can have all four accounts, and better yet, you can post to all four accounts, the exact same piece of content across all four accounts.

Nick Clason (06:37):
And for the first time ever, you're not dinged. In fact, you're encouraged to do that. So let's take a look at reason number one, why the church has a distinct advantage on social media in 2023. So, advantage number one is that content creation is at the core of what a church's weekly work rhythm is. So think about this, your church every single week hosts a gathering where a piece of content is delivered to a group of people. Um, think like, and that is an, that is an amazing advantage that most people don't have, because most, if you're a plumber or if you're an auto mechanic, or if you are a big box store retailer, right? You also want to be on social media. It's part of marketing, it's a part of driving up business and getting clientele and people discovering you. But what in the heck is a plumber or what is a big box store retailer?

Nick Clason (07:39):
Or what is a, um, auto mechanic? What are they doing every single day? They're fixing leaky drains. They're selling things to people as cashiers at Walmart. They're, they're, they're, uh, they're fixing people's cars, timing belts, right? That's what the primary like, focus of their work is. And so if an auto mechanic wants to be active and vibrant and relevant on social media, that auto mechanic is going to probably either a, take his phone with him under the car and do some tutorial videos or something like that. But if that auto mechanic is any good, he's probably really busy and he has, doesn't have time to be posting, editing, putting captions over, you know, screens. So then what does an auto mechanic do? He hires his young Gen z uh, nephew to come in and run social media, but that nephew has never touched a car before.

Nick Clason (08:30):
And so that nephew is just trying to like, keep their Instagram feed posted, um, and keep it active and with like, graphics and things like that, okay? The point is, an auto mechanic is not in the business of content creation. Neither is a plumber, neither is a store. Now, the really good ones are, right? And those are the ones that you probably watch. You have a leaky drain, you go on YouTube or you go on YouTube shorts, you're gonna find a plumber who's done a tutorial that's a really good plumber who's creating some content. But the reality is not a hundred percent of plumbers are doing that. Not a hundred percent of businesses are doing that. Not a hundred percent of auto mechanics are doing that. The church weekly 52, sometimes 51 weeks a year. Cause some churches take that week between Christmas and New Year's and doing online only service, but even still, they're creating content.

Nick Clason (09:16):
So go, I digress back to 52, 52 weeks a year, 52 times in a year, you are creating content to be delivered to somebody that is age old, that has been a part of what the church has done for decades, centuries. Um, the, so the reality is this, right? The reality is that, um, short form video content loves content, loves created, custom curated content, and the church has a unique advantage because it already is creating that content within the rhythm of what it does. Okay? Advantage number two. So not only is content creation at the core of the church's weekly work rhythm, but content creation is at the core of what the senior leadership does within the organization. Let's go back to our plumber or automechanic mechanic analogy. Usually the head, the CEO of the business is not the content creator. So if you as a plumber wanna have a popin TikTok account, you probably have to hire somebody who's good at marketing to create a Popin TikTok account.

Nick Clason (10:27):
If you as a auto mechanic wanna have a Popin TikTok account, you gotta bring in your nephew, okay? Now, maybe your senior pastor isn't very tech savvy. Maybe your senior pastor isn't even very active on social media. But what your senior pastor does is your senior pastor sits down and weekly writes up content. And so the head, the most, um, the, the best figurehead of your entire organization is standing up and presenting a prepared piece of content weekly. We already, we already talked about that, right? But it comes from the very tippy top of your organization. So if you were to bring in your nephew and an auto mechanic shop, the nephew's like, Hey, you should do some tutorial videos. I would imagine the auto mechanics like, bro, I don't have time for that. I get outta here with your newf fangled social media, TikTok video, things like, I, I can't go under the hood with a phone.

Nick Clason (11:26):
I, I don't even know how to work this thing, right? That's the difference. The senior pastor gets up weekly to prepare or to present prepared content to a group of people, to a room full of people. So that bodes well for you. Why does that bode well for you? Because your, your, uh, social media accounts on your, on, um, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, whatever, people probably follow your church because they go to your church. And so therefore, when they see your senior pastor on a video, that's a very recognizable face that's much more recognizable than your church communications person. No offense, that's you watching this, or your digital marketing specialist. Again, no offense if that's you watching this, or even your youth pastor who you handed your phone to and said, Hey, please keep us relevant on social media. They may see the youth pastor preach 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times a year, but they see the senior pastor preach almost weekly.

Nick Clason (12:21):
And so when they're scrolling through a feed and they see the senior pastor on your social media, he is going to be a very recognizable person. He's also probably your most skilled communicator. So also you can use that to your advantage. Put your most skilled, uh, oral, um, person, oral, uh, presenter out there for the, for both your church people to see, but also for other people to see, which leads us to our third distinct advantage for churches advantage. Number three is that content creation and the sharing of that created content hits at a unique intersection of what most churches are looking to do. So what are most churches looking to do? Well, you can go back to Matthew chapter 28, verse 18 through 20. Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

Nick Clason (13:23):
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age, baked within the great commission, we find something that comes from the greatest commandment. Matthew chapter 22, where Jesus says you are to number one, love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And second, love your neighbor as yourself. What is the church meant to do? The church is meant to help people learn the ways, the methods, the mission, the the content, the character, the competencies of Jesus to adopt those things. So for believers to grow more and more into the image and likeness of Jesus. And also the church is meant to go to make disciples, to reach out beyond our walls, to share and show the love of Jesus. And short form, vertical video content hits at the intersection where both your church people are, and people outside of your walls are living.

Nick Clason (14:19):
And so both are scrolling through social media, both are scrolling through some sort of discovery algorithm on one of the four core social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok. And boom, they're stopped with an inspirational message because it's a weekly thing curated by your senior leadership. And now they are stopping, scrolling and looking at a video and being encouraged, equipped, and discipled. All right, so now what? So with these three distinct advantages, now, what does this mean for you? Well, you might be watching this and you might be, um, a church leader who doesn't have any time to really do anything about that. You might be a, uh, marketing manager and you can't get your senior pastor to let you onto these platforms. So the first thing you need to do is you need to, uh, use a little bit of persuasion maybe, and show some analytics about the popularity of these discovery algorithm, um, apps, and the fact that every single social media platform is pushing and highlighting and promoting this type of content.

Nick Clason (15:21):
The other thing, if you're already live streaming your service, which Covid brought most people into that, um, then take clips, then watch through your sermon and, and take some clips and watch through them. If you are interested in, um, looking through some examples of ones that I have done in my own ministry and for other ministries of places that I am in partnership with, uh, hit me up, reach out to me. Um, you can DM me on Instagram at Clason nick or on TikTok at Clason nick to see some of those examples. Uh, but be looking through your live stream messages to, um, find two or three different clips that you can post and promote a week. Now, what if you're not live streaming? What do you do? Well, you can go back to another episode. I'll drop the, the episode link in the show notes.

Nick Clason (16:08):
But I gave my complete custom setup for it, creating YouTube content for churches on a budget. And the primary thing that I, I recommend is that I recommend that you, uh, pre film your talks. So I'll give you an example. I'm a youth pastor in a, a church with a fairly large auditorium, but we, the auditorium that I'm in is not the main auditorium. So we don't have all the bells and whistles to do a live stream. And so instead of us trying to jimmy rig a phone in the back or figure out a way to like drop $50,000 to retrofit our auditorium, uh, to do a good live stream, I take my camera on my phone, prop it up on a tripod and fill myself or any one of the other people on our team before we deliver the message live on a Wednesday.

Nick Clason (16:53):
So we use that to post on YouTube, and then we go back to that content to edit and, and clip out the things. So the other things that you need to be doing, um, as you're listening to sermons, is you wanna be listening to things that are good hooks. Uh, so yesterday I was sitting in a sermon, I was sitting in my, my church's sermon, um, and I heard my pastor give this analogy, this five finger analogy of how to learn and, and know and memorize God's word better. And I thought, boom, that's an amazing reel. So I'm gonna go find it and I'm gonna clip it up. Um, and so if you're interested in that, head to my TikTok or head to, uh, my Instagram to check out example of that or just DM me for the link, I'll show it to you Again, that's Instagram, TikTok.

Nick Clason (17:33):
Um, and my handle is at Clason, c l a s o n, Nick, n i c k. So, um, and then, uh, hone your editing skills. Here's the beautiful thing. If you don't have the, the best software to do it on a computer, you can do most of it on the TikTok app. So you can bring clips into your TikTok app and use the studio, uh, feature to edit that. Again, if you don't know how to do it. If you've never opened TikTok before and you're like, what in the world am I looking at? Head to the link in my show notes and grab our free ebook on how to edit and post a TikTok completely from start to finish. It will show you how to use the studio feature in TikTok, how to edit and how to, um, create clips that matter, that grab people's attention.

Nick Clason (18:22):
Um, and that stop the scroll. The biggest thing you're looking for when you're clipping things up is not just to put little clips of your pastor out there, but you're looking to find a good hook. And either your pastor says a hook creates a good hook in his talking, or if he doesn't, you can use that, that famous voiceover feature and say, um, you know, using like the AI auto sound thing, this is like five ways to memorize and learn scripture. Cuz I don't know that my pastor gave a good hook for that. So I'll do that, probably voiceover effect and then boom, I'll clip his thing up and I mean, he took probably five minutes on it and I'm gonna clip it down into under 60 seconds. So I'm just gonna make it quick, quick cuts fast, uh, memorable, and boom, it's gonna be out there.

Nick Clason (19:05):
So if you found this helpful, glad you're here. Thanks for jumping in. Listen, you have the message and hope that is available to the entire world. So don't be afraid or ashamed or shy to share it. Use social media. Um, lean in to hybrid to get the message of God's people out there, both to remind and remember, um, or to remind your disciples, the people in your congregation about the message from Sunday to be encouraged throughout the week, to continue to take steps more and more in their faith, to look more and more like Jesus and to reach those around us who maybe have not yet found the hope of Jesus, but can find that through the body and work of a local church. And you are directly in the intersection of that. Whatever your role is, pastor, youth pastor, digital specialist, church communications person, excited to have you with us on the journey.

Nick Clason (20:02):
We clip up little, uh, clips of these every single episode and drop 'em onto my personal TikTok at Cliff and Nicki can grab the link there in the show notes. Uh, we will have transcripts for this episode at http://hybridministry.xyz wherever you listen to this on whatever podcast platform catcher. Glad to have you with us. Glad you're listening in your ear holes. If you found this helpful, would you rate it, leave a comment, and maybe share with the, so that they also can, uh, learn about the importance people around. And we will talk to you next time. Stay Hybrid.

SHOWNOTES
For all things Hybrid Ministry head to http://www.hybridministry.xyz
Hangout with Nick:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick

FREE E-Book: "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

The Best YouTube strategy for 2023 and Beyond!
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/021

TIMECODES
00:00-03:16 Intro
03:16-05:04 The Theology of Preaching
05:04-09:17 The high calling of being a preacher of God's Word
09:17-10:30 God has chosen to speak
10:30-13:58 God has chosen surrogate voices
13:58-18:45 What is preaching?
18:45-30:47 The purpose of the Church
30:47-37:31 Can you share the message of Jesus online?
37:31-38:47 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Well, hey there everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason, excited to be here with you. And I just wanted to invite you, if you have not yet, check out our website http://www.hybridministry.xyz. If you didn't know, we have complete show transcripts that we have created a hundred percent just for you. Um, those are a hundred percent free for you. They're not free to produce, but they are a free gift that we do for every single episode. So if you're like me, where you probably are listening while you're driving or running or exercising or cooking or biking, and then you hear something and you want to, uh, recall it or write it down or take a note or quote or something like that, you can do that through the transcripts. Now, full disclosure, the transcripts are AI and automated automatically generated.

Nick Clason (00:57):
And so sometimes they're not the most reliably transcribed, but they are still a good tool and you usually be able to figure out and get to the right place. with those other thing I wanna invite you to do is if you have not yet checked out our 100% free ebook that we created, called Have I Ruined My Church's TikTok account just yet? You know, there's a lot of speculation, um, and maybe worry when you log onto TikTok, like, am I doing this right? Is this how this is supposed to look? Did I do this thing wrong? And I just wanna encourage you to grab this ebook, and the answer is probably no. Um, but we'll help you, we'll help you, uh, take your first step post your first TikTok, because the world of vertical and short form video content is not going anywhere.

Nick Clason (01:51):
Um, in fact, it is so saturated in all of the major markets, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, that for the first time in a very long time, you can post identical content on all four of those platforms. And they will not ding you, they will not take away because you're posting something that was built for another platform while short form and vertical video content was made popular by TikTok. The other platforms are all trying to chase that down and bring that this discovery algorithm into their framework. And so they are Fran frantically trying to make that a reality and trying to make that happen. And so, um, the church has a unique opportunity to not only grow on social media, but take a medium and a platform that prioritizes this, uh, short form video content speaking directly into a camera. Um, which is something that the church has the ability to do quite easily.

Nick Clason (02:52):
Like if you think about it in the past, right? Uh, churches would have, uh, so like have to figure out a way to make graphics, figure out a way to have to get photographers. But now a pastor is actually probably someone who's pretty well versed in communicating to people, and that's what is happening in these short form video, uh, pieces of content. And so it's a really unique, um, and really unprecedented time in the church. So, with all that being said, excited to have you today. Today I want to talk about the theology of preaching. Now, you might be thinking this is not a digital topic. And the reason that I think it's a digital topic is because I think that, um, the teacher, the preacher has, um, the ability and perhaps even responsibility to use social media to spread and share the message of Jesus.

Nick Clason (03:46):
Um, and so the reason I wanted to do this deep dive into preaching is because I wanted to make sure that as I read through an examined different sections and pieces of the New Testament, that I was not speaking out of turn, um, and saying something that, uh, was not theologically accurate, you know, in the land of, well, per like, I guess the anticipated argument, and, and in fairness, I haven't really heard this from anybody, but I wanted to make sure that I, um, wasn't saying something that was not a hundred percent biblically or theologically true. Because again, like I said, I haven't said it yet, but I've circled around this idea. My anticipated idea or anticipated argument was that people might say preaching has to take place in the fabric and context of local church and local community. And so I wanted to examine cuz I wasn't sure that that's actually what was said, um, in the New Testament.

Nick Clason (04:50):
And so I wanted, but I wanted to see it for myself. Obviously, I wanted to look at the text and I didn't wanna just go off what I thought or believed or, um, was mostly sure to be true. So let's take a look at the Theology of preaching. So in 1980, a book called Biblical Preaching came out by Hadden Robinson. That was, that was my, um, textbook for, I believe it was Homiletics. Um, which homiletics is the actual, uh, practice or act of delivering a sermon. And so I went to that book, um, and the book is very much a, uh, pro dispositional preaching style verse by verse type of thing. And so he's, he's really building that case the entire way through. And so there's, you know, there's, um, a couple of introductory ideas in the first chapter about what is preaching. Um, but then after that it really dives into the, the ex dispositional side of things and how, how you should focus on that.

Nick Clason (05:58):
But one of the quotes that I found interesting that Hadden Robinson said was he said, Hey, one should think twice and twice again before nominating himself to that company of preachers. And, um, obviously, um, he's borrowing that from James chapter three, verse one, where James writes, dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church for me, or sorry, for we who teach will be judged more strictly this, this responsibility of, um, standing in the gap between God who has a message and his people as a preacher or as a prophet as they were in the Old Testament. That is a high responsibility, and those people are going to be judged more harshly. And so Robinson is saying you should think twice and maybe twice again before you, uh, attempt to step into this. It's not just something about glamorous, not just something about, um, you know, like being known noticed, like this is a really high calling.

Nick Clason (07:00):
And so I think that it's really important for whoever is listening to this, whether if you're like a social media manager and you are a person on camera a lot, or if you're pulling, um, audio clips or video clips from your pastor's sermons, the the fact remains the same that whoever that person is, and then if, if you are an actual pastor who's doing the, the recording, you will be judged more harshly. So, so take that responsibility for what it is worth, right? Like, it's very important. Matthew Simpson, um, he wrote this. He said, his throne is the pulpit, and he talking about the preacher stands in Christ's stead. His message is the word of God around him are immortal souls. The savior unseen is beside him. The Holy Spirit broods over the congregation, angels gaze upon the scene in heaven, and hell await the issue, await the sermon.

Nick Clason (08:00):
And so, uh, same thing, right? Like it's just talking about the, the priority. It's talking about the the level of weight that is on whoever is preaching. All right? And so, uh, I will, uh, throw, uh, a lot of notes, um, a lot of links into the show notes. I'll throw Had and Robinson's, um, link to that book if you wanna check that out. Um, I also found a bunch of articles online that I found pretty helpful. Um, one was from a ministry magazine article. And, um, I just wanna give you a couple of the highlights from that magazine that talk about the importance of preaching. Again, in almost all of these articles are almost all these books, the assumption is that preaching is done in a physical context behind a physical pulpit to a physical congregation. And by no means am I trying to build or make a case that says that that should go away, okay?

Nick Clason (08:51):
But what I am trying to build and make a case and open a door for is can preaching or can sharing the message of Jesus, can that also be done using different methods and mediums, such as an online medium, uh, like short form, video content, YouTube, TikTok, whatever the case might be. All right? So here's some of the high, uh, high level takeaways from this Ministry magazine article about preaching. All right? So the first thing at a very basic foundational level is this, is that God has chosen to speak. We see in Genesis chapter one, 10 different times it was recorded, it says, God said, we also see five different times in that same chapter of Genesis chapter one, that God called and so to God, words are very important. In fact, his entire creation was speaking. And then the thing, existing plants, animals, light, darkness, day, night, moon, stars, sun, all of that was given to us by the voice and word of God to God, words and breath and speaking, it matters, and it plays an, a pretty important role in the narrative of human history.

Nick Clason (10:08):
Furthermore, uh, God breathed into Adam and gave him his life. And Psalm 33, 6 says, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, the host of them and the breath of his mouth. And so, God, there is a very important and, and critical role in the fact that God has even chosen to speak. So God's chosen to speak. God has also called for surrogate voices to, to speak on his behalf. Preaching by the prophets was a, a way of warning the people to get their act together or to, to watch out for some sort of impending judgment that was going to happen because they had not been obeyed. See, God is love, and he's giving all, um, opportunity for mankind to experience and come to salvation. One Timothy chapter two, verse four says, who wants God? Who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth?

Nick Clason (11:08):
Romans 10 13 through 16 says this. It says, so everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on, on him to save him unless they believe in him? How can they believe in him if they've never heard about him? How can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? So that's why the scripture says, how beautiful are the feet of the messengers who bring the good news? But not everyone who welcomes the good news for Isaiah, the prophet said, Lord, who has believed our message? See, there's power in the words. There's power in being saved through the words. And God has a desire for humans to come to that understanding. The, the, the reality is this, is that the, the power comes from you and my and your preacher or whoever.

Nick Clason (12:00):
The power comes from that person's individual life. It's about the words that are said, but there's power and weight behind it. If there's authority, integrity, um, if, if, if the message is coming from the overflow of somebody's heart, of somebody's life, this, this message is not just about saying the message, right? There's obviously that, that verse where Paul says, uh, even if despite how the gospel is being preached, I rejoice because even if it's in vain, or even if it's not good or whatever, like it is still being preached. And that's true. But the, the more connected you and I and your pastor are connected to the vine, John chapter 15, if, uh, we are connected to the vine, you're reminded that Jesus says, um, apart from me, you can do nothing. Ian Bounds has a quote that says, the sermon is made in the closet.

Nick Clason (12:59):
The man, God's man is made in the closet. And so then at that point, you and I get to take this idea from Romans chapter 10 or for Timothy chapter two, um, and share it with other people. God desires for all men to come to an understanding. We, we get to be the feet that carry the message to the people who have not heard. How sweet are the feet of those who carry that message, however, is the person's personal life is our personal life, is our heart, is we have the gut check in place because it's really easy on social media, it's really easy on TikTok to get vanity metrics and vanity views and feel like we're actually doing something when in reality we maybe aren't doing anything and we're chasing after selfish gain or selfish motive. So like Ian Bound says, the real sermon, the real is made in his private life in a closet.

Nick Clason (13:59):
All right, so I got some more articles. Um, what is is preaching, um, I, I, I searched what is preaching, and a quote from, uh, thabiti on Yawe says this. He says, preaching is God speaking in the power of his spirit, about his son from his word through a man. Thessalonians chapter one verse form five says four, we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. First Thessalonians two 13. And we also thank God continually because when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it as it actually is the word of God. God himself spoke through Paul's preaching, which is at, which is at work in you who believe power is in the word. Um, and also in the messenger, right?

Nick Clason (14:59):
First Peter, chapter four, 10 through 11, each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others faithfully, faithfully, admonishing God's grace in its various forms. And if anyone speaks, you should do so as one speaking the very words of God. And then Matthew chapter 10, verse 19 through 20, when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. Cuz at that time, you'll be given what to say for it will not be you, uh, speaking, but it will be the spirit of your, uh, father speaking through you had Robinson Hadden. Robinson says this, he says, preach means to cry out Harold or exhort, second Timothy, chapter four, verse two. So preaching should so stir a man that he pours out the message with passion and fervor. See, scripture already has authority. And so Robinson's argument, right, like I was saying, is one for expository preaching, which obviously he's speaking and writing this with a mindset of, uh, really I feel like he's arguing expository versus, uh, like topical or whatever.

Nick Clason (16:10):
And he's also arguing it with the assumption that this is taking place within the context of a local church with a pastor who's standing behind a pulpit who has the word of God open in front of him, and he's preaching out of it. And he's saying that the authority comes from the word of God. And so if we're going to take that and transfer this to a digital format, the same is true. You see, it's really easy, especially on TikTok. It's all about quick and the hook and about capturing attention. And I think those things are true. And by the way, those things are still true for live preaching in the room sermons, um, capturing people's attention, making sure it's relevant, taking what is true in God's word, and also making it true in their life or relevant in their life. However, the authority, the intersection there between, uh, the word of God and the relevancy, um, of the, of, uh, the message, the intersection of that needs to be God's word.

Nick Clason (17:01):
That is where the authority falls and comes from. All right, so back to Robinson, right? An expository definition. Um, he says this, he says, so, so the passage, uh, governs the sermon. The expository communicates a concept. The concept then comes from the text. The concept is applied to the expository. And then, um, the concept is then applied to the hearer. Okay? And so oftentimes a complaint about expository preaching is that it's not very relatable, it's boring, it's dry. Okay? Check out this quote from Robinson. I found it incredibly eye-opening, especially as I'm doing this research in light of, can this be a digital means a digital format? He said, seldom do normal people lose sleep over the, the jutes, the Canaanites or the, the parasites. Uh, or even about what Abraham, Moses or Paul had said or done. He said, what they do lie awake, wondering is about grocery prices, crop failures, corals with a girlfriend, the diagnosis of malignancy, of frustrating sex life, the rat race where the rat only seems to ever win.

Nick Clason (18:10):
So if a sermon does not make much difference in that world, they wonder if it makes any difference at all. And I would say, and I would make the argument that the same is true if you're going to try and preach and share the message of hope of Jesus online, cuz people are, are not scrolling through TikTok worried about the JB besides Canaanite pairs, that's Abraham, Moses, or Paul. But what they will care about is when you can take those things and make them relevant and apply them back over to the worries, the frustrations, the day-to-day life, things that are causing them concern.

Nick Clason (18:47):
So all of that is about preaching. All of that is about good fact that God chose to speak, he uses surrogate voices and preaching must inspire, um, and be relevant for people, uh, to take the message and apply it back over to their lives. The question then is, what is the role of preaching in the church? And is preaching an exclusive thing that can only happen in the context of a local church body, right? Then that would be, that would be, um, pretty important to, to figure out, um, especially in light of, of this argument. And, you know, in a lot of cases, I, I feel as though my audience, and if this isn't you, that's obviously fine. You're obviously welcome here. You can, can learn and from what we're talking about, but I feel in a lot of ways my audience is aimed at a person who is already in a local church, um, who's working for a local church and who's already seeing a lot of these things sort of like happening and take place.

Nick Clason (19:48):
The question I have then is, what is the purpose of the local church? You know, we went into that a little bit in the last episode, so I'll drop the link to that in the show notes. Uh, I also then looked up, um, an article I found on, um, desiring god.org, which is John Piper's website, and he has seven qualifications for the church. So he has seven qualifications and a averse or two that sort of like, uh, support it. And so I also look those verses up and I'm gonna read those verses when I'm done, um, so that you understand where he's getting his, his basis for. So he's, he's making a statement, um, and tying it to a, a scripture. And I'm gonna read the actual scripture so that you hear that scripture, um, as well, not just like the reference to, okay, so the first thing that he says, he says that people must give evidence in the remember, uh, the basis for local church.

Nick Clason (20:39):
Um, so number one basis for a local church, or what is a local church, that people must give evidence that they are believers, that they, they trust Jesus as their savior and Lord, the New Testament makes it very clear that we are adopted into the family of God through our faith. And that comes from John chapter one, verse 12 and 13, but to all who believe him and accept him, he gave the right to become children of God. They're reborn not with physical birth resulting from human passion or pl or a plan, but a birth that comes from God. The second basis, the second qualification of a local church is that people must be baptized. Jesus commanded a Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, that the way to make disciples was to baptize them and to teach them. And this was the uniform practice in the early church.

Nick Clason (21:21):
Matthew 28 19 says, therefore, go make disciples of all nations, baptiz them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The third basis for the local church is that there must be a regular assembly. A group of people who only came together, say once a year, could not rightly be called a local church because they are a central activities of the church, which lose their meaning when not done corporately. So therefore, Hebrews 10 25 commands us not to neglect meeting together to hear. Hebrews 10 25 says this, let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Uh, just a quick pause here. I would say in a lot of ways, I think the gathering together, um, a lot of it is not, um, at this point in 2023, is not necessarily for information transfer.

Nick Clason (22:11):
I think, um, that that has been solved through means like podcasting and YouTube videos and, um, people can even listen to worship music on Spotify. Now, I think one of the major factors of the local church is for this is for encouragement. I think that life is hard. I think that people are lonely. And I think that coming together in a gathering, in a regular gathering is for encouragement. Um, that complicates things a little bit when most churches gather together to sit down in rows and look ahead and watch a person talk for a half an hour. And I think that's where I can make the argument that you can take that same content that you're delivering in a 30 minute sermon and distribute it and disseminate it out online. You can also do it in that format. But I think that there should be something meaningful there for the regular assembly, that there should be some sort of encouragement.

Nick Clason (23:04):
A lot of churches have Sunday school classes or small groups that meet to do that and to fill that, to fulfill that function. And I just think that, um, we have made that a second tier priority, um, in the church. And I think in 2023 and beyond, with information and all-time high and an all-time level of availability, I think that what people really want and need and are looking for is that encouragement. So I'll continue going on. Uh, the fourth marker of a local church is, it says, among these meetings, there must be, um, gathering for worship. This follows inevitably from the ultimate value placed on Jesus Christ who calls us together from our rela uh, relation to God. Through him, the church is destined to live, uh, to the praise of God's glory. Ephesians chapter one, verse six, 12 and 14, and therefore, it will contradict our nature not to assemble for worship.

Nick Clason (24:00):
Um, acts chapter two, uh, 47, and then Romans 15, six through seven. So Ephesians 1, 6, 12, and 14 says, so we praise God for the glorious grace that he has poured out on us who belonged to his dear son. Verse 12, God's purpose was that we, Jews who are the first to trust Christ would bring praise and glory to God. And verse 14, the spirit of God's guarantee that he will give us inheritance. He promised that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so that we would praise and glorify him. So because of what he did right, we would, we would as a result, praise and glorify him. And, and because of that, then Piper is making the argument that that's the church should be, um, built on worship and adoration and, and praise of God. Acts chapter two verse, uh, acts 2 20 47.

Nick Clason (24:50):
Acts 2 47 says, all while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people, and each day the Lord added to their fellowship, those who are being saved, Romans 15, six and seven, then all of you can join together with one voice giving praise and glory to God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you, so that God will be given all the glory. The fifth marker of the church. Our meetings must include exhortation from the word of God, right? This is pay attentional to this one. This is really what this entire podcast is centered on. Um, we were born and new through the living and abiding and the word of God, first Peter 1 23. And our life in Christ is preserved not by bread alone, but by every word that precedes out of the mouth of God.

Nick Clason (25:35):
Matthew four, four, the shepherds of the church are the provision that God has made for feeding his sheep. Therefore, we strive not to be the church where the word of God is neglected. First Peter one twenty three, for you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal living word of God. Matthew four, four, Jesus told Satan, no, the scriptures say, please people or not, not please people do not live on bread alone, but by every word that precedes out of the mouth of God. Um, I do think that God has put pastors and shepherds in place to help feed his sheep, but I think that that really the role and mission of the church is, um, as Paul says in Ephesians is, is to equip the saints for works and acts of service.

Nick Clason (26:17):
And so I think in a lot of ways also it says in, I can't remember, I didn't write this one down first or second Peter, that we have everything we need for life and godliness, where a priesthood of all believers. And so people who believe in God should be given the tools to feed themselves to grow in their own faith on their own. And so, yes, I believe that you should gather together to hear a preacher who's poured over a week and remember the, the, the, the power from the word of God comes from the private, private life of the preacher, all that. However, I think the preacher should also be not just teaching the person, uh, like giving them a fish, right? But teaching them how to fish so that they can have that lifetime of learning. And we have, and I think that that a lot, a lot of that learning, um, with that requires some discernment.

Nick Clason (27:00):
Like especially with so much out there, social media, articles, whatever the case might be. Uh, I think the, one of the main things that needs to take place is discernment. Like how do you know if you believe this? If, if this article you're reading lines up matches up with your belief in God and if your, and if it lines up with what the Bible actually has to say. So how do you take what the Bible has to say and and weigh that and measure that against what you're reading, what you're consuming, what you're listening to. So, uh, I'll continue on number six, along with worship and the exoration, we must celebrate in the Lord's supper in order to be the church. We're committed to do this in remembrance of Christ. Luke 2219 and first Corinthians 11, four, neglecting this ordinance might seem, uh, inconsequential at first, but I think a church will bleed to death through the amputation.

Nick Clason (27:49):
Luke 2219 says, then Jesus took some bread, gave thanks to God, broke it in in pieces, and he gave it to his disciples saying, this is my body which is given to you. Do this in remembrance of me, first Corinthians 1124, and give, and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. This is a gigantic argument for the importance of physical gathering. You, you really cannot partake in the Lord's supper together as a, as a body of Christ without a physical gathering together. You can, um, church has that before, took communion every single week. And so as a part of their online experience, they would encourage people to grab crackers and juice and do it in their homes. And we did that during Covid cuz that was required necessary.

Nick Clason (28:30):
But I think that there's something about doing it in a communal way. Again, I would not, I would argue though, that like when we're sitting in rows and the pastor comes out on stage and leads everyone through communion, I, I don't know that that's really communal, like you're together. But is that actually what he was just talking about there? And that's where, that's where I think the, the, the 21st century American breakdown from church is a has been away from family and more towards a theater or observatory way of church. And that's what I'm saying, encouragement and communal and all these things that, that do happen within the context of a physical church gathering. I do think that it's, it's not actually being played out that way. So you can make that argument like, well, yeah, you need to be together and whatever, but like when I'm sitting in a row, shoulder to shoulder and staring at the back of someone's head, I'm not really getting to know them, not really doing that thing that way.

Nick Clason (29:22):
Um, that's just how we have come to land here out of, out of history. Like historically this, we've been doing it this way, so we're doing it this way again, as opposed to like really, like I said, leaning into less on the information side cuz information's now much more available, but more leaning more into the relational side. Last thing, um, from Piper's article, finally, all of this must take place with the, with the guidance of duly appointed leaders. Paul appointed elders in all churches, acts 1423. He gave instructions about the qualifications of deacons and elders in first Timothy three and tied this one. Full disclosure, I did not write those out, so you can go check those out on your own if you want. And he said that Christ had given pastors teachers to the church to equip the saints for ministry. Ephesians four, one through 12.

Nick Clason (30:13):
I referenced that earlier. Uh, there have always been disagreements about what to call these leaders and how to organize them, but they must be present in a group in order for that group to be a church. Historic Christianity has always affirmed this. So Acts 14, Palm Barnabas also appointed elders in every church with prayer and fasting. They turn the elders over to the care of the Lord in whom they'd put their trust. And then Ephesians for one through 12, therefore I prisoner for serving the Lord beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling. You've been called by God and their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and to build up the church, the body of Christ.

Nick Clason (30:50):
All right, so with all that, with all those different pieces of, of writing and articles and excerpts from books, what's the conclusion? So what I believe very strongly is that the church is God's plan, a for redeeming his people. Matthew chapter 16, Caesarea Philippi upon Peter's proclamation that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. Jesus says upon this, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And so, uh, not only is the church going to be successful, but also it is God's plan, a for bringing about redemption and restoration to his people. I also believe that the church should include as Piper laid out elements of worship and teaching. And as I said in the last podcast, living out the one another's, he said it in one of his points about the importance of encouragement of meeting together.

Nick Clason (31:51):
I think that there's a, like I said earlier, and I did a little sidebar, uh, earlier, I think there's a lot more there and I think there's a lot more opportunity for the church to be more encouraging in lifting up one another. And so I think it's, I think it's ultimately God's desire that everyone comes to a knowledge of salvation of him. And I also believe, and I, and I see it pretty clearly, that it's Jesus' command for us to go and make disciples teaching them. And and I think that's probably done through the context of community. Now, like I said, I think we can get it twisted and say when we're sitting in rows, the way that the church has been set up for, for a century or longer now, that that's community because we're in the room together. And I don't actually think that that's the most effective form of community.

Nick Clason (32:43):
And I think most pastors would say that's not the most effective form of community. However, no one has really tried to break that. Um, and if they do, they're often considered sort of like hippies and people just trying to be like super offshoot of Christianity, right? But people who live, um, best in the context of community, people who have committed to a local assembly, a local body, a local acc, the church, um, those people are the ones who then can live out this command from Jesus to both be discipled and to be discipling others, teaching them about the commands of Jesus. And that's not just the pastor's job, it's the pastor's job to help equip set up framework, um, do this under the, the guidance and assembly and all these things. Okay? But in addition to the content from God's word, there's an encouragement of one another that needs to be lived out and needs to be expressed.

Nick Clason (33:40):
And however, I think in addition to all of that, we see Paul and we see Jesus and we see his disciples, like when Jesus sends out the 72, that they have a high level of urgency and priority to go and share the gospel to the people that have not yet heard the message of Jesus. And I do believe that digital vertical, short form video, long form video, audio podcasting, TikTok, is today's opportunity to help go out into the fray infringes to share the message of help found in the gospel. Like, like Paul, right? Almost every one of his letters was written to a church that he was not in physical proximity to. He had a relationship with them, he had met them before, maybe he hadn't, he just heard about 'em in a couple cases. But he sends and uses the, the communication means and effort of his day and age, and he uses it to get in contact with different churches.

Nick Clason (34:44):
And I believe that TikTok is today's opportunity to share the message of hope that's found in the gospel if we're borrowing from the marketing world and looking at like a funnel, right? Like the top of the funnel is the widest, and that's the awareness phase. And then people might move into a consideration phase and then a conversion phase, and then to the fact down in the lowest part of the funnel, um, where they are expressing loyalty. And then finally, they are expressing a advocacy. And I think that the church can, um, follow a similar way. And I think that that TikTok, I think that social media often is a top of the funnel type of thing. I don't know that you are gonna pray with anybody to receive Christ over TikTok. You might, and that'd be an amazing story. But I think in a lot of ways a person is, is hovering around the top of the funnel, gaining an awareness of Jesus, um, and, and maybe even your church, and then moving down that funnel more and more and more until finally I take a step into real live, authentic personal community.

Nick Clason (35:44):
And the church world is very similar. Jesus set up the very same framework, right? Jesus said, um, Hey, explore who I am, where he, where he gives the invitation to Andrew and John, and he says, come and see. And then out of that, he, he allows them to follow him or, or connect with him and with some other disciples. And then he really ch he leans in, he challenges them, goes from following me to, I will make you, I will change you, um, make you into fishes of men. And that's what we see a lot of the growth of them internally. And then finally, the most growth is when he turns and pivots and he says, now it's your job to go and multiply. And that's why we see much joy out of Jesus when the 72 come back, because the 72 is the, the second and third and fourth generation of disciples.

Nick Clason (36:31):
It's not just his disciples, the ones that we know, the ones that are listed, Peter, James, John, Andrew. But it's, it's their disciples, the ones that they've shared the message with. Those 72 go out and they also bear much fruit. That's the framework that Jesus has built up for multiplication. And so, um, we can, as the church, we can lean into that come and see, and that follow me, those entry level places. And in a lot of times those have been set up in physical gatherings in the worship environment. And that is a place where people can come and explore. But I think, um, in today's day and age, they're also doing a lot of that exploration in the palm of their hands, on their phones, on their devices and on their screens. And they're looking at their, at their phones. They're asking questions about, who is this man?

Nick Clason (37:13):
Jesus, what is this you say about faith? And as they're scrolling through TikTok to yes, be entertained and to yes, find another silly video or whatever they're looking for, they might also find something meaningful, something spiritual and something where you can say, Hey, come and see. Hey, listen guys, I hope you found this episode helpful. Uh, it was a deep dive. Um, it was heavy and there was a lot of, uh, scripture and quotes and stuff like that. And so, um, I will post, um, all the links to everything I've done in the show notes. Of course, there's free transcripts and you know what I'll do, I'll include my notes for this, um, in the, the notes as well. So you can get all that over at hybridministry.xyz. Go grab the ebook, go watch the YouTube video and how to post. And um, guys, listen, there is a lost and dying world out there, and that's why this is so important, not for you to get a thousand million hundred views on a TikTok video, but so that people who don't have a relationship with Jesus come to an understanding of a relationship with Jesus.

Nick Clason (38:15):
And maybe just, maybe that's through you giving them an opportunity to explore and open the door. So keep doing what you're doing, blessings on you and your ministry, and we'll talk again.

SHOWNOTES
YM360
http://www.ym360.com
MINISTRY TO PARENTS
https://ministrytoparents.com/
MY YOUTH MIN
https://myyouthmin.com/
EPISODE 016 ON HOW THE IPHONE CHANGED THINGS WITH DERRY PRENKERT
https://merry-swamp-3547.fireside.fm/016

TIMECODES
00:00-02:49 Intro
02:49-05:55 Kerry's Intro and Experience
05:55-09:12 What it's like no longer being in the trenches of ministry
09:12-13:44 What was life in ministry like before the cell phone and after?
13:44-16:22 Is technology what created FOMO?
16:22-21:00 What is contact work?
21:00-32:58 Can we use technology to our advantage in ministry efforts?
32:58-34:27 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Hey, what is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast, episode 19. We've been doing 19 of these. I can't freaking believe it in your catcher. It might be 20, because we posted as Double Zero pilot. I kind of hate when people do that, and then I, I went and did it. So, anyway, uh, as always, I am your host, Nick Clason, excited to be with you. And today you're in for a treat because number one, I'm not just gonna ramble in your ear holes the entire time, like I have been for the last several episodes, but two, I'm bringing on one of my really good friends. His name is Kerry Ray. He is the director of editing and publications right now at YM 360, which is, YM Youth Min, right? Youth Ministry 360. And he has 30 years of church ministry experience, particularly in the student ministry and youth ministry space.

Nick Clason (00:58):
So, let me caveat all of that to say this is a ministry podcast, not specific in particular to youth ministry. However, that being said, um, you know that I am a 12 year youth ministry veteran, and so a lot of my connections and conversations come in the youth ministry space. And so, um, I just will caveat all this to say that today is going to be a very youth ministry centric conversation. Um, but all of it is going to be couched sort of in, uh, digital, right? And, and so what Kerry is gonna be talking about, um, and what I did is I, we had an interview and it went really well, and it went really long. And so I decided, I think I'm actually gonna bite, uh, split this up into two more bite size pieces. And so, episode one is gonna come out this week, episode two, or part two of this, I should say, is gonna drop on Thanksgiving Day, so you can enjoy it on the way to your, um, grandmother's house over the river and through the woods.

Nick Clason (01:59):
So in this first part in particular, he's gonna talk a little bit about his experience, um, what he's seen and how he's seen digital play a role in that. And then he talks about, um, a thing that I first learned from him, but he says he's still primarily from young Life called contact work, right? And if you've been around this podcast at all, you've known, we talked about showing up where they are, um, which is what Jesus did, honestly, right? He, he showed up where we were, he put on skin, he became human. And so that's what he talks about, and he kind of gives the basis for it and why it's important. Um, and so that's gonna be today. Um, so hopefully you enjoy it. And so, without any further ado, we're gonna get started. And you'll notice just how well I am as a host when we plan this thing, when you hear how we get started. So here we go. 3, 2, 1. Check it out. Hey,

Kerry Ray (02:50):
Is whoa gonna go first on,

Nick Clason (02:53):
Man? Come on. Doesn't even listen to instructions.

Kerry Ray (02:57):
I did. I thought you said, I'll do a thing later. And then you go ahead and introduce

Nick Clason (03:02):
Yourself. I'm keeping all this in. This is Kerry, everybody. Kerry, introduce yourself to the tens and tens of listeners that I have.

Kerry Ray (03:10):
Hey, tens of listeners. My name is Kerry Ray. I am the director of publishing for Y M 360 in Birmingham, Alabama. Uh, YM 360 Youth Ministry 360. Uh, before that, uh, this is my first year actually as a director of publishing, whatever that means. Uh, I did, uh, before that, I did, uh, right about three decades in the student ministry seat, um, in multiple denominations of churches, in churches, multiple states, uh, different sizes, churches, different size, not sizes, different size churches, um, multisites single sites, uh, single sites that wanted to be multisite, uh, . I've been, I've been around the block and, and seen a lot of things, man. Um, but yeah, I've been in the youth ministry for right at 30 years. And, um, this was my first, actually at the time of this recording, this was my, this last Easter was my first Easter, uh, in, in here in 2022, was my first Easter in 30 years, not to be on staff at a church.

Kerry Ray (04:15):
So it was quite the different thing to sit in there as a regular person who could see all the things going wrong, but uh, was not responsible for, for fixing any of them. Um, and so it was great. It was, it was really great. Um, it's weird now on Saturday nights after, you know, you get in a routine for 30 years. Uh, Saturday nights are kind of a weird thing because you go to church on Sunday mornings, but you're not going to work, you know, to do all the things. Um, so, and you go with a family on, on a Sunday morning, it's whole thing. Just a different world, man. So I've, uh, like I said, I've been, I got to wife 360 in October of 2022, um, and started a, a new thing. We, we work in, uh, Y 360, if you don't know, we're, we're part, um, publishing.

Kerry Ray (05:06):
And, uh, we create content for student ministries, youth ministries, all over the world to use. Um, and we also do camps. We have a, a generate by Y 360, uh, which does camp all across different locations. We had this last summer, summer of 2022. We, I believe we were in 20, 23 or 24 locations, um, running camps, 20. We had three different teams spread out all over. Uh, so it was great. My, my section of that, we create all of the, uh, written material, all the devotional material, all of the, um, all the written material for camps. Um, so yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's very different. And then I get to, uh, coach student ministries, youth pastors, all across the place. Um, I've been doing that for around seven years, so, yeah. Nice. Yeah. Lot of fun. Lot of fun.

Nick Clason (05:59):
So let me ask you this, just, this isn't one of the questions I sent you. I'm already going off script, but, uh, do you enjoy Saturday nights and Sunday mornings not being responsible for stuff, or is there like an element of you that misses it at all?

Kerry Ray (06:15):
Oh, absolutely. I think anytime you do something for a significant amount of your life, um, there's a part of you that missed that, um, that misses, um, you know, just being around and, and, and knowing all the faces and knowing who's where. And, um, yeah, there's just part of it that you kind of miss a little bit of it. There's some part, and maybe this will make sense for some of you listening who've done anything for a significant amount of time, there's parts that you miss that you don't know why you miss, or you don't even know what you miss. You just say something's weird and off and just seems a little different. Um, yeah. But yeah, there, there's pieces and parts. There's definitely pieces and parts that I don't miss.

Kerry Ray (06:56):
You know, I don't miss, you know, being gone all day on a Sunday. Um, I don't miss, um, I the whole getting to be a part like you go as a family and do stuff with as a family, uh, that's really brand new. Yeah. Um, and, and it's, it's been great. My, my kids, I, my wife and I have two kids. We have an eight year old and a 14 just turned 14 a couple days ago. And so this is such a significant time in both of their lives mm-hmm. that it is great to be, you know, just a dad and not a staff member. Um, and to get, to get to sit in, I'll tell you, you know, a little bit of a confession. It's also difficult. Um, we're at a smaller church now, and, um, having been in large church ministry for so long, um, now that my daughter is participating in ministry, and, you know, that ministry is, you know, trying to figure itself out and mm-hmm. and, and go through all the, you know, all the growing pains of, of a growing ministry. And I'm sitting on the sidelines and thinking, gosh, , that's awkward. I can help that, but I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna white knight, you know, come in when my, on my high horse and, and quote unquote fix it for them. Especially with,

Nick Clason (08:16):
You're fixing it as the YM 360 guy. Are you fixing it as Madison dad, as dad? Are you fixing it as a church volunteer? Like, what, yeah. What's

Kerry Ray (08:26):
Your role, right? Or are you fixing as the guy that quote unquote knows it all right. So, you know, you don't, you don't wanna be that guy. Um, so yeah, it's, it's just been, it's been weird. That's, that's kind of the honest thing is to have done a thing, and I think this is true at anything, not just ministry, but having, you know, if you were, if you were a cabinet maker and you walked in and people were, you know, fumbling around with a hammer trying to build a cabinet, and you're just biting your, you know, biting your closed fist, going, oh, no, that's not how you, you do it . Um, so it, it's that, I mean, and not saying that they're not doing a great job. Um, they are, they're doing well in figuring it out. They're just, you know, figuring it out. Um, and they're going through some, some growing pain in that process. So yeah, that's, that's what we're doing as a family right

Nick Clason (09:13):
Now. So I'm, I'm curious, Kerry, like two or three episodes ago, I'll link it, you know, in the show notes, but I had, uh, my friend d Pinker on, and we talked about, um, how he, he has a similar longevity track record that you do, and he talked about how the invention of the iPhone was a pretty monumental, like, milestone marker for him in youth ministry. Like he kinda remembers ministry before the invention, um, and widespread use of the iPhone, and then post the invention and widespread use of the iPhone. Do you have, would you say you have a similar, um, experience with that? Like, did you, did you notice that being a pretty big milestone thing in student ministry and in your career noticing how students interacted? Did that change things? Did you, um, have to program or think about things differently because of technology and it's, you know, interwoven into the culture?

Kerry Ray (10:11):
Um, honestly, I, I think the iPhone changed not programming so much as it changed, um, advertising. And I know that's a big no-no word. You know, in the church world, you're not supposed to see the things you're doing as a quote unquote product or something you are promoting. Um, but you are, you're, you're promoting a thing, um, come be a part of this, whether it's a camp, a Wednesday night, a Sunday morning, you are trying to tell people this is a thing we have, um, otherwise you're sitting there by yourself. Um, and so I think it changed, I think it changed dramatically how we engaged with, with students. Hmm. , um, I don't think so much at all. It, it really changed programming. Um, but it definitely changed the way we engaged. It definitely changed, um, the level of intentionality that you had to put behind, uh, promotion and how you promoted and how you celebrated.

Kerry Ray (11:15):
Uh, it also gave you kind of an open door, you know, whether you want it to be or not. A lot of youth ministry is word of mouth. Yeah. Um, I always used to kinda call it the skating rink effect when I was a kid. You know, the skating rink was, was a thing. , sadly, that'll show you my age. The skating rink was a thing, and we didn't, in middle school specifically, you didn't know why it was a thing. Yeah. You just knew that's where everybody was. Mm-hmm. . And, uh, but it was word of mouth, you know? It was, it wasn't the, the skating rink when I grew up, the skating, it was called fun time, skate land. Uh, it wasn't that fun time. Skateland had this giant marketing, you know, this this monumental system or this, this thing that they were doing. They were like, come to fun time.

Kerry Ray (12:01):
It was just, it was word of mouth. And the middle school, you know, that that's where everybody was going on on a Friday night. They were going to fun time. And you talked about it in the hallways, and people do, and I think in cinema ministry, whether we want it to be or not, it, it's always been a word of mouth. You know, I'm, you know, why do, why do so many kids show up to this one event, this all nighter that you do? Well, because the word got out that these people are going and the other people wanna go. And then it snowballs into this thing. Um, and I think the word of mouth became digital. Word of mouth. Um, and you could, you could digitally have a megaphone to, to broadcast that thing versus just relying on word of mouth. Yeah. Um, and so that changed the game.

Kerry Ray (12:47):
So it changed. Um, the only thing I would say in programming, uh, uh, that it would change was that you had to be, or you started to be a little more intentional about recording the things that you were doing mm-hmm. and putting them out there for people to see later. Yeah. Uh, and to advertise with. Um, that's probably the only way it really changed. And I would say it changed programming. It would just, Hey, we want to capture certain things. And so we would talk about, as a team, uh, what are the things we wanna maybe capture tonight and, and broadcast so that people can see it and try to leverage the fomo, you know, the, the, that FOMO piece mm-hmm. is, is a real deal, the invention of the iPhone, Instagram, now TikTok, um, even, even be, you know, be real. It is that FOMO piece of what's happening in the moment. Who's doing what, Ooh, I wanna be a part of that. Mm-hmm. , that's what changed. I think that's what changed.

Nick Clason (13:45):
So would you say before that, that fomo for someone my age, who's only done ministry in an iPhone generation, is fomo a recent phenomenon since the invention of technology and things like that? Or was that always a part of it? Now you just can see it with your own eyes that you Oh, you're right now missing out.

Kerry Ray (14:07):
Yeah. No, FOMO has always existed. Um, it wasn't called that, but you know, there was always that, you know, nobody wants to be left out. Everybody wants to be, um, they did say it for hundreds, hundreds of years. They've been saying for years, you know, that, um, when you walk into a building, but think about yourself anytime, iPhone or not, you walk into a restaurant in a busy time of the day for a restaurant mm-hmm. , and you're the, there's maybe one other person in the restaurant. There's something inside of you that goes, it could be the greatest restaurant ever. It could be the best food, best atmosphere, but there's something inside you that intrinsically goes, huh, yeah, something's wrong. What's wrong with this, this ? And, and I think that's, I think that's who we are as, as human beings. When you walk into a store, there's nobody shopping there. When you, when you go to a gym and you work and there's, you're what, what's midnight? That's if you're doing it in a time where typically there would be people there, whether we walk into a church now, um, and there's, you know, there's nobody really attending. You go, huh? When you walk outta that, you don't say, you know, man, that was great. You go, man, that was great. I wonder why nobody goes.

Nick Clason (15:27):
Yeah. Well, it's interesting, right? Cause none of that's based on the actual content maybe. Nope. Of like, oh, that was a great message I really resonated with, or whatever. Like what you're noticing is like the social equity landscape of like, what's going on around you, looking around, no one's there. And

Kerry Ray (15:44):
It is a thing, and it is a thing. I think that thing has always existed. And I think whether it's the iPhone or social media, um, has just exacerbated that and made it, yeah. A more prominent thing turned the volume up, if you will, uh, has made it a more prominent thing, more obvious thing. Um, the, but I think it's always been there. Uh, I think it's, you know, when you were eight years old and didn't get invited to a birthday party and you knew other people did mm-hmm. , that's, you had fomo, you were missing out. Um, I think that's just a, a human thing.

Nick Clason (16:22):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So you and I connected, you were at a church in Cincinnati. I was at a church in Cincinnati, and we were on the doorstep of working together. Um, and so in that process, I guess, I mean, I guess it was even formal. We had formal interviews and stuff. Um, you explained to me, uh, a thing that, I don't know if you came up with this or coined it or whatever, but you called it contact work. Um, so explain a little bit to our listeners, like what that is, where it comes from, maybe the theological or biblical basis for it. Um, and, uh, like then I wanna kind of explore, is that type of work, is that type of ministry, is that possible more and more as we enter into this digital space? But first of all, give us just a little bit of like a background of like, what is it, um, what are you talking about with contact work? I think when I heard it, I never heard it called that, but it was very intrinsic to me. Like, I was like, oh, yeah, this makes sense, right? As a youth pastor, like, this is what I'm trying to do. I just never kind of put this label to it. So explain that a little bit.

Kerry Ray (17:32):
Yeah. Well, I definitely did not, uh, coin the phrase contact work. Um, that is, um, I served for a while, um, in young life, and that is a, that is a big, big piece of young life. If anybody's listening who has ever been a part or knows anything about young life, contact work is one of their core tenants. Um, they put a lot of, a lot of energy and effort and strategy

Nick Clason (18:00):
Into Andre good at contact work. That's, that's probably what they're best, I would say.

Kerry Ray (18:04):
Oh, they're, yeah, they're excellent at it. And it's because they value it. It's such a high value, um, for them. Like I said, it's one of their core tenants. Um, it's such a high value that they do it well. Um, and so borrowing that phrase from those guys, um, I just learned it and saw it done really well and saw it valued. Um, and so I, I kind of adopted it into early on into, um, what I was doing, and it was, it was going where they are versus expecting them to come to you. Hmm. Um, contact work at, at its core is, uh, young life would call it earning the right to be heard. Um, but it is, or maybe you hear them say, um, doing things on their turf mm-hmm. , um, so to speak. But basically it is, it is going to where the students are mm-hmm. versus sitting and expecting them to come to you, and then you're putting in the time with them in their places where they feel comfortable and confident, and where they maybe kinda run the show versus your place behind these walls, behind this door where you're in charge and are expecting them to, to do certain, certain things. Um, contact, contact work. Oops, sorry. Contact work is something that is something that we have done for years. It's an expectation.

Kerry Ray (19:37):
Sorry, my headphones went out for a second.

Nick Clason (19:40):
Oh, no, you're good. Contact work is sounds great to me. So,

Kerry Ray (19:42):
Okay. Contact work is, is something that, um, I have, you know, expected is the best word to use of any staff we have I've ever had on, on a, on a church staff. Um, it is, it's that big of a deal. Um, for example, when I had interns and, you know, we were only allowed, you know, what, 15 hours with an intern mm-hmm. mm-hmm. 10 of those hours with contact work, and I would ask them to, you know, fill out a form that tells me where they were going, what they were doing, who they, who they hung out with and talked to. Mm-hmm. , it was that big of a deal. I wanted them to value it. Um, that's when I first started in ministry. Early on, we didn't call it that. Um, but that was my role. Um, I had an older youth pastor who kinda looked at me and sat me down and said, Hey man, I, I'm too old to go run with the Bulls. Um, so , I'm gonna ask you to do that, and I'm gonna expect you to be in the school. I'm gonna expect you to be the one at the games. I'll still be the guy preaching, but, and you know, teaching, teaching you how to do those things, but, you know, you're the guy that's gonna run around with 'em. You can call it Tide Piper, whatever you wanna call it, but it is going and building relationships with students, with teenagers on their turf where they are at instead of expecting them to come to you.

Nick Clason (21:02):
Yeah. I think, and I think, like for me, man, the basis really of me starting this whole podcast is realizing that, uh, digital can play a role in that. You know, I think for churches, a lot of churches, uh, get stuck into their, like, programming schedule. It's Wednesday night, Sunday morning, whatever, and not realizing that there's another 167 unclaimed hours that students are living life doing their thing. Um, you know, so that can obviously be done in person, but how would you say, have you seen that be either possible, or would you say like, yeah, that's not even really a possibility, uh, to show up on their turf in like a digital or more of like a hybrid type of way?

Kerry Ray (21:53):
Lemme back up for a second first, and I can say that one, it's, it's part of what we're called to do. Mm-hmm. , if you're in ministry, um, we're supposed to be following and living as Jesus did. And what you never saw in the New Testament was Jesus just sit still somewhere and say, you know, everybody come to me. Mm-hmm. , I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna sit here , you know, in Jerusalem. I'm just gonna sit here and expect you to come to me. He traveled, he, he went around from town to town, place to place sharing and talking. And part of that was, you know, just getting around the people. Mm-hmm. , um, the people that, you know, he came to this place to die for was just to be amongst and, and interact with those people. Um, and that's part of our calling we're, we can't just sit in a church.

Kerry Ray (22:43):
You could have the greatest program in the world, but you sitting in a church and just expecting people to come to you is one arrogant too. Mm-hmm. , it's foolish. Three, it's ineffective. Um, it just doesn't, it's not the thing you can't, that's not who you're called to be. You're called to, to be out and about. And with people, people, these students are, you're calling, they're, they're coming to know Christ is your calling. And, and it can't be, I'm just sitting here and the kids that get here, that's great. The kids who don't hate it for them, um, that that's not okay. Yeah. So let's start there. Uh, number two, um, it, it matters to your community. Um, you hopefully want your church, your ministry, your student ministry. You want that to, to have such an impact on the lives of the people in your community, no matter their age, that if it disappeared, people would care. Mm-hmm.

Nick Clason (23:40):
. Yeah.

Kerry Ray (23:41):
And to do that, you can't sit in your ivory tower literally and, and expect that to happen. You've got to go out and make some sort of impact, some sort of influence. Uh, and I think in the world we live in the, with the, um, deification, if you will, you know, all of the, you know, I am, you know, de deconstructing my, my religious experience. Um, people are weary. People are weary, people are leery I'll rhyme there. Uh, they're both, they are, they're, um, suspicious mm-hmm. of church. Like, what do you, you know, what do you want from me? Oh, you just want my money. Um, and we've got, if you're talking about students and general teenagers, uh, we've got, this is the first group generation that was raised by students who bowed out years ago. You know, statistically they're, they're called the nuns. N o n E S, not n u n S.

Kerry Ray (24:42):
But the parents are the people who were in student ministry, you know, maybe. And then they bowed out and their parents didn't, you know, didn't raise them in church. And so now they're having kids of their own. And, and so it's, it's blank slates. So you've got parents who don't know, who don't know church. You've got students who don't know church. Um, they're blank canvases. And so, uh, we are, should be out and about if nothing else trying to, trying to show and be the hands of Jesus Christ, the hands of beauty of Christ in these communities in which we are called the love administer to, um, digitally, um, I, I, let's be honest, we watched these last couple years with Covid shutting everything down. Mm-hmm. , we watched the churches who, and the student ministries who had embraced a, a different philosophy versus the come to me.

Kerry Ray (25:40):
Um, they transitioned better. I won't say, well, I will say they had, they made it through the Covid piece a little better mm-hmm. than the churches and the student ministries who lived in the come to us mentality. Um, but let's be honest, I think everybody struggled with it. Uh, because even young life, uh, who is excellent at contact work, I watched Young Life struggled to find themselves because they couldn't do that anymore. Yeah. They couldn't do the face to face interaction, and they had to try to do it in a digital format, and it didn't work as well. Sounds, um, it, it failed. Um, yeah. And it struggled. I mean, some of it, I mean, he, it kinda worked. Not really. I, I would say it failed. Um, even, you know, the big players in, in student industry, the people who were doing this, the guys out like, you know, um, fields and Josh, Doug Fields and Josh out in California went to a digital format.

Kerry Ray (26:38):
And I don't know, I, I haven't talked to these guys about it, so I'm gonna assume, but I, I would assume if you, you asked those guys, they would tell you that it was not what it was. Mm-hmm. , did they do the big digital thing? Well, sure they did. Yeah. But I don't, I don't think it was what it was before that. Yeah. I don't think they got the same interaction. It's a, it's a lot of work for a little payoff. Um, I know at the time of covid, I was in, uh, church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and our middle school ministry was tied to the weekends mm-hmm. , and it was kinda a show up to church, and you go to this thing, but our high school was built offsite. Um, and we had had multiple years where the students had built communities, it houses across the city, and those communities met offsite, and it was in that community that those students lived in with small group leaders that lived in that community that those students lived in.

Kerry Ray (27:33):
And those students were showing up and inviting people into this thing because it was their thing. Mm-hmm. , um, it was kind of their turf, but with our, uh, blanket over the top of it. Sure. It was, but it was still their thing. Um, and when Covid hit, I got to see firsthand middle school, they come to us, we shut that down for a little bit, then we tried to do it digitally. It just didn't fly. Um, it was a struggle to put, you know, 10 kids in the room, in, in a digital room, uh, high school. I don't think, if I looked at the numbers, and I tracked them every week, I think in total we lost two students. Wow. Two, why? And we actually picked up a few. Why? Because they had already built this community that was not attached to the come, come and see mm-hmm. ,

Kerry Ray (28:31):
It was, it was a community. So when we took that community that already existed and just moved it to a digital format, they, they still do the same people. It was still, it was built on a different thing. Mm-hmm. , it was centered around community and not centered around come and see Yes. Or come and participate. Yeah. Um, so it, it, it, it mattered. It, it changed. And I, like I said, I watched, um, during those, during the covid years, got to see, you know, there were plenty of churches that that died. There were plenty of churches that are still, you know, where a year out now when this is being recorded. And they are still struggling with putting the pieces back together. I don't think, I don't think ministry, I don't think church will ever quite be the same. Um, post covid. Interesting. But, and I think youth ministry is harder, um, because I think students got realize they didn't have to be there.

Kerry Ray (29:25):
Mm-hmm. , uh, the church kids stopped going. The, the non-church kids never went. Uh, and we had a generation now that has been raised at least for a couple of years, you think of a sixth grader, they went through sixth, seventh, and part of grade without ever being in a so ninth grade in that time where it's already hard to be a part of a community because you drive for the first time, you've got some freedom in ninth and 10th grade. Yeah. Depending on your age and your state, uh, you start having freedom, you start working, um, you start doing other things. It's already hard in the, in the youth industry world. For those of you listening to this that are in, in ministry, you know, that time is already difficult anyway. But now you've got a group who went three years without engaging at all mm-hmm. ,

Kerry Ray (30:08):
Uh, and then behind them is another group that went three years without engaging at all. And behind them is another group that, you know, hey, which is babies at the time. So it's going to be a difficult dig out. Um, and I think that that actually makes this contact work piece even more relevant. Mm-hmm. . Now to your question, if, can it be digital? I don't know. I, I have not seen that work super well. Um, now I will tell you this, we all know that, um, for a teenager, uh, when you, and I think of the friends we make, you know, they say, well, my friend, you know, you like, you think my friend that I play, you know, call on duty with, you know, that lives in California. You're like, you never, you, you live in Alabama, you don't know that kid , but you're like, no, I play with them every day.

Kerry Ray (31:00):
I, you know, I spend hours with them on a headset, you know, shooting people and, and you know, talking about stuff over the headset to them that is a real friend. Yeah. Um, that barrier has dropped mm-hmm. to us as adults. You know, I think, you know, for those of you that don't know, those of us, you know, over the age of, let's call it 27 ish, you know, we're digital. We're digital immigrants. Mm-hmm. , we're, we come with baggage of how technology works and how it should be used and utilized, and, uh, where our teenagers and below, or digital natives mm-hmm. , there's never been a time where they did not know technology. There's never been a time where social media was not interactive for them. Um, and so we as adults, as digital immigrants, let's use that instead of adults, us as digital immigrants, we look at, um, online friendships, online relationships, um, and go, that's weird.

Kerry Ray (32:03):
Um, that's not a thing. But to them as digital natives, that has always been the thing that has always been very real. Um, dating apps and, you know, swiping left and right. And I mean, that went from like a silly thing. Like, you know, this is those of us, again as digital immigrants, look at that and go, come on. Um, you know, you're just, you're just, you know, trying to find a hot dude or hot girl and hook up. But for them, they're like, no, I, I'm trying to find a relationship. I get to know people this way. Yeah. Um, it's, it's fascinating. Yeah. Um, so I think there is, there, there's gotta be a way for that to happen mm-hmm. , and we've gotta figure out this, and I'd go back to contact work. There's gotta be a way for contact work to happen in a digital context. But there is some, there is something to set for a loss of the, the face to face because the face to face is so significant.

Nick Clason (32:58):
Wow. Well, wasn't that awesome? I'm so excited for you to hear and learn from part two. Um, anything and everything that Kerry mentioned, uh, YM 360, my youth min, um, all those things. Um, and also Derry's episode. I'm gonna link all of those in the show notes, which you can grab a in your podcast catcher or be over at hybridministry.xyz. And I would really encourage you, because he said a lot of really good things. And if you're like me and you listen on 1.5 or two times speed, uh, you may have not caught it, or you're driving or you mowing the lawn or whatever you're doing, head to hybridministry.xyz and you can grab a full transcript of this episode so that you can have and use to utilize at your discretion. That's a thing that we do and produce for you, um, for a hundred percent free.

Nick Clason (33:49):
So we just wanna let you know that that is available there for you to check out at http://hybridministry.xyz If you found this helpful and I'm sure that you did, please give it a share. Send it to someone that you know, maybe in youth ministry, um, and leave us a rating or a review. That would be really, really helpful for us. We would love to, uh, hear that. So, um, we will chat with you guys next time. Excited to share with you part two of this episode. But until then, we'll talk again later by.

Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry
Or online at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
What is up everybody. And welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast. On today's episode, I just wanted to have a quick conversation, a brain dump, if you will, about why we do what we do as Christians in church. And you know what I mean by that is there's a lot of moving parts in any organization if you're running a business or if you're an accountant or if you run a plumbing company or whatever, right? There's logistics, there's email, there's it, there's booking, there's scheduling, there's accounting, there's marketing, there's branding and color schemes and merchandising and content creation and social media. I mean, there's a million layers to everything, and the church is not exempt from that. And so what I wanna do, like I said, give just a quick little brain dump here. This is something that's been swirling around in my brain.

Nick Clason (01:09):
I am your host, Nick Clason. If you and I have not had a chance to meet, so excited that you're jumping on this, uh, podcast with me today. Um, I, we, we, we, uh, have this podcast, the Hybrid Ministry Podcast, because we are attempting to live life out in a hybrid sort of way. We don't live in a physical only world anymore, but we don't live in a digital only world either. How do we marry those two things together? And how do we create a hybrid sort of experience, uh, for the people that we're trying to reach? Because, you know, me, my story, like I'm a pastor, and so I've been called by God to reach people, make disciples, um, and share with them the mi, the mission, message, and hope found only in Jesus. And so how do we do that? And so for, you know, the majority of our lifetime, uh, we've done that through the local body, um, of the church.

Nick Clason (02:03):
And I believe that that's, that's a theological, um, understanding of what we have going on, right? Like the theological implications, Hebrew chapter 10, verse 24 and 25, Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Not giving up meeting together is somewhere in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another in all the more, as you see the day approaching, it's a biblical mandate for us to do life together. And by no means am I proposing that we don't do that. Um, so like I said, I'm a pastor, um, specifically I'm a youth pastor, uh, work in the Dallas, Texas area. And I just started a new job, started a new job, um, at, uh, going on two months now at this point. But the first month was, uh, remote and traveling back and forth between Dallas and Chicago, where I, I lived before.

Nick Clason (02:56):
And so, yeah, I really only feel like I've been here like 20 something days or whatever since, you know, since I was able to kind of get in here full time and get things going. So, you know, one of the, and, and listen, before I jump into this, this could feel like a slight or a, you know, a dig at the church I'm at, or the churches that I've been in in my lifetime. And the fact is I'm very thankful for every single opportunity that I've been given. Um, I see how every, uh, stop in my journey, in my career, uh, has led me to a very specific spot in my life and how God has orchestrated, um, and paved those ways. And so, you know, there's some, uh, there's some jobs that I've had, you know, that, that have some hurt. Um, and there's definitely like some moments in my life and in my ministry career that, um, I've, you know, I've struggled with or whatever.

Nick Clason (04:01):
Um, but I'm thankful for each and every stop along the way. I'm thankful for what I've learned at each and every stop along the way, um, and how the Lord has used that to grow me and give me just a, a perspective. And so I say all that to say what I'm about to say. Uh, like I said, may seem like I'm poking holes, like I'm digging, like I'm frustrated and I want as much as I can to preface that and say, I'm really, I'm not okay, especially if you're my boss or HR person and you're signing my paycheck, very appreciative for the job that you've given me. But what I've most recently, especially in this most recent onboarding, and so where I work now, I'm thrilled. I love my job. I love what I do. Um, I love, you know, they believe in me and they're giving me opportunities to go out and run and innovate and try some stuff.

Nick Clason (04:57):
And so for that, I'm incredibly thankful. Um, however, a lot of this stuff is popping up in my brain because of the fact that I'm starting somewhere new. And so, while I'm incredibly thankful what I'm about to say when I'm about to kind of like, um, I dunno, shine a light on, if you will, may seem like I'm aiming it at the church that I'm currently employed at. And by no means am I trying to, like I said, shine a light and be frustrated, whatever. So I think of caveat of that enough, it's been like two minutes of caveat, so you're probably ready to hear what I'm about to say. So in the whole onboarding process, um, actually, lemme see if I can pull it up. Um, in my email, when I first started, I got, um, information on how to set up, uh, my account for our church database, church management software.

Nick Clason (05:54):
Um, I also got information on all my benefits, which obviously I need that, and I'm grateful for, and I'm thankful for, right? Um, let's see, what else do I, I got, I got information on, uh, how to join, like the staff, um, info portal, like, um, it's called leader, Uh, you know, so it's like that plus like, uh, what's, you know, uh, development and stuff like that. Um, email, um, expenses, a couple of different portals for expenses. Um, and then our request, uh, system, which is like requests and calendars, maintenance things. Um, and I'm trying to think what else. Oh, there's, then there's task management software, um, that I had to learn. Then there's keys and there's fobs, uh, to get into doors. And then there's meetings with like department heads, you know, so like, um, how do we, in our, like I'm a youth pastor, so how do we, um, interact with the tech team?

Nick Clason (06:57):
How do we interact with the worship team? How do we interact with the creative team? How do we interact with the communications team and how do we interact with the facilities team? Um, a lot of the answers to that fall under the systems and like portals that I just listed out. Um, however, there's another like meeting to just sort of like a get to know people and then be like, um, kind of hash it out, chat it out, right? And so I, again, I say all that to say like, there's a lot of focus on those things. And as a pastor, um, Jesus committed all of his disciples, including pastors, to go make disciples, make more disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them, commanding them. Any promise that he'll be with us, promise us his presence. I'll be with you always to the very end of the age.

Nick Clason (07:53):
It's Matthew, uh, 28, 18 through 20. So I, I think, again, caveat, love, love my job. I think anyone that you're like questioning, like, why do we need this? Why do we, that this, the other thing, Well, those processes help make us more efficient so that we can, um, not waste time on details and tasks, and those things don't get dropped. And so then thus, therefore, we can be more effective and freed up to make disciples great. I mean, I agree with that. I agree with that on paper. Okay. And then, um, you know, you think about, think about like, what do we do as the church, right? So if I sit down, I'm like, Hey, I need to understand what my role as a youth pastor is in relation to worship, in relation to tech, in relation to facilities, right? Like, what does that, why, why is all that important?

Nick Clason (08:57):
Well, because I'm gonna be using the building. So we need the sound, the lights, the worship, the music, the facility to be ready, set up for a, you know, for what? For our event. Well, what's the purpose of our event? Well, that's to make disciples, right? It's really easy. And Ayanna, I can't remember who coined this term, you know, but I'm sure you've heard it before, right? There's, there's the tyranny of the urgent, right? There's always something more urgent, pressing. Like right now, I'm looking at my computer and I have one big red, uh, bubble on my email saying I have an unread email. And my human inclination, in fact, like computer companies, software companies, like they, they build it this way to give it like this, like, you know, urgency type of thing. So it's like, Oh, I gotta check that notification, right? That's, that's always the case.

Nick Clason (09:55):
We're always looking to figure out like, what is the most important thing? What do we need to handle most? And so in my church, we meet on Wednesday nights, we also meet on Sunday mornings. And so, and that's, I've had that rhythm before. Uh, but I, I'm most recently came from a church before this where we only had like one week worth of, uh, one thing per week of stu student ministry programming. So Wednesday and Sunday, like, that's, that's rapid to me. Like, it, it feels like much more, uh, much more frenetic of a pace. Frenetic is the wrong word, but like, the frequency is just doubled, right? It's from one time a week to not two times a week, Sunday, Wednesday, Sunday, Wednesday. And those gaps are shorter. And so to get my things done in between those two are quicker. And so, like I said, I'm always turning around and finding myself like, Oh, you know, I'm recording this on a Tuesday night, tomorrow morning, uh, is Wednesday, I'll be at church all day long.

Nick Clason (10:51):
And then, because I'm at church all day long on Wednesday, um, I will work most of my day on Thursday and be off on Friday. I gotta get everything between, you know, tomorrow and Thursday ready and locked and loaded for Sunday. And I may in fact get some stuff ready and locked and loaded for Sunday, tomorrow, on Wednesday before I ever even, uh, you know, host the next event. I'm two events ahead, right? And that's, if I'm really, you know, most people say, Oh, it's if you're really well planned and that's, you're really on top of things. And, and I like to think I am. However, that there, you know, there's always, like, you always work best under pressure. Um, there's actually like a psychological term of that called like forced focus. And so if you're forced to focus, like as you're zeroing in on an event, no matter how good, and well you are planned out, like, you'll come up with something, you're like, Shoot, it was a good idea.

Nick Clason (11:47):
I should have done that. You know, So anyway, all that right? Aha. That to be said, What, why are we doing church? Like, we're not in the event business, but we are a little bit, right? And here's why. This is a hybrid conversation because, uh, 10, even 10 years ago, maybe like 20 at the most, right? The way to gather together in the way to disseminate, uh, information, theological information, with the exception of the Bible in like print pieces, using printing press, books, magazines, whatever, newspaper articles, like the only way to distribute that information was through the local church. And so thus, the regular gathering was really important because you'd come together and maybe the church would have access to these print pieces of these magazines. They'd get 'em in bulk or whatever, and they'd provide them for their parishioners, their congregation members. But now, since the advent of the internet, all that stuff is available to people.

Nick Clason (12:51):
And so the novelty of church or the uniqueness that it brought, it, it almost feels like it's not there as much. And then again, what are we doing? Like, we're making disciples through the context of hosting events. And I, I, I, I think events matter, and I think they're important. Um, you know, but like, like I, I told you a couple episodes ago, go back and listen to it where I said, Hey, here's what we're, you know, trying to do on social media or whatever, Um, trying to launch some stuff. I just pulled TikTok open on my account, and that's why you heard some background noise on that. Um, and I'm gonna do it again right here, but, um, listen, like I, we posted a like sermon, uh, recap deal, um, couple weeks ago, and I had a 437 views on, on one of those, right?

Nick Clason (13:49):
That's one of my higher ones. That's, that's, you know, better than most. But here's the thing that's kind of crazy. Think about like, when I gather all my students together, um, I have like a hundred, a hundred students, and that's, that's good, right? That's, that's pretty big. Um, some, you know, somewhere between 102 hundred students all together, if everyone showed up, you, if you're a youth pastor, you know how this goes, right? And so, uh, what's more advantageous? Well, I know, I know the students in my room, so I have a captive audience. I'm able to disciple them a little bit better. I'm able to craft the message, um, so that they hear what, you know, maybe they need to hear whatever they're like struggling with or through. However, like the reach on TikTok is like five times that with that one video. You know, some videos are smaller, like, you know, the most recent one I think had like 19.

Nick Clason (14:44):
So it's, it's obviously a lot, a lot smaller. And, uh, TikTok is less about who you follow and more about being, being discovered. And so, um, what is the next step for those audience members and all that stuff. All all that being said, like I know I find myself being challenged to be a disciple maker, be a dis be a disciple myself, of Jesus, and out of the overflow of that, make more and better disciples of him. And the, the context or the fabric, which with which at least the majority of the time of my job is soaked into, is through executing and, um, planning events, maintaining a physical facility, and, you know, worrying about branding, messaging, signage, like all those ancillary pieces. And you know, when it's all said and done, like officially on my, like, I don't, I don't have a time sheet, I'm salaried, right?

Nick Clason (15:53):
But if I did like on my time sheet, like Sunday mornings with students is probably like two hours. And then Wednesday nights with students is another like two hours. And if I'm like a really good youth pastor and I'm like getting coffee or going to football games, let's say that's another like two to four hours. Like in my 40 hour week, I spend eight, eight hours a great week, maybe 10 hours if I'm like super over the top, like really on it with actual teenagers. And like, I get it, right? Like in Ephesians, Paul said, Equipped the saints for works and acts of service. And like you heard, to have a hundred, a hundred plus kids, like, and we have small group leaders that, you know, it's, it's technically their job on our, in our pipeline to like, make that happen. But like, call to make disciples.

Nick Clason (16:45):
And so again, I say all this to say like, I'm not disgruntled, not angry. I love my church. And quite frankly, like I'm here because I'm so passionate about this hybrid stuff and in marrying like the digital with the physical, not because I love digital so much, cuz I really don't, but because I think that, well, I know that there's 167 other hours a week that the one hour a week that kids are sitting in our service, in my church I have too. So 166 hours in addition in a student's life, what am I doing then? How am I reaching a student where they are? How are they learning, growing, developing deeper into the core characters of Christ and doing the things that he challenged them to do? How else are they coming across those things? If it's not just a wins in night when they're in the building with me, or on a Sunday morning when they're in the building with me. Like when else are they being challenged by their youth pastor, by their church to live out their faith, to live out their faith, to learn the knowledge, to understand the things and tenants of the Bible, but

Nick Clason (17:48):
Also then to carry out that message to their friends, to reach their friends who are far from Jesus, to, to share the message of hope, the gospel with their friends who don't know him, to grow deeper in their relationship, to hone their skills, their character, so that it mirrors more closely like Christ to, to follow what, what his mission was that he laid out. I mean, this is so much more than how do I return in my receipts and how do I learn the softwares in the systems? Like I get it, right? Like at church is an organization. And without those things, you know, it would probably be far less effective. I get it. And you know, it's, it, it, maybe it's just a necessary evil, I don't know. Um, but it's just, it's something that got me thinking, like, you know, sit in a staff meeting today and we're just going over tons and tons of logistics and you know, like I said, I love my job.

Nick Clason (18:45):
I have a really great job, and they're, they're allowing us to think outside the box and allowing us to break the mold a little bit. And so I'm, I'm really grateful for that. Um, but I just wonder if sometimes church, not just my church, all churches get a sucked into the tyranny of the urgent and b, turn into event makers as opposed to makers of disciples, builders of disciples, crafting, honing the next generation to look and act more like the person of Jesus. Like that's, that was his commission. So if we start with that, if we, if we start with the why, like why do we do this? And is an event the most effective way to do it? Probably, Or at least, at least if it's not, it's, it's a part of a hybrid solution to what the future looks like. And I don't have all the answers.

Nick Clason (19:38):
And that's you. That's, I think that's why I'm coming across passionate and potentially angry. I'm not angry. I'm really not. I'm just, I, I'm really, I'm right now I'm gonna study provided through my church about 50 days through the life of Christ. It's an amazing study. I've done it before. I'm doing it again, just being reminded about how intentional Jesus was about investing in people living life with his disciples and modeling for them what his ministry model was. And, and then I turn around and I'm, you know, I'm having to like, figure out how to like submit her a seat cuz I've never done it before. Cuz you know, I always had my admin do it. And, uh, she, she recently left and started a new job somewhere else. And so we're looking for one. And you know, I'm like slugging through that a little bit and I'm like, man, I get it.

Nick Clason (20:28):
Like right. It's necessary. And if anyone, if anyone from where I work hears this, they're gonna like, think I'm just this ungrateful, you know, complaining guy. Like I'm not, I'm really not. I'm just, I'm wrestling with like, what's the most important and how do we, how do we create something to respond to the tyranny of the urgent while not losing ourselves in the making of disciples. And I think that that's, I think every youth pastor, I think every pastor, every person in vocational ministry feels that tension at some point. So if you're in vocational ministry, let me hear it from you. Um, we're in this together and like I said, I love where I work. I don't have all the answers, um, but it's just something that got me thinking today. So I don't know. Listen bro, this is like a stream of consciousness. Like, I don't know if I'm gonna have chapter markers for this at the end of the day. Like this is just me rambling talking for 20 minutes. So if you found a helpful, let me know. Reach out on Twitter at hybrid ministry or, uh, swing by the website, hybridministry.xyz. Uh, and until next time, we'll talk to you later. Peace out my friends.

Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry or online at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TIMECODES
00:00-01:58 Intro
01:58-07:50 How to Bridge the Generation Gap between Gen Xers, Millennials and Gen Z
07:50-12:53 How to use digital to enhance in-person ministry
12:53-18:57 Are small groups the best new form for outreach?
18:57-19:34 Outro

SHOWNOTES
https://careynieuwhof.com/episode527/

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
What is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. Once again, another solo pod. Matt got him from Spain, um, and he wasn't sure about like his computer situation, but he got it. Uh, um, he's got one, he doesn't have a login yet for it, so that's a little bit problematic. But, uh, you know, once he starts getting settled in and stuff like that, he said he should be good to go. So, uh, one of my all time favorite podcasts is the Carry and New H Leadership podcast has subscribe to it, listen to it. Um, I, I wanna say every week, but it's not like on demand listening per se, it's more just like, Oh, I'll get to it whenever something else isn't there. Um, but I'm a pretty regular and consistent listener. He headed, uh, Dr. Tim Elmore on one of his most recent podcasts, talking about Generation Z.

Nick Clason (00:57):
So, just got me thinking. Let's talk, let's chat Gen Z today. Let's talk a little bit about that. Let's talk a little bit about some of the distinctives between them and some of the older, different, newer generations. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. Um, hopefully, I don't know, I don't wanna promise anything. Maybe next week, Matt will be back. Um, started, we started talking and circling around the drain about what it would look like to schedule. He, uh, he's in Colorado now. I'm in Texas, and so he's an hour earlier. So, you know, someone's getting up early. It's probably me, I'm not gonna lie. But anyway, uh, that is, that's what is, today we're gonna talk about Generation Gap. What's the difference between Boomers Xers, millennials, and Generation Z? We're gonna talk about how you can use digital to enhance your in-person experiences. And finally, we're gonna talk about how small is the new outreach plan and method that Generation Z is interested in. So let's go.

Nick Clason (02:00):
All right, what's up, everybody? Uh, let's talk generation Gap. Um, how many of you have ever, uh, wanted to work from home, um, versus work in the office? I think almost all of us are interested in the hybrid work environment type of thing, but most of us work for a corporation, for a man that requires us to be in the office. Um, think about this. Um, I have worked in a couple of churches where there is a paid for gigantic storage server, and that storage server is only available if you are on the church wifi network. That is an office mentality. Compare that to, you know, two terabytes of Google Drive storage for $6 a year that you can get, you know, um, or a Dropbox office account or, uh, 20 terabytes of Google Drive storage or, you know, any of the other numerable cloud-based storage options.

Nick Clason (03:05):
You know, it's funny because like, I think this, this, this, uh, depiction can be most best portrayed through the comparison between Microsoft and Google. Okay? So, uh, let's just do some comparisons. Microsoft, they started it. They were a part of the office culture. Every office in the world in America has Microsoft Office. Every one of us is forced to use Microsoft Office or Microsoft Outlook or something like that. Okay? And so you have those products, you have those things. They were the industry standard, then comes along Google, what's the difference? Well, everything in Google is browser based. That's so, that was so foreign to Microsoft. Everything was programmatic. Everything was, um, something that you had to install, put on your hard drive, okay? And so then Google begins to compete with Microsoft, right? So they create Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides. Guys, I'm telling you, as a youth pastor, I have teenagers who don't even know how to open Microsoft product.

Nick Clason (04:08):
But here's the thing, they don't actually need to, like, there are, there are just ever so slightly a few limitations between a Google, like, I think the biggest one I see is the Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint, but not much. I've had kids who have like, let teach or whatever, build full on presentations in Google Slides, and then they just send it to me. It's a usable, it is a presentable, it is a, uh, it is a, a product that has now competed with, with Microsoft's office, right? Microsoft's office has since tried to adapt and change. And so they've tried to create documents, word, Excel, and the like that you can edit, um, as you go so that like multiple contributors can view as those edits are taking place. Here's the thing, the reality is that Google is a superior product, and we all know it.

Nick Clason (05:01):
My favorite story about this is last summer, um, at the church I was at before they had switched everybody over to Microsoft Teams as a collaboration method, which teams was fine from a chat perspective. It's like slack light in my personal opinion. But, uh, what we would put all of our storage for like our camp messages in a Microsoft team's folder that was built through SharePoint, which is Microsoft's thing. Not one drive not to be confused with one drive again, so, so clear. I know. Um, and so you, I I, I would make a Word document in teams with a link to a Google doc, and then I would do alma editing in Google Docs. Why did I do that? A because it was very redundant to build something in Google Docs, which is where I was doing it, which was always evolving, always updating, always auto saving, versus having to copy and paste that over into Microsoft Teams every single time.

Nick Clason (05:57):
And then remember, Oh, yeah, I gotta go over there and update that in Microsoft Teams if anyone wants to see it. So, um, I said, everything in Google Docs, there's a story of a, a kid, um, in Ohio who worked at a painting company. Um, this is, this is from the, the Timmel Moore interview. And he says that he worked for a painting company and he posted a TikTok of himself mixing some paint. No big deal. But he got like, I think over a million views on it and, and, or I'm not sure, a million followers, something big, something in the millions. And so what he did, you know what he did? He went to his executives and he said, Hey, I think we're missing out on an untapped market. Um, and I think that, you know, he presented this whole pitch and he, he was surprised.

Nick Clason (06:42):
You know why? Because not only did they not go with his idea, they fired him because they said, You're not working on your, your your bo you're stealing from company time. This is the difference we're talking about between the generation gap, the office culture versus the hybrid work environment. And I think both sides have valid agreements. I think that the office side, like, Hey, gotta get there, gotta get your work done, gotta work hard, gotta be reliable, gotta be dependable. But I think that also there are new innovative ideas. And this painter guy, he lost his job, picked up, move from Ohio down to Florida, started his own painting company. It's like that's what's gonna happen, uh, as opposed to people adapting and conforming to old school ways of, of doing things. Instead, they're just gonna pick up and they're gonna leave. So how do you keep good, meaningful talent? How do you reach Generation Z that just thinks categorically, fundamentally differently? And how do you use their creativity that they have and the, the way that they see the world and the way that they, uh, interact with online and digital and the people around them? How can you use that to your advantage?

Nick Clason (07:57):
All right, What about using digital means to enhance in-person gatherings? When we all got shut down for Covid, uh, I think everybody had to turn to digital only as the option. And how do we replicate and reproduce what make what's happening in the room or in the building or in in room programming? How do we turn that into a completely fully digital experience? And the fact of the matter is, you can't, you cannot replicate and reproduce face to face engagement. Um, but you also, and the same is true on the flip side. You cannot replicate what happens online in the room. So let's use, um, my, my marriage with my wife, for example. We have a relationship, obviously we have two kids, so obviously, um, we live in a house, we do life together, like all the things. Uh, and she's at home. We'll text her out the day.

Nick Clason (08:57):
There'll be times where, uh, she'll call me on video and be like, Hey, what do you think about this? Give me your opinions on that. Um, we'll do all those types of things, right? Uh, and there's even been times where for extended weeks, either one of us is apart from the other. I mean, when we're part, like, that's, that's hard. Like that is a challenging moment for our relationship. You know what I mean? So what, uh, cuz eventually we, like, we want to be back together. So the same is true for your churches. Like what happens in a small group setting, one on one living life together in community, um, in Ko Ania Fellowship as the Greek word is family carrying one another's burdens, praying for one another, supporting one another, encouraging one another, admonishing one another. Those things can happen digitally, but they mostly and best happen together when you're knee and knee eyeball to eyeball, able to give a hug to one another.

Nick Clason (10:04):
So how do you use what is going on online with what is also happening in the room? So how can you use Instagram to be like a recap to post pictures, to post reels, as we've talked about on this podcast multiple times to do live voting. Like one of my favorite things is to have a live vote that's taking place in Instagram stories while programming or while you're, um, in room experience is taking place. You can use some of those things to, to drive up drum up engagement. What about TikTok? What about devotionals that you put on there that are tied to the most recent message or recaps that that flesh out the most recent idea, message, whatever. Um, another one, one of my all time favorites is what about reading the Bible? You version plans. What about doing that together? If you're in a small group, what about, uh, being in a a bible study, a you version plan together.

Nick Clason (11:06):
So what if you're reading at the same time, uh, throughout the week and then you come together in person to discuss it? See, these are all ways that we create this mesh of, of real life that something is happening digitally, but it's not looking to supplant or replace what's happening online, but it's looking to strategically come in alongside it and enhance and raise the bar on the overall experience. You know, I just got like a, a brand new, uh, the brand new Google Pixel phone, man. It is a, it is the biggest phone I've ever held in my hand. Like my thumb hurts now because I am not used to the reach that is required on me. But like when I open the home screen, it has the weather and then the first thing it has is it says, um, uh, projected commute, time to work, typical delays, moderate traffic.

Nick Clason (11:57):
Like that's pulling directly off of Google Maps because it knows where I am and where I live, and it knows where I work and what it takes to get there, right? That's an example of a hybrid enmeshment. How can the church offer more of that? I find so often that the defacto answer for the church is come online or not Come online, come, come on Sunday, see you nine o'clock and 10 30 and that's it, right? Like, hey, like, like you got an amazing tagline. Like, we wanna reach all people for all generations to know, follow, seek, and become great disciples of Jesus Christ. That's great. If it's catchy, better, whatever. And then what's the actions of, what's the call to action immediately out of that come to church? How can you use the digital resources that you have around you to enhance that, um, and to create moments where students, people, your congregants can connect with you and God throughout the other days of the week?

Nick Clason (13:05):
All right? I'm wondering if small is the new outreach method. When I was growing up in youth group, the outreach method was let's rent out a laser tag place. Let's, um, charge everybody five bucks. And for every friend you bring, it's a dollar off. And so if you bring five friends, you and all your friends get to go for a hundred percent completely free. You get unlimited video games, unlimited pizza, unlimited soda as much as you want. That was an amazing outreach event when I was a kid. Or yuck night, we get to throw, uh, food at 500 of our least closest friends and strangers, and we're walking away with mashed potatoes in our ears and we have to go home and we have to shower and take care of it and all this stuff, right? Like, what if those are not the most effective outreach tools anymore?

Nick Clason (13:57):
A recent study on Gen Z, um, and I, I may have referenced this before, I think I probably did from Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, they were able to conduct a survey of students that were still under the age of 18. So a lot of our Gen Z data is of Gen Zers, who are over the age of 18 because of consent reasons, but crossroads through their data department at their church, were able to survey the kids and granted in their church, So this is, you know, regional Cincinnati, um, but they're 76% of their non-churched generation Z students under the age of 18. So kids that are like viable eligible for their, uh, youth group or whatever, 76% of the not connected to church students said that they preferred smaller gatherings versus large parties. Our default I feel often in church, especially in youth ministry, is how are we gonna reach people?

Nick Clason (14:53):
Let's throw a big party. I mean that, gosh, it is so ingrained in me, like it is so hard to even break that. Like next week we're having a costume party. And so I'm thinking all the things, I'm pulling out all the stops, I'm doing all the hype. But the reality is like, how do we create more warm and more intimate environments for students? Because we, we sat down, uh, with our upperclassmen and our student ministry and we asked them like, um, we talked about what Wednesday nights looked like, and we said the purpose of that is for a lost person to come. And they're like, Yeah, but, but my friend wouldn't come to this. And it's like, first of all, a gut punch. Boom. Oh, but b like, okay, then what? Then why are we doing this? We're doing this because some version of a teenager's friend from 10, 15, 20 years ago, my friend from when I was in high school, would've come to the programming that I'm producing, but maybe not our current students and, and church leader hear me?

Nick Clason (15:52):
Because you're like, Well, yeah, well, I'm in, I'm in, you know, I do adult ministry, or I'm the lead pastor, I'm executive pastor, whatever. Like, great. However, Generation Z is not just teenagers. They are 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 years old. And, and hear me when I say this, younger millennials are also in that same age, um, demographic. And in that same way of thinking, they're looking for more warm opportunities. I'll give you an example. Just start a new church. Uh, and their moniker is we're all about connect groups. We're all about connection, connection, connect, connection. Getting a connect group. The best way to take the next step in your faith is getting a connect group. Great. I agree with that. Every single stop of ministry I've been in along the way, I've been in some form of a small group, me and my wife, it's a thing we do.

Nick Clason (16:41):
We've made it a priority. We've woven it into our schedule. We've dug deep paid for babysitters, you know, done whatever we needed to do to make that happen. Okay? Well connect groups are on Sunday morning, which is also when student ministry programming is happening. And I'm, you know, responsible to be in the room for that. So if I want to connect as a staff member, there really is, there really is no way under the, the current existing framework of the church or my wife can go, but I can't. But if she wants to serve, then we're not gonna be able to go together, right? Like, I am looking for connection. I'm looking for something. I, and so if I'm asking, right, like, hey, are there any groups that that don't meet on campus, um, or that don't meet on Sunday morning? And the answer is yes, but they're unsanctioned.

Nick Clason (17:35):
Like they're not, they don't fall under the framework of the connect group strategy. They're prob they're not resourced the same way. So like, where do I find that small, like that more intimate type of gathering? And again, if, if you're, um, older and you have grown up in church in a while, like what you're probably hearing is okay, yeah, that's what you want, You're a pastor. But what's fascinating is we're hearing from our high schoolers that that's what they want to bring their friends to. Maybe not the kumbaya session, but like when their connect group does a barbecue, like they'll invite them to that when their connect group goes bowling, they'll invite them to that. When their connect group goes to laser tag, they'll invite them to that, and that's gonna be 10, 15, 20, 25 kids. But when the entire youth ministry goes to laser tag 500 kids, they're like, Nah, it's not me.

Nick Clason (18:28):
I'm out not interested. And so how do we create smaller, more warm environments? And guess what, guys? Guess what, Guess what? That's easier to reproduce than the large scale of it. You know, I think for years, especially as a youth pastor at smaller churches in smaller environments, what I would do is I would look to the big guys and I'd be like, Well, once I get there, I will have made it. And then all the kids will come flocking. And, and the irony, what I realized is that's honestly been the exact opposite or the bigger it's gotten, the more challenging it's been to try and figure out how to create and make it small, warm environment. Hey, once again guys, thank you for hanging out with me today. We are on Twitter @hybridministry. We are online hybridministry.xyz because of course, hybrid ministry.com was taken not being used, but taken. So check us out on there. You can get show notes. We have full transcripts. We provide and pay for that every single week. So I hope that you're taking advantage of that. And until next time, talk to you later. See ya!

Follow along at http://hybridministry.xyz
Or come hang out on Twitter at http://twitter.com/hybridministry

TIMECODES
00:00-04:34 - Intro
04:34-13:07 - Why Email and Social may not satisfy the on demand world we live in.
13:07-18:39 - Is Social Media worth it in your church?
18:39-27:09 - Big Events are for the Ego of the Pastor, not the People
27:09-27:50 - Outro

SHOWNOTES
http://Nucleus.Church

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
What up everybody? And welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason, this morning solo pod from my new house in Dallas, Texas, and my guest bedroom closet because, uh, none of my stuff is in the house yet. And so every single place I go is gonna be echoy and the least echoy place is the guest bedroom closet. As best as I can tell, you'll have to let me know, cuz honestly, you're on the hearing side of this. I'm on the talking side of this. And so, uh, this is my best attempt. Um, I've mentioned it in previous episodes, Uh, gonna be a solo pod today. Uh, both me and Matt are actually in the middle of moves. Uh, we, my wife and I, uh, we got a little bit of a jumpstart on him and his wife, and so they, I believe his truck is maybe coming today.

Nick Clason (01:07):
Um, and so anyway, so today on this episode, I wanted to just chat about a couple of hot takes. Um, three in particular. I wanted to do three hot takes. And number one, I wanted to talk about how we now live in a more on demand world and how social media, um, or email marketing may not be the best way to approach some of that on demand world. Wanted just chat through and brainstorm some stuff with you guys. The second hot take was, um, social media might not actually be worth it, um, in your churches, uh, if you do some of these things I'm gonna talk about. And then number three, I think that big large scale events are actually more for the pastor's ego than for the actual people who are going to be consuming them. So we'll dive into those a little bit, um, here in just a second.

Nick Clason (02:04):
But like I said, uh, just a quick like, update. So when, when we got this sucker up, up and rolling off the ground, I, uh, recorded, uh, pre-recorded five podcasts. And so I had five in the queue before we ever even launched episode one. With all the hustle and bustle moving and just the absolute impossibility has seemed for Matt and I to be able to coordinate our schedules. Um, I am now recording this episode one day before it will release tomorrow, Thursday morning, October 6th. And so, um, I to keep things rolling, to remain consistent, my goal is to give you something every single Thursday morning. Um, it's, it, you know, I'm just letting you know like that. That's sort of why, like, I could wait and Matt and I could get on the same page, but we're gonna miss a couple posts. Um, and so I'm gonna keep bringing you guys some stuff.

Nick Clason (03:02):
Um, and when life settles down for the both of us, we will make this happen. But like I said, I'm on the tail end of a move. Um, my family and I rolled into town last Friday, closed on a house here in, uh, Fort Worth, Texas, uh, to start a new job at church in the DFW metroplex area. Love it. Super excited working with, um, former boss of mine who, uh, so it's, you know, it's a great ex experience, um, and also feels incredibly familiar even though I'm in a new church. I'm in a similar youth ministry environment, so that's really exciting. Um, and then Matt's actually gonna be stepping into a different role as well, and I'll let him talk a little bit more about that. But his first, uh, day on the job is actually gonna be in Spain. And so, uh, who knows, you know, how soon we'll be able to be together on the podcast again.

Nick Clason (03:56):
But our goal is to continue to bring something to y'all, um, and continue to bring both of our voices. I I'm not a gigantic fan of these solo pods. It feels like just a lot of rambling into an empty microphone with very little feedback, pushback, conversation. Um, but I'm gonna do my best in learning and I'm trying to make it something that is gonna be worth everybody's while. So without any anymore explanation for all that, um, I'm just trying to give you a little quick update, some housekeeping stuff. Uh, I wanted to dive into a couple of ideas. So let's go, let's make this happen. All right. Idea number one, we live in an on demand world. So is social media and is email marketing the most effective way to communicate? Think about this. Uh, we live in a Netflix as opposed to a cable TV centric world.

Nick Clason (04:54):
10 years ago, maybe even 15 years ago, the only way to consume your favorite TV show, if you wanted to watch Seinfeld, you had to tune in on Thursday evenings at 8:00 PM I'm not actually sure if that's true or not. Actually, what I do know is true is the Office, right? Every Thursday night, sometime between eight or 9:00 PM I remember, cause I was in college and we didn't, we weren't, um, allowed, We were at a Christian university. We were not allowed to have, uh, televisions in our room. And streaming, um, was available, but it wasn't available until the next day. And so the only way to watch the office at my Christian university was to go find a lounge with a tv. The lounges were allowed to have TVs and cable, uh, or satellite, but none of the rooms were. And so Thursday night was on demand viewing opportunities.

Nick Clason (05:48):
People would come in and flood the lounges. It, there was literally not a seat in the house. If you wanted to sit and watch the office, you had to get there a couple of hours early in the anticipation of it. And you probably had to sit through the NBC Nightly news and you probably had to sit through a couple other sitcoms like community or something like that before the office ever even came on. Now, I compare that to the idea of the way that Disney Plus is releasing things. Like if I wanna watch the newest episode of She Hulk, I can get up at three o'clock in the morning the day that it releases and watch it from the comfort of my own house. But in the fact that I've been moving and traveling and I took my family to Disney World last week, two weeks ago, like, I'm not caught up on She Hulk, but I will, I'll get caught up on it or Stranger Things, right?

Nick Clason (06:38):
When Stranger Things comes out, it is a all day viewing experience. It is an on-demand, it is a binge worthy experience. Uh, so much so that Netflix has recently adjusted the way that they released it. And so they released it now in two different parts. Now, I just wanna think about how that behavior there, the Netflix versus the cable experience, how that behavior has changed the way that we as humans, um, expect to consume content, right? Like, think about it. I, in a Netflix world, I want information when I want it. How many of you in ministry have sent some sort of email newsletter and then you still get the question from a teenager or a parent, Hey, when is the deadline again? And you're like, I communicated this. Like, this has been so clear, This has been so obvious. The reason why I think is when you send it to them, you're sending it to them in a, a cable centric mentality.

Nick Clason (07:47):
Like, I will send you this email every Tuesday at 9:00 AM That's if you are even that discipline, a lot of us, we're not, we're not sending emails with that amount of consistency and regularity, and I don't know that I'm ready to abandon the whole email idea, But what I do know is that we don't live in a cable TV centric world where Thursday night at 8:30 PM is on demand, uh, must watch tv. Very few people live that way. And that's gonna be the same way with your emails. And that's gonna be the same way with your stage announcements. And that's gonna be the same way with your social media announcement posts. And so how do we switch to a more on demand way to consume content or way to find community? Again, I think another beautiful example of this is joining a small group outta church.

Nick Clason (08:44):
I think a lot of churches have the small group process basically be, Hey, if you wanna join a small group, go talk to Carl. And then Carl plays matchmaker. And I like, if I want to sign up for a small group, I wanna just go browse the available options and I wanna sign up for a small group. You may call that consumer of me, but I, I actually appreciate it in and like to anticipate the control or the ability that I have to make that happen on my own. I, I will, if I'm finding a new veterinarian or if I'm finding a new doctor, if I'm finding a new dentist, if I'm finding a new counselor, like I prefer to find those things by going to those people's websites and creating my own appointment. Like one of the things that I absolutely hated, this may be the millennial me, I don't know, but when I was looking for quotes to move, um, I would find these websites and they're like, click through here to get an instant quote.

Nick Clason (09:49):
And I was like, Oh, awesome. And so I put in on my info, you know, four bedroom house, this estimated amount of stuff, whatever. And then they would say, Awesome, your quote is ready. Call one 800, whatever, whatever, whatever, to get your quote. That's not on demand. No, it's not. No. Now I have to talk to a customer service representative. And the problem is that the, when the default is you, hey, you gotta talk to customer service representative. Yes, I'm not trying to hit away from the, uh, talking to other people the importance of that, right? We know that human connection and human conversation is important, but what I am trying to say is we can, we live in a world and we have tools, digital tools and things that can make it possible for people to find those resources and come to that on their own.

Nick Clason (10:41):
So how can we do that in churches? What are ways that we can make that happen? A couple of ideas I have, I talked about this a couple podcasts to go where I said, Hey, here's what I'm pitching for my new church. Um, create a central hub strategy. And I don't wanna take any sort of credit for this. Like Brady Sheer and the guys over at Pro Church Tools, they have been preaching this for years. And they have, they have a website tab, boot nucleus, uh, called nucleus.church, check out their product and you can build your own central hub style website where, and it's a, it's super easy to edit. It's one of my all-time favorite website editors. Uh, but b it looks so good, it's so sleek, it's mobile friendly. Like that is, that is where you can, um, send emails still and send social media things, but you can direct and drive everything back to the website where it's consistent every single time.

Nick Clason (11:33):
And you're saying, Hey, for more information, head to fill in the blank. And that creates, um, that puts the, that puts the onus back on the user. And you're saying, Hey, if you want this information, if you want it on demand, if you wanna watch it like you consume Netflix, here's where to go. And that, what that does then is that makes it the impetus beyond you or on us as the church leaders to make sure that those websites are updated. I think more often than not, the um, the, the website is one of the last things that we think to edit. And I think in this new world that we're moving into, and in this on demand world, websites almost need to be the first thing that we edit. It's interesting, like I said, I'm starting a new job, but with an old boss and just before him and I both left, um, we were both working at, at my last church, I was like, we need to, we need to tighten up the website.

Nick Clason (12:30):
And he said, Ah, I, he's like, I always think of the website as a last, last ditch effort. He's like, But you're right. We need to switch. We need to make that first. And so here we are now in our new gig and he asked me yesterday, What's your, what's your digital strategy? Do you have one? And I said, Yeah, but it's gonna be contingent independent on the website. And you know, if you're a pastor or you work in church ministry, you know how this is, right? And I said, So that, that requires us to have a conversation with communications and get them on the same page cuz we're, we're, uh, dependent upon them to kind of get some of this stuff that we want flushed out, finished out. All right, take number two. Social media is not worth it unless you're willing to try some new things.

Nick Clason (13:22):
I think a lot of churches are just doing social media as an announcement extension. And man, I would just say if that's all you're doing with social media, just keeping the ship afloat, just doing things because it's what you feel like you should do need to do. Everyone else is on social media. They're telling you to do social media, but you're really, you don't have anyone invested in it. You don't have anybody tracking it. You don't have anybody watching the metrics to see what's growing, what needs to be having port gas pour onto it, what needs to be cooled and slowed and changed. Who's watching trends? Who's listening to the Pro Church Tools podcast? Who's listening to the Hybrid Ministry podcast to stay up to date on what's going on on social media and to you, like, as a church, you have to be willing to try things that are gonna be different because social media, digital ministry is a new way to reach people.

Nick Clason (14:19):
And I think it's effective. And so I I would actually push back and say, I do think it's worth it, but I, but the reason I don't think it will be worth it is if you're, if you're just gonna stick it on autopilot. I think there are very few ways to, uh, post and, and do social media type things without, um, being willing to be a mold breaker, without being willing to take some risks, without being willing to rethink some of the old ways of doing things. A lot of the traditional methods on social media are not effective anymore, right? Like when, when right now, um, the entire focus on all of social media is discoverability, right? TikTok brought into this, brought into us this advent of finding content from people that you don't know. And so when people at your church, um, want to follow you or your account, uh, but you're posting reels or tos, things that are needing to be discovered by hopefully them, but also other people, like what are you gonna do?

Nick Clason (15:33):
Like, how, how then what's the call to action out of a real, out of a TikTok, right? Like, and so we gotta figure out as church, um, digital hybrid marketing people what our win is and what the purpose of doing it is, because it is, is just a really bad announcement extension. Like it can be that, but it's gonna be pretty lame and it's gonna be pretty ineffective. And people are really not on social media now. Um, or I, I should, I should watch what I say. I was gonna say, people are not on social media to follow people that they're friends with, and I don't think that's true. Um, but I think that the most popular form of social content right now is to consume videos, short form videos in particular of people that you're not friends with. Like when I'm on TikTok, I spend 95% of my time on the four UAB and I'm only over on the friends tab to clear that pesky red notification.

Nick Clason (16:43):
And then if I'm over there, I might see a video or two of some friends I follow and then I'll, or I'll see a few videos in a row of friends I follow and I'm like, Huh, this is crazy. Or friends I know like my sister and my friend Isaac. Um, and then I'm like, Oh, that's cuz I'm on the friends tab. Of course back over for you, right? Like, I don't know about you, but that's how I am behaving with it. And so I just, what I'm saying with this is, I'm not saying social media's not worth it, but I am saying you gotta be willing to take risks. And I think if you're unwilling to take risks or you don't have somebody who's willing to take risks and, and look at your individual church data, I don't know that it's gonna be worth it.

Nick Clason (17:28):
I don't know that it's gonna yield for you the results that you're looking for. Sure you can post some stuff, you can have some announcement adjacent stuff and you can just do some, you know, Facebook page type things. But, but is it really gonna be worth it? And are we really like gonna see the results that we're looking for? So get out there, break some stuff, stuff, try some stuff, be creative, be willing to take risks and don't put the breaks on your creatives or don't put the breaks on the people who are interested in this because listen, like this avenue in particular is going to be, um, the way and wave of the future and the way that you've been doing church and particularly the way that you've probably been doing social media is not gonna be what's a part of the next wave.

Nick Clason (18:18):
So let somebody who is comfortable with taking risks and comfortable with trying things, let them go fly, try and do some things, um, and don't get stuck in a rut and don't get stuck on autopilot because when you do, that's when things become far less, uh, interesting and far less effective. I take number three today in our final one. Big events are for the pastor, not the people. All right, now hear me out on this one, right? I think that a big event, filling a giant room is really a win for the person on the stage because it helps the pastor. And I'm a pastor and I would agree with this, it helps me feel successful. I look out across the landscape of the room and I say, Man, there's so many people here. Look how effective this event is. Look how many people are here.

Nick Clason (19:16):
I think the reality is though is that man, we really like, we are seeing a shift away from that like big event idea and that big event desire. Like we actually just, uh, talked to some of our juniors and seniors last week at the church I'm in. And um, you know, the church I'm in like, is, man, it is, is much different than the, the church as in before church as in before, is very, very much in a post-Christian world. Now we're in the Bible belt. Um, but what's fascinating is these students who are Gen Z are basically saying the same things. And they said like, we don't, we don't need this like, big event. It feels very, um, like almost forced, like what we want really for like our friends. Like we wanna just like invite them to like our small group and like if they're like exploring faith, like we wanna actually explore faith and give them something actually challenging, um, and have a hard conversation, not just a like Christian platitude.

Nick Clason (20:24):
And I was, I was actually, I was watching a show last night, uh, a house flipping show, um, and this couple is having a smaller wedding, um, and they're doing it in like a newly renovated and remodeled house. And so, you know, of course like the, the whole premise of the show is will these people renovate in this house, get it done in time for the wedding? And um, they were talking about like how this house, it's an old, is gonna be a renovated Victorian style house. So for those of you who are not super up on your HGTV of Victorian is, um, smaller rooms, um, and like just really ornate and elaborate kind of like decor. Um, but like not the whole open concept kind of idea. And so as these people were touring through the house, like, Oh, this would be good for our friends to have these smaller rooms, these smaller, more intimate gatherings so that people can actually stop and pause and have conversations with one another.

Nick Clason (21:37):
And that, that honestly was kind of the impetus for this hot take this morning cuz I was like, Wow, like those, I mean, they're, they're younger, right? Like they're probably in their twenties getting married, maybe thirties. Um, and they, you know, they got a little bit more of like an eclectic kind of vibe to 'em. But the reality is, is as like, I do think that that is far more what people are looking for. They're looking for intimacy, they're looking for connection over content. And so the big room gatherings were a content dump. It would get everybody in. And so that the pastor could deliver his content in the most efficient way possible, the most efficient way possible was to have a large auditorium and crams many people into that large auditorium as you can so that they all could hear what the pastor has to say.

Nick Clason (22:34):
Guys like that is, that is no longer the most efficient way possible. Is it effective still? Perhaps? Uh, but there's a greater efficiency out there, right? A pastor can talk into a microphone in his closet much like I'm doing right now and deliver that same level of content. So then if that has more efficiency, then what is the purpose of the Sunday morning gathering? And I know like, I'm a pastor, I get it theologically, Hebrews 10, 24 and 25, let us not give up meeting together as somewhere in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching and you're like, that's the, that's the reason for the church gathering. And I would agree. I honestly though, like I'm not, no offense, like I've been at this church now for a month. Um, so I've been to, uh, I think a total of three, maybe four weekends, Sunday morning services.

Nick Clason (23:34):
Like I don't, I have to work, right? So like, uh, soon as the first service is over, I'm actually, I've, I've actually never been in the service long enough to be dismissed from it. I've slipped out every single week, uh, because I need to get over to student ministry section of the building to be ready for our thing, right? I don't talk to anybody really in the service. Like that encouragement, that admonishment that spurring me on like the, the Sunday morning gathering is, is not when that is taking place. Listen, I'm also, I'll be honest with you too, I'm a traditionalist. I enjoy that. But what is, who is it for? I think in a lot of ways it might actually be for the ego of the pastor. Um, I think I've mentioned this on here before, but at our last church, um, we saw a higher, um, percentage of engagement with students when we offered a smaller gathering.

Nick Clason (24:36):
Um, and we saw a better value in conversation with students in their smaller groups as opposed to in a large, a large scale gathering. I think, you know, we still saw success in the larger scale gatherings because kids like to come together. They still like to have fun together, they still like to play games together. Um, and so that obviously that's important. That fun is a value too, right? Um, but I, I remember telling a friend of mine who said, if I want to come back together, um, and bring everyone back together in the room, like I want to do that if I'm honest, like that's a value of mine. Like I enjoy that. However, if this talking about the small group system and setting is more effective, more efficient, um, and more what students want than I need to put my ego and my pride on the alter and be willing to offer to students what's better for them, even if it's a not, not what I want.

Nick Clason (25:42):
Alright? So let's put purpose over preference and then b um, I have to be willing to level up and train my, my leaders and my volunteer team to execute this plan or this play. Um, and it's gonna take more work on my part to develop them as leaders, uh, than just bring them all back together and we preach a message at them from, from the stage, right? Again, if that's what I want and that's what's easier, but it's not. What's better then? Let's actually give our students what's best. Why not? Because we're trying to be effective grow numbers. Look at metrics because we want students to have a meaningful encounter with the God of the universe to come to a knowing, saving knowledge and relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the way back to the Father is he says in John chapter 14, He's the way, he's the truth, he's the wife.

Nick Clason (26:44):
And if big events are hindrance to that or a Gen Z eye roll, like, uh, another one of these again, then let's not give it to him. Let's give them what they're going to use for the betterment of their faith in the betterment of the, their friends' faith as their friends try to explore what it looks like and means to follow Christ. Well, hey everyone, uh, hope you enjoyed today's episode. Tried a little bit of a different format here. It's, it's tough. Hang on to alo pod, like I said. So I wanted to give a couple of kind of hot takes and just, uh, express what to my heart where I'm coming from. So if you enjoyed it, let us know. Um, rate review. You can go to hybridministry.xyz. We are also on Twitter. I'm gonna try to start, um, being a little more active on there beyond just posting when episodes drop. So come over, give us a follow, come hang out with us. It's at hybrid ministry on Twitter. And, uh, love hanging out with you guys. Uh, let us know, uh, reach out, let us know if there's anything you'd like to hear specifically. And, um, until the next time, talk soon. Bye.

Follow us on Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry
Or check us out online - http://www.hybridministry.xyz

LINKS
EBOOK EXAMPLE
https://21023629.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/21023629/101%20Things%20to%20do%20this%20Summer.pdf?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=220409116&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--GvYYsBn799IT7tZQ07OLdeLeNshWl6rRnS5f0wNelRUcxnmSP6GBZ4rNYmusr63ghavYI8SAUk3drn2tD3kuUF929s7xlw622qVQVuVCXDVsrlvE&utm_content=220409116&utm_source=hs_automation

WHITE PAPER
https://www.dare2share.org/gospel-advancing/value1-prayer

MICHAEL HYATT'S BLOG
https://fullfocus.co/blog/

CROSSROADS PODCAST NETWORK
https://www.crossroads.net/media/podcasts/

PILLAR PAGE EXAMPLE
https://www.typeform.com/blog/guides/brand-awareness/

TIMECODES
00:00-02:42 Intro and Beard Discussion
02:42-05:33 Should churches do marketing?
05:33-11:02 Why Content Marketing is so effective
11:02-16:53 How do develop a church ebook
16:53-23:49 How to use White Paper for churches
23:49-27:45 Blogging for churches
27:45-33:29 Podcasting for churches
33:29-34:24 Pillar Pages for Churches
34:24-37:00 How to convince your boss
37:00-38:37 How to get started on each item
38:37-40:48 Which one do I start with?
40:48-44:36 What are the best services to use to capture this stuff?
44:36-45:38 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the hybrid ministry podcast. In today's episode, we are going to be talking about marketing in the church. And what exactly is content marketing? I'm your host, Nick Clason sitting in alongside my amazing friend. The bearded wonder himself, Matt Johnson, how you doing this morning? And how's your beard.

Matt Johnson (00:27):
Beard is good. Trimmed up, you know, a little bit cleaner, you know, we're, we're in summertime. So, you know, I like to keep a little shorter and,

Nick Clason (00:34):
Uh, is that like shots fired at me? Is that shots fired at my no,

Matt Johnson (00:37):
No shots fired at you it off. Cause when the winter comes around, I stopped trim it. So

Nick Clason (00:45):
Yeah. It's nice. Well, I mean, I just announced everybody that I'm gonna be moving to Texas, so I don't even know if I'm gonna see winter anymore.

Matt Johnson (00:54):
Probably not. No. I think, uh, your winters are in the past now, so which is really good for you.

Nick Clason (01:00):
Yeah. And my wife told me my Beard's looking kind of boxy, so I'm not sure what to do with that. I feel like that's code code for trim it.

Matt Johnson (01:08):
code for shape it a little bit.

Nick Clason (01:11):
Yeah. Come on, get rid of the box there. So yeah. Anyway, I interrupted you. You said you're doing good.

Matt Johnson (01:17):
Yeah, I'm doing good. How are you doing

Nick Clason (01:19):
Great, man. Great. I'm a little sleepy cuz you know it's it's Thursday. We had church last night. So of course I was out late, but oh as well. Um, some do idiot decided to plan an event with silly string. And then I watched as the facilities team looked glaringly and begrudgingly on at the mess that was being made on the patio. And I thought to myself, dang it. Now I probably should clean this up. So that took a minute

Matt Johnson (01:51):
Oh, let me get a little silly string,

Nick Clason (01:54):
Um, silly string and then

Matt Johnson (01:55):
We're very messy

Nick Clason (01:57):
And then we're getting ready to do a, a, a baptism out on the patio. So there's a big tub out there. And of course all the kids are like getting water from it and throwing it on each other. So whoever thought let's get this set up on a Wednesday before the event, they, they obviously forgot that we were gonna be out there. So

Matt Johnson (02:15):
Yeah, like let's get ahead of it. Be prepared. Oh actually we made a bigger mess and we had to refill it up.

Nick Clason (02:22):
Exactly. And they're initially stringing it now. So

Matt Johnson (02:25):
well, people are getting baptized Sunday. You know, you might find some silly string.

Nick Clason (02:31):
You might come out with some, uh, lines of pink on you. It's okay. Don't worry. It's not no need that's it's just silly string.

Matt Johnson (02:38):
No need to concern yourself.

Nick Clason (02:40):
So, uh, Matt, one of the things I think is an interesting conversation and I'd like to talk about it first here is like, is marketing a thing that churches should even be focused on? Cause a lot of what we're talking about, uh, in, in all these episodes is marketing is kind, kind of like brand recognition, getting yourself out there and different tips and strategies for that. And so I think there may just be a natural aversion to the word marketing, cuz it sounds very secular. It sounds very like businessy. Um, so what, what would be your response to someone who is like marketing in the church? Like, you know, you should be flipping tables for that.

Matt Johnson (03:19):
absolutely. No, I, I used to be under that ideas. Like why would you ever market Jesus? Like that's not something that needs to be marketed mm-hmm and I think something that you should think about when we think about marketing is not your traditional sense of marketing, of like, Hey, there's a billboard for us. We have commercials. We have radio ads or even like Facebook or TikTok ads. Um, that's not what I'm talking. That's not the primary focus of market anymore. Primary focus marketing is, uh, really just awareness and something. I always go, Seth, always you're marketing, trying to change world with your marketing, you're failing as a marketer. Um, so when you put that in a context, your marketing mind should shift cuz I mean we're working in the church and you should be trying to change the world. So this is definitely something that we should be, you know, evangelizing essentially.

Matt Johnson (04:11):
And it's I'm so what, how a good way to put this in your mind is like, Hey, how do we do a, you know, have an evangelistic mindset for our church in the modern era. And uh, I always just think back to, you know, the pastorals they've marketed Christianity in a totally different way. So it's always been quote marketed, but you just gotta think that brand awareness, bringing awareness to what you're trying to do and how you're trying to help the community and that stuff not, Hey, come by Jesus. Cause if, and if that's what you're at, like you're totally missing the entire point of everything we've talked about.

Nick Clason (04:46):
Yeah. I think about Paul says, uh, I become all things to all people and I think that he would use the digital means that are available to him today, you know, to, to help get the message of Jesus spread. You know, I think one of the, I dunno, probably issues or maybe concerns would just be that there seems to be an oversaturation maybe of messaging out there. And so how can, uh, how can the church stand apart? Like what sets them, you know, in obviously we're, we're coming from a different position, but how do we do it? Well, because if we, I feel like if we don't do it well, we're just gonna get lost in a sea of kinda white noise that's out there.

Matt Johnson (05:31):
Yep, exactly.

Nick Clason (05:33):
So, uh, one of the, one of the things you told me the other day was, uh, this idea about content marketing. So first of all, mm-hmm what is content marketing?

Matt Johnson (05:45):
Yeah. So content marketing is this idea that you're using content that you're creating to market. So it's like, again, we're not talking about, you know, TikTok ads, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, we're not talking about, um, popup ads or uh, um, ads before a YouTube video. We're actually talking about giving people in our churches and that we want to come to our church content, that markets who we are. Um, so we'll get into all the nitty gritty details of what that looks like in a little bit, but uh, it's just providing a value, um, more than just a Hey here's who we are.

Nick Clason (06:25):
Yeah. Or here's service times, right? Or here's, here's our address. You should come to our service. Like it's, it's providing, I like that we're providing value, you know, giving them something that they can, that that's useful to them valuable to them. And Matt, do you think, um, before we get to nitty gritty, do you think that this type of thing, if you're gonna try and provide quote unquote value, can it be done on multiple levels? Can you provide value, um, and information content to people that are already disciples inside your church and people not inside your church? Or do you feel like you need to choose one or the other? Like what would you say to that?

Matt Johnson (07:07):
No, I would say it could be both very easily. Um, as you start, you know, deciding what the content you wanna do and what the purpose of your content is, you can really start to figure out what that value is. You add, um, content marketing can virtual your people that already disciples, and then it can also bring in you new people can be an evangelism tool at Casa breed, new discipleship tool. You have so many avenues that can go with content marketing, um, and all that stuff that we had talked about, like services and, uh, we, this,

Nick Clason (07:54):
No, I was say, yeah, if you add value, then there's gonna be a more natural trust that's built and then an easier step into coming to service or coming to that event because you've already, you've already built a bridge and a relationship to those people.

Matt Johnson (08:10):
Exactly. Yep.

Nick Clason (08:12):
So I think, you know, so then if it can be done for both, then this doesn't feel like such a, such a foreign idea to the job description of most local church pastors. I think what it does maybe feel like though is, uh, like a lot of extra work, um, at least, you know, for me, you know, not cuz I'm not really sure what we're talking about with the, when it pertains to content marketing. So let's dive into that, but first tell, tell everyone the stat you told me the other day about why content marketing is so effective.

Matt Johnson (08:47):
Yeah. Content marketing is the most effective form of marketing that, you know, us marketing experts have identified right now. And I can see this, this personally and all the stuff that we've been testing through my career, but, uh, it's 64% more effective than traditional marketing. It's three times cheaper. So when you hear that, you go, okay, I'm gonna get better results and spend way less money, which is always news, good news to the years of anybody that's got a strict budget. So yeah. Uh, if you can really start implementing some of this, uh, content marketing strategy, uh, you're gonna start seeing results and you're gonna be able to grow your torch or church organically. So mm-hmm

Nick Clason (09:29):
Yeah. And so like, alright, so then let's take all that. So we're not marketing Jesus. We're just creating awareness around our church, which our church is truly speaking. The best message that there is in the entire world, the literal good news that you can have death, or you can have life because your sin has caused you death. And so we want to share that message with people and we want to, uh, go to the ends of the earth. And so we're going to use the digital means that are given to us. We've become all things to all people to get this message out there. And in light of all that it is the most effective form of marketing secular or not. And it is also the cheapest or maybe it's not the cheapest, but it's three times more cheap you said than, than some of the other ones.

Nick Clason (10:12):
So in light of all that, it bodes really well because all, all it really requires of us. The cost, it really requires of us is just some, some like additional work or some, you know, this sounds so old, but some elbow grease, I don't know if that's a thing people say anymore, but just get down, get down. Yeah. I don't know, whatever. Get in there, make some stuff happen. Um, create some things. And so I think like the way I think about it is there's really like two prongs to it. There's the content and then there's the distribution of it. Right. So let's talk through just some of the actual content first. Um, and then when we get done with that, let's just chat through like different ways that churches can begin to create a distribution model for it, whether that's through setting up ads or websites or whatever the case may be. Sound good.

Matt Johnson (11:00):
Mm yep. Sounds great.

Nick Clason (11:02):
All right. So, uh, what the first one I have in mind is an ebook. Can you, I mean, most people know an ebook is, but can you give a few ideas or a few examples of what an ebook might look like for a church or how they could use an ebook as a form of content marketing?

Matt Johnson (11:18):
Absolutely. So I'll give some like real practical examples too, that, uh, I've personally helped create or that we've used. So, uh, one of our most recent one was the summer ebook, which I believe we probably talked about in a performer. Uh, and we're about to launch our fall ebook and, uh, what these eBooks are designed to is for our next gen ministry at, uh, our current church. And that is really to help, you know, promote everything you can do with your kids, um, in the summer or the fall at the end of the ebook we're promoting event. So for the summer one, it was to really promote, uh, summer jam, which is our version of vacation Bible school. And then now for the follow you book, we're gonna be promoting trunk or treat, which, you know, we all know what trunk or treat is. And it's just a good way to like, Hey, we have this resource for you.

Matt Johnson (12:03):
That's not all about who we are, but this resource can also bring you to us. Um, another good example is like, uh, you, Nick who's, you know, a youth leader, you could create an ebook for your summer camp. Um, like, uh, mm-hmm, , here's, uh, the summer camp checklist for every student, for every parent. Like you can create an ebook about that stuff. Or, um, for small groups you can create ebook about like, Hey, here's everything you need to know about joining a small group or, um, you know, so on and so on and so on. So they're just sit down and think of like, okay, what could I actually fill, you know, like 10 pages of, with some fun stuff and it doesn't have to be like, copy extensive. It can honestly just be a lot of images checklist, but you have a ton of opportunity there. And it's a way to get people to actually give you their email and their phone number mm-hmm and then we can reach out to them. And it's also a good way to promote, Hey, this is what we have going on.

Nick Clason (13:00):
Yeah. So like, so on a workflow side, the ebook, we curated ideas for families. So all we did was we just sent out emails and texts to people who have young kids and say, what are things you know about? And then we just threw it all together in a big Google doc, and then we organized it. And so like a couple of fun things that we did within that was we did like a park list. So broken down by city or community, we just gave them names of good parks. Another thing we did was we created an ice cream trail, uh, so that families could have a, like a, a goal to try and hit every ice cream shop or whatever over the course of the summer. Um, and that, wasn't a thing that was created. Like we just gathered different ice cream places. And then we created, uh, this quote unquote trail, you know, like, like when I lived in Cincinnati a couple years ago, there was a, an official like donut trail.

Nick Clason (13:58):
And that, you know, that was a thing that was like actually known and marketed, but like this ice cream trail thing, like we just came up with this. Um, and then other thing we did was we made like a, we made like a scavenger hunt, um, in, in there about like different parks and stuff. So if you figure out like a local park or preserve or whatever, like try and find a caterpillar or try and find a leaf or whatever. And so theoretically you could print that out if you're like a family and you could take that to the preserve with you or to the park, and then you could do your little scavenger hunt thing. And so I think, like to Matt's point, what you're saying is you're like, this is the thing that provides value and it isn't even a promotion of an event or a promotion of our church.

Nick Clason (14:37):
It's really just a way for us as a, as an organization to help support, um, families, you know, in, in this time to give 'em something to do over the summer. Cause everyone's looking for different things to do, you know, over the summer. And so, so you can do that. Yeah. That's what we did, but you can do that all kinds of different things. So I'm gonna throw the link in there to, uh, our ebook into the show notes in case you wanna check it out. Um, but, and you might get subscribed to our email list as a result of that, but Hey, that'd be cool too. Um, anything else on eBooks, Matt?

Matt Johnson (15:11):
Um, no, I think that's about all I have on eBooks, honestly. Uh, yeah.

Nick Clason (15:17):
How

Matt Johnson (15:17):
Long they use 'em they're really easy to make.

Nick Clason (15:20):
Let me ask you this. So we, we crafted, we came up with all the content, right? Like here's the list of things and then we organized it and then we handed it to you and you actually, you know, usually you outsource this, but this time you just created it, how long did that take you to create it? And where did you create it?

Matt Johnson (15:38):
Uh, I created it in Canva cuz I just, uh, wanted to, you know, see what, what we could do with Canva. I'm not, I usually use Adobe and stuff for that kind of, uh, project. Um, honestly probably took about two to three hours to do the whole thing, um, of actual work it's, I mean it took, you know, more time cause there was a lot back and forth and approval processes and all that kinda stuff, but uh, yeah. And then when can have cheap, you can do it for like 12 bucks a month and for the pro version of it and really create something nice, but you can use free version to make a pretty ebook. And if you really wanna get like creative, you do Photoshop and illustrator and um, put all in design. So,

Nick Clason (16:17):
And last, last I checked, I think Canada has a nonprofit license for churches. So you can look into, into that and reach out about that. And so that's a really great free resource. So, you know, theoretically from cover to cover, you did that in two to three hours. So anyone with even a little bit of design ability should be able to throw that together. Not, not too, it's not too much work once you kind of get everything built together. So, um,

Matt Johnson (16:43):
Yeah, you can work off a template.

Nick Clason (16:45):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's one of the advantages of Canva. It comes with those things prebuilt in there. So mm-hmm all right. Uh, white pages, um, what, what are those and why are they useful?

Matt Johnson (16:58):
uh, white pages are honestly one of my favorite things to do in marketing, uh, and a white page is usually just an informational document that, um, can highlight features of like the church, your product, like whatever that looks like to whatever you're trying to market, um, could be your services, uh, and what you can do with like white papers, which we, uh, I did when I was working at dare to share was, uh, we did a white paper for all the gospel advancing values, all a sudden values. So each value had a white paper for it and it was a, you know, a highlighted solution of like what those values looked like. And those were one of our greatest lead generators to get leaders, to become gospel advancing leaders. So, um, find that thing that you were like, okay, we could actually write an informational document about this.

Matt Johnson (17:50):
So, uh, could that be, maybe you provide daycare at your church, like you're, you should probably do a white paper about why your is a great solution for in the community, just to some there, um, maybe your church, uh, it takes a, you know, um, baby dedication very seriously. So why not do a baby dedication white paper to talk about like the biblical reasons behind that and what the difference between baby dedication and baby baptism is. And, um, especially in our culture, which is, you know, primary Catholic, that's probably something that we should do so people can understand, like we're not, we don't really baptize babies, but we would love to dedicate your baby. And here's the reasons why and stuff like that. So, um, you can really define those solutions. You could honestly do a white paper for all the ministries that you have going on. So we could do a student, uh, white paper. That's all about like what students offers and uh, why, you know, students is a great opportunity. Um, and these can be long documents or they could be, you know, kind an infograph, uh, and I've seen both work really well. And the idea of the white paper is just to have another way to people download and get some more information from you.

Nick Clason (19:01):
Hmm. So it, it sounds like this is like, like a PDF or something like that, that people can download. And then it, it is that what's the reason why that is a good, uh, searchable or lead generator for people. What makes the fact that it's a PDF? What makes it, um, what makes it so good for marketing, I guess on the back end? Like what makes Google find it? Or, you know, whatever.

Matt Johnson (19:31):
Yeah. So you're, there's a couple things. So the big thing that's gonna differ white paper from like the ebook or, um, even some of this other stuff we're gonna talk about is a white paper is a lot of information usually, and people are looking for that for like, you know, uh, literally searching for that information they wanted. They're trying to build trust within. You're gonna build a lot of trust if people download your white paper, mm-hmm so the back end of Google, it's gonna wanna like, so that conversion rate's gonna be really high for the people that are searching for that, which Google is gonna like. Um, so it's gonna be a little more, you know, specific to, um, what you're creating the white paper for, but if people are searching for that, they're gonna Mo you know, there's probably like a 60% chance they're actually gonna download it, which is way better than, you know, an ebook you're probably looking at, you know, an 11% chance to download it if you're, you know, on a good day. So,

Nick Clason (20:27):
So this is something that's like a, a PDF document that you create your positional paper or stance or whatever, maybe with infographics and stuff like that on baby dedication. Why is it good to have all of that information in a downloadable, uh, nice looking PDF style thing, as opposed to all that, like all those keywords and words and verbiage sitting on a website.

Matt Johnson (20:52):
Great question. So the big reason in my mind is cuz it's a marketing lead for me. It's a lead generator for me, so I can get people to download it. Um, and they're gonna give their info and we know, uh, that because people are gonna wanna download it. If they're searching for it, you're more likely like that conversion rate is gonna be higher on it for those white papers. Uh, you're also, um, we'll get into content cluster and we don't want, you know, uh, or pillar page. Uh, those are gonna be a little bit longer. Honestly, a white paper is usually about 2,500 words and I've seen pillar pages that are 30,000 words. So, you know, OK. It's, uh, it could be very, it's a little bit more digestible, but it's a little bit bigger than the ebook. It's more info. Um, it's just kind of a next step for people. So if you are somebody that loves to write, um, you know, you're a pastor that loves writing their sermons a lot, uh, and you are like, Hey, I've always wanted to write a little book or whatever the eBooks, a great Legion, but I wanna write like in depth about, um, something that's going, some solution that we have at our church for, you know, maybe it's for alcoholism or something. And you guys have great solution for that. You have ed, you might write a big thing about that and get that known.

Nick Clason (22:07):
Well, I'm even just thinking about, like, we have a, we have like a, um, in person wall, you know, in our building. And one of the things we have a little pamphlet there and it's just called like the guide to student ministry at our church. And I was like that right there with, I feel like the right like amount of like search terms and, and keywords and stuff like that. That would, that would be a great example of what we're talking about here. Mm-hmm again, right? Like when we created it, we were only thinking about in person experiences. So only people that are gonna be in our lobby looking for it in our lobby, as opposed to also creating it and finding a place for it to live and exist on our website so that people can also find it there. It's just it's that switch. Right? It's that flip of a switch of thinking like you, you, more than likely already have something like this because you've created a brochure or pamphlet or something like that. Mm-hmm so then turn that same piece of content into something that can go, um, on a website, like, like you're talking about.

Matt Johnson (23:06):
Yeah. And, uh, you we've started, I mean, you've probably seen this Nick when we were like staying at church on Sunday, but I don't see a lot of people go to our physical walls without, you know, direction to so, uh, it's not a good awareness piece, you know, I've had plenty of people come on, go what's the student ministry about, I'm like, oh my goodness, we have failed, you know, give them more content to, you know, be able to figure out, you know, and identify these solutions for them.

Nick Clason (23:35):
Does, does that, uh, dare to share, like, do those websites, do they still exist? Like could we link to them?

Matt Johnson (23:41):
Uh, they should. Yeah, I can. I'll uh, I'll dig 'em up. We just, we revamped the whole website since we did those. So I'll just have to find where we re put those, so.

Nick Clason (23:50):
Okay. Yeah. So I'll give you a link to that. Give you a link to what the summer ebook looked like. Uh, the next thing is, um, blogs. Let's talk about blogs. Blogs seem like, um, old news they've been around forever. So are they still useful piece of content marketing? Are they still worth our time? What, what would you say to that?

Matt Johnson (24:08):
Uh, I'd say blogs are probably the lowest hanging fruit that anyone listens in this podcast could start, you know, um, doing right now. Um, and the reason I say that is cuz they don't need to be long. Uh, if you get a consistent rhythm of blog writing, you're gonna have consistent search. Uh, your SEO's gonna continue to be updated. And also you're gonna have, uh, consistent reason for people to continue to come back to you, which that's the key of a lot we've talked about. We want people to just come back to us and we don't want it to only be on Sunday mornings at church. We want to come on a Wednesday at work when they're on their lunch break and go, Hey, I wanna check out what my church has going on with it. So, um, blogs are honestly one of the easiest things to start implementing right now and the traffic and the potential of a blog is still massive.

Matt Johnson (24:58):
So a great example of this is Michael Hyatt, um, who, uh, if you guys don't know who Michael I Hyatt is, you know, they grow up full. He, uh, he's a designer, full focus planner. He was an SEO or a CEO at a book publishing company. Uh, he's a hugely influential person in the marketing world and he started his entire company based off of blog writing, um, by giving like daily tips, um, like, uh, how to balance your day, uh, how to be a good boss, how to be a leader. Um, and he was doing that while I was a CEO. And then, uh, he turned that into an entirely functional company right now and full focus. So, uh, that is a great example of like what a blog can do for you. Uh, and blogs are just, uh, something that everyone can write, honestly, like it's your voice, it's your personality, that's your opinion on it. So, um, and they don't have to be long. Like you can write a, you know, 300, 500 word blog and that's all you need.

Nick Clason (25:56):
Yeah. Great. So here, like, and Matt correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like most like template website builders are sort of built on like a blog style, uh, idea, like it's built with the idea of like posts. So it's pretty easy for most church websites to create some sort of blog type thing where you just throw quick hitters of like your thoughts.

Matt Johnson (26:19):
Exactly. And you, there's probably not a lot. You need to change. You just gotta look at some formatting stuff. Uh, like I said, it's gonna be a huge win for you. If you can actually start getting your blog going and be consistent, that's the one thing you will say, don't start a blog if you're not gonna be consistent and you're not gonna write it. So if you're gonna commit to a blog, say I'm gonna have a blog up every day. Like every Tuesday at 10:00 AM, make sure it's up every Tuesday at 10:00 AM, cuz that's gonna help also, uh, unlike the algorithm side of things. So

Nick Clason (26:50):
What's a good, what would be a good recommended rhythm? Would you say for someone who's gonna blog? How often, how frequent all that stuff? How long?

Matt Johnson (26:58):
Yeah, so I would start once a week, you know, get your, your toes wet, your fingers warmed up as you're typing for. Um, uh, and I would pick a day that you might see that might be the best day for traffic, for you at your, uh, at your church. So like for us, we have found Thursdays at, you know, 9:00 AM to be the best time to post anything. So, uh, that's when we would post, uh, you know, a new blog or whatever. Um, and then, uh, as you like start building your blog up or if you're like, Hey, this is something that I could definitely add more to start doing two a week or three a week. Um, you know, Michael Hyatt was doing one every day, which that's pretty, that's pretty intense. So I mean, if you have the time to do that and you wanna do that and you have the drive to do that, go for it, but I would just start with one at day right now and then build on there.

Nick Clason (27:46):
All right. Great. So let's talk a little bit then Matt, about podcasts. Um, are, I feel like podcasts similar to blogs have been around forever? Are they still like a useful marketing tool?

Matt Johnson (27:59):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. If people are, wanna find a topic, um, they're gonna, um, traditionally look for podcasts now, especially the younger demographic.

Nick Clason (28:09):
Yeah. What was like, what was the, what was the stat hubs stat came? Hub spot came out with a couple of weeks ago or months ago about, uh, the average, average American or average person listening to podcasts.

Matt Johnson (28:22):
Yeah. So podcast listeners. So those are people that send a podcast, 84% of them listen to eight hours or more podcast a week. You have 78% of Americans are aware of podcasts and almost 60% of people in America listen to podcasts. So, um, a lot of people are, I mean, podcasts are continually to grow. Um, I mean younger people, it's definitely something that they do to pass the time now, especially on commutes and walking and, um, runs and working out and all that kinda stuff. And then, uh, you, you know, older people, old, older generations are starting to, you know, jump on the podcast bandwagon. So

Nick Clason (29:01):
Yeah. So do you think that it's just recording your sermon, throwing it in on a podcast? Is that what you're recommending here?

Matt Johnson (29:09):
Uh, I mean that, that's where you can start, honestly. I mean, that's not gonna give you, you know, the traditional traction of a podcast, uh, just because, you know, you're only gonna get people that wanna listen to your sermon at that point. They're not gonna necessarily be searching for like that topic for help. So, so like creating a parenting podcast or like an interview type podcast where people are like, Hey, I'm kinda looking for this kinda thing, but it is a good place to start and you already have the content.

Nick Clason (29:37):
Yeah. Yeah. Um, crossroads in Cincinnati, uh, they have a like almost entire podcast network. Um, and I was I'll link to it in the show notes, but I was scrolling through it the other day. And so like, their pastor's name is Brian to, so they have a podcast called the aggressive life with Brian to then they have one called freed up it's about money. Then they have one called you can do this and it's a parenting podcast. And then they have one called, um, IKR question mark. It says real conversations with real women. One called I love Cincinnati, one called too long. Didn't read. And that's like a cliff notes version of like the Bible one called man skills, one called spirit stories. Um, so yeah, like they have what, whatever that is like seven, eight, something like that podcast summer, obviously. Right. I love Cincinnati.

Nick Clason (30:32):
That's very like regional to them. And so it's just a podcast about yeah. Cincinnati and showcasing the best things about there. And, um, he, he does interviews with interesting people from Cincinnati and then they got one on like just the Bible, like, Hey, maybe the Bible, isn't something that's a regular rhythm or discipline to your life, but here's a quick hitter of, of different books, different chapters, you know, stuff like that. Um, so I, I I'll link to that in the show notes, but I love their approach to that. Cuz I think like you said, a lot of people are just starting with just the sermon. Um, and obviously crossroads is a big church, so they have a lot of resources to make some of these things happen, but you can begin to start thinking and looking and seeing ways that you can create other topics or other podcasts that might be interesting. And it's honestly, man, yeah. This is like episode what, seven or eight for us like this isn't been that hard. Like it's actually really fun. no. And

Matt Johnson (31:27):
So fun. It's easy and it's yeah.

Nick Clason (31:30):
Yeah. You're just having a conversa conversation. We're just recording a conversation, you know, between you and me. And so if you can get two people that don't sound awkward on a microphone, like which is in a church is probably pretty easy because you get people that stand up talking to microphones all the time. So that that's not that that, you know, far off of a skillset of what they probably already have within their repertoire to do exactly. So. Yeah. Yep. Um, and then out of that, uh, one of the things that, uh, I think I've heard you recommend is transcripting those so that you can get all the words onto a website

Matt Johnson (32:09):
Mm-hmm yep, absolutely. Uh, highly recommend doing transcripts, uh, cause everything we've talked about over the last half hour or so is all, you know, searchable terms. So, and you can do, there's plenty of transcripting services out there that are fairly, very cheap to, you know, that you could just upload your MP3 two and they'll transcribe it for you.

Nick Clason (32:31):
Yeah. I mean basically every time we do this, it's anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes and a AI subscription service through rev.com, um, will basically give me this transcript for anywhere from eight to $10. And so that's not super expensive. You, you put that along with the link to the podcast, whether you're using a hosting service or you're hosting it directly on your own website, um, and boom, there you go. You got all the words from it and you know, sometimes they messed stuff up. Like they spell my last name wrong every time. Yeah. But that's the catch go change it. Solos deal. Well, no, they put a Y in it when I say Clason it's there's no, Y a Y so

Matt Johnson (33:13):
Whatever to call you, it says calling Nate Clauson.

Nick Clason (33:17):
Cause you know how everyone says the word Jason and Mason, right? Like that's, that's how you're supposed to say those words too, obviously. Sorry.

Matt Johnson (33:26):

Nick Clason (33:28):
All right. Uh, pillar pages. What are those? We talked about those a little bit last time. So if you, if you didn't listen to the last episode, go back and listen. We went pretty, pretty nerdy and pretty in depth on those. But for those that weren't here, give a quick, give a quick hitter of what those are and the purpose of them,

Matt Johnson (33:45):
Uh, pillar page is a page specifically designed to help with SEO. Um, so search engine optimizations, and it's a large page also known as a content cluster of lots and lots of copy and information about something that's searchable. So good example of this is that we, uh, we're working on a pillar page right now at our church called, uh, the everything you need to know about Christian Small groups. And we identified those search terms. And now we're gonna just write a bunch of content all about that. So, um, and that's gonna be, you know, a pillar page to help drive traffic to our find your people stuff.

Nick Clason (34:24):
So let's pretend that you are marketing genius. You are sitting here or you're at least marketing interested. You're hearing this. You're like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But you are like multiple steps away from decision making. You are not the senior leader in your church and you go to your senior pastor and you experience some form of opposition. How would you Matt advise that person to enter into said conversation about one of these things?

Matt Johnson (34:58):
Just any of them?

Nick Clason (35:00):
Well, yeah, let let's hit

Matt Johnson (35:02):
Pillar

Nick Clason (35:03):
Pages. Let's hit it from a no from, from all of 'em. All of 'em. Yeah. Let's hit it from a high level. So you're, you're not the, you're not the decision maker, but you want to, how do you go about convincing your senior leadership that content marketing is worth doing?

Matt Johnson (35:19):
Yeah. Uh, I would go to your senior leadership with just a lot of this information we talked about. So, you know, a big way I started pitching a lot of the stuff, you know, at a current church is a lot of the stats that, you know, we're seeing, um, in the marketing world. So, uh, we know how effective content marketing is and how it can actually, you know, nurture our, uh, congregation. I, um, for your church, it could be the blog. It could be the podcast. Um, really depends. So, uh, I would go in with that in mind, go in, um, with change management in mind. So just, you know, go in and, uh, talk about, uh, what you're seeing, what the goals are and why you can do it and how you're gonna be able to do it, uh, is my best advice for all that it is gonna, can be kinda challenging, especially if you have, uh, older church and older, uh, executives on your team to kinda pitch some of this stuff.

Matt Johnson (36:25):
Um, um, especially some of the stuff that, you know, they might not see instant gratification from. So like a podcast you're not gonna see instant numbers from, it's something that you put time, money and effort into. That's gonna take, you know, um, a while to actually build your community up. But once it's built, it's usually pretty solid. And people typically once they're, you know, in the world of a podcast or whatever they can, uh, um, they stick around. So that's just the kinda stuff that you need to come in, ready to answer. So pick something that, you know, you can succeed at that, uh, can give you some fairly quick wins. Um, and then, uh, just be able to talk about that with that change management in mind.

Nick Clason (37:00):
So let's, let's, uh, keep, let's do this super quick, but let's pretend that you, uh, got approval to do one of these things. And in one month, what would be a win? I wanna just go through each of these. I want you to just lay out what you think a win might look like. So what would be a win if in one month you launched an ebook, what is a, a measurable win, something that you can point to your, your boss about like, Hey, look at this, this is what we saw. This was a win because blank happened.

Matt Johnson (37:31):
How many new people downloaded your ebook

Nick Clason (37:34):
And

Matt Johnson (37:34):
Depending on the size of your church, that number is gonna vary.

Nick Clason (37:37):
Sure, sure. Sure. What about white page? Same thing.

Matt Johnson (37:41):
Uh, white page. Yeah. White papers, probably pages. I would say the same thing is, uh, probably how many new people actually downloaded it.

Nick Clason (37:49):
Okay. How about a blog,

Matt Johnson (37:52):
A blog? I would just say how many, uh, people have read your blogs so you can actually get those stats, you know, you don't want people skimming it, um, not, or just bouncing away from it. So like actually having that bounce rate low and that read rate high on it.

Nick Clason (38:06):
OK. Podcast,

Matt Johnson (38:09):
Uh, podcast, it shows, uh, how many people are listening to it and these don't need to be new people. Like I said, a podcast is really gonna start with your and then grow

Nick Clason (38:18):
And then pillar page,

Matt Johnson (38:21):
Uh, pillar page is going just be how many people clicked on the page that's SEO related. So the bounce rate could be really high, but if you get someone stuck on for also biggest of that in mind.

Nick Clason (38:35):
Yeah. Okay, great. Um, alright. So you're a small church. You don't have anything of any one of these things and we just hired you to be our marketing consultant. What would be your number one project that you'd say, Hey, do this to get started,

Matt Johnson (38:53):
Look at this, the stats and who your congregation is and who your target is. But, um, most 90% of the time, I would say blog or podcast, just because it doesn't take a lot of extra effort on your end, um, podcast. You're gonna have to do a little bit editing, of course. Um, and the blog, you know, you're gonna have to set that up and, but the time commitment's a little bit less than some of these other things. And ebook is a quick way to get, you know, huge, uh, like to not get huge numbers, but to start seeing some of the new numbers come in a white paper, you'll have better, stronger leads. And then, uh, you know, a pillar page is a massive project. I wanna reiterate that there're a lot of work, so, um, but they won't give you the most traffic to your website.

Nick Clason (39:33):
Well, and I think like, if you, if we're thinking about this from like an in person ministry strategy, like everything you do for in person requires a lot of work. Like I'll just say, as a youth pastor, I have to build an entire schedule for an entire semester. I have to recruit in, uh, secure several different like locations, host homes, small group leaders, get them screened, um, create like a theme for every week and teaching and content and all these different things. Like there's a lot of work to be done. And so mm-hmm, um, like just because what we're talking about here in, in like digital form is a lot of work. It doesn't mean it's, it's not worth it, or you should only take the easy way out. It just means that you also have to set up all the infrastructure and framework to make it work too. And once you do, mm-hmm, , it's gonna be worth your while, but you have to have someone who cares about it and keep it going. Just like you have someone who cares about your student ministry, just like you have someone who cares about your women's ministry, keeping those things up and running and keeping them organized and brought together and the framework built and all the same types of things that we're talking about here. Like, it is a lot of work, but it's also worth it.

Matt Johnson (40:47):
Mm-hmm exactly. Yep.

Nick Clason (40:49):
So, so last thing, Matt speaking around this idea of organization, like all these things are a great idea, but how like, like, especially like eBooks white pages, like you're trying to capture emails. And so what is the best way to get your, get the word out there with these things? Um, is there like, cuz you, you know, you wanna do some sort of like email marketing type of thing and your church may have that may not mm-hmm but so you're gonna want to grab people's names, grab people's emails. Um, you're gonna need websites. Like what is the best distribution method? Is it advertising E like talk through it, just like that entire process from, um, getting it out there on Google, getting it, getting it out there on Facebook for ads, getting people to click on your thing, getting people to put their name in, um, where's all that stuff go, how's it how's doing. How do you keep it, keep all these things, uh, all these parts of the machine moving and working together. What's the best way to do that.

Matt Johnson (41:50):
Yeah. We could do a whole episode about advertising, probably a couple episodes, honestly, cause it's such a beast. Um, and distribution in general, but I would say like to get you started, I'm just gonna give you a soft answer since we've already given you so much info in this one is social media. So just do what organically on social, figure out what your delivery method is. So if you wanna, you know, do MailChimp, I don't know what your church has in place right now. So if it's a that you have, or, um, maybe you're doing a hub or you have rock RMS, whatever that you're capturing people already. So you have some way that you're capturing emails already. There's probably a form option that connects to that, that you can deliver PDFs for. Um, I would say probably nine times outta 10. That's probably true. So, um,

Nick Clason (42:42):
Well in most of those, most of those, whether, yeah, most of those, whether you pay for them or not, um, you know, cuz there might be churches here that don't, that don't have those things built yet, you know? So you gotta, you gotta land something as a distribution. So figure that out. There are some free ones, but it they're all gonna be limited until you start paying for 'em. And so if you're not already paying for one, you can go find a free one, but it, it may take some time to find one that works for free because certain features like automatic, like opt-ins with automatic email triggers, like that often costs a little bit of money, you know? So you just have to be yeah. Kinda aware going into that.

Matt Johnson (43:23):
Yep. Oh absolutely. And, and that's, and then just post that on social to start out and get people to share that organically. Um, especially if you, like, I don't have any money for advertising. Don't worry about advertising right now. So start with some organic, um, ways to do that and build up your social presence, which will help you when you get to the advertising stage and you might have budget.

Nick Clason (43:47):
Hmm. Yeah. And you can, I mean, think about it. You you're in an organization, no matter like, even if you're under a hundred people like that, you have uh, 50, 75, whatever raving fans about you. So ask for their help to get the word out because how many times Matt do you and I like make a decision based off of a word of mouth recommendation, more than Yelp mm-hmm more than the stars on Google. Like if you tell me about a good restaurant, like I'm gonna trust you way more than a restaurant with 505 star reviews. Like I just am. Yep. Cause it that's just, that's just how our brains work for one reason or another. Like we don't all the other people that we don't know don't matter as much to us. Um, but, but you tell me about a good restaurant. I'm like, yeah, I'll try it, you know?

Matt Johnson (44:34):
Yep, exactly. Yeah. So keep that in mind.

Nick Clason (44:37):
Yep. For sure. All right. Any listen, tons of stuff here. Um, we'll try to link all the different examples that we put in there, uh, in the show notes so that you can see, cuz I don't know about you, but I'm visual. So we're talking about eBooks. I wanna show you an example. We're talking about white pages. I wanna show you an example. Um, but any, any other like last parting thoughts around this stuff, Matt, that you have before we, before we sign off?

Matt Johnson (45:02):
Um, no. I mean pick one of these and go, try to, you know, start brainstorming some ideas to get it done. So

Nick Clason (45:10):
Love it. All right guys. Good luck. Let us know how it's going. We'd love to hear from you@hybridministryontwitterhybridministry.xyz is the website and uh, we'd love for you to subscribe to this podcast. Give it a rating, give it a review. And if you found this helpful man, please share it with a friend. Uh, same thing we just said, let people know you found this helpful. So until next time we'll talk to you later. Bye guys.

SHOW NOTES
BARNA E-BOOK BEING REFERENCED
https://shop.barna.com/products/6-questions-about-the-future-of-the-hybrid-church-experience

PILLAR PAGE EXAMPLE
https://www.typeform.com/blog/guides/brand-awareness/

CROSSROADS ONLINE PLATFORM
https://www.crossroads.net/watch/

//BARNA EBOOK FINDINGS
51% of All US adults did not watch an online church service during COVID
18% of Practicing Christians did not

67% of churched adults now have an online option when their church didn’t have one before

90% primarily engaged with the same church they were committed to before COVID

78% of church dropouts are waiting until services go back to normal before they return

Churched Adults (36%) and Home with kids under 18 (41%) struggle to focus during online church

//DO YOU USE THE INTERNET FOR FAITH PURPOSES?
Practicing Christians - 66%
Churched Adults - 56%
Dropouts - 36%
Churched Gen Z - 67%
Churched Millennials 64%
Churched Gen X 58%
Churched Boomers 42%

//AFTER COVID WILL CHURCH GATHERINGS FIT YOUR LIFE?
Churched Gen Z
37% say both
13% say primarily digital
41% say physical
40% say both
13% say primarily digital
42% say primarily physical

TIMECODES
00:00-1:43 - Intro
01:43-02:57 - Findings from Barna Study on Hybrid
02:57-07:30 - 51% of US adults didnt' watch service online during COVID
07:30-12:36 - 67% of churched adults now have an online option
12:36-21:16 - How to set up a pillar page
21:16-23:08 - People stayed committed to their church during COVID
23:08-24:38 - 78% of dropouts are waiting until it's normal to return to church
24:38-28:08 - It's hard to remain focued while watching online
28:08-30:35 - Using the internet for Faith Purposes
30:35-32:46 - Post COVID church attendance survey data
32:46-34:35- Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Matt Johnson (00:01):
For young, I wanna be for forever young.

Matt Johnson (00:08):
Hey

Nick Clason (00:11):
Well, good morning. And hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the hybrid ministry podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason alongside my great friend cohort. Compadre, Matt Johnson. How you doing this morning, Matt?

Matt Johnson (00:27):
Doing great, man. I'm a little tired, you know, have a newborn in another room. So that's been, uh, exciting, but you know, I'm, uh, worn out but you know, it's beautiful and it's a great thing. So

Nick Clason (00:40):
You're worn out. So let's talk about digital ministry to just reinvigorate you.

Matt Johnson (00:47):
I'm in

Nick Clason (00:48):
Let's, uh, real quick, like what are like the, like, what's the number one, most surprising thing about a newborn for you?

Matt Johnson (00:56):
Oh man. You know, the most surprising thing is how fulfilled I am. Um, you know, I, the second I've met her, I cried and you know, there's been multiple times I've been holding her and I just start crying. I'm like, this is really weird. Never thought fatherhood would hit me this way. And I think it just goes, you know, I lost my dad a few years ago. So like just layers of like who I am to this little thing that I'm holding, you know, that doesn't even have any idea what's going on in the world.

Nick Clason (01:23):
yeah. Yeah. That's that's awesome, man. Well, we're super happy for you, but obviously everybody wanted you back because, uh, you know, they missed, they, they missed you. Laughs. And they had just listened to me and that was boring so well, yeah. That's amazing, dude. So super happy for you. Um, today, uh, you know, Barna recently came out with a, an ebook, um, on the, I don't remember the exact title of it, but we'll link it in the show notes, but the findings in this new world of hybrid ministry and I dude, I promise you, right. We had this name before we knew about their ebook.

Matt Johnson (02:06):
So yes,

Nick Clason (02:07):
, we're technically not stealing from them, but they did release before us because, uh, we didn't have our crap together enough to get this thing up and off the ground.

Matt Johnson (02:16):

Nick Clason (02:17):
So , so it looks like we're stealing from them, but we promise we're not. So I was reading through that, uh, just the other day and there were just some statistics that kinda, um, I found interesting and I just wanted to share them and then us just kind of go back and forth and talk through 'em a little bit. So, um, you know, you and I were obviously promoting this idea of digital and physical ministry calling it hybrid. Uh, and so there are a couple of things that I found interesting that feel like maybe they're not, um, leaning towards hybrid or digital ministry being a good strategy. The first one is this 51% of all us adults did not watch an online church service during COVID. Um, and 18% of practicing Christians did not. So COVID hit a practicing Christian, almost 20% of them never even tuned into an online service. So those statistics right there, Matt, is there anything concerning with that? Like as you and I are like pushing for this idea of hybrid ministry, are, are we like, well, yeah, but people don't even really want it. That's, that's kind of how I would read that statistic.

Matt Johnson (03:31):
Yeah. I, uh, personally I'm not concerned mostly just cuz of the demographic and the ages that this did. I mean, it's not just, you know, millennials that they're pulling out in this stat, it's all adults. So you're gonna have boomers, gen X all in there too. And we know historically that they don't want to really tune in online. Um, I will say, I mean, if only 20, if 20% of practicing Christians did not tune in, I mean that means 80% did tune in at some point, which I mean that excites me. Um, cuz that means majority of people are trying to tune in. Um, and I also do, uh, if all us adults and 51% did not attend a church service of like everyone in the us, I, I mean might be the optimist I me, but that, that tells me 49% of people at least, you know, checked out a service at some point. So that's exciting. Uh, yeah. Which, you know, that's kind of correlates with the numbers that we have seen and you know, practicing religion anyway. So, um, I

Nick Clason (04:31):
Mean you can paint them as negative. Right. But there's also the other side too, which is there, there is positivity in it such depends, I guess how you wanna look at it.

Matt Johnson (04:40):
Yeah. And I would just say like, don't get discouraged just cuz 20, you know, about 20% of practicing Christians did not because I would say, you know, that's probably the 20% of people that regardless never will.

Nick Clason (04:52):
Yeah. Well and one of the, I mean, gosh, one of the things we've noticed in our church is that, um, COVID hit and we lost contact with just a lot of people. And so mm-hmm, , that's probably a nationwide phenomenon as well. Um, especially depending on the size of church, you know, you and I obviously work at a pretty large church and so it's, it's harder for us to have contact with every single one, uh, of the people, you know, that,

Matt Johnson (05:16):
That least, yeah. Something else that I would ask, seeing the number start to cut you off. Nick is no,

Nick Clason (05:21):
You're good.

Matt Johnson (05:22):
Um, how were, were these churches that these 20%, 18% did not get practice online? Is that because they weren't communicated well to, um, were the, were things not implemented quick enough for them? So, you know, they were like, you know, they get out their habit habit of I'm gonna go attend church, which I think that could definitely be part of that factor too. I mean, I think in my grandpa's church who, you know, runs a small Methodist church of 20 people and they try to do online and it was him in his kitchen, but you know, his congregation is primarily 60 to 80 years old, so they're not gonna really go on Facebook to watch.

Nick Clason (05:58):
So yeah. I also think that, um, what you and I are proposing and talking about in the life of this podcast is not an online church service. No like that it be an element to it and it could be an element to it. But I think we're trying to actually create a more dynamic and robust, um, framework for hybrid ministry. Exactly. Because I do exactly that people do like the, the X factor of the church is the fact that we gather together and we create real authentic community. Like, yeah, that's what sets us apart. We're not just a content machine. And so the con the converse of that is that if the church is just a content machine, like if we're not doing it well, or, um, like if we feel like we should have to compete with the world, we may lose out on that, unless we have something that's uniquely different and we do, and that's Jesus and that's community, but so how do we take those things that uniquely set us apart as the church and create something hybrid in that?

Nick Clason (07:08):
And so while some of these stats may look, you know, cryptic or whatever, for what we're proposing, I would argue that we're saying, yeah, stream your service, but also, like don't only stream your service and call that your digital presence. There's so much more to a digital presence, just go back and exactly all the things we've, we've talked about in the week, the episodes before, so, okay. Yeah. So then, uh, 67%, um, of church adults now have an online option and when their church didn't have one before. So if anything, what we've seen now is that COVID has ushered the church, you know, into this new, this new phenomenon. I think in my dad's church, not the one he's at now, but the one that he was at when COVID was going on. And, uh, they, they did have a live stream, but dude, like I think that their live stream was someone setting their iPhone up in the balcony.

Nick Clason (08:06):
And like, that was how they live stream, you know, and they're not super produced even now, but they did, like, they did grab a couple of, you know, elements to, to boost their live stream. And so they now do like lower thirds instead of just like just putting the phone up and hoping that people can see the screen and, um, like stuff like that, you know, to make themselves a little bit more, uh, online savvy. And so I think a lot of churches went through some sort of online iteration. And so now that you have the hardware and the software, and maybe even some of the soft skills, like the know how and how to set this thing up, it now gives the ma you know, the overwhelming majority of churched adults, an online option that they didn't have before. And so yes, stream your service, but also what are different ways, Matt, that you could even see them packaging that, um, that content, that audio, that video to create hybrid, you know, elements throughout their week.

Matt Johnson (09:08):
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different ways you could, um, package it, but what are the best ways right now I'd say is to just get some of that short form content out of that live message. Um, we've talked a lot about that, especially if you're trying to hit the millennial gen Z. Um, there actually was just another study that came out that said the best way to reach that. Um, millennials in general is video that's under 60 seconds long. So, um, if you could figure out a good way to like package, I don't know, 62nd clip with a, um, let's say a 200 word blog or 200 word write up about it. And you could package that as a, Hey, our weekly recap or whatever. Oh yeah. I don't know if you watch baseball at all. Um, but, uh, one of my favorite things about baseball right now is like, if you tune into a game late, especially on specifically on YouTube TV, it gives you a six inning recap of, or like whatever inning you're coming in of all the plays you've missed, which I, uh, that's something I personally love, cuz I can catch up on my baseball games really quickly.

Matt Johnson (10:09):
But so do that for your sermon. Like do a, Hey here's our sermon recap for the week you give it in content short form. Um, and let me know what's going on with, uh, whatever you got going on in, at your church that week. Uh, that's the probably gonna be the best way to reach millennial and gen Z right now.

Nick Clason (10:27):
And do you think Matt that like obviously, well, first of all, baseball's boring. If you can catch up on a game in 60 seconds, that's my take on it, but uh, would you suggest that the best way to do that would be through, um, like maybe TikTok or Instagram, but are you saying like throw that on like a mobile friendly, um, website or like a page on your website? That's like maybe a blog page that's dynamic, that's moving, that's being updated. Um, and then that, is that the way to do it, send it out via email, like what would be your distribution? Like that's a great concept. I love that. I don't even know if there's churches really doing that in the iteration that you're explaining, but how would you, uh, suggest a church if you know, we hired you as our marketing manager, how would you suggest a church set that up technically on the backside? Does that make sense?

Matt Johnson (11:16):
Yeah. No, all of the above are great options. Um, the big thing, so here, well, let's go through all the avenues. So Instagram TikTok, you're gonna have broader reach. So if that's what you're trying to get, go for that email, you're gonna have your best reach. So, uh, Seth goin always talks about how your email list is like your gold. Um, if you get really good people on your email list and they're engaged, like that's your cream of your crop, they're gonna be hot no matter what. So, um, that's a great way to distribute, distribute it, but we also know it can be a challenge to get emails. So, um, if that's not, you know, uh, something that you have built, you don't have a CRM or anything built on the back end or a data management system. I would, okay. Let's all right. What's next website, which this could easily be a pillar page or a cluster topic of like, Hey, you're serving recaps and all that SEO is gonna drive your website. The video content is gonna weigh higher on Google and you can just continue adding stuff to that page of like here's our sermon recap page. And that page will just be built out more and more. And if you can just imagine this page, that scrolls forever, and you have a nice little table of content at the top that you can like jump around and stuff. That's gonna weigh very high on SEO. So, um, so which we are actually seeing currently with Google,

Nick Clason (12:36):
So let's get super nerdy on a pillar page. So I know what that is. Cuz you told me what it is, but I didn't know what it was till you told me what it was a couple of months ago. So first of all, what is a pillar page?

Matt Johnson (12:47):
So a pillar page is just a fancy term of like, okay, you've pick a topic. So let's, let's uh, let's talk about small groups. Small groups is always a great, uh, no let's do youth ministry since you're a youth leader. You knows. There we go. Let's now we're talking the finals, let's go into the world that we know. Yeah. so let's say we created a pillar page. That was everything you need to know about, uh, youth ministry in 2022. Um, so we titled that page specifically to be some of those search terms that you're gonna have. And then that pillar page should just be built out of like the who, what, when, where, why, how so, but blogs, curated content. And when I talk about curated content, I think that confuses a lot of people cuz they think, oh, we're just gonna, um, take content that we have or whatever, and just re put it on there.

Matt Johnson (13:31):
You can do that. But when I'm seeing curated content, I'm talking about other people's content and doing back links for them too. Mm-hmm um, that helps you weigh higher on SEO. Um, and also on this page should be, uh, you know, copy about like, okay, this is everything you need to know about youth ministry. And then on there you could have your video tutorials, you could have, um, white pages ebook. So it's everything that you're gonna release about a topic on one page. So the Google term of it is a content cluster, which it's like a cluster of all the content you have. The pillar page is what the marketing term is that you're gonna hear a lot for it. Um, so if you created, uh, let's say life, church recap page, and on that recap page, it's just everything that life church has done, you know, over the last year. And it's a recap of all their sermons. It's a play by play or whatever. You're gonna weigh higher on SEO when people are searching for like, okay, I'm looking for, how do I deal with anxiety? And if you had a sermon about anxiety, that's gonna weigh higher on that page for you.

Nick Clason (14:40):
That's great, man. So here's my question then as someone who's a novice, as it comes to like internet, uh, website development and all that stuff, obviously if I pay for developer, I'm gonna gonna get this done. Right. But let's pretend I don't have the money to do that. Or I might just, you know, waiting into this now for the very first time, uh, how, like, can you set up a pillar page? Like, is there like a pillar page for dummies? Is there like a couple of things that they can do through like a basic square space, Wix or WordPress site that will get them at least on the right path? Cuz maybe, you know, someone's listening to this and they're not the senior leader. They don't have the authorization to spend the money, but they believe in it. And so they want to take it on as a pet project, but they need to prove to their upper level leadership or their senior pastor that this is valuable. Can you give someone in that boat, any sort of like tips on how to get some of that stuff up and rolling?

Matt Johnson (15:31):
Yeah, definitely. You can a hundred percent create a pillar page through, you know, WICS or Squarespace or something. Um, you're just gonna be limited by, uh, the fact that you're in a template, which is okay. So I want to be very clear about that. Like that is okay. Um, it's just gonna be laid out how Squarespace really wants it laid out or Wix wants it laid out. Um,

Nick Clason (15:50):
As opposed to the custom, like I want it, I want this feature, like you can't ne maybe necessarily accommodate that. You're just stuck in the template.

Matt Johnson (15:59):
Yeah, exactly. So if you're like, Hey, I don't like how this jumps to there. You're not gonna really be able to finesse around that, but that's okay if you're just getting started through pillar page, cuz really a pillar page is meant to just be a really long content cluster. So just start adding everything you have on there and just lay it out in a logical sense. So don't uh, just throw stuff willy-nilly on it. Like don't go from like what this is about to, this is how you do it then to the why, like you need to start with like, you know, why and the what, and then go to the how, like, just like a story you don't just go straight to the climax of it

Nick Clason (16:38):
And, and let, let's throw like a couple pillar page examples, you know, in the show notes so that people can go check those out. Yeah,

Matt Johnson (16:44):
Absolutely.

Nick Clason (16:45):
See some of them what we're talking about. Yeah. But can you think of off top of your head or do we need to stop recording and then you, you comb your brain for some good pillar page

Matt Johnson (16:54):
Exams? No, there's a, there's a great pillar page that Typeform has, um, that I would love to, uh, that we can add into, um, the show notes and really the pillar page is all about uh, um, gosh, I can't remember. Give one second think

Nick Clason (17:14):
this is, uh,

Matt Johnson (17:15):
Brand awareness that thought it's about yeah, it's it's about brand awareness. Um, they did a whole pillar page about how you can build brand awareness, uh, Typeform data. And that's just been, uh, perfectly laid out. Actually I will even put it in our notes here. So you have it, love it. Um, and you can take a look at it, but this is really what Hillary pages should look like gives you how much, uh, time it would read. Uh, there's usually a table of content at the top and then you can jump through and find what you wanna read about. So, um,

Nick Clason (17:49):
I will link to that. You guys can see it. Yeah.

Matt Johnson (17:51):
Pick it out. And it's a perfect example of a pillar page and I need, I wanna reiterate pillar pages are big. So this pillar page is a 44 minute read and it's meant to build SEO. Like that's what it's meant for. So when I, uh, we were building a pillar page at a church now and you guys came to me about it and I was talking through with like the kids director and stuff. I was like, I need, let's

Nick Clason (18:10):
Be clear. You came up with the idea first. And then I said, we should do this and

Matt Johnson (18:15):
Then got

Nick Clason (18:15):
The kids director on board.

Matt Johnson (18:17):
So yes. Yeah. And I was sitting down with her and she's like, is that enough content? I was like, no, I need about 30,000 words. and I could see her go what? And I was like, okay, maybe not 30,000, but I need about 3000 words. Like I would need a lot of con copy for a pillar page to work. So it's something you constantly build. It's not just something that day one, you have 200 words and it's a blog post. Like a pillar page is not bigger than a blog post.

Nick Clason (18:42):
Does it take on like, like, okay, cuz I guess the way I'm looking at it, let's pretend it's like Instagram. So Instagram, if you're scrolling, it'll keep loading be beneath you and it'll just scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll until like, never like you can probably never really find the bottom of Instagram. Yep. However, like Google, right? Like it's, it's got a billion options, but at when you get to the bottom of your page, it'll be like go to page two. Yeah. Can it go either of those directions or is there one way that is better than the other

Matt Johnson (19:14):
Scroll scroll? Does that make sense? Scroll. Yeah, I would do scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. Okay. And then if you wanna link to other stuff outside of it, that's totally fine. So like, Hey, go check out this blog. That's fine. And what that gives you is back links and you want back links and we back links. You have the higher websites weighted. It's all this weird stuff on the back. End of Google.

Nick Clason (19:34):
Yeah. Okay. Great. Love it. No, that's listen, dude. That's the type of stuff that I'm in idiot about, but uh, I know it's good. So I'm trying to learn.

Matt Johnson (19:41):
Yeah, no I'm here.

Nick Clason (19:43):
So yeah, pillar pages. Um, we took a little detour there, but that's, we're gonna, that's what this is episode is about. Like how do you build it? What are they, how are they advantageous? And so we can do with our 67% church adults who now have an online option, we can take some of that and use that to add to the pillar page mm-hmm . And so could you make it where it's like one week it's, uh, 62nd sermon recap with like the downloadable notes or something. And instead of them being downloadable, you're saying just type all those words into there,

Matt Johnson (20:13):
So that a hundred percent

Nick Clason (20:14):
It can be found. And then could you add to it next week, week two of the love sermon series and the 62nd recap clip and uh, the sermon notes or something like that.

Matt Johnson (20:24):
Exactly. Yeah. And you would be shocked on, I, I guarantee if someone, you little churches go out there and do that, you'll be weighed high on Google. Um, like do a, how to love, how to be loving as a Christian series. Um, cuz most places are not doing this most churches aren't doing this. And then secondly, uh, if they have done this it's so long ago that like, like you'll start to outweigh Google cuz you were creating new content for it.

Nick Clason (20:51):
So, uh, would you recommend like someone typing up a sermon recap or would you recommend just copy and pasting the pastor's manuscript notes?

Matt Johnson (21:01):
Uh, both. So the best solution would be to do a recap, but if you don't have time to do a recap, then just do the sermon notes right now. Like okay. Do the recap as like that's all right. I'm gonna make this better than do the recap.

Nick Clason (21:16):
Gotcha. Great. All right. So a couple other of stats I wanted to look into from the barn of study, 90% of people primarily engaged with the same church that they were committed to before. COVID and I think that that's a really, uh, hopefully a really helpful stat for us as pastors, because we feel like maybe this idea of all of us going online is they're gonna find something better and then they're gonna switch. Yeah. And they're not gonna wanna go to our church anymore. And our church isn't as good as elevation. They have verdict and they have band that makes music that's on Spotify. But 90% of, of churchgoers, primarily engaged with the same church, which communicates to me that most Christians are comm or are connected or committed right to their local body. They're not, they're not looking for something else. They, they have what they want. They have the community that they're, they're looking for. And so as a church, you putting your content out there, you may be, you know, so I've heard people say like, I don't wanna steal other people from other churches. Like that's that's that wouldn't be the goal. Right? The goal is to help nurture and disciple the people that are already going to your church.

Matt Johnson (22:30):
Exactly. Your online church should not be like, oh, I'm gonna steal someone. Else's congregation like this isn't some nefarious thing we're doing. It should be, Hey, we're here to nurture our 90% of people that are still engaged with our church, which that tells me, like you were just saying, they bought into your community that you built there. So yeah. Nurture them. give them stuff that makes them keep wanting to come back period.

Nick Clason (22:57):
Yeah. Well, not even keep wanting to come back, but like learn during the week.

Matt Johnson (23:01):
Exactly. Yeah. That's what I mean by that.

Nick Clason (23:04):
Yeah. Yeah. Not just, not just come to our church on Sunday. Yeah.

Nick Clason (23:08):
Uh, 78% of church dropouts are saying that they're waiting until services go back to normal before they return. I think that would be a lot of pastor's arguments of, well, see, see, we gotta go back to in person, we gotta go back to in person. And I don't, I don't think any of us are arguing that we shouldn't be back in person. Yeah. Uh, but I that's, I, I would be curious about that percentage of that stat. Hum. Those people are using that as an excuse as their church, uh, attendance patterns and disciplines have just completely faded away. Um, and they're just saying, oh yeah, I'm just waiting for it to go back to normal. Realizing that COVID has never really ended being normal. Like we're just still in this weird like world with it. And there is, I don't know if normal will ever come back the way it was. Cuz it's been two and a half freaking years.

Matt Johnson (23:56):
yeah, no, this is the new normal. And I would just like you were saying, I, my guess is that's probably us excuse for most people now. Um, mm-hmm they got out of the habit, which you know, we've we saw that in our own numbers and that's okay. Like go find the next seeds to sell.

Nick Clason (24:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. And again, we're not proposing like, well yeah, you should stream your service. Like if you can, you should. But we're also saying that there's this there's more to just hybrid. It's not just take your Sunday morning experience and post it on Facebook live. Yeah. There we're, we're trying to make this much more dynamic than

Matt Johnson (24:33):
That. Exactly.

Nick Clason (24:35):
All right. A couple other quick, quick hitters here. Um, but one thing I found really interesting was 36% of church adults, um, that were at home and people with kids under the age of 18, which is like 41% say that they struggle to focus during online church. And again, I think that's another potentially like negative stat towards, towards digital. So what would you say if someone's like? Yeah, I mean I, online church is great and all, but like I got young kids, like I, I can't, it's hard to pay attention the whole time or it's hard to keep them, you know, from being too rowdy or whatever during church.

Matt Johnson (25:11):
Yeah. No, the data tells us that if you're just streaming your exact service online, you're gonna have

Nick Clason (25:18):
It's an hour and 15 minute

Matt Johnson (25:20):
Service. Yeah. You're gonna have more drop off. Um, just cuz that attention span on an hour and 15 minutes on anything screen related, that's not an action movie drops off. So, um, yeah, if they, they probably will just tune into the sermon and that's okay. Or some just tune into the worship. That's my mom, she loves the worship and then she likes listening to the sermon, um, when she's driving to work the next day, which is, yeah, that's an okay option too, but you're giving them the avenue. So I get that. You're gonna struggle to focus during online. Um, that's gonna happen, especially if you have kids, uh, as you know, and I'm learning so

Nick Clason (25:58):
Well, I'll tell you what, what we would do during COVID is we would watch like older people church upstairs, and then we would send our kids to the basement to watch, uh, like their kid service. Well, their kid service was over in like 12 minutes

Matt Johnson (26:13):

Nick Clason (26:14):
And so they come up at the end of worship. Yeah. And we're like, well, well, Hey, like go, Hey, let's watch, let's watch last week's again. And we, it was really hard, man. It was really hard. So it was hard to, it was hard to simulate church. Yep. Um, because it wasn't, I don't think it's meant to be that per se. No it's. And so I would, I would, as a, as a dad of kids under the age of five, I would agree with that stat wholeheartedly. Yep. Honestly, Easter 20, 20 Amanda and I watched church at like 10:30 PM when the kids are in bed.

Matt Johnson (26:49):
Yeah.

Nick Clason (26:49):
Like, because we are like, that's when we can in this, when we're unencumbered by them. Yeah. You know,

Matt Johnson (26:54):
So, and I think what we're landing on is like, it's okay to have these different avenues to consume the media. And also if you're like, Hey, I wanna, I wanna make our church service more, uh, more engaging for these people. Like then go solve that problem. Like go more power to you. Yeah,

Nick Clason (27:15):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But to just overlay what you're doing in person on top of online, like that's, I don't know. I mean, dare I say it's a little lazy. Yeah. Like, and, and if you don't have the manpower for it, I get it. So we're not proposing that you reinvent the wheel, like crossroads in Cincinnati has a completely like custom hybrid online experience. Yep. And that's amazing. Right. I'll link I'll link theirs in the show notes too. I got somebody thinks to link in the show notes, but um, like the like yeah. So that's amazing, but they have the main power to do it. And you're probably again sitting here thinking like I barely have the main power to like do all the things I need to do. Um, and so we're not proposing that we're saying think, think about this as a side of the box, offer church streaming adjacent options. Not just only church streaming options. Exactly.

Nick Clason (28:06):
So, yeah. All right. A couple other real quick things. Um, this was interesting to me, I'll throw all these stats and stuff in the show notes, but so do you use the internet for faith purposes? So I'm just gonna read 'em and we'll kind of digest it. Practicing Christians set 66% of practicing. Christians said that they use the internet for faith purposes. 56% of church adults said that they use the internet for faith purposes. 36% of dropouts say that they use the internet for faith purposes, church, gen Z 67%, church millennials, 64% church, gen X, 58% church boomers, 42%. So I think a couple things that are interesting, obviously when you start with gen Z, it's the highest and it drops down as it gets to boomers. But one thing I notice is that even the gen Xers and the boomers still say almost 50% say that they use the internet for faith purposes. Mm-hmm . So if the argument is my church is old and this isn't for them, I, that categorically is untrue.

Matt Johnson (29:08):
Yep. Yeah, no, absolutely. And the only way to get younger is if you do it, so stats. I mean, that's what the stats are saying too. So if you're like, Hey, we wanna get younger, but we don't wanna, you know, kill our older, uh, congregation. Like they're gonna, they're all gonna be okay with it.

Nick Clason (29:29):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, a, a church boomer will read a recap email. Like they, they respond email. My grandma reads email. In fact, my grandma couldn't connect to the internet the other day and was convinced that someone was trying to hack her bank account. And so I had to, I had to turn her wifi off and turn it back on and get her connected. And she thought that I am the number one, it director in the world.

Matt Johnson (29:55):
my grandpa, my grandpa, all the D coffee. TV's not working. Can you fix me? Like, did you unplug it? You're genius.

Nick Clason (30:07):
Yeah, but they'll read it. They'll read the emails, man. She, and dude, I was at my grandma's and she's like, can you help me unsubscribe from some emails? And I'm like, sure. So I'm like getting her set up with an UNS subscription service. And I was like, how about JC Penn? She's like, no, I like that one. . How about, how about your green bay Packers newsletter. Now I need to know what's going on. Withs green bay. Packer's newsletter. . How about this now? I, I need that gram. You don't actually wanna be in subscribe

Matt Johnson (30:30):
For anything Nope. Oh, that's fine.

Nick Clason (30:34):
All right. A couple another one that was interesting after C will church gatherings fit your life church, gen Z 37% said that both digital and physical would fit their lifestyle. 13% say that primary digital would fit their lifestyle. And 41% say physical will fit their lifestyle. So this is church gen Z. So I think one thing that stood out to me about this statistic, cuz that only 13% said that primarily primarily digital would be, uh, their preference for, uh, attending church post COVID mm-hmm . And so right. We continue to say gen Z, gen Z. And we, we are kind of pegging a lot of this on them and them as the future, but they still want in person, they're not looking for only digital. Exactly. We're looking for hybrid, which is what we're trying to find that, that sticky in between, between the two things.

Nick Clason (31:29):
Exactly. So, and same with millennials. Millennials are, uh, I think slightly higher, uh, 40% say that both online in person, 13% say primarily digital, which is the same as gen Z and then 42% say primarily physical. So they're right on the same track there as, as gen Zers. But they're saying that, um, basically the both that's hybrid man. Yep. Like that's what we're trying to say. Yep. They wanna come in person, but they also want to have access to it when they can't make it or for whatever reason, they're not able to be at church. They want to consume something online. Yep. So, so that's, that's it any other like kind of lasting thoughts that you had just through some of these statistics, like we'll, we'll link to the Barna, uh, ebook and so you can grab a copy of it yourself, but there are, uh, there's just a, there's a lot of really good and really interesting stuff in there. So any other thing that you are like, did you miss this? You should have highlighted this or just, or parting thoughts based on some of this data?

Matt Johnson (32:30):
No, I, I mean my biggest parting thought is like the, the data staying that hybrid is an avenue that we need to be exploring. So continue, um, exploring this avenue , I mean, don't, don't get discouraged, the data supports it.

Nick Clason (32:45):
Yeah. And get, and, and, you know, getting into hybrid, um, and getting into some of those digital platforms. Like it can be, it can be laborious and it can be cumbersome and setting up your account and then setting up your group and then setting up your payments, like all that stuff. Like, and it can get confusing because all those companies are trying to sell you things. Yeah. And they're all the best company and that's at least what they're telling you. And so you gotta, you gotta kind of slug slug through some of those things, like setting up email marketing, you know, uh, things or setting up, you know, CHMS things or just, it it's worth it, you know, but it can get, it can feel overwhelming at times. Yep. So stick with it. It's worth it. Find something that works. There's a lot of, um, free or light versions out there.

Nick Clason (33:35):
And probably for most of us that that will suffice at least for a while. Yeah. Until it gets to a spot where it needs to be, you know, super, super, uh, hefty as far as the payment is so sweet. Hey, uh, that's it for us on episode five? Um, maybe six. I actually can't really remember because, um, I think this was supposed to be episode five, but then I did one last week by myself. Yep. And so this may actually be episode six. I think it is, but yeah. Glad to have you guys, uh, subscribe, uh, follow us on Twitter at hybrid ministry. Also check out our website hybrid ministry.xyz. Uh, give us a rating. Pull open your purple podcast app search hybrid ministry. We're right there. We're number one. If you search that word and give us a little rating, that'd be awesome. I love it. And until next time see you guys later. Thanks guys. Was

Matt Johnson (34:28):
That just had some nasty bug on.

TIMECODES
00:00-1:37 Who is Gen Z?
1:37-6:07 Gen Z prefers small groups more than large gatherings
6:07-10:25 Industrial vs. Digital Thinking
10:25-16:24 Busyness is not the problem
16:24-27:14 How to make a ministry model of small groups
27:14-32:25 How to set up a small group for the ultimate win
32:25-37:00 Conclusion and Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
Well, hello there everybody. Welcome to episode five of a hybrid ministry podcast, solo pod today. Um, my cohost Matt is, uh, having a baby at the time of this recording. So next time we talk to him, he's gonna, he's gonna be a dad for the first time. So that's exciting. And, uh, we were scheduled to record. He's having a baby. I was like, yo dude, don't, don't worry about, don't worry about this. Don't worry about podcasting. We'll get to, we'll get to another day. And so sure enough, that's where we are. And so I am, uh, doing this on my own today. Uh, excited to have a quick conversation with you. Uh, but because it was just me had to do a little bit of deviation. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about generation Z a little bit more. I've told you in the past that I am a youth pastor and, uh, just something that I've been thinking about and noticing now for quite some time.

Nick Clason (01:02):
Uh, but this generation, I mean, they are just so different than the generations that have come before us. Uh, even as a millennial myself, I notice so much, uh, variance in who generation Z is what, uh, where some pain points are for, for us as student pastors. Um, and maybe just some opportunities of ways that we can use hybrid ministry to be reaching gen Z. You've heard Matt and I talk about some of the stats from Barna, um, that gen Z prefers it looks for a hybrid model. And so I kinda wanna dig into a little bit more. Um, so there's a, there's a statistic that came to, to me, uh, from, uh, crossroads in Cincinnati. I was at a conference in crossroads, did a study, um, of post COVID generation, Z teenagers under the age of 18. So a lot of the generation Z data that you see is gonna be gen Z students over the age of 18 due to liability reasons and the legality of, you know, pulling data from, uh, from people who have to be old enough.

Nick Clason (02:16):
And so what they were able to do is they have a data team. So they're able to find a way to, uh, talk to their teenagers and their parents get permission from them. Um, and so all these students have been through COVID, uh, it's the most recent up to date info info that you can find on them and they're teenagers. So they're the, the students that are actually in your church, your student ministry, or not yours, but theirs. Um, and, and it probably matches, you know, they're in the Midwest. And so you may have some different, um, insight Intel, but here's the fact of the matter. Um, it, honestly, this information shocked me, not in the fact of like, when I heard it, I was like, wow, that doesn't track, but more like, oh my gosh, yes, this is exactly what I've been thinking, what I've been feeling.

Nick Clason (03:03):
So here's the statistic 68% say that they prefer small gatherings over big parties. Uh, if you dig into that, even just a little bit more, uh, 65% of their attendees said that, and 76% of students that were not attending their church or not coming regularly said that they prefer that. So if you're a student ministry that wants to reach students, which odds are, you are that's most, uh, churches, most student ministries, even those that are not there have been overwhelming majority priority on, um, coming to things that are small gatherings over large parties. And I'm, I'm not a hundred percent sure why we would say that. Um, but I have have a feeling, um, that this generation, um, is ex well, I mean, I don't have a feeling. This is empirical. This is evidence. This generation was experiencing some of the highest rates of anxiety that we've ever seen before in the history of the world.

Nick Clason (04:11):
Um, pre C I heard a statistic that the average teenager was experiencing mental health and anxiety related issues at a higher clip than that of a mental health, um, admitted institutionalized patient from the 1950s. This is pre COVID. This is before the world got locked down. And this is before you were told that if you go near your grandmother, you might kill her. And so that is just an absolutely obviously absolutely terrifying proposition. Uh, so much has changed so much of the world has shifted. And so I think that, you know, I don't know that it's like large parties are a fear factor because of COVID. But I think that just the gosh, the overwhelming, like posture and position of needing to isolate, needing to be alone, I, I have just sensed a gigantic difference from them. Um, kind of coming out of that. And I know a lot of people older, the me, like, you know, gen Z teenagers of what they need, man, they need to interact with each other and relate better.

Nick Clason (05:20):
And like, yeah, all those things are true for sure. Um, but I think what we need to just remember as, as pastors, as church leaders, is that the next wave of people, um, they want to gather together they want community, but it looks different than it did before. When I was growing up as a millennial youth group was like, just cliche, right? Like, Hey, let's get as many kids here as we can. Whoever brings the most friends, gets an Xbox. And if you guys get 200 friends here, I will swallow a goldfish like that was youth ministry. And I mean, gosh, I've used some of those tactics myself. I shaved my head one time cuz we had a certain number of kids that came. That's a very industrial way of thinking. Matt's mentioned that before. And the industrial way of thinking is just this whole kinda like assembly line idea.

Nick Clason (06:19):
How many can we get here? How, how much performance, how much quality can we get the digital generation, which is gen Z and those that are coming behind. Most of us, uh, they are valuing access engagement and ultimately community. They wanna know that they are a real person, that they're an individual that they're not just another number. And so, gosh, I know it sounds so cliche. We've all heard it before. We've even probably said it, but students won't care how much we know until they know how much we care. And while this is the, the fact of the matter with our gen Z students, this is also what we're seeing with our church attenders and church members. And so we need to find a way to create community and put a priority on individualism, on small groups, with these statistics, with these facts coming at us and you know, like maybe gathering everyone together in a gigantic room where you swallow a goldfish for entertainment.

Nick Clason (07:23):
Value is not the win anymore because here's the thing. If we gather everyone in a room and you swallow a goldfish, uh, like how many of those 200 students in that room's story, did you really get to know like, did you really dive in and learn who they are and what's bothering them and the issues that they're facing and the questions that they're asking, because ultimately when we look at the model and method of Jesus, he spent tons of time, like sure, Jesus spoke to 5,000 and he broke the bread. But then he, he spent the majority of the time that we see him throughout the gospels, he spent the majority of that time individually with his disciples. And then he spent even more of it with his 12. And then he invested heavily in the three. And then in John who wrote the gospel of John, he described himself as the disciple that he loved the most.

Nick Clason (08:30):
And so Jesus even did that where he spent more and more time individually with his people that he's trying. So those disciples, Peter, James, John, those that were closest to him, they knew how much Jesus cared and they were a part of something with him. And then when they belonged with Jesus, it became much easier for them to turn the corner on belief. I mean, what if, what if the model that Jesus laid out is what the church should be trying to accomplish? Because that's ultimately what happened. Jesus gives the great commission right before the Ascension up to heaven and he says, Hey, do, as I've done walk, as I've walked, take what I've done and re uh, apply it to the world around you. What if this model that Jesus laid out thousands of years ago is what gen Z is really looking for.

Nick Clason (09:32):
What if, what the church has become with the lights and the bells and the whistles and the haze and the what if they're not for that? Like, I I've heard, uh, I've heard younger people in my church talk about the amount of money that we spend on production value, all in an aim and an effort to get people in the room. And then, and then they say, okay, yeah, that's great. But what are we doing to care for the, the poor people down the street in, in downtown Chicago? And, and what if like all the amount of pressure that we put on ourselves as churches to try and get everyone in the building? What if, what if that is not really what they're looking for? Cause I know it sounds cliche, right? But they don't care how much we know until they know how much we care.

Nick Clason (10:20):
And they're looking for smaller gatherings. Uh, there's a study that Barna did several years ago. Um, and it was well, yeah, several years ago. So 2016, uh, and, and there was a statistic, um, that said 74% of student youth pastors say that teen busyness is the main obstacle to their ministry. And I think the reason being is as he I'll just tell you, anecdotally, as a youth pastor, I, I would feel that in the, the lane or in the sense of like, okay, so, Hey, we have ones in that youth group, you should be here. And then, uh, Susie can't come because Susie has play practice. And max can't come cuz max just made, uh, the football team. And so Susie and max are missing and they're some of you, my core students. And I wish they were there, but they can't be there because they have stuff going on.

Nick Clason (11:17):
Their schedules are an obstacle to me and my ministry. And so, uh, I think most, most of us in ministry, most youth pastors would say that. I mean, I don't know if you've ever been on like the D YM Facebook group or youth pastors only Facebook group and like seen some of those questions. But gosh, those are some of the, those are some of the main points of conversation. All right. So my, my biggest obstacle in my ministry is student business, 74, almost almost three quarters of youth pastors in America that were surveyed said that. Now check this out. This is the thing that's so fascinating to me because I think we've been, we've been banging that drum for years. We've been saying, we're you guys are too busy. You gotta back it down. You gotta come to the thing. You gotta come to our, our event, right?

Nick Clason (12:05):
And this is gen Z. These are these students and they wanna do stuff. They wanna do extracurricular activities. Uh, with that same notion, I wish your teen wasn't so busy with that posture towards parents, check this out. 31% of parents think that their teenagers actually need more to do as opposed to less to do all of us would say back your schedules down, find more margin, find more white space and check this only 11%, 11% of parents think that their child is way too busy and way too overscheduled. So the problem that we as youth pastors feel or face is not the same problem that parents are feeling or facing as they're leading their children. And so what I am proposing, what I am thinking, perhaps student ministry, ministry to gen Z, uh, millennials can look like more in the future is they, you can put less pressure on the one, uh, once a week, individual gathering and instead pour all of your gas, all of your effort on to more relationally charged intimate community based settings, where, you know, the individual, I mean, guys, this is tried and true stuff, right?

Nick Clason (13:21):
Like I, I train and talk to my small group leaders, uh, at nauseam about the importance of knowing their students and knowing them well. And the reality is if one of my small group leaders has 35 students on a roster, they're not doing that. They're not knowing those students individually and they're not knowing them well, but they have a lot of kids on their roster. And as people who've been trained in an industrial way and an industrial line of thinking that, uh, communicates a fair level of success, well, you have 35 kids. Oh my word. That's a lot of people in a small group. Yeah. But how many of those 35 do you know? Well, and do you know, intimately, you know, orange wrote the book a couple years ago called lead small and it's, it's one of the most profound books because I think it's one of the things that all of all youth pastors in America would want to articulate.

Nick Clason (14:19):
And it's so simple, but it's so clear and it's so good. And so I actually use the book lead small as a small group leader's, uh, job description essentially. And so the five principles on it and listen, I'm gonna try and pull this off the top of my head. So if I do it, gimme, gimme kudos, but it's to be present it's to show up, show up, randomly show up predictably, um, and show up like outside of the program time. Uh, so it's it show up or be present it's, uh, create a safe place. It's partnered with parents. It's moved them out. That's four out of five guys. That's pretty dang good. Um, I can't remember the fifth one, and those of you listening on the other and you're screaming at me right now, but listen, this is hard when you don't have a cohost, you don't have your brain, doesn't have room to breathe.

Nick Clason (15:05):
So Colin, Cal, I don't know how you do it every week, but congratulations, you are an absolute magician cuz just talking into a microphone by yourself for hours. That is hard. Now my point in saying all that as, uh, lead small is that it's, it's really quite simple because if you look at it, it goes back to what Jesus did. And so church has looked, um, much more produced and much more glamorized. And I think a lot of that was a product of the industrial age. How can we Polish this and bring a level of quality that is going to produce the highest amount of attenders? That's been our goal. How do we get the most amount of people here in this room? And that's not, that's not been a bad thing. I don't think, but I think it's giving us a lot of quantitative data and not a lot of qualitative data.

Nick Clason (15:56):
We know a lot of people are here, but, but what are their stories? Well, yeah, you gotta get in a small group. Exactly. That's what we're saying. And that's what gen Z's saying. They say we don't care about the big thing. The big show, like you can't outer entertain us. We have TikTok on our phone. There are people swallowing, goldfish all day long on there. What we want is real, what we want is authentic. And so, you know, just one of the things that we've done is, uh, we have actually pulled away in our student ministry and, and decentralized. Um, and what I mean by that is, yeah, we gather together every once in a while, but really the, the win is what happens in the small group type setting. And so just for a little bit of backdrop, a little bit of context in our setting, um, we only meet with our students one time a week.

Nick Clason (16:46):
Uh, there is weekend services and weekend programming, but there's nothing for students with that. So we encourage them to go to go to service with their parents and we encourage them to serve, um, in one of the services. And so then therefore, uh, when we meet we're meeting at an off peak time pre COVID, we were pretty standard. We had Wednesday night for junior high students and Sunday night for high school students. And I think we squarely fell in the demographic of 74% of youth pastors saying they students are way too. Overscheduled way too busy. That's the problem. That's why I can't get anybody here. COVID came around and absolutely, you know, shut us down. We were in Chicago, we just opened up yesterday essentially. And so that's kind of a joke, but not really also. And so anyway, uh, 20, 20 summer we had been doing, um, a show like a YouTube show completely online and it was great and it was really fun, but the problem was, um, we were, we were talking strategy around our show and uh, I remember one of the, one of the youth pastors on our staff said, uh, she said, you know, the only place in the world right now.

Nick Clason (18:00):
So think this is like summer 20, 20. She said the only place in the world right now that students can't get in person is church. And so we did right there, a 180 pivot and instead of strategizing around how to make our show more, whatever, attractional more, whatever we, we said, how do we get students in an in-person moment? Now, keep in mind, this is 20, 20 summer. I've said all this a million times. I know, but I'm just trying to give you the context of it. Because at that point in time, our church multi-site megachurch in Chicagoland area. Sure. We were in the south suburb, so sure. We're about an hour away from the city, all the PR all the, um, I dunno, social media that would come along with us, not like not meeting or meeting, like there's gonna be a lot of negativity if we did.

Nick Clason (18:51):
And so we were still kind of in that world. And so our, our main church, like big church adult church, like they were still not meeting weekly. And so we created, uh, host home based small groups at that time, the state of Illinois was in, I believe it was called phase three of reopening or something like that, three or four. And, um, they, we were the guideline quote unquote was, uh, cuz you know, everything was very quote unquote, but anyway, the guideline was 50 people or less in a gathering, but there was very real chance that we were about to slide back into the, the other phase. So we were in phase three down to phase two or whatever that was, it might have been phase four down to phase three. Doesn't really matter because none of it makes sense and hopefully we never talk about it again.

Nick Clason (19:39):
But um, the, the more strict phase was 10, 10 students or more not students, sorry, people. This is for the state of Illinois. So we're like if we build small groups, um, and roster get rosters up to about 15 cap, it there knowing that typically 50 to 75% of students, uh, attend weekly. So, you know, if you have 15 on a roster, you're probably seeing seven to, to nine of them every week. And so then therefore we are within the window. Even if we get shut down even further, we can still continue to do this. And so we rolled out, um, a handful, like a bunch of digital groups that met on zoom. And then we also rolled out a ton of host homes. A and what we saw was our pre COVID attendance against enrollment jumped from like 32%. So again, this, that model was Wednesday night come, I'm gonna swallow a goldfish.

Nick Clason (20:40):
And then after that, you're gonna get in your small group with your leaders who love you and care about you. And every time a new student shows up a new kid gets dumped onto their roster. And so by the time that the school year comes to an end, that small group, leader's holding a roster of 35 students. And if I were to grab that roster and I say, Hey, who is that kid? And point to a name? There's a chance that they may have no idea cuz that kid may have come a week, that they weren't there and then they never came back. And so they've never actually met this kid, but this kid's sitting on their roster. And as far as like pipelines go and as far as like, uh, pastoral care goes, our strategy built around that is that the small group leader cares for that student.

Nick Clason (21:18):
But the reality is like that small group leader doesn't even know that student's name. And so that was that 32% of attendance. Sure. There may be 35 kids, but the average attendance against the enrollment of the overall small group was 32% pre COVID. We saw that attendance jump right out of the gate after COVID from 32% up to like 76%. And so what we saw was we saw this statistic bear itself out where gen Z's saying, this is what I want. Like I wanna be somewhere where I'm known and even in the face of COVID, I mean, dude, we were doing like full mask. Like you have to wear one, we were enforcing it. Like it was not an optimal way to gather together, but, but students were flocking. And in a lot of ways, I think, you know, the, the juxtaposition or the comparison of the fact that in COVID they're completely locked down and isolated to now we're actually offering some semblance of community and connection.

Nick Clason (22:13):
Um, obviously didn't hurt us, right? If you starve them of something, then eventually they're gonna go, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but that's what we saw. And so that was something we stumbled upon in COVID cuz we were like, oh dang look at this. And so then we just continued to run that model. And, and to this day our student ministry is still built on that. Um, I, this last, uh, spring, I had 15 small groups. I had one online group. I had four groups that met on campus. I had 10 groups that met in homes. And then of those ten four, no, I'm sorry. Five met on another night of the week. And so I had a Thursday group, I had four Sunday groups and then I had 10 Wednesday groups. And so back to the statistic about student pastors saying the biggest challenge to their student ministry is scheduling and parents not really agreeing with that.

Nick Clason (23:10):
Um, I think the fact that what, what we've been able to kind of stumble on as a student ministry is, uh, this, this variety of options as it comes to meeting, we've put so much pressure on the meeting, but what, what did Paul say? Right? I mean, I don't know that he was talking to youth pastors, but he could have been, we says don't esteem one day better than the other, but that's how we treat it with scheduling. Like, well for me to preach and for me to do all these things, like I need to get all the students together on a stage and a Wednesday night and get up in front of 'em and tell 'em about Jesus and like, yeah, that, that is the case in the eighties. But, but now for if you want to communicate as a student pastor, if you wanna communicate as a, as a communicator, you don't need a stage and a microphone to do that.

Nick Clason (23:57):
In fact, you can run this model. Like we're talking about where we have decentralized groups that meet in variety of locations all across the city on variety of nights in a, in a variety of locations, in a variety of environments. And if you record something via video, that same message can be disseminated out to all 15, all 25, all it's an infinitely scalable model. And that's the other piece too. You don't need facility. You don't need more chairs to accommodate more students. What you need is just one more, two more, three more willing host homes. And what I always tell people is now if you have wifi in a couch, you can experience what our church has to offer in student ministry. You no longer have to rely on your schedule to be free. And for your night to, to not have, you know, extracurricular activities and for your parents to drive you from wherever they, they have to drive from to get you to the campus.

Nick Clason (24:56):
And I get it like every context is different. You know, I, like I said, we're in the suburbs of Chicago, we're a big church. And so therefore we have a pretty wide reach. So sometimes we'll reach people from as far as 30, 45, even an hour away on the weekends. Um, and so those people's kids, um, that want to come back to youth group, they then have to drive 30, 45 an hour back into, you know, where our church is so that they can get to student ministry and to, to experience it. But now they can pick something that's maybe 30 minutes from the church in a host home that is, uh, geographically located 30 minutes from the campus. And so then that way you can also begin building things around region. You could even begin building things around school because how much more realistic is it for students to be in small group with other kids that are in their school, as opposed to just kids who say that they go to the same church and they see each other once a week.

Nick Clason (25:58):
And so you're like, wow, wow. Do you, when do you ever stand in front of the students? When do you, when do you ever get to know them? And that is, that has been the tough thing. Um, you've probably heard me say it, but my first day was the first day of COVID. So my first day was the, the initial and original production of our show and our show, what it did was it just, it operated as the anchor, the springboard for all of our small groups. It shifted from something that we did in COVID as a, um, youth, youth ministry program replacement to then more, a, um, discussion starter for small groups. And so it's, it's gone on this gigantic evolution now over the last two plus years, but what we're realizing the win is the win is what happens in the rooms. The win is what's happening between the students, between them and their leaders.

Nick Clason (26:47):
And really what we're just aiming to provide is good, consistent Bible teaching. Um, and we're doing that primarily and mostly through video, we are sitting down, we're recording ourselves, teaching we're recording ourselves, um, you know, presenting, uh, thought from the Bible and then the groups have what they need to, uh, to, to discuss it. And so what I wanna actually do real fast, I just wanna pull up, um, like, Hey, here's what we're doing this, uh, this fall. And so now two and a half years later, our most recent iteration of small groups, um, and, and what we're doing in each of the rooms with each of the themes. And so, um, what we do is we do like a campus night launch. Um, and then after that they have 10 weeks of small groups and that's where this, I think the biggest piece in this is the, uh, ability to vary up the, the, the days and the weeks and the nights of meeting.

Nick Clason (27:53):
And so I, uh, at my campus, I'm able to offer Sunday night meetings, Wednesday night meetings, Thursday night meetings. And that's really, I think like the, where the rubber meets the road on, on everything that makes it really helpful and beneficial. So, um, in addition to like providing teaching, we try to provide like a theme or some sort of activity for every group to do. And so this is where hybrid can really, really come into play. So the first night of small group, we're just doing sweet or sour and what our like video segment is gonna be is we're just gonna say, Hey, listen, like one great practice to do is you're getting to know each other. And as you're getting to get in the rhythm of small group messages, talk about the sweetest part of your week and the most sour part of your week.

Nick Clason (28:38):
And maybe to start that week, we're gonna just talk about, Hey, this was the sweetest part of my summer, and this was the most sour part of my summer. Um, then the week after that, we're gonna play a little game called yay or nay. And our thought behind that is we're going to do, um, like eight or 10 things that we just say like, Hey, um, cookies. And then let the, the students hold up a little paddle that says, yay, like a green sign or flip it over to a red sign that says, nay. And then we're gonna say you have 30 seconds to decide answer, and then defend your answer. And so we're hoping it kind of creates a little bit of banter between them and the students. And what we'll do is we'll just have like a 32nd timer. And then when that's over a little ding and they'll move on the next one.

Nick Clason (29:21):
And so it goes from cookies to pineapple and pizza, yay, or nay boom, 30 seconds. And then a little countdown video thing. Week three is gonna be board game nights, pretty self explanatory, bring a board game, play it together. Week number four is gonna be a service project. And what we're actually doing is we are, um, doing operation Christmas child. So we are gonna give all of our groups like 10 shoe boxes, and we're gonna challenge them to fill 10. And we're gonna do a competition to see who can fill the most amount of shoe boxes. And so then we're going to let them literally just physically do a packing party in their small groups, wherever they meet on campus in host homes. And then if they're online, we'll figure so up for that. Um, we're gonna then do, after that, we're gonna do an escape room and that's gonna operate as like an invite night.

Nick Clason (30:05):
And so we're gonna give 'em a puzzle, um, and some things and some codes to try and figure out, and we're gonna let them work on that together and hopefully bring a friend to it. And then we're gonna use like, uh, our YouTube channel or whatever with just, uh, countdown and maybe some ominous music. And so they have to get this puzzle solved within 45 minutes. And while the clock is going, there'll be little hints. And, um, voiceover things kind of popped in there by me or one of our other team members to just encourage them as they go the next week is gonna be karaoke night. So we're just gonna pull together some, some songs and into our YouTube playlist and they can just sing some karaoke together, have fun as a small group the next week is around Halloween time. So that's gonna be, uh, some Halloween house parties.

Nick Clason (30:50):
We're gonna give them, uh, an option of a couple of things that they can do, but really that's just, Hey, throw a party, get some candy, you know, do Halloween stuff. Um, then the week after that we're gonna play, would you rather, it's gonna feel very much like yay or nay instead of yay or nay like iPhones and pineapple and pizza. Now it's gonna be like, would you rather it's like, would you rather, uh, this is my favorite, would you rather question, would you rather eat ice cream flavored poop or poop flavored ice cream? Yeah, let me know, let me know the comments. We wanna know hybrid ministry.xyz or on Twitter at hybrid ministry. Come find us and let us know which of your would you rather it would be, uh, then we're gonna play fall feud, fall family feud. We're gonna, uh, send out a, a text.

Nick Clason (31:32):
Some of our students gather some survey data on some fall or like autumn related questions and then get that same data and then let them play based on their answers that they gave. And then finally, the last week of small group is, uh, show and tell donut edition, bring your favorite donut and bring a second one to share with someone else. And that's just an excuse to have a giant donut party as a celebration of the last week of small groups, then that leads us right up to Thanksgiving in the scope of our calendar. We'll come back for a couple weeks after Thanksgiving, do a couple Christmas related events and it'll feel very Christmas party esque, and then we break for Christmas. And so that's kind of how we use this idea of decentralized, um, host home model, small groups. And that's how we use technology to create for our students a hybrid experience.

Nick Clason (32:25):
And so I'm still the youth pastor. I still preach and teach, but I do view video. Um, and my talking head or my teaching content experiences get distributed to 15 groups at my campus, probably another 15 groups at our other couple campuses. And so that helps, that helps me be in 30 something places at any given time throughout the week. And so that's, that's one of the ways that we're utilizing and using hybrid ministry and hopefully doing something that is gen Z centric and gen Z forward thinking because the game back to the whole thing, they don't know, they don't care how much we know until they know how much we care. And that's what we're attempting to do is we're attempting to give them a safe place, the lead small principle, and it comes all the way back from Jesus of Nazareth who ultimately said to us, Hey, this is the great commission.

Nick Clason (33:27):
Go make disciples of all nations, teaching them everything. I've commanded. You baptizing them name the father, son, holy spirit. And he promises us as presence. I'll be with you even always to the very end of the age. That's what the church is built on church. Isn't built on a show church isn't built on a Sunday morning experience. Church is built on the people of God coming together, Hebrews 10, 24 and 25, continuing to, to meet together, to encourage one another, to spur one another on, do not give up meeting together. The writer of Hebrew says that is the, that's the core, the core tenant of the church. And for a lot of years, the only way to do that was a once a week gathering on Sundays in between farming. But we don't live in that, that agricultural world anymore. We're in a digital age. And so our students they're digital.

Nick Clason (34:22):
They, they, they think digital first. And so before, you know, it generation Z is gonna make up the majority of the attenders in your church, but you're already probably feeling some of the effects of it. And if you're not a youth pastor, like I am, it may not feel as, as imminent. Um, but they are on their way and they are on the horizon. And I know for me, they are the primary students that I am tasked with reaching right now. And so I don't have a choice if you're a pastor of older adults and millennials and gen Xers, then you may feel like this is a little further off for you and you might be right. Um, but the reality is that the oldest generation Z, they are starting to graduate from college and they're looking to enter the church. And they're saying some of these same things, probably around the same percentage that they prefer small gatherings over big parties.

Nick Clason (35:20):
So how can you use hybrid versions of ministry to reach these people and to even disciple them and even reinforce and galvanize the community around them? Well, that's it guys, that's it for the solo pod, uh, make sure you reach out to Matt, let him know that you are happy for him, that you're excited for him that he's gonna have a baby. Um, I'm gonna text him right now and figure out if they had the baby or not. They were in the hospital last night, so we'll have to see, but anyway, Hey, check us out. Online hybrid ministry dot X, Y, Z, we're on Twitter at hybrid ministry. If you find this helpful a rating or a review would be incredibly generous and incredibly helpful to us, it helps us rank higher in the podcast standings. And we have show notes. I don't know if you know this, but you can go to our, uh, hybrid ministry.xyz website. And we do an offer you a full transcript of everything that we say. And then anything that we talk about, uh, we will link to that in our show notes. So you can have access to some of those downloads for free, just go grab 'em. Um, but give us a shout. Give us a rating. Give us a review. Love to get to know you guys a little bit more. Appreciate you being a part of this journey with us. And until next time, we'll see you.

Follow us on Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry
Or check us out online - http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TIMECODES

00:00-1:29 - Intro and Welcome
1:29-6:28 - Rest & Boundaries with Digital Ministry
6:28-11:10 - Hack 1 - Find a Hobby
11:10-18:00 - Hack 2 - Turn your phone to mute
18:00-23:22 - Hack 3 - Avoid Social Media
23:23-28:26 - Hack 4 - Get up Early and Read your Bible
28:26-33:10 - Hack 5 - Take care of yourself physically
33:10-37:21 - Hack 6 - Use all of your vacation
37:21-38:57 - Stat Correction - Take your TikTok Watermark off of all your Instagram Reel posts
38:55-39:12 - Outro

TRANSCRIPT

Nick Clason (00:01):
Well, hello everybody. And welcome to another edition of the hybrid ministry podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason alongside my amazing friend. And co-host Matt Johnson, Matt, how are we doing this morning,

Matt Johnson (00:18):
Nick? I am doing great. I, uh, woke up with for a nice little run, go the sunrise. It was, uh, just a really refreshing morning, able to pray a little bit. It was a great way to start the day. So,

Nick Clason (00:31):
So when you run, are you a podcast guy? Are you a music guy or are you a nothing guy so that you can have your, your prayer moments?

Matt Johnson (00:41):
Oh, good question. Um, so normally I'm a podcast guy, but right now I'm going through an audio book about how to raise great daughters, cuz I'm about to have a daughter and I'm freaking out a little bit um, but you got

Nick Clason (00:56):
The first little bit, all they do is poop, man.

Matt Johnson (00:58):
Yeah. So you know of watching all the newborn videos and stuff, but I think that was why I went for that run, but I usually pause it at some point and just, you know, do some prayer. Um, but I'm not a psychopath like Joe Rogan where I just listen to nothing, my entire run like a crazy person. I don't understand that.

Nick Clason (01:15):
I didn't know that about him, but yeah, that's psychotic,

Matt Johnson (01:17):
he, uh, I remember podcasts forever ago where he was talking about that. He's like, if you're listening to something during you're run, you're not running right. Or something along those lines. And ever since then, I was like, this man is a crazy man. So,

Nick Clason (01:32):
Well, that's actually a good kind of segueing tool I wanna talk about today. Um, I, this one, this one feels a little bit of like a deviation. I feel like from what our normal kind of topics are, but I wanted talk about rest and boundaries. Um, love it as it pertains to working in a church as it pertains to being the social media person. And so, you know, I thought, I thought we could just kind of have a conversation around the importance of that, um, rest, uh, and how we restore ourselves. Uh, because from my vantage point, if you're listening to this podcast, the odds are you are the social media person at your church, or at least you're interested in it, some degree in fashion and people like that are typically the most technologically savvy in their church. That means that they're, um, young or whatever, for whatever reason you've been pegged that person.

Nick Clason (02:26):
Uh, and so that means that you are the person on social media maybe personally. So how do you create good boundaries between, um, your work life, which is gonna be about what you're posting and what you're trying to do for your church, uh, digitally in a hybrid sort of way, and then how you personally restore and how you personally, uh, rest and reflect. And so even, you know, you saying you're out on a run and, uh, just using that as a time to kind of pray and process. I'm wondering if that's one of yours, but I'm not gonna give, give anything away. So mm-hmm, what, like before we dive into like tips and hacks, like what's been your observation or your experience with this sort of thing, as it relates to people working in churches or working in ministry context.

Matt Johnson (03:09):
Um, the biggest thing I have noticed personally, of people working in the ministry, especially, uh, the church ministry world is burnout is exceptionally high. Um, and I think it has a lot large part to do with, uh, you know, usually people are wearing multiple and multiple of hats. Um, mm-hmm, for some, probably 90% of people listen, this podcast are, you know, running social media, being a youth pastor and, uh, in charge of some other ministry at their church. So, um, and it's just, cuz we know, um, the margin of like resources at a church is just little thinner when it comes to stuff, cuz you're relying on not revenue streams necessarily. So, um, I think it's easy to get burned out and it's easy to kind of lose focus of what's actually important and not take care of ourselves. And I've also noticed usually people go on a sabbatical way too late mm-hmm um, usually we go, okay, it's time for you to do a sabbatical. And you know that person's been there 20 years on burnout. They come back from the sabbatical and they still have it fully recovered usually. So, um, yeah, we just gotta figure out how do we get you through those points where you don't have vacation where you're in the middle of everything else going on, especially like Christmas and Easter seasons is a great example.

Nick Clason (04:33):
Yeah. Yeah. It's , it's the whole sabbatical. Thing's funny. I've been in, in ministry now 11 and a half, almost 12 years. Most churches give sabbatical around year seven, but it's, it's a sabbatical from like your church. So seven years at your church and I've never, I've never made it that long. So yeah.

Matt Johnson (04:52):
exactly.

Nick Clason (04:53):
Don't know what that's they don't know what that feels like.

Matt Johnson (04:55):
I know that's more, that's the typical person. So they go from one church, you know, they get pretty to that edge of burnout and they go to the next church, they get refreshed. Cause you get that energy being somewhere new, but then like that mean it's the same workload sometimes more. Um, I've never really been anywhere. That's been a less workload than the last place for a long period of time. So

Nick Clason (05:17):
Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. And, and in my case almost most, most jobs I've taken, I've not had any sort of like weaker whatever in between. Like I remember, uh, couple, a couple of job transitions ago. My last week, um, at one church was running, executing everything for summer camp. We like did our own summer camp. So like I was teaching, speaking, all those things, um, drove home, packed my office. And then that was like on Saturday morning, the next day I went to my new church and then that Monday morning I boarded the bus to go to their summer camp. So it was like two back to back weeks of summer camp. And so it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, from one job with a nice little break and a nice little pause, it was literally like boom done. Here we go onto the next one.

Nick Clason (06:01):
And so, yep. And I think that some of that mean like there's just a cultural expectation about, um, work and hustle and all those types of things and, and you know, we can get into like, uh, generations and the different, the different approaches to work and attitudes toward work and all those types of things. And I, there's definitely a difference. Um, and we don't wanna be lazy, you know, but we also wanna be smart, you know, with what we're doing in our workloads and stuff like that. So, uh, I had each of us kind of come up with three tips or tricks, uh, as it pertains to, um, rest boundaries. And so Matt, do you wanna go first and share your first tip, your first trick, your first hack, um, on having good rhythms of rest?

Matt Johnson (06:44):
Yeah, absolutely. Um, my first tip hack, um, is really find that hobby that, um, helps you escape. Um, like that is your hobby that you can, um, when you get home or on the weekend that you can go do that is nothing to do with work. like it can't have anything to do with work. And I have two, uh, one is fly fishing and I love fly fishing, especially, um, what the aspect is. I can go to the middle of nowhere and I have no cell service . And

Nick Clason (07:22):
How often are you fly fishing in Chicago?

Matt Johnson (07:24):
Uh, not a lot here, but when I was in Colorado, I was going about every other weekend and my stepdad dad, and I would go up to the mountains, find some river and I'd have go to canyons and I'd have no cell service. So even if the of the world went on fire, I'd have no idea. Um, which was awesome because like I could really unplug. And then the second thing for me personally is, uh, gaming video games. Um, you need, and that's, uh, you know, I worked in the game industry as an intern for a long time and um, they've always been a huge part of my life. So, uh, I, uh, able to escape different worlds, um, and really just like live out whatever I'm doing, but that's actually become a time where I bond with all my friends from like high school and stuff. So those are two great hobbies, both, uh, very different one. I literally unplug from the world and the other one you're virtually unplugging. So both, uh, the work good for me mentally.

Nick Clason (08:26):
Yeah. So like, okay, let, let me, uh, push, push a little bit on this. So you are not in Colorado anymore. You are in Chicago, you don't like fly fishing is not a super accessible thing here. So how have you personally kind of dealt with that as like, do you feel like, uh, the, the geography of your, your current occupation is keeping you from being able to access one of your hobbies and how, how are you like dealing with that navigating through that?

Matt Johnson (08:55):
Yeah, that's a, I mean, that's a great question. It has definitely changed the way I do fly fish. So, um, I mean there's a fly fishing community out here, but it's very different than the Colorado community they're fly fishing and ponds and like lakes and stuff.

Nick Clason (09:09):
Yeah. Which

Matt Johnson (09:10):
I mean is totally fine, but I, when I fly fish, I like to stand in the river with my waiters on, let the water rush over me and just be, really be in nature. So I've done that aspect where, okay, I'm gonna, you know, um, go lake fly fishing or whatever. Um, there are a couple streams, you know, you just gotta drive to them. So it definitely though has hindered my, uh, my escapism through fly fishing. So I've had to be a little more creative with how I escape into nature now. And that's been more intentional going to just nature preserves and, you know, um, uh, like just trying my best to escape into the wilderness, how I can here. But as you know, there's not tons of nature around the , so

Nick Clason (10:00):
yeah,

Matt Johnson (10:01):
Yeah. It is definitely a challenge here.

Nick Clason (10:04):
Yeah, no, it's good. I, I think like for me, uh, this is one of things I'm honestly really, really terrible at is having my own hobbies because I, I like my hobby. I do feel like in a lot of ways is being a youth pastor. And so, um, it's funny cuz like, uh, guy used to work for, uh, I would text him like an idea about youth mysteries, like randomly late at night and he was like stop working. And I said, I, I, this is, this is what's fun for me, you know? Uh, but the, to your point, the problem is like if I only ever do that only ever think about that, I don't have anything that's legitimately just for me, you know? Yep. Um, and even like things like I'll go on runs and I'll listen to podcasts and they're typically ministry related podcasts, you know, I have some, I have some that are more hobby related like sports or whatever. Um, and those typically those typically fly to the top of my playlist queue anyway. Uh, so that, that maybe is the way I do it, but yeah, I'm not, I'm not very good at this. So thanks. Thank you for challenging me already this

Matt Johnson (11:10):
Morning. It's my

Nick Clason (11:11):
Goal, man. So all right. Uh, okay, so here's a hack I have. Okay. Um, and I don't know if this is a good strategy or not, especially for like a communications person in your church. Um, it's gonna, it's gonna maybe feel like, uh, not the, maybe the best strategy. Uh, but my phone personally, dude, like it never rings. Yep. Um, I literally have it on mute all the time. in fact I was it yesterday, maybe it was two days ago. I literally lost my phone for like two hours at work. And um, I, I, I retraced all my steps. I couldn't find it. And do you know what everyone's solution was? They said, oh, do you want me to call you which like I have an office phone. Like I would've done this myself. If I thought that this was an option, but I knew it wasn't because even if they call me, it was just going to be silent and, and people are like, oh, but if you're near it, you'll hear it buzz.

Nick Clason (12:13):
No, like not on vibrate, like all the way silent. Like it never, I don't have any notifications come through ever. Um, and so like the only thing that's even like remotely, uh, close to my phone ringing, quote unquote, is, uh, I have a watch. And so like my, my wife, her texts and phone calls, those are the two things that like come through to my watch. Otherwise everything else is essentially muted. And I don't have like email push notifications come through to my phone. Um, the only thing that does come through to my phone or like text messages or whatever. And, and that's part of my, like part of my strategy, because as I've stepped into this place, which has got just more people and more demands and all those types of things, uh, more and more people are looking and kind of vying for your time.

Nick Clason (13:01):
And so instead of the way I, the hack, I guess, and this for me is instead of letting my phone dictate to me when I'm supposed to respond, I, I choose those and I build pockets of those into my schedule, you know? So like it's not that I don't check my email. I check it every single day, multiple times a day, but I don't do it when it dings and comes through to me. Um, and that's also just like for me, a focus, uh, a focus hack as well, because if I'm writing something or doing something and I get a ding or a notification, uh there's there's studies that say like the brain is unable to multitask and is unable to, to go over to one thing and come back to another thing with the same capacity it takes, it takes a gr I don't remember what the exact like numbers are, but it takes a ridiculous amount of time for your brain to shut that back off and go back into, you know, that other thing.

Nick Clason (13:56):
So, uh, I just, I grab my phone and if there's stuff on there that I need to respond to, I do it, but I do so kind of on my own time. So I, I really, I treat text a lot, like how I treat email. Um, because again, they're not, they're not driving me and speaking of driving, uh, sometimes that drives people insane. Um, and so I, you know, I just like, I'm up front with them a little bit and I say, Hey, sorry. I was, you know, doing whatever, cuz it's, it's not that I'm often just being lazy and ignoring it. It's just that for me to be able to focus, I need to not be being distracted. Mm-hmm so,

Matt Johnson (14:31):
Yep. No, I love that. I, uh, I'm the same way I keep my phone on mute too. Um, except for my wife and, uh, setting that up has been a game changer for me personally. And I'm sorry if I miss your calls or it takes me a little bit to get back to you, but if it's super important, give me a call. Like you, it goes to my watch and then I go check my phone and then, um, see what's going on. So

Nick Clason (14:55):
Yeah. Well, and I mean, yesterday I sent you like four messages, um, and they, like, none of them were urgent and they were all just sort of like, um, observations or like funny things or like, oh, did you see this? And you just, you responded to all of them, like in one text, you know? Yep. And I didn't need it. I, I didn't need you to respond. So I was totally fine. Like with the pace with which you replied, I knew eventually you'd get to it. And so I wasn't, you know, I wasn't like worried about it. And so that contrary to popular belief, uh, that is okay. Yes,

Matt Johnson (15:27):
Definitely. And we need to be okay with that as a culture and a society. Um, and we also need to realize that 99% of things that we have think is urgent are not urgent now. Um, that's something I've run into a lot. Uh we're like, we get this out right now. This is super important. And I'm like, well, yeah, let's get it out right now. But the difference between now and, you know, an hour from now, there's no difference actually in communication or, uh, the stress level of that. So, and that's gonna, we have to get out of the tyranny of the urgent. So mm-hmm

Nick Clason (16:02):
yeah. So, so like, let's get super, super practical on this for just two seconds. Cuz so like my wife and I, for whatever reason, the last two churches I've worked at have been like, they've been like the absolute iron curtain for uh, text messages. And so like my phone doesn't really work super well in, in the churches I've worked in. And so my wife and I have just defaulted to using, um, like WhatsApp as a text message service. And so I use that regularly every single day, but really only with my wife. And so that's how I have like custom notifications of hers that come through. But nobody else's. Um, how, how have you set it up where you get text messages alerted to you that are only from your wife and nobody else, like what's the setup for you on your

Matt Johnson (16:48):
Like phone? Yeah. I just I've set her up on iPhone. Like you can start setting people up and you do not disturb as like, um, your favorites or whatever. And that's who she is. I have her and my mom and that's it. And I only have MYM on just cuz you know, whatever craziness could happen back home, I want to be available. But um, and then my wife obviously, cause like I said, she's pregnant, so I gotta be ready at the drop of a whim to make sure, you know, whatever happens happens. So it's been a yeah, it's my wife and obviously she's, you know yeah. My favorite

Nick Clason (17:20):
Even if, even if she's not pregnant. Yeah, yeah. It's it's your wife. So I love that. Cool. Yeah. So like you said, I think that's a really good, I think, I think, uh, we're we are in a little bit of a cultural moment of shifting more to this because I mean asked, think about the other day I grabbed my phone and I was like, dang, there's so many just notifications on here. And like that's what apps have have learned like, oh push notifications are the way to get people's attention. Yeah. But if, you know, I like when I grab my mom's phone, for example, she has 47,000 unread notifications. I'm like, what is the point of this? Like your brain can't physically process all this. So I dunno. Anyway. All right. Hack number two for you.

Matt Johnson (18:01):
Um, so even I'm gonna piggyback off a little bit of your phone stuff. So mine is also with phone and this is really to do with mental health and this is gonna probably sound crazy coming from the, a marketing communications person is I try to avoid social media as much as possible in my free time. Um, yeah. So I try to keep up with social media trends. So maybe at the most I'm on, you know, I'll look at social media an hour at the most, but I try driving a hit an hour, you know, I try to do like maybe 30 minutes, I've deleted most of the apps off my phone. So I actually have to be do my due diligence, like make it part of my work rhythms. Like I'm taking social for work. I'm not checking social to pass time. Um, and I was just realizing that I was just becoming so negative about so many different things, um, that I shouldn't be negative or mad about. Like my sports teams being mad about whatever's going on with them. um, mad about some

Nick Clason (18:57):
Sports are so dumb, man. They get me in such a bad news.

Matt Johnson (19:00):
Exactly. That's like, why am I mad about this? Like I used to love this, uh that's cuz I wasn't on Twitter worried about what other people were saying or worried about what trade was happening or on Reddit, seeing what all the sports, all the people in my fandom, my, um, think, um, seemed with like video games, the bashing of like video games or even the church, like, you know, you would go on Twitter and I can see how people, you know, make, say, say something about the church and it's really easy to get down about that. So I just started like going, you know, this isn't worth it for me mentally. Um, and uh, I'm not gonna waste my time with it. So I deleted a bunch of the apps and I've made it okay, I'm gonna check social for work purposes or um, check it up on family.

Matt Johnson (19:44):
But I, most of my family doesn't even post anymore. We have our group chats and that's kind of, what's become the thing for us to like keep in touch with each other. So if I have a photo of ultrasound or whatever, I don't need to post that on Instagram right away. I just send it over to my group, my family group chat, and I hear all their thoughts and there's only ones I even care about. So, um, yeah, it's definitely weird cuz like the last couple episodes we've talked about how important it is for you to be on social. Um, but yeah, I think it is important to be on social, but you also need to have that balance where social media is not taking over your life. And if you're starting to see it affect it mentally affect you. Like you, you should do something about that. Mm-hmm and you and I were talking yesterday about all the studies that have come out about the effects of social media on the brain, watch the social dilemma on Netflix. Like we don't know, well, we're starting to see the ramifications of social media and we need to have clear boundaries with it. I think personally.

Nick Clason (20:42):
Yeah. I, you know, as a youth pastor we'll post a lot of stuff on social media or whatever, and then like I'll have a mom or dad or whoever a parent say, you know, Hey, our kids don't have social media and I will literally respond with that is great. And I fully support that decision. Exactly. Honestly, I do. Like if, if be, so I feel like being on social media is an opportunity to try and reach a certain demographic of kid. Who's probably not doing anything, um, useful or good with their time on social media and if they have poor boundaries and they're just on it all the time, like then I want us to, to be a part of their feed and part of their algorithm. And so that there is some, some Jesus in there. Right. But otherwise if a parent is parenting in that sort of way, like I support it fully.

Nick Clason (21:29):
And quite frankly, as a dad of a six and a half year old, like I can't imagine giving him social media here in more years or, or 10 or whatever, you know, whatever that's gonna be like. And so I, I think it's, yeah, it feels very like double edged sword. So it's, we're, we're producing things for social media. We're producing things for digital content, but we're not, um, necessarily personally engaging in those things. Mm-hmm , you know, um, ourselves and yeah, I, I agree with you. Like there's been times where, um, I, I feel very, uh, full of anxiety or I'm really like, I notice myself being really short, like with my kids, I have a really short, uh, like just patience level with them. And oftentimes that's a direct correlation to just the amount of time I'm spending on my phone or the amount of time that I'm, you know, worrying about whatever sort of thing I'm and that's, you know, especially in the last couple years, like, uh, at work and stuff, I'll people will talk to me about news, like news things. And I literally am like, oh wait, what's happening. Like I don't watch the news. Like it is not, is not good for my mental health. Just tell me what I need to know and what lit was actually affecting me and the rest. I'm gonna try to not think about cuz that's again, the, the, I think the brain was not meant to process the amount of information that we as Americans have access to on a daily basis basis.

Matt Johnson (22:55):
No, it definitely wasn't. I mean, you just look at the history of the human brain and you see like, this is the only time in culture where we've really ever had to deal with this. So, and why is anxiety, depression and everything so high right now? I mean, it's not all cause of social media, but definitely that's a contributing factor to it. So cause I felt it, you know, I feel it, I get more depressed and anxious like you were saying, so

Nick Clason (23:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, alright, sweet. So, um, alright. So my next one is, uh, it's gonna feel like a little bit of a, a Zig to the zag of this rest conversation uh, but I, uh, gosh, it's been about a year, year and a half or so. Um, but I have made, um, mornings, uh, getting up in the morning with coffee, going, uh, to read my Bible a priority and it's been a thing I've basically not missed for about a year. So I used to, you know, I have, I have young kids, uh, six and four. And so, um, you know, a year ago, year and a half ago when I started there five and three or two or whatever. And uh, I would used to just sleep in, um, until they came and woke me up, which so that there was no sleeping in all right.

Nick Clason (24:09):
But there was a, they were pretty, pretty good. Uh, we have this little like clock thing that turns green when they're allowed to get outta bed. And so that's set for seven. And so they're pretty good about following that. And so I would, I used to lay in bed and sometime after seven they'd come in with their little clock that was green and they'd say, Hey, our clock's green, you know, we get up and I would always feel like I was just running, be behind. Like I was, I'd always just felt like I, uh, was catching up to the rest of my day, the rest of my morning. And so kind of around that, whatever, whatever time, like a year ago or so I was like, I'm gonna get up at six every morning cuz I knew that they're probably gonna get up around seven.

Nick Clason (24:47):
And uh, the way I did it is we have like, uh, uh, Amazon Alexa app, uh, like all of our lights. Uh, so like I have my lights automatically turn on at six down in the dining room and every night before I go to bed, now I program coffee. And so as soon as I wake up, I literally smell coffee and see the lights. Um, those things just helped me get out of bed. the idea of setting an alarm and then getting up and then going down and doing all that stuff. Mm-hmm um, it, it, I just would, at that time I would just mentally cash it in and say whatever I'm asleep in, I'll do it again. I'll do it tomorrow. And so like those few hacks have helped me get up. Um, and then what I do is I get up, I drink coffee and I spend time reading my Bible and that has been one of the most centering and grounding things for me.

Nick Clason (25:37):
And, uh, I was doing it by myself and then a couple months later my wife actually joined me. Um, and so it's been a thing that we'll we'll do together. We'll just both get up. Coffee's going, we each have a cup. We're sitting, uh, at the dining room table, she's reading her Bible, I'm reading my Bible. Um, and we are just connecting ourselves, centering ourselves to our source. Mm-hmm and it's less sleep. Yes, because I'm waking up an hour early. So on the like immediate need of rest, it may feel like it's, it's less right. But as a discipline, now that's woven in to what I do. Um, other things have adjusted to accommodate this because I know how important it is. And so for example, we don't stay up as late because we know we're gonna get up at six, uh, to read our Bible and to drink coffee.

Nick Clason (26:26):
And so maybe we're not watching that next episode when we end one on Netflix instead we'll turn the TV off and you say, all right, what? It's probably time to go to bed, you know, so we can get up. But that has been an absolute game changer for me, uh, just in, in my personal rhythms. And um, if I start my day, that way with a little bit of it's a slower pace, uh, without the kids, um, waking me up outta bed, uh, then, then when they do come outta their rooms and everything like that, I feel like I've done what I need to do. Um, and I'm able to, uh, go after whatever I need to go after that day. Um, as it pertains to work, rest, social media, all those types of things. Like all those things can happen now because my time with Jesus has already taken place. Mm-hmm so that's been a game changer for me develop

Matt Johnson (27:14):
That. I, uh, yep. I do. I do the same thing. So, uh, wake up early and I love reading my Bible in the morning, um, before or after my workout. So

Nick Clason (27:26):
Yeah. Yeah, it's good. And like I said, uh, you know, I, I, I knew myself and so know yourself. Like I knew I needed some prompting to get out bed. And so that's why I learned how to use the programmer on my coffee maker. Um, and I, I recently started roasting my own coffee. And so I, my, the coffee I make at my house is actually my, my, my favorite coffee, you know, there's a really good roaster down the street that a lot of people here like, and I like it too, but I, I think my coffee's better. I think your coffee's better. What

Matt Johnson (27:58):
I'm literally

Nick Clason (28:00):
Well, what I'm literally drinking right now, I roasted at like five 30 last night in my garage. So like, it can't, it cannot get fresh. Exactly. You know? And so there's really, you know, that's maybe another podcast topic, all do

Matt Johnson (28:13):
A coffee roasting podcast.

Nick Clason (28:15):
I love that job. Also people out there it's really easy and it's actually quite cost effective. Very, so, uh, there you go. All right, Matt, your last one, what do you got? So

Matt Johnson (28:26):
My next, my last one, um, this is something that you, I think everyone should be doing is we gotta take care of ourselves physically in some aspect. Um, yeah.

Nick Clason (28:36):
Yeah.

Matt Johnson (28:37):
I, uh, I'm, I love running. Running's a great time for me to, uh, you know, really process and rest and get my endorphins up and think, and also take care of my heart and my body. And it's also, I've noticed as I've worked in ministry, like every year I gain a little bit more weight because, you know, they just get a little crazy. And also as you know, these churches and ministries, they love the things that are bad for you like donuts and, uh, um, as much junk food as they can get chips, mountain do, especially being a youth pastor, all the stuff you deal with, it's really easy to kind of lose sight of your, uh, physical health. But, uh, honestly my favorite thing to do is to swim. Um, I'm a big swimmer. I was a swim in my, with, uh, in high school, very competitively went to, uh, state and stuff.

Matt Johnson (29:27):
So, um, met my wife's swimming. It's like a really big thing in our lives. And, uh, what I love about swimming is waking up at, you know, um, usually very early, like 5:00 AM. going to the pool and it's just, it's like dark out and I'm just in the water, me and my thoughts. Um, mm-hmm and so it's kind of a time of meditation. I'm, you know, weightless, I'm able to really work out, control your breathing cause you have to in swimming, it's this very, um, cathartic thing for me that I've, uh, really grown to love. And it is honestly probably the hardest thing to wake up to. Cause there's nothing like waking up and being cold outside and going. I'm gonna go get in a 72 degree pool and uh, swim for an hour. And, uh, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest. It's been a little bit harder to keep my swimming hobby here in Chicago, because there's just not a lot of pools here, really,

Nick Clason (30:28):
Dude, I know, trust me. So,

Matt Johnson (30:30):
And I'm coming from a world, like when I lived in Colorado where every recreation center had a pool, cuz the pool swimming was just a huge, um, pastime there. So it's been very hard to keep that up here. That's why running has become more of my zeitgeist, but like swimming is that thing where, cuz you can't really have headphones swimming. You can't, you, I mean you have to be in your thoughts, which, um, it's just a weird time, but it's also a time that I've talked to God more than any time in my life is when I swim. So

Nick Clason (31:01):
yeah, it's good. Yeah. Since, you know, like when we moved here, it was middle of pandemic and so like, uh, we canceled our gym membership in Ohio from when we moved and I didn't pick one back up when I got here, obviously cuz there's a pandemic going on and gyms weren't even a thing. And so, uh, I took up running just to get out of the house and I never thought I'd be a runner, but you know, um, I am now and I look forward to it and I enjoy it. And in a lot of the same ways, it's kind of that just cathartic experience for me. Um, a great place to be alone with my thoughts or even just on a podcast and back to your hobby point. Like there are, I listen to a lot of ministry podcasts and so those are in there for sure.

Nick Clason (31:48):
But uh, the ones I most look forward to our, the entertainment ones, ones about sports, basketball, fantasy football, all those types of things. And so that's my, that's my attempt to disconnect, you know, a little bit. And so I agree like man exercise that there's such a, I don't know what I, I think like the landscape is shifting a little bit, like I think millennials and gen Z are, are pushing these things. But I think that there's some, there's been some notions of older generations that are like, oh, I don't have time to do that. Like I just, I need to focus on my work and um, that's just, that's super,

Matt Johnson (32:20):
Very, somewhat healthy.

Nick Clason (32:24):
And, and you like in all of this, right, this entire conversation is woven into like you, you need to be the best version of you to be the most effective at leading some of stuff. And if you're not, you're you're not gonna be very effective. Mm-hmm so find whatever that thing is. And you know, like you, my wife will say like, you know, she's like, she'll struggle to like find time to do it. And I'm like, you, you can't afford not to a little bit, you know, like you gotta, you gotta figure it out. You gotta make it a priority. And so it's, you know, cuz we got kids and so someone's gotta stay with them. And so, you know, I'm like, Hey, like I know this is important for you to do so let me, uh, you know, let's, let's figure it out so that you can have what you need. I can have what I need, all that type of stuff.

Matt Johnson (33:04):
So exactly.

Nick Clason (33:05):
Yeah. All right. Love it. Last one for me then is, uh, this one's work related. Um, but use all of your vacation time that your work gives you.

Nick Clason (33:17):
Like don't leave any on the table. I, there are people who like don't use it all and I, what are you doing that is li PTO stands for paid time off your, your job is telling you that we will pay you. If you take this time off, you have earned this. This is a part of our agreement that we've made with you. You can work here and we will still allow you your paycheck and your salary. If you, uh, take this amount of time off mm-hmm so don't leave any PTO on the table. Like that is a bad, bad strategy. , uh, use it all. And you know, there like our, our, our work lets you like roll some like a, a week's a week's worth into the next year. Um, I never have that to do. Like I literally never have any to roll.

Nick Clason (34:12):
I burn all of it. It is gone. I use it early. I use it often. Like it is, uh, it's it's one of my strategies to staying, uh, you know it, my, I don't know. It's just, for me, life is more than just a job and life is more than just work. And so, uh, use all of your PTO. That is a great way to stay fresh, stay healthy, do the things that are important to you, do the things that matter to you. And even if you're, you know, if you're listening to this and you're in ministry, odds are, you probably are thinking like, okay, but I don't have a lot of money to go on vacation. Then don't go on vacation, just stay home and do fun stuff with your family and your kids. But like, don't like, just because you can't go anywhere else doesn't mean that you should then default into going to work. Like the place will not burn down if you're not there. Yeah. So

Matt Johnson (35:02):
Exactly. And um, my favorite thing is it's kind of a badge of honor with the, uh, lot of older gen the older generation that I know is like, yeah, I have this much PTO. I haven't used my old vice president on marketing. My old job used to have every year he would roll over like 120 hours of PTO. And finally I got to the point where I would tell him, like, you need to take PTO, don't check on me. Like just go on vacation. He was his vacation. So, um, he started doing that and he would take two weeks off a year to just do some carpentry stuff, cuz that was his favorite hobby and it was super healthy for him. So, um, but he hadn't done that, you know, for like 15 years at the company. So take your PTO. I totally agree.

Nick Clason (35:43):
You look, you literally, I mean there are literal studies out there I should have, I should have had 'em to cite 'em a little bit more, but you are not good if you don't have margin baked into your life, like you, your body and your brain need those things to make you more creative. Yep. And it's, you know, in some of those spaces and in some of those margins where your brain will be able to connect some of those dots, you can't just, you can't just hard charge and be eight hours or 12 hours a day with, with no space, you know? Yeah. Some of the, I, I, I dunno if you've ever heard of this map, but uh, I think like Winston Churchill, um, he would take like a nap every single day and he is like one of the most, you know, successful, uh, leaders that we've known in our world.

Nick Clason (36:28):
And he did that because he knew it was good for his brain. Good for that rhythm of rest. And it made him a better leader. Exactly. So, yep. Yeah. So cool. All right guys. Well that is it for today. Uh, just some hacks, some thoughts. Um, again, like we said, your ministry will not be successful if you are not personally healthy a hundred percent. So be personally healthy, put the guardrails, the things that you need into place, um, figure out your rhythms, your hobbies, and the things that, um, work for you and are important to you. And, uh, don't, don't burn out because your church and the world and, uh, people, they, they need what you have to offer and so take care of yourself and uh, those other things will, uh, will be there when you come back. I promise any last parting thoughts.

Matt Johnson (37:21):
I have one thing that I wanted to talk about real quick, about last week's episode that you and I talked about as a correction, uh, we had talked about the TikTok water mark, and I wanted to correct everyone, myself, especially cause you and I talked. And it's something that changed very quickly is if you had that TikTok water, mark Instagram is going to suppress you now. So mm-hmm I wanted to just tell everyone don't do that. We'll have more tips in an upcoming episode about that. but just wanted to get on the record as quick as possible. Hey, we messed up there. Um, pull that. Don't put the water mark on Instagram, so

Nick Clason (38:00):
Yep. That's my fucked box. Yeah. Well, and, and if you listen closely, I was trying to disagree with Matt amicably, uh, live last

Matt Johnson (38:07):
Week. So, and we get into like, I read that article forever ago and I sent it to you and then I changed the article and I hadn't read it and I didn't do my due diligence there. So a lot of good lessons in it, but yep.

Nick Clason (38:19):
Well, and that just goes to show just how quick everything changes. So what, what works today at, you know, quote, unquote time of this recording? Like may not even still be treated yeah. Watch

Matt Johnson (38:28):
Next week the watermark is boosted. So let's just say, who knows?

Nick Clason (38:34):
Yeah. That's why all this is very in lifetime, very important. Like this is, you know, trends now, but especially with social media, I mean, they're always changing their algorithms and uh, you're, you're on borrowed space with them. So you have to play a little bit by their rules. Exactly.

Matt Johnson (38:48):
Yep. So I just wanted to give that correction real quick before we think goodbye to the audience. So.

Nick Clason (38:54):
Cool. All right guys. Appreciate it. Hey, follow us on Twitter. http://www.twitter.com/hybridministry we are online, at http://www.hybridministry.xyz and, uh, give us a subscribe, maybe a rating. That'd be incredible. I share this with a friend and we will talk to you guys next day.

Follow along on twitter - twitter.com/hybridministry

Or find full transcripts and show notes at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TIMECODES
00:00-2:15 Is Digital Discipleship Possible?
2:15-3:47 Aren't people tired of online?
3:47-5:05 Meet Gen Z
5:05-7:55 Are ministry and discipleship the same thing?
7:55-12:08 What does Hybrid Discipleship look like?
12:08-13:45 How can Hybrid not feel like COVID 2.0?
13:45-18:35 How to utilize online content to facilitate spiritual growth?
18:35-25:46 How to repurpose content you already have
25:46-28:20 The danger of ignoring Gen Z and Digital Discipleship
28:20-31:17 How to use your staff to create content
31:18-35:17 What does Gen Z want?
35:17-36:14 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Well, that's why I think it's a definition thing a little bit, right? Yeah. Cause like I said, I do think there's a life on life component of the social. Yeah. So, um, I think it's that's I think it's hybrid, so all right. Let's uh, let's get started. So we don't say all the good stuff before we start recording. Great. Well, everyone, welcome to another episode of hybrid ministry podcast today. I am your host, Nick Clason alongside my friend, Matt Johnson. Good morning, Matt. How you doing mark morning? I'm doing great. How are you, Nick? Good, good. Hey, I wanted to talk today. Um, I just honestly have a conversation wondering is digital discipleship even possible. Um, and so I think that there's gonna be a lot of definitions that we need to kind of clarify, um, in order to have our conversation, but to sort of lay the foundation of this, Matt, there's a statistic out there that you continue to share with me that continues to blow my mind. So would you tell the people about gen Z and their preference of online discipleship?

Matthew Johnson (01:06):
Yeah. So something that we need to be very cognitive of is 51% of gen Z. Wanna do ministry online only

Nick Clason (01:18):
Crazy.

Matthew Johnson (01:20):
So that is the major that is more than half only wanna do online.

Nick Clason (01:27):
Yeah. Which is insane. What, and is there more, when you say online ministry, are there more clarifiers to that? Like what does that mean? What does that look like? Or is that just like a, Hey, would you prefer ministry online or in person? And they just clicked online?

Matthew Johnson (01:43):
Uh, so from my understanding is they were asked you want, would you rather be engaged with ministry only online, partially online or never online and 51% said only online that's and then I don't know, the, the other stat a hundred percent off my top of the head, but it was the other vast majority was hybrid and the in person only was definitely the lowest out of the three.

Nick Clason (02:15):
Yeah. Yeah. Dang. Okay. So here we are as pastors or ministry leaders or whatever, we are trying to navigate this world, this post COVID world, where we feel as though most people were kind of done and kind of tired with the online, the streaming and all that type of stuff. And so we're attempting to return. Um, and then we hear a stat like that, which it feels like it goes against our gut. Yeah. Right. Because we feel like everyone wants to be back. At least that's sort of the notion or everyone's tired of zoom or everyone's tired of streaming church services. So does that just mean that when we say everyone, we're not talking about generation Z in that place, or we're only speaking anecdotally to those that maybe only do wanna return, but we're not having conversations with people that are fine with a online, only version of ministry. Um, like what do you think's what do you think's going on with that? Cause I feel like there's a chance that people hear that and they, they don't believe it or they don't sense that to be true in their context. Um, and that just, it feels like it's an immediate like, well that that's outta touch. That's not real, but this is a, this, this is a recent study, right. This came out a couple months ago. It's not, it's not old. Yeah.

Matthew Johnson (03:34):
This is the most recent metrics. So, um, when people tell me, I don't believe that that's not real, they're going off of their gut and it's cuz we like we've talked about in previous episodes, the, the church has to evolve. Um, and that is a change is terrifying. So when I tell any church leader, Hey, this is what we're seeing. This is what we're hearing. And I need to remind everyone that's listening to this podcast, gen Z is getting older. Gen Z is soon gonna be the adults in your church before you know it. Well,

Nick Clason (04:08):
The, the, the oldest gen Z is like 20, 21, 22 years old now,

Matthew Johnson (04:14):
Right? Yes. So that's what, like, they're just getting older now. So sooner or later they're gonna be the adult con the young adult congregation and your church is gen Z. And like, we need to start reaching them. like,

Nick Clason (04:28):
Yeah. Well, cuz I remember, gosh, like two, three years ago I felt like in this, the podcast space, people were just starting to talk about reaching millennials. Mm-hmm like millennial, like I'm a millennial and I'm in my mid thirties almost. Yep. So like that, that train of like thinking of millennial is a young adult. Like they're not like millennials are, are a, the largest generation and the primary base of our workforce these days. Yeah. Now, you know like, so if, if you're just starting to think about millennials, it's time to just honestly shift that thinking to generation Z. Yep. Cause generation Z and millennials could not be more vastly D

Matthew Johnson (05:05):
Exactly.

Nick Clason (05:07):
So let's, let's talk about, um, what would you say Matt? Let's, let's just kind of create a working definition for the base of this conversation. Um, so 51% of generations you prefers online, only ministry is ministry and discipleship. Are they the same thing? Do you think?

Matthew Johnson (05:29):
I guess it depends on what your definition of discipleship is. Um yeah. Or your definition of ministry so, uh, I think discipleship of ministry could be the same thing, but I think in most churches there have definitely different definitions and pathways.

Nick Clason (05:47):
Yeah. And the goal of every church in some form or function is to fulfill the great commission of Jesus. I hope so. Which is to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of son, holy spirit, and then teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you. Yep. And then Jesus says, I'll be with you always, even to the very end of the age. And so discipleship the, the most basic definition. And I actually like kind of pairing evangelism with it, uh, because I think it takes the edge off of evangelism. So it goes from just hop. Someone says yes, to helping someone take a step closer to Jesus. Yep. Regardless of where they are preconversion post. But I think that helping someone take a step towards Jesus is discipleship, which is what evangelism is, except for. You're trying to have someone do that who maybe wouldn't identify themselves as a follower of Jesus just yet.

Nick Clason (06:43):
So how do you help someone in their discipleship journey to take a step closer to Jesus and can that be done digitally? Yeah. Or what are the ways in which we can Wade into that digitally or more better, right. Yeah. Hybrid. Uh, cuz I do think that if I look back, uh, if I look back on my journey as a follower of Christ, um, almost every pivotal moment, um, that has some sort of, uh, significant growth moment for me. I can tie a face to those time periods. Yeah. Right. Like my high school years, I think about my youth pastor, my college years, I think about my then girlfriend now wife, um, after that different mentors people have I've um, you know, connected with in ministry or other like youth pastors that I've networked with. Yep. And so there's been a very vital and important, um, you know, connection that takes place a human to connection. Uh, and so that feels like it completely opposes the ability for this to be done online. Yeah. So like let's just, let's chat through that. Like how could that be done in a hybrid sort of sense? Yeah. Love it.

Nick Clason (08:05):
So, um, with that in mind, like as I say that, what, what comes to your mind? What are your thoughts? What are your as a marketer? What are your responses to the, to that, you know, maybe opposition that you can't do this discipleship online,

Matthew Johnson (08:18):
Um, I'd say you probably have not strategized or thought about it enough. Um, and the reason I say that is because look at the success of you version, um, just look at the success of life church in General's online platform. so you're telling me that people that ha go to life church online, you know, every week super invested are not being discipled at all. And I'd say that's probably not accurate cuz I know people that have, you know, been saved through life churches, online platform and have done everything fully online with them. Mm-hmm I've also seen people as I worked at, when I worked at dare share and we developed our life in six words that be discipled completely remotely, cuz we had to do it in COVID from, I don't believe in Christ at all to, I believe in Christ to I'm making disciples all on a virtual platform, you just have to be intentional with it. You have to have the right resources, the right content, the right platforms. And uh, I'm not, and I'm not saying get rid of the, you know, the person to person connection at all. I'm just saying you don't necessarily have to do that in person at all.

Nick Clason (09:30):
Yeah. Well, and you can still have a connection with a person without it actually being in person. Exactly. It's gonna, it like to your point, it's gonna take some strategy and it's gonna take some intentionality, but one of the craziest things about me and my story is I started at the church that you and I both work at the first day of C. And so, uh, I, I went into the office for five hours and then I got sent home indefinitely and we live in Chicago. And so COVID is still happening here. Yep. unlike other parts of the country that pretty much blew it off altogether. Right. And so for the first several months I actually joined a small group, um, and met friends that I'm still friends with to this day. Yeah. But I didn't see them in person for almost three or four months.

Nick Clason (10:16):
Yep. And uh, it's actually funny because the leader of that, like I didn't lead it. I just joined a group cuz you know, Amanda, my wife and I like, we're new to this church and we're like, we just need to meet some people. This is the only way to do it right now. And the leader of that group was like, before I met you, I would've said it's impossible to make a relationship with someone virtually. Yeah. But because I only met you in COVID I realized how possible it was like we had, uh, we would do these like zoom groups and they, they were hosted by the church. Um, and so like we were in this, we would all log into the same zoom and then we'd break out into zoom, breakout rooms. Yeah. And then, uh, the, the church sanctioned time would end and our leader would send a second link and we would all jump on our own zoom call after like the church time slot had ended.

Nick Clason (11:08):
Yeah. And I remember one night we were on that zoom until like 11 or 1130 at night. Um, like, and it was supposed to be over at like eight. And so we were, we were all hanging out like just a cuz it's COVID and we were all bored and there's nothing else to do and we all missed humans. Yeah. Right. Um, but that, that's an example. And I think, I think that picture right there is how that could be the case. However, I think because of COVID or the, the triggering effect of even thinking about that again, that's what people are done with. Yep. Like I don't wanna do that again. Yeah. Right. And so even as I propose that, or even give that as an example, I can imagine if you're listening to this on a run or mowing the lawn or whatever, you're like, heck no, dude, I am done with that. That is over like I am out of that world. Yeah. Uh, so how does that exist now in 2022 or beyond? Yeah, because we don't, we don't wanna enter back into that weird world.

Matthew Johnson (12:09):
Yeah. So I think a great, okay. So a great example of how this works and how you can build relationships virtually is video games. So Nick, you know, I'm a pretty avid obvious video game player, the amount of people I know, and that I've met personally that have very deep friendships and they've only met each other on my call of duty so, yeah. Um, and I think it's the intentionality of just keeping those conversations going and you're doing a hobby together that you love and, um, uh, it's also entertaining and it gives you something to look forward to and, you know, it's all the psychological stuff also behind, um, you know, building relationships. So you can definitely make discipleship work virtually or hyperly if you're intentional about it. Um, and it doesn't happen well

Nick Clason (13:02):
In your point. Right. But your point right there was about relationships. So you, you and I just both proved that you can build a relationship. Yep. Digitally. Right. So then the question is, uh, if, if discipleship is super tied to a relationship, if, if that has to be a distinctive of discipleship, then it, it can be done. It just has to be done with intentionality.

Matthew Johnson (13:30):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Nick Clason (13:33):
Yeah. I cut you off. So I was gonna try and let you finish what you were saying. No, but I was trying to make the point that that was, that was, we both proved the relationship. So that's, if we're right again, like if we're saying discipleship has that relationship, then it's possible.

Matthew Johnson (13:45):
Exactly. And then on top of, okay. So if we define discipleship as, okay, I'm having a relationship with somebody and then I'm walking them through their relationship with Christ and I'm teaching them how to share Christ and live Christlike content is usually a huge key part, part of discipleship as you. And I know, I mean the amount of times I've been given a book by a mentor or, you know, mm-hmm, , uh, Hey, check out this ebook or this resource or this white page or whatever it is, this blog about whatever I'm struggling with or whatever I'm like going through in my walk of life. Um, we already know it was all done virtually , so you can get a Kindle book, you can get an electronic book, an ebook, as I said earlier, white pages are all digital now, um, you know, you can send someone a blog through an email or text message. So there's no reason why in my professional opinion that you cannot do discipleship totally virtually, but also in a hybrid approach.

Nick Clason (14:49):
Well, and to your point, right. Content in the great commission, Jesus said, baptizing them, all these things. And they said teaching them to obey everything and teaching, I, I think in my youth pastor opinion, I think sometimes we've made teaching the only component of discipleship and divorced that from some of the relational stuff. But if there's a relation, an established relationship that's already taking place, then that teaching or that mentorship or that whatever that content is, uh, that all can exist digitally. Yep. And I think that the, the unique advantage that we have as pastors and or church leaders is that we're actually already in the content making business. Yeah. You, you said a stat yesterday to me in the office about content marketing. What,

Matthew Johnson (15:48):
What was that? Yeah, so content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing. And it's,

Nick Clason (15:54):
What's an example of traditional marketing,

Matthew Johnson (15:56):
Um, ads, TV commercials, radio commercials, um, billboards. Um, so

Nick Clason (16:05):
62% less cost.

Matthew Johnson (16:07):
Yep. So 62% less cost and it's three times as effective dang. So when you hear that stat, you go, okay. I have a church budget, so I don't have a lot of money. And I also don't wanna run commercials for my church. That's always kinda weird, but, but I could also create, you know, a blog about why discipleship's important and that's gonna be three times as effective anyways, as me putting an advertisement out on Facebook about, Hey, come to our discipleship class. Yeah. Why would you not do that?

Nick Clason (16:43):
Yeah, because at the end of the day, like whether you wanna call it marketing or evangelism or reaching people, like that's ultimately what we're all trying to do. Like this idea of waiting into this hybrid world is because all of us have a desire to help fulfill the great commission of Jesus. And we can walk into that space digitally in free and sometimes cases free borrowed spaces, like, uh, social media platforms or whatever, and create and offer some of this content marketing type stuff and, and reach people with, uh, the teachings of Jesus. Yep. Which, I mean, gosh, man, I have to, I just feel like if the apostle Paul is alive today, like I don't think he would be abandoning the, the means of digital that was available to him. That's available to us now. Yeah. Right. Cause what was he using then he was using paper and pen, which is his way to communicate with churches from a distance.

Matthew Johnson (17:42):
Exactly.

Nick Clason (17:43):
And because he chose to use that medium, we've actually been able to capture those and put those into our Bible and we still use them and learn from them thousands of years later. Yeah. Um, and so had he not used the means available to him then that wouldn't be that wouldn't be even possible for you and I today. And so we can help kind of facilitate that as churches. Like that's part of, we're all, like I said earlier, we are already in the content making business. And when we're in that like laser tunnel vision focus of create a sermon for Sunday morning that's content mm-hmm . So how could we, what are ways that you see that, that could, that kind of stuff could be repurposed, um, or like, Hey, we're church, church budget, limited staff, whatever. How can we repurpose some of this content to offer teaching and discipl ballistic resources for the people that are attending our churches.

Matthew Johnson (18:38):
Yeah, absolutely. So good, easy thing you can do is you take your sermon, you find main topics that you guys like to talk about. So let's, as an example, let's say anxiety, depression, love, and, um, hope like let's say we had those four topics that we're thinking of as a category of shareable content. Cause we know people are searching for those four things. And then, um, take your hour or 30 minute sermon, find a two minute clip that talks about love, cut that out, make that part of your love category, your anxiety, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now I have content that's based off of these four topics that people are searching for. And that we know people are struggling with. I have short form content, you know, minute and a half, two minutes, maybe even less that I can share with people. And I can repurpose all that content on all our social media.

Matthew Johnson (19:31):
So you can start with YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, um, and even take the audio of the entire sermon and make a podcast with it. Now you have five content channels that you're putting content onto that is targeted towards people that are looking for certain topics. And what that does is now you've created your digital platform. You're building trust with your congregation. You're also reaching people that are not being reached and it's all done by stuff you've already written and you're planning on presenting to your congregation. So it's not really extra work other than you have to slice and splice everything that you've got.

Nick Clason (20:14):
So like, is there, um, would you then say, even if you took that the audio of a sermon or something like that, uh, would there be value in taking that audio to a place like rev.com, getting it transcribed for a few bucks? Um, and then you could post the actual, uh, words like the actual, the it'd be an entire manuscript essentially of your sermon, um, on your website and then that would add to increased searchability.

Matthew Johnson (20:45):
Absolutely. Yeah. Right. All words are now search terms on your website that you just added for your sermon mm-hmm and rev, you know, uh, I don't know a little cost of rev, but I know a lot of the cost of these are like 80 cents a minute. So doesn't usually cost that much.

Nick Clason (21:02):
Yeah. And rev is, cheaper's like 50 cents, if you do like the, the bot one I'll see. Great. Yeah. You know, so it's got some, yeah, it's got some errors that you'll get with it. Right. But the fact of the matter is like it it's still gonna produce most of your words or if you're already a manuscript style, preacher, just copy and paste that.

Matthew Johnson (21:18):
Yeah. And make that downloadable. And also now you have another piece of content where here's the host note or here's the pastor notes from the week. So , mm-hmm,

Nick Clason (21:27):
mm-hmm yeah. And you can do that. Uh, like, so one of the things that, that we were doing in our student ministry is we had a weekly, um, weekly, like YouTube show that we created, which sounds so crazy. And so not to get caught up in the weeds of that, cuz you might be thinking like, what the heck are you talking about but we basically had have like decentralized small groups. Um, and so, uh, we would use a video and we created just a show out of it. We'd use a video to, to supply the content for our groups that are meeting in living rooms or on campus or whatever, all throughout the week, every week had a theme. And then of course every week had a teaching topic. And so what I would do as a social media person on our student team was I'd look at the week from Sunday to Sunday.

Nick Clason (22:13):
And I would just do all kinds of different stuff that was both promoting and talking about the theme. So if it was like sports week, we'd do like sports trivia stuff like on Instagram stories. And that would help sort of like remind what the theme is or whatever. But then once, once the show dropped on Wednesday, we would use, uh, pieces and clips of that content that would be on like Instagram reels or TikTok. Um, we would have recaps, we would have like photo recaps, like all kinds of stuff. Right? So like you can almost do that same thing with like a Sunday morning experience. If you're in a sermon series on the fruit of the spirit and this week was the love week mm-hmm you can, you can splice all that stuff up into every day, a recap of the sermon or something like that. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, um, you're posting the audio, you're posting the manuscript. You're putting all that stuff out on your website and all of that is just repurposing content. Exactly. So if you're, if, if I'm a pastor and I'm hearing this strategy, my, my rebuttal to that would be okay, but like my people already heard that on Sunday morning. So all is all of this. Just gonna be like a retread of that information. Like don't they want new content.

Matthew Johnson (23:30):
No um, some people are gonna want new content, but I will. Okay. I'll challenge. I would challenge you. Okay. Ask your congregation after you're done. What did, give me remember everything I just said or what you also get is I get this a lot in our comments and on, uh, talking to people when we're at church, what was that thing that, um, PT said again there, um, it was so good. Like see that's the content. And if I post that, it becomes shareable. They'll share it with their friends. Mm-hmm and that's the whole goal is you want people to spread the word of who you are. Yeah. And the best way to do that. Who Jesus. Yes. Who Jesus is. So the best way to do that is to use the content that you're creating that is shareable. Um, and that's just gonna spread the word and it doesn't matter if they've heard it already, if it's already shareable and especially if it was it powerful, cuz they're gonna share it again and they're gonna like it again. And mm-hmm, also in four weeks, they're gonna forget so

Nick Clason (24:32):
Well. And, and you know, again, think about this. We talked about this in our last podcast, but you version, what if you were doing like a series through the fruit of the spirit and like on Monday or Sunday at church or something, you're like, Hey, let's all read this you version, plan on love and scan this QR code or whatever. And as a church, let's read it together. Let's comment on it together. Let's build one another up and then let's come back next week and we'll do the joy week, you know, or whatever, whatever that is. And so even in that, you can make whatever you are that that's unique, different custom content. It's under the same like umbrella topic. Right. But then you can, so if you were at church on Sunday and you are one of those faithful people that is at church four weeks a month, uh, which is definitely out of the norm, there are ways to make it where it's not just so repeatable.

Nick Clason (25:26):
Yeah. But you're right. People, people forget. So, so if, despite, despite what we think, right? Like despite if we agree or disagree that, that discipleship online discipleship in a hybrid world is even possible. It's what generation Z is looking for and asking for mm-hmm and to your point, they are, uh, they're here. Yep. You know, they are, they're graduating college now and they're the type of people that you're going, that your church is gonna be looking to reach one day or another. Because if we don't, if we don't, they will not be in our church in a couple of years, if we choose to ignore reaching them. And that's a terrifying thought. But the fact of the matter is if we don't start catering some of what we're doing to the generation that's up and coming, they will, they will choose to not be a part of our churches anymore.

Matthew Johnson (26:22):
Yep. Yeah. And something we also gotta remember is they're gonna be having kids. They're gonna raise their kids, not in the church and then their kids raise their kids, not a church. So it's just going to be this ripple effect that we definitely need to get ahead of and start thinking about. And we also know that seven, I think it's, what is it? Seven outta of 10 people come to Christ before the age of 18. So yeah.

Nick Clason (26:48):
Yeah. That, that stat alone is why I'm a youth pastor.

Matthew Johnson (26:50):
So yeah. So like, you know that we have to reach them where they are when they're young and we need to reach them because they are getting old so mm-hmm

Nick Clason (27:00):
And I think the terrifying thing in all of this is that it's breaking down our standard archetype of what church has looked like and what, what, uh, I don't know what we're used to and, and how we staff. Yes. You know, like we staff to produce and program a weekly service. And so talking about what we're talking about really changes the game.

Matthew Johnson (27:31):
Yep.

Nick Clason (27:33):
Like it really, it's a completely different, um, it's a completely different look. Exactly. And, and no one's really doing that. You know, there's not really a good model out there. And to, to your point, one of your favorite things is the church tends to lag behind about 10 years and so marketers are already on this content marketing thing and churches are just now starting to, starting to think about it and talk about it. Yeah. And so what are the, like, you know, you're, you're in charge of marketing and our church. What, what are the types of things that you need on a marketing team or the types of pieces of content that you'd be looking for in order to, to do something like this in order to run this sort of like model that you're looking for, um, in a, in a effective way, because like I said, I think it's a little bit where it's gonna require us to redeploy some of our, our current resources, you know, including staff and, and dollars and hours spent on certain tasks or whatever.

Matthew Johnson (28:31):
Yeah. So all the video content we've talked about is something that I think everyone should start doing right now. And it's just great content in general. Um, on top of that, so I'll give a more advanced example of something we just did, which was, we decided that we wanted to create an ebook for our community. That was a 101 re 101 things to do with your kids this summer. And Nick, you were a huge part of creating the ebook, um, with like writing the content and everything. And the whole point of this ebook was to reach out to the community and give them a bunch of ideas of stuff. They can go out and enjoy this summer. Mm-hmm, all through all the different neighborhoods and communities around us. Now that ebook did way better than I ever expected it to. Um, I knew it would do well cause eBooks tend to do well, but people were starving for this kind of content. So we had over a thousand downloads in two weeks with over 400 of those being brand new people that don't go to our church. so that's crazy. Um,

Nick Clason (29:37):
So let's, let's talk real fast. Okay. I don't wanna, I don't wanna like out outprice anyone or anything like that, but like how much you said it, it was 39 cents.

Matthew Johnson (29:47):
Yeah. 39 cents

Nick Clason (29:48):
Per, per click or something like that

Matthew Johnson (29:49):
Per conversion. So it was 39 cents per person to download the ebook.

Nick Clason (29:54):
So then what did we, do? You know what we paid in that in totality?

Matthew Johnson (29:58):
Yeah. So we paid about, um, total with both ads that we ran about $600 and that was, um, two different ads. One was a lead gen ad, which was 39 cents. And one was an awareness ad, which that's a whole different ball game we can get in, in a different conversation.

Nick Clason (30:17):
Sure, sure. But I'm just saying, cuz you know, you say something like that, like that has over a thousand downloads. I, I would imagine most PS are salivating mm-hmm after something like that. Yep. Right. Um, and so, and it's not like $600 might sound expensive, but in the land of Facebook marketing, you're saying that's one of the cheapest conversions you've ever seen.

Matthew Johnson (30:37):
Oh yeah. Absolutely. If I'm under $4 on a conversion, I'm usually happy so when I've hitting since of a conversion, I'm ecstatic. Um, and on top of that, like the, we saw the ebook directly correlate to probably a higher number in our vacation Bible school this year. So cause we add vacation, we added our vacation Bible school and the ebook is something we can do this year. And we had our biggest vacation Bible school since COVID and maybe ever in the history of the church. So mm-hmm

Nick Clason (31:09):
so that's a, that's a thing that's easy that you can do for families. Yeah. I'm like, Hey, here's something to do for your kids. What does gen Z want?

Matthew Johnson (31:20):
Oh, that's a good question.

Matthew Johnson (31:23):
Fin Z wants spiritual content that entertains them. Um, you and I know that gen Z is asking some of the deepest questions I've ever heard spiritually. They do not stray away from hard conversations at all. Mm-hmm like some of the stuff I get asked by gen Z, I would've never asked in my entire life to my youth pastor or to any mentor I had and they just blatantly come out and ask it and they also want to be entertained. Mm-hmm what I mean by that is it's not like you need to be this clown delivering your content. Um, what I mean,

Nick Clason (32:07):
No, I, I would even argue as like student pastors, like that day of the, the gregarious, like attractional, I'm gonna swallow a goldfish. Yeah. Like that's kind of a turn off to

Matthew Johnson (32:19):
JY now. It is. Yeah. When I say entertain, I mean like tell the content, well, be communicated, be open. Just tell a good story. As you're talking through this and not like, Hey, this is a story, but like the story structure and we should do a whole episode on what I'm talking about when we talk about that. Um yeah. But would, uh, so content that, and then do that content that's short, short form and usually video. So the more video content you can create for them that is geared towards their heavy questions. Like don't stray away from answering some of the hard questions that, you know, might politically arise either side of the aisle, you know, that's okay. Cause those are the questions they're asking and you need to give them biblical truth when it comes to that. So,

Nick Clason (33:10):
And that's, that's scary to do as a church to create a video. Yeah. And, and put that out there. Yeah. Cause you, it does become a little polarizing.

Matthew Johnson (33:17):
Yeah. And you have to obviously weigh in on, um, way the pros and cons of like releasing that content. But I will also argue that if you have a bunch of like negative comments or negative, like pushback from a video, you need to like stray into that. And we've seen that companies that weigh into the negative and reply to negative comments have a higher trust value with their consumer base.

Nick Clason (33:46):
Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. It's actually, it's, it's interesting that you say that, cuz just recently, um, we got, uh, like our curriculum for our student ministry. Yeah. And one of the series was like called how to friend. Um, and that's what we were gonna launch our like small group cycle with. Yeah. And in our discussion I was like, Hey guys, like, I'm fine with that. I think that's a good, a good like thing to talk about. But I came across this study, um, on like mental health, um, from, from some friends of mine that work at a church here in Chicago that called the chapel. Um, and so I was like, you know, I, I think that might be a little more, uh, what we should talk about or what maybe our students are needing to hear than another series about how to be a good friend.

Nick Clason (34:35):
Yeah. And I think a lot of times that's sort of the approach we take in student ministry or in ministry in general is like, Hey, here's a, here's a series on, on how to display love. Yeah. Like, yeah. That's yes, that's important, but you're right. Like they're, they, they already want to love, they're one of the most inclusive generations that we've ever seen in our entire lives. And so if that's the case, like we, we like, we don't need to, we don't need to Wade into that. We need to Wade into the, the mental health conversation. We need to Wade into the gender conversation. We need to wait into the fill in the blank. The stuff that really matters. Not that, or at least it really matters to

Matthew Johnson (35:15):
Them. Yes, exactly.

Nick Clason (35:17):
So, yeah. Yeah, man. Well, this was a great conversation again. Appreciate your time. Appreciate everyone listening. Any last final thoughts Matt, as we, uh, wrap this conversation up.

Matthew Johnson (35:29):
Yeah. I would, uh, challenge. Whoever's listening to this to go create one piece of digital content. This, if that's a blog, a new, a one off video, whatever that looks like and figure out how to deliver that to your people.

Nick Clason (35:46):
Yeah. That's good. That's a good challenge. All right, everyone. Appreciate you listening, please. Please give us a little subscribe a rating. If you found this helpful share with friend on or online, appreciate you guys and.

Follow along on twitter - twitter.com/hybridministry

Or find full transcripts and show notes at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

FREE SOCIAL MEDIA CHECKLIST
Would you like the FREE Social Media Posting Checklist we created for this episode?
Click here to download now!

TIMECODES
00:00-01:15 Announcement and FREE giveaway
01:15-5:26 The New Normal of Church
5:26-13:03 Best Church Website Practices
13:03-15:55 Should our Church get an app?
15:55-20:00 How can our church use YouVersion?
20:00-24:57 Facebook best practices
24:57-29:38 Instagram best practices
29:38-32:00 TikTok best practices
32:00-34:42 How about Discord?
34:42-36:51 Texting Best Practices
36:52-38:13 Outro and Conclusion

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Think that they were gonna, uh, keep it going. I thought that I thought that was gonna be it.

Matthew Johnson (00:07):
Yeah. That one more season left.

Nick Clason (00:09):
Yeah. So it like when they did, which it's like the first season that they've never resolved, you know? Yep.

Matthew Johnson (00:15):
They said like, it was the first time they've never done that, so

Nick Clason (00:18):
Yeah. Well, Hey everybody. Welcome back to, uh, hybrid ministry, the podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason alongside my good friend. Matt Johnson. How you doing this morning, Matt?

Matthew Johnson (00:34):
Doing good, man. I can't complain got a cup of coffee and uh, it's a beautiful Friday morning.

Nick Clason (00:39):
Yeah, we're ready to roll. You know, what's so fun. Uh we were in a meeting yesterday about this exact topic, like in our, in our church talking about the new normal of church, you know, a little bit. Um, yeah, which I think is, is interesting cuz uh, I can't remember how you said it, man. It was so good. You were saying like the way that we've done church for so long, it, it has to shift and it has to shift into a hybrid type of world. What, like what do you mean by that? What did you, what were, what were kind of your like thoughts going into that statement?

Matthew Johnson (01:16):
Yeah, so we, the church as a whole has had two main philosophies over the last, let's just say 60 years, it's gone back obviously much further than that, but uh, here it's been straight to seat. What I mean by that it's like find someone on the street, they can come to church and they can take a seat in for Sunday service. And then probably since the internet age, I'd say probably in the last 15 years, maybe 20, I, that might be pushing it, let's say 15 to 10. Cause the church is, um, always a little bit on the back. End of everything is sight to see. And, um, what that means is like, Hey, you come to our website and then you can come to our church, but now we're in this new world, which what the heck is next for us. like, uh, what is, what is post COVID look like? What does this hybrid approach? And we know the church has to evolve in some fashion just based off of where technology is going. No matter how much we all say that we hate technology, this is the world we live in now. So that's really what I've been, just trying to figure out like where should we evolve?

Nick Clason (02:29):
Yeah. And I like, one of the best examples I ever heard of, of hybrid was like a department store. Um, I was, and, and I, it came to fruition for me a couple weeks ago and I was walking through, Lowe's like physically walking through the Lowe's department store. I was in person, all the things, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. And so as a typical millennial, instead of stopping and asking an associate where to find the thing, I downloaded the Lowe's app on my phone, searched it. And it told me exactly where to go. Um, yep. And so I used a digital tool in a physical environment and I think that's sort of what we're talking about is this, this hybrid approach. And I don't think either one of us is necessarily advocating for getting rid of everything. That's why I really like this word, this word hybrid, because it's, it's not either or it's both and

Matthew Johnson (03:27):
Exactly. Yep. And

Nick Clason (03:29):
So that's, that's what I wanna talk about today is what, what specifically can we do? Like let's get nitty gritty, get down to some of the, like specifics of some of these platforms and some of these best practices. And I think, you know, just shooting straight, like we have ideas and we have data to back up some of this stuff, but we don't have all the answers. And, and I don't think any church is really hitting it, you know, bating a thousand and hitting all these things a hundred percent outta the park either, you know? So like, yeah, same is true for us. So these are just things in our brains that are rattling around and things we wanna, you know, kind of try where we wanna start. So.

Matthew Johnson (04:09):
Yep. Absolutely.

Nick Clason (04:10):
All right. So let's just talk through like, um, LA on episode one, we talked a little bit about this. Um, but like if, if you have nothing, you know, um, is the best place to start, Matt, would you say like a website, like getting your own, your own domain, your own place that, that you own, that you're not on like borrowed social media space or anything like that, your own website, is that the best place to start? And then if so, um, what do you like, what are some best practices as it pertains to web these days?

Matthew Johnson (04:44):
Yeah, so I would say the best website could be one of the best places to start. Uh, I'm not gonna say it's like a blanket statement. Like everyone should start there, but I will say if you don't have a website and you have the means and, um, energy to make the website, you definitely need to get on that. And, uh, websites are so easy to make right now if you like square space and WICS, you need even WordPress plugins, like Elementor, um, make building a website very easy where you don't need to hire developers and have a huge upfront cost anymore. Um, your website, like we're saying earlier in the episode is, was originally like this, you visit our site and then you come to the church mm-hmm so site to see, um, it was more of probably a front porch approach, um, to the church, uh, as in, okay, I'm, I've entered into your fray and now I'm gonna come all the way in your house.

Matthew Johnson (05:51):
Yeah. The website now can function as multiple. And the first thing it's gonna function through for is I I'll call it your window. Um, and that's the sense that I'm just viewing in to what your church holds. And then I will decide just from the viewing in, if I even want to attend online, if I wanna check out your social, if I want to check out your campus. Um, so those are all the questions that you're your first time person is gonna be faced with. Um, especially as you're trying to reach lost people, the more approachable your website is the better because you want people to not feel intimidated to come check you out. So when I think of a website, the first thing I always tell everybody is 90% of what you wanna put on your website. You don't need to put on your website.

Matthew Johnson (06:46):
um, the reason I say that is cuz everyone thinks they just need to put everything in the kitchen sink on their website. Um, and Donald Miller who, uh, is just kind of become a marketing guru, um, has really coined this term of like story branding, your website, story, story, branding in general, your, um, your church, whatever your company is. But I always love his idea of the website, which is a lot of the junk that you put on your website belongs to the junk or on your website. Hmm. So what that means is like, it all be, you can put it on your website, but it should not be easily accessible and it should be at the bottom of the website where if you wanna find it, you can find it, but that's not what you're trying, you're there for. So when you go to someone's website, the first thing I should see is what you want me to do.

Matthew Johnson (07:38):
Um, and that's going to vary church church. So, uh, at our church it's uh, Hey, attend online right now or, um, here's the church services mm-hmm um, is that the best course of action? I don't know. Um, there's a lot of philosophies, uh, and really you should only have one decision. So if you're whole idea says hyper approach, I would just say a 10 0 9 should be your first call to action. If you had that capability mm-hmm so you gotta simplify your website, get rid of the junk on your website and then make your website purposeful. So what are you trying to tell people as they learn about you? Like I said, your window, it's like a window shopping. So it is really easy, Nick, for you or I to go and Google type in Christian Church near me and find probably 50 churches within 20 miles of us.

Matthew Johnson (08:39):
Mm-hmm and we can go and look at all these churches, all their beliefs, who they are, where they're at, what they're teaching and we can window shop used to not be like that. You used to have to go into church or the window shopping was more, oh, these people have this service time, so I'll go check them out. now I can see everything about you. Uh, I can see everything your pastor has probably ever said. So you need to be very cognitive of that as you're building out your window, your website on what is it that you're trying to communicate about you about your church?

Nick Clason (09:16):
Yeah. And then like the, the, the nerdier you get into that, right. There's things like search engine optimization, words and titling and, and things like that. That you're also gonna want to start to explore at least get a handle on as you're building those things out. Right?

Matthew Johnson (09:34):
Yeah, absolutely. So then you can start once you define what you want your website to be, you can really get nitty gritty with, um, how we're gonna title everything and how you're gonna lay it all out. Um, what the proper course of action is, how you leading me to those calls to action. That's all super important stuff that you'll like, like a story brand is a great option to kinda learn how to do that. Um, but also just being able to like use Google trends, you just go to Google trends.com. You can type in like words that people are searching. And if you really wanna start like investing in some stuff, you can look at like SCM rush or href, which are both about a hundred dollars a month where you can actually look up search terms that people are using for your website specifically, and also what Google is weighing highest.

Matthew Johnson (10:27):
Hmm. Um, and what that's gonna do is, uh, if you, if you're like, okay, we're at the point that our church is growing, but we want to grow more and we want to reach new people. That's your best option to do that? Cause Google it, it's wild to think about what Google did. So, um, back in the days of when Yahoo was around, Yahoo was literally ran by librarians. Like you had a room full of librarians that would archive pages. So you'd go to Yahoo, you type in, um, churches near me or whatever, or, uh, um, looking for, you know, a Christian sermon. And it's only what the librarians have gotten through and archived. Um, that's to obviously change now, but that was back in the early days of the internet. And then Google came around and said, Hey, we're gonna make this automated through search terms through our search engine. And those will be weighed differently. And, uh, algorithm is constantly changing. So the best way for you to find out, to get more recognition is for you to find out what people in your area are looking for. Um, and then just make your website, your content targeted towards them.

Nick Clason (11:41):
Hmm. Yeah. Okay. So, so that's website, um, let's talk about app apps. Yep. So, you know, like if you and I are using our cell phones, most of us are interacting with people on our cell phones, through various apps. And so do you think that that's a platform worth looking into worth investing in for a church? I mean, it's, it feels like it would be a pretty hefty cost. And then, you know, if it's not a hefty cost, that means that you're probably getting a pretty basic, uh, service from a company that your app is gonna look, um, much like any of the other apps that are out there. And, uh, it's gonna look, it's gonna be very similar to, to your church's website. So couldn't, we just use a very like phone friendly, mobile friendly website. That's gonna, that's gonna play well on people's cell phones, as opposed to trying to get them to adopt an entire app or like, talk, talk me through this. What, what should we do with that? Should we do anything with that?

Matthew Johnson (12:45):
Yeah. Great, great question. So, um,

Matthew Johnson (12:52):
Yes, I will say the best course of Ash action is to just make, um, a mobile friendly website. Uh, so yeah, my professional opinion, the app should really be an interactive way to engage with your church, your congregation, your content, whatever it looks like. So it's not a front porch anymore. Like you're involved, like you're, I want people to come to our church and download our app so they can be as directly tied with everything we have going on. Hmm. But that's not for the wide people. So I'm not going out to people on Google or on our Facebook pages and going, Hey, download our app when I'm just trying to get them to come check out who we are like, that is, that's a deeper step. Like I'm asking you to put me on your phone forever. Mm-hmm I would say, yeah, mobile friendly website is the best place to start.

Matthew Johnson (13:55):
Then let's say you are a larger church and you're really trying to figure out what's next for your digital platform and what you should do online. Then I think the app is a great course of action of different things you can do on it that are not what your website does. mm-hmm so that's the key. The app cannot just be an extension of your website. Just have a mobile website at that point. Like your app should be, Hey, this is where all our small groups are facilitated at. Hey, this is, has a interactive map for us or, Hey, this is where all our content is. Or we do our prayer studies and there are Bible studies that'ss own world that is not directly correlated to your website.

Nick Clason (14:36):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh, so moving on this, one's one of my favorites. I'm not sure if I've optimized it yet, but as a youth pastor, this is one of the things I love to try and, uh, both create, uh, but also challenge our like small group leaders and students to participate in. Uh, it's the U version Bible app, you know, they have a, they've built in some kind of social media components to it recently. Um, and one of my favorite things to do, and it was a thing that, you know, I, I think, uh, really came to a height during the pandemic and stuff was reading like devotional plans together. And I thought that was a great way to, to do spiritual practice in the other, um, hours of the week that weren't like our programming time for like small groups to do together, whatever, uh, obviously, you know, like the people at life church, they're the ones that put you version together and are continuing to run it and everything. Uh, are there any things that we can do as a church to optimize those better? Um, or, you know, think about them creatively to, uh, get our people to be en engaging with the Bible, uh, in that way, through that platform.

Matthew Johnson (15:54):
Yeah, absolutely. I love you version and what the team at life church has been able to kinda accomplish with that platform. Um, I think a great use of your version is finding content that is relevant to whatever you have going on in your church or as you, and I know if you wanna start getting, you know, a little crazier developing content for you version. So, um, both are great avenues, but I would just start with curating content on new version that it can actually facilitate conversations and you can create prayer request in it and, uh, um, be going through studies together. And it's just a good way to nurture and continue to have people think about your church other than on a Sunday. Yeah. And that's a big key of everything we're talking about is how do we get people to, you know, be engaged with church with your church, not more than one day a week, and as we know, more than one day a month, so,

Nick Clason (17:00):
Right. Yeah. Yeah. That, and that's interesting that you say that whole thing about, uh, once a month, that is, that's what we're seeing, right? One in every four, uh, an average attender or an engaged attender is attending one in every four weeks, which to your point is what you're saying is one, one once a month, which is why I think this hybrid approach is so like important. Like it's such an important thing because if we are only discipling people on the weeks that they attend church, that's 12 times a year, 12 hours a year, there is nothing in my life that I care about that I'm only giving 12 hours a year to yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so if faith is important and faith matters, it needs to happen more often. And yeah, like all of this right is an ownership step that we need to try and help facilitate for those people that are attending our church.

Nick Clason (18:00):
But the reality is is that you and I, as people who work at churches, uh, we've only made that priority a thing that we do once a week for our weekend services, you know, and we're just trying to, to challenge everyone to think outside of that box. Exactly. And to say, okay, great. Like we're already doing that. We're not throwing that baby out with the bath water, but what are the other ways in which we can disciple our people through the means and the, the avenues that they're already using through their cell phones and through online and through digital. So I think in a, in most cases now I wanna talk social media for a minute because in most cases, I think when people come to this idea of hybrid or digital, that's the first thing, right. That comes to everyone's brain is like, oh, so you're Spanish again, social media. Um, and that's true to an extent. Um, and so let's talk through some social platform. So the first one is, is Facebook, what is best practice on Facebook?

Matthew Johnson (19:04):
So Facebook you're gonna be reaching people that are probably 35 and older mm-hmm , um, usually, um, it's actually probably even older now it's more in your forties or older. So if your congregation's a little bit older, like that's a great platform to start navigating on. And what the real big use of Facebook I can see now is the Facebook groups, which we had talked about. Mm-hmm , um, in a earlier, earlier episode. Um, but really just getting some Facebook's groups going that you can actually create community that have people interacting with each other, and it's not a sole reliance on you. Um, also we just know Facebook has some massive plans with, you know, becoming meta and what web three looks like. So I just think it's always gonna be a part of our Zeki, no matter what. Um, and I think it's gonna probably morph into more of this web three platform, which then you start getting crazy with like virtual reality and, you know, the metaverse and stuff. But I, I would not worry about that yet. Um, I would just stick to, let's create some Facebook groups. Let's do, uh, let's have a strategy behind when we're posting content and why we post content. Um, I always say start with the why of what you're doing. Um, and if you're just using Facebook to promote stuff, stop doing that. ,

Nick Clason (20:30):

Matthew Johnson (20:31):
Just, let's be, uh, more creative and cognitive, uh, what people want and promotional stuff is just gonna fall in deaf ears. So, uh,

Nick Clason (20:40):
So let's, let's, let's actually talk about that for just a second, because I think that's, that is a, a standard default for a lot of churches is, um, just create, uh, like it is, it has like another billboard or another avenue to announce your things. Um, so if you're not, if we're in the event business as a church a little bit, like, you know, it's not events more spiritual than an event, but yeah. Like we're hosting an in person thing, uh, that feels a lot like an event. What are we, what should we be doing then on social media, on Facebook, if we're not posting it as events, what are things that we can be putting on there that people are actually gonna want to engage with?

Matthew Johnson (21:23):
Yeah. Great question. So this is something I've been wrestling with, um, from the marketing world for the last few weeks, actually. So I think we, as people that are communicating, we, uh, we need to get away from the industrial realistic nature of marketing. So what I mean by that is we're trading like everyone, like their cog and this machine of communication. Um, when we know every single person is unique and different. So what is the content that people are gonna engage with? Well, the biggest content that anyone will engage with is story based content mm-hmm . So tell the stories of the people at your church. Hmm. Tell the stories of what your church has been doing for your community. Not about, um, it doesn't only have to be about, Hey, join us Sunday, but like share when you guys are going to the food pantries and serving share when you guys are having block parties and, uh, the life change that people will experience at your church because we know that's what people wanna be involved with. We know that isolation, loneliness, and anxieties at an all time high and that people are searching for community mm-hmm and relationships. So share those stories and you're gonna get a lot more engagement than just, Hey, join us Sunday, or Hey, check out this worship that we did. Um, yeah. That stuff is fine, but that should not be the only thing you do.

Nick Clason (22:52):
Yeah. I think, uh, I mean, think about this, right? Like why do you get on social media? Like mm-hmm, I get on social media to be entertained, uh, to laugh or, you know, maybe to be inspired. Yeah. But I don't get on there to learn about events. Yep. Almost, almost never.

Matthew Johnson (23:11):
Exactly.

Nick Clason (23:12):
And so, you know, and I think, you know, we're gonna get to in a second talking about TikTok and Instagram, uh, but I think that's Mo that's where a lot of people are kind of going to, you know, it's like that short form video content, cuz it's, it's funny, you know, that's that's I, when I share something, I share something that's funny, you know, exactly. Or maybe a little bit inspirational, but for the most part, something that I think is funny so let's, let's move that way then. So let's talk about Instagram. Um, Instagram is obviously owned by MEA, which is owned, which is the parent company of Facebook and all that stuff. So should your Instagram strategy be similar to that of Facebook? Should it be identical to that of Facebook? Because you can do that right. Where you can post on Instagram and duplicate that exact same content over to your Facebook page. Um, is that the best practice for Instagram right now? Or what are you seeing out there?

Matthew Johnson (24:04):
No, so you definitely can just, you know, post straight from Instagram to Facebook, that's the easy way out, but you'll probably see one of your platforms as doing better than the other. And the reason is, is cuz it's drastically different demographics on both platforms. Like I said, Facebook is older, you're gonna have, let's just say 40 and up Instagram is gonna be your millennial. Yeah. They're starting to get weary on the, on just the Instagram algorithm. Um, so people are using Instagram. They're not liking as much, they're scrolling more. Um, so that is, uh, something you also be need to be cognitive of. So really your Instagram content should just be strong piffy storytelling content that is meant to either entertain or make me feel. And honestly the win on Instagram right now is short form video.

Nick Clason (24:58):
Yeah. And that's very TikTok adjacent, correct?

Matthew Johnson (25:03):
Yep. Yep.

Nick Clason (25:04):
So what's so is there best practice then on if you're posting content to TikTok that's a minute or under 30 seconds or under, should you also then be posting that same thing on Instagram reels should or should those be individual pieces of content?

Matthew Johnson (25:22):
So right now, as we're recording this, I would say post your TikTok content on Instagram with your TikTok watermark on Instagram, cuz the TikTok demographic is gonna be your 18 to 25, 18 to 30 year olds. So you are still hitting a very similar demographic. Um, and you can kind of kill two birds with one stone. Uh, but TikTok should be your more entertaining, fun stuff. Um, I will say it's pretty hard to go viral inspirational on TikTok. It's a lot easy to go viral on Instagram with uh, inspirational. So, Hmm.

Nick Clason (25:59):
So that's interesting that you say that before we, before we jump straight to TikTok, um, Instagram feed posts, Instagram story posts. Are there still value in those or are you saying double down on, on like reels and abandon those other things?

Matthew Johnson (26:17):
I would double down on reels and stories. So stories is still, um, a massive driving factor for people on Instagram. You'll actually see most people get on Instagram. And the first thing they do is scroll through, um, as many stories as they can. Now, what I will say to help you on Instagram is to go live on Instagram more. Mm um, so why I say that is cuz Instagram pushes that content higher still and you can get on front of people's feeds on their stories quicker if you go live. So if people aren't liking your content or they're not scrolling through your story, going live will help you get in front of their eyes more.

Nick Clason (26:59):
Now you now back to the, you talked about posting with your TikTok watermark. Are you, are you saying do that as a, as a way to promote and raise awareness that you do have a TikTok account?

Matthew Johnson (27:13):
Yep. So right now that is what they're recommending is that you post from TikTok to Instagram, with the TikTok watermark, cuz it shows that you're on TikTok and also Nick, you and I both know, um, content takes off quicker on TikTok and usually it takes off more virally on TikTok before it will Instagram. So I'll be scrolling through Instagram reels and I'll see a TikTok that I saw last week that already had gone viral. Yeah. And it's just cuz talk's algorithm is just next level crazy, which also has a lot of concerns behind it. But we could talk about that earlier.

Nick Clason (27:51):
Yeah. It's so interesting that you say that though. Cuz even, uh, even in my own experience, like I'm looking right now on our church, social media and everything that was first posted to TikTok and then posted to Rios has almost no views on, on Instagram, but it's doing well over on TikTok. And so that's been a, that's been a little bit of a thing to try and kind of navigate. So let's talk TikTok then for a minute, should we be on it? It feels like it's a place we sh you know, a lot of church people are maybe even scared of it. And so if we've been trending younger is TikTok the youngest of all the platforms that we're talking about.

Matthew Johnson (28:30):
So we're gonna talk about today. Yeah. It would be the youngest. So your demographic is gonna be that, um, 18 early or later gen Z to, uh, you know, 30, 25 to 30. So okay.

Nick Clason (28:46):
And, and best practice on there is like, we've been saying short form video. You can do trends, you can do maybe inspiring inspirational content, um, and also just humor. Right?

Matthew Johnson (28:58):
Yeah. TikTok is really good for that humor aspect. Like you can definitely do some inspirational stuff. Um, and it's also the hashtag feature of it is, uh, a great way to find other like minded tiktokers. Um, like I said, the algorithm of TikTok is very effective, but I also do understand the reservations behind TikTok with, uh, just everything behind it. So, um, but I will say that is where your younger audience is and if you wanna be reaching those people, you need to go there. Unfortunately.

Nick Clason (29:29):
And the thing that's so crazy that changes the AB the absolute game with TikTok is even as like, I look into our like specific analytics, I was looking at them yesterday. Um, the majority of, uh, people who watch your videos, um, at least ours are not followers of ours, right? Mm-hmm, , they're, they're people that discover us from like the four U page.

Matthew Johnson (29:55):
Exactly.

Nick Clason (29:55):
Which is, you know, so much different than the way that we've treated social over the years. And so in a lot of ways is TikTok, can it be an evangelistic tool? Can it be like a way to reach people that aren't connected to your church? Is that a good strategy for it? It feels like sort of the opposite of what we've been talking about with going hybrid.

Matthew Johnson (30:15):
Yeah. You definitely can reach people with TikTok and you just need to have a strategy behind where do you take someone from TikTok to this hybrid approach. And that's what, we're not seeing a lot of that right now of like, okay, you get people watching the videos on TikTok, but now what

Nick Clason (30:31):
Mm-hmm

Matthew Johnson (30:32):
Mm-hmm so you gotta give them that next call to action and take them to your church website or to your online platform, whatever that looks

Nick Clason (30:38):
Like. Yeah. All right. So this one's up for debate a little bit discord, is that a social media platform? What even is discord and why, why did you tell me to add it to our outline?

Matthew Johnson (30:51):
Great question. So discord is, um, I think you can probably consider it a social media platform right now, but what I love about discord is the aspect that you can create very curated, focused groups. Um, there's a lot of really cool stuff you can do on discord, and you can create different breakout rooms. Um, you can create different channels that people can talk about different stuff. So, uh, I, uh, have been involved with a couple of new Christian discords that people have been wanting me to help them, um, get going. So what you can do in discord is like this one that I'm in is like, there's a whole prayer request, channel Bible, verse channel, David stories, channel general chat. And it's really, um, and you can just break it down more and more and more like, you can create your, you, if you wanna do a sports league in it or whatever, you can do that.

Matthew Johnson (31:50):
And, uh, um, there's like a lot of fun stuff you can do in it. What's good about it is that you're getting all like-minded people in that discord together. Mm-hmm so you can actually talk about, Hey, we have X, Y, and Z going on in youth group also, here's where all our prayer request is. And here we're talking about fantasy and, um, you're getting your community built together in a very cohesive platform. And I will also tell you, is that your young people in your church are on discord? Hmm. Um, most of them are, especially if, uh, so like during the pandemic something I heard all the time, as we were trying to get everyone to go to teams and zoomed and, um, trying to do these virtual events, uh, there was all these kids that were telling me, why are you guys not just using discord?

Matthew Johnson (32:37):
We're already on it? Mm-hmm . And I was like, and I laughed, cuz I've been on discord for years, but I've always thought about it as a gaming thing, but it's more than a gaming thing. Now it's now a chat functionality that you can create your community in. So if you wanted to put your youth group in there, you could, if you wanted to put your women's ministry in there, you could, and learning curve is really easy for it. Hmm. And you have a captive audience that is interested in your, in your group, your culture and what you're doing. So whatever you communicate they're gonna be engaged with.

Nick Clason (33:09):
Yeah. That's interesting that you, that you say that the learning curve thing, cause I think that's probably everyone's biggest reservation, right. Is the introduction of a new platform. How hard is it gonna be to figure out? So, um, yeah. Great. All right, Matt, last one, text messaging. Uh, I recently heard that the open rate on a text message is 99%. Is that true?

Matthew Johnson (33:35):
Yeah,

Nick Clason (33:36):
That's crazy. So that has to be a platform that we should be using as churches, right?

Matthew Johnson (33:43):
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so texting is the best, one of the best ways to do communication period. Um, we know people reply to text messages and open text messages, um, way more than email as you just talked about with open rate. Um, also, uh, if people give you, if they trust you enough to give you their number to text, 'em the trust level with you and your church, um, is extremely high, which that tells me immediately is, oh, I can communicate, uh, differently with these people. Cause I've already built that trust bridge with them.

Nick Clason (34:23):
Mm-hmm yeah. Yeah. And again, to, to the point that we're making with all of this, right? So if we go back through web and app, you version social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, discord, and text messaging, every single one of those things exists in you and my pocket every single day. Yep. And so the, our people from our church are carrying the access to all of these things with them every single day of the week. And so I think as a church, it's a miss, right? If we're only, uh, talking to them once a week on Sunday, but then if we break that down, even more understanding that people are only coming to church once a month, we're only talking to them 12 times a year. Why would we not try to create connection, create discipleship, content, create inspirational things through the things that they're carrying around with them every single day of the week.

Matthew Johnson (35:30):
Exactly.

Nick Clason (35:31):
So, so that's what, that's the idea. Uh, this was very nitty gritty and, uh, you know, appreciate Matt, all of your marketing knowledge and demographic studies and everything that you have, man, cuz uh, I know the reason that, uh, the reason that I love having you on this is because you are just for me an absolute wealth of knowledge. So I hope that, uh, as everyone else who's listened to this, able to pick your brain, um, or just hear some of these things about all these different platforms is advantageous to them. Um, beneficial. So I appreciate, I appreciate that, man.

Matthew Johnson (36:08):
Yeah. Don't thank you. I appreciate it. It's been a blast and I hope everyone's going, uh, get something out of this. So

Nick Clason (36:14):
gosh, I can't imagine that they didn't so good. Hey again, thanks everyone for hanging out. Uh, feel free to subscribe. Give us a rating. If you find this helpful, share it with a friend. Um, you can follow along on Twitter at hybrid ministry and online at hybridministry.xyz Uh, but until next time we will talk to you all later.

Follow along on twitter - twitter.com/hybridministry

Or find full transcripts and show notes at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TIMECODES
00:00-0:58 – Intro
0:58-3:35 - Does Digital Ministry matter post-covid?
3:36-7:09 - What could a Hybrid Model even look like?
7:09-9:09 - The faltering faith of younger generations
9:09-13:43 - Inspecting Digital openness amongst Church attenders
13:43-16:29 - How to get started in the Digital Space
16:29-18:24 - How to expand teaching and preaching into the digital space
18:24-20:00 - The future of short-form video content
20:00-21:24 - The difference between a sermon and teaching online
21:24-22:23 - Short-form content is very digestible
22:23-23:44 - The advantage we have as church leaders in the digital space
23:44-32:50 - How to get started
32:51-35:28 - Fulfilling the Great Commission through Digital means

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Years ago, right? Uh, so 22. Yeah. Wow

Matthew Johnson (00:05):
Man.

Nick Clason (00:05):
And I didn't do the beard, right?

Matthew Johnson (00:07):
Yeah. You were doing the chin strap back then.

Nick Clason (00:09):
Yeah, I had that for oh gosh. And it was like, not very much.

Matthew Johnson (00:13):
no, , it's like just subtle it up.

Nick Clason (00:19):
Yeah. And now I've got this gigantic thing.

Matthew Johnson (00:23):
I love it.

Nick Clason (00:25):
Well, Hey everyone. Welcome to hybrid ministry podcast. On today's episode, we are gonna talk about how your church can reach gen Z and millennials here in 2022. Um, I'm your host, Nick Clason, along here with my friend, Matt Johnson, Matt, how you doing?

Matthew Johnson (00:43):
Doing right? It's uh, a little early. I see the sun rising right now of the sky, but it's actually very peaceful and I'm loving it.

Nick Clason (00:51):
Yeah. You have coffee going yet or did you just, yeah. Okay. Smart. Smart.

Matthew Johnson (00:55):
Got some cold brew right here.

Nick Clason (00:57):
Nice. Okay. So, uh, I wanna talk about this idea of hybrid, you know, and, uh, like, like we said, in the pilot, there's a lot of, there's a lot of thought. I think amongst church leaders about, um, digital being kind of pitted against physical, um, and Barna actually came out with the study recently. I'm sure you've seen this because you're the one who told me to look at it. uh, that said, um, a solely digital church expression is wanted by only about 9% of Christians. So, um, when you read that, do you feel like that's a, do you feel like that is a push towards the, the physical expression? Like what would be your response to that?

Matthew Johnson (01:40):
Yeah, when I read that, it there's, I think there's a lot there in this study that Barnett did, but specifically this stat, what stood out the most about it is that when COVID happened, the answer was immediately, well, everything has to go a hundred percent digital or we're staying a hundred percent physical. There was no conversation about an in between at all. And you rooted uprooted people from their, you know, their daily lives, their weekly habits of every Sunday morning, I wake up and I, you know, go to my local church down the street or whatever to, okay. I gotta sit in my living room and watch church. And there's a huge disconnect that you started feeling with that. So, um, I think that's why digital church is drastically dropped and you can kind of see those numbers at, in the church in general. Um, and I mean, the stats says it all only 9% of, you know, Christians want only digital, which is not very high when you look at, you know, Christian numbers. So, um, but what it does say is there's still people that want that. So that's something we have to also keep in mind as we go forward.

Nick Clason (02:54):
Yeah. And if you, if you read on it actually says, um, so only 9% say they, they only that, and I think that that word only is what's key there. Right. Because it says one third express that some sort of hybrid option would suit them. Well. Yeah. So that's, that's 33%. Right. And then as you, as you inspect deeper into the generational gaps, millennials and gen Z are just as likely to choose a hybrid option as they are to choose a physical option. So 40 versus 42%. So like that, and that's the wave of the future, right? Yep. So, so what in your mind, like, what does, what, what does a hybrid option even look like? Or do we know, or do we know yet?

Matthew Johnson (03:40):
I don't think we have so a solid answer, but I think we have a lot of, um, balls rolling at different churches around the nation and you can kind of start seeing what a hybrid option looks like. So, uh, a good example, some of good examples that you could think of that. I mean, everyone talks about life. Church, life church is a great digital presence. Mm-hmm, , you know, they're live online. I mean, pretty much every time I go to their website, this says we're live right now. So , um, which is honestly why, uh, life church has probably been able to hit the millennial demographic better than most big mega churches have been able to.

Matthew Johnson (04:23):
Interesting because they have had that option where, Hey, I can go to church. Um, life church has locations everywhere now, but also I can just watch online. And that's the key to this. What we're talking about is like reaching these younger people. So even millennials who we are starting to see have kind of been a forgotten generation when it comes to the Christian world, the gen Z, who, um, we're starting to realize are going to be forgotten. And we have no idea how to talk to gen Z. Uh, how do we get these younger people involved with church as much as they are involved with other aspects of their life. Um, and if we can have that hybrid option, which really in my mind, we need to have an offering that they can do as much as possible as they can in the digital realm of your church, but have the reliability of coming to the church for all the major stuff. So crisises, um, community questions, mm-hmm, , uh, like, uh, conversations. Cause we know, especially you being a pastor, you know, you can have a way better conversation with somebody if they come have a coffee with you, then if they just tweet at you.

Nick Clason (05:49):
Yeah, for sure. So, well, and, and a step that you always remind me of is 51% of gen Z have said that they prefer online only as a discipleship option. Yep. And that's literally half can't get more. Yeah. I mean it's a little more than half, but so it's like, that is important and that that's half of our demographic. And so if we, as a church for sake, uh, any form or any sort of digital, uh, we're missing half of a generation based on what they say that they want. Yep.

Nick Clason (06:22):
And so we gotta, we can, we don't have to do that. We don't have to pursue after that, but we just have to know what the cost of that is gonna be. And the, I, I just think that the church is in a spot where they're the church being the capital C church, like in person, church, attendance trends are different and I get it cuz digital costs money. And so with attendance, a lot of times follows money. And so you gotta make sure that you have what it takes to, to staff towards these things and to pay for these things and have the budget for these things. Right. But yep. But uh, if we don't, we're just gonna continue to reach people as they are aging, older and older as gen Z, millennials are finding their worth meaning and value over on TikTok or on YouTube.

Matthew Johnson (07:10):
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, you can already see this trend of the younger generation's faith faltering drastically, like the Gallup study that you and I just talked about where, you know, uh, we went from 78% of 18 to 35 year olds had faith in God to now we're down to 68% and that's in what, six years. So that is, um, crazy, crazy aspect that we're not thinking about. And I'm telling you, um, we can keep doing church the way we've always done it, but the church is just gonna consistently be behind. And there's the running joke in the church world. And the church world is always five years late. You know, we always, you know, oh yeah, we're finally gonna add a guitar on stage. And everyone's like, well, rock music been around for 15 years. So, um, that's just the running church joke. We're a little slower to adapt, but we can't be slow to adapt in this climate because every day that we take our time on adapting is faith is all deteriorating. Hmm. So that's something we gotta keep in mind.

Nick Clason (08:20):
Well, and I, and you know, I wanna be clear like you and I like, we're not people that are like over here trying to like crap on the church. Like, oh, we love the church and

Matthew Johnson (08:29):
Yeah. We work at a church, so

Nick Clason (08:31):
Yeah. And we think that the church is like, I believe that Jesus made the church, his primary number one, uh, right. Yeah. Way to way to reach the world, you know? So like I think there's good things out there. I think there's good para church type ministries. Good, good people like on TikTok and YouTube trying to do things, but like the church should enter into this space, you know, and not just leave it up for some 15 year old influencer, you

Matthew Johnson (08:56):
Know? Exactly. Yep. Yeah. The church is not going anywhere. I wanna be clear about that. Like the church is solid, we're strong, it's the church just needs a little bit of a, a shift in, you know, it's something that everyone is talking about currently.

Nick Clason (09:09):
So, so Barnett had an interesting thing in their study, um, and they called it digital openness. So that's church adults who were defined as having digital openness. And so these are sort of the five kind markers of that. So I just wanna run through them. And then when you, and I can kind of think about, 'em talk about 'em the first one is, um, uh, a church adult with digital openness sees the value of attending an online church service. Um, they also think that churches should use digital resources for spiritual formation or discipleship purposes, post pandemic. They think that churches should use digital resources for gathering their people together after the pandemic as well. Number four, they say either hybrid. So both a digital and a physical or a primarily digital church will best fit their lifestyle after the pandemic. And they're open to attending new kinds of online gatherings that are unfamiliar.

Nick Clason (10:07):
So like we said, this is the type of, I feel like, I mean, you're millennial, I'm a millennial. Like these are things that like both you and I would hold as values, like having, having an option to attend something. Like, I guess the starkest picture I have of it. Matt is a couple weeks ago in our youth ministry. I was in the room. Um, and we were meeting in the room with our teenagers and leaders. And um, one of my leaders had a question about an event coming up and rather than her tracking me down, uh, she pulled up our website to try and find an answer to it. Um, and she, but she couldn't. And so we're in the room and she's on her online device trying to figure it out. And she's trying to, she's trying to get answers to it until finally she's like, Hey, like she's flagged me down as I was walking by.

Nick Clason (10:57):
And she's like, I can't find the answer to it. And I was like, oh, well that's cuz we didn't put it on there. Um, so that's our fault, but I just, again, right. Like that's an example right there of where digital meets physical. Like that's the type of world that we're living in. And I don't think that in the church in general, I don't think we're thinking about it often in that type of way. I think we're like trying to replicate a physical expression onto digital mm-hmm and I don't know, I, I do think that people are tired of that post COVID, but I do think that there are other avenues or other, um, other ways that people can try, uh, that churches can try to enter into that kind of hybrid space. So mm-hmm um, and another thing I thought was interesting, I'll read through these and then wanna kind of chat and just pick your brain as, yeah.

Nick Clason (11:43):
These, these are some of the options, um, of things that people thought could be like a, a digital expression or like a hybrid version. Right? So teaching slash preaching, one-on-one prayer, small groups, all of this in like the hybrid space, worship, prayer visitation, confession children's ministry, youth ministry, adult ministry, the number one option on there was teaching and preaching. And I find that so interesting that that was the thing that, that people thought was the number one option, um, of them to be able to, uh, experience something digitally mm-hmm . So for some reason I said this to you the other day. So for some reason in the church, the, the, we determined the most effective way to communicate theological truth was through a pastor preaching in a pulpit mm-hmm , that's no longer the most effective way. And I think for a lot of us in church, like that's a little bit of a terrifying proposition, cuz that, that means we're getting rid of something that is age old and, and someone we've been doing for years. And I'm, I'm not, I'm not even sure I necessarily want to do that either. But the fact is like, we, we now have the internet, we now have podcasts. We now have all kinds of other ways that we can communicate theological truths. So what are some of those ways that you could see the church stepping in to sort of that hybrid space and some of those, you know, arenas. Cause I think if, if you're the average person listening to this, you're like, okay, all these thoughts sound great, but like what should I do?

Matthew Johnson (13:21):
Yeah. Where do I, where do I start at? Yeah. So a big thing I even wanna highlight is this is just church adults that are saying this, so this

Nick Clason (13:29):
That's

Matthew Johnson (13:29):
Good point. Yeah. This isn't even like our agnostic, the atheist, the spiritually questioning people at all. This is just your people that are in your congregation right now are saying they need this mm-hmm um, so when I, uh, some good examples of some easy things that you can start doing today, um, that do that, don't take a lot of time and if you wanna, they can grow and they, they can be a good foundation building block for you. So, uh, first of all, teaching and preaching with record, just throw a camera up, record, whatever you're teaching your preaching is honestly. Um, we do know if you're trying to reach your church. People like honestly, all you could do is just throw that as an audio and make that a podcast and put that on your website and say, Hey, here's pastor bills or, uh, you know, pastor Toms, you know, sermon from this last week or whatever, something super easy that you guys can start creating the digital presence.

Matthew Johnson (14:34):
But some other easy stuff is like, just create a Facebook group for your church. Um, just, uh, or if you have like multiple different ministries in your church, create Facebook groups for all of them, invite your volunteers into there, invite the people that, you know, wanna be involved with those groups and start cultivating those relationships in a setting that is designed for that. And, uh, you're gonna realize most people, especially, uh, higher millennial up are gonna be very open to going into those Facebook groups. Now, when you're trying to hit gen Z and stuff, you're gonna have to get a little more creative with what your digital presence looks like. Um, cuz we know, first of all, they're slowly going off of Instagram. We know they're not really involved on Facebook anymore. And really the world that's they're they're in is like TikTok and Snapchat mm-hmm um, and those avenues are just vastly different, but I mean download TikTok and start making some fun videos. If you fill up to it, uh, there's some easy wins that you could start doing right now. And then if you really wanna start like strategizing, okay, what can we do? Um, as a church here is like digitally, uh, do you have a church bulletin that you give out every week that you're still printing, make that digital, just put that online. You can still have it physical, but give a digital option for it. Um, yeah,

Nick Clason (15:58):
At least let the people be able to find it on Tuesday night. Exactly. If they have a question about the, the Wednesday event coming up tomorrow,
Matthew Johnson (16:05):
Exactly like have, have all that in mind for any resources you're making and I guarantee you're making this stuff on your computer, so just upload it digitally instead of printing it and make a easy avenue for people to access that stuff. So, um, those are some quick easy wins. And then if we wanna get more complex, you know, there's thousands and thousands of things we can

Nick Clason (16:29):
Start to do. Yeah. Well, I mean I'm thinking, right. So if in this list here that I read already teaching preaching 1 0 1 small groups, uh, 1 0 1 prayer, small groups, worship visitation, confession children's youth adult ministry, the number one option out of that was teaching. Yeah. So we can deliver, um, our teaching yes. On a Sunday morning in a large group gathering of some sort, but both through, like you're saying ripping down audio, maybe throwing up a camera and creating it, uh, a video to put on YouTube. We can take that content though and repurpose it. And so, especially as we're talking gen Z, um, and millennials, uh, you know, I remember you telling me the other day, like everything on Instagram and Facebook is trending towards Instagram, uh, and Facebook reals. Yeah. Because they're trying to keep up with TikTok. Yep. And so this short form video is kind of king right now, at least at the time of this recording.

Nick Clason (17:27):
And yeah, we in the church are in the business of content creation. We create content every single week. So what if we just took and parsed out elements of our sermon from Sunday morning and just shot that in some sort of short form video content, like either leading up to the sermon or, uh, coming after the sermon, operating as some sort of like recap or something and just shooting it in with a little bit of a different mindset, same content, take all your study, everything you did, all the passages that you studied and did exegesis on. And then just bring that into like a one minute short form video and start flooding some of those places. I think that's a way that you can, you can take your digital or I'm sorry, your physical expression and bring it out into a digital world and kind of lean into that. That hybridness would you, what do you think about that?

Matthew Johnson (18:22):
Oh, I can't agree more and even speed of short term content, Instagram believes in it so much that they literally, this week as we're recording this updated Instagram, that every video is now real. So they have said,

Nick Clason (18:36):
I saw that yesterday. Yeah. I, I saw, I was like what? That's a real, yeah.

Matthew Johnson (18:39):
Yeah. So they're, they're saying this is where we're headed and it's to compete with TikTok. Um, so yeah, take your teaching and your preaching and just splice that up into some one minute service, uh, one minute clips and stuff. And let me talk, it's super easy to be able to do that. Um, I mean you can do that an I movie that's already on your iPhone or you can download a free video software, like black magic that is very easy to do on, I know it's a crazy name, black magic, but don't get scared by it. It's just a company and, uh, you can, uh, you know, start cutting up video today and honestly start, uh, growing your digital presence there, um, very easily.

Nick Clason (19:23):
So you, yeah, so you can either record your sermon and take clips off of that. Um, but I, I personally think if you don't, you know, if you don't have the technology for that, you don't have a camera set in the back of the room yet, and you're just starting in this, like all start recording audio, like the best camera that you have access to is the one in your pocket. Yep. You know, the, the, the, the phone now they say has more computing power than the computer that landed us on the moon. Oh yeah. Uh, back with NASA and, and Armstrong and everything like that. So just get your phone out and record short five short form videos as like, just snippets of your sermon, you know? Yep. And the difference, you know, Matt, like I was telling, I was talking about this last week with some of our team, like the difference between a sermon and a sermon.

Nick Clason (20:08):
You keep, you kind of build to like a climax and then you like have like a grand reveal at the end. Um, uh, social media is different. Like you gotta hit, you gotta hit your, your topics straight away. Um, and not, not hold it back. And so for preachers, sometimes it's a little bit of a different, uh, philosophy, right. But if you get on TikTok and you start exploring, you'll learn kind of that archetype pretty fast, you know? Yeah. That's anyone who's good and performing well on there. They're probably using that, that strategy. Yep. So have a compelling hook, um, and have some compelling text there. That's gonna stop the scroll because what, like, what's the average watch time on TikTok,

Matthew Johnson (20:50):
Like right now.

Nick Clason (20:52):
Yeah. I don't know. Like it's, it feels like if it's not good, you're just gonna swipe right. Past it to the next

Matthew Johnson (20:56):
Thing about, yeah. I mean, usually the average watch time is about seven seconds, which is why TikTok seven, second videos typically get pushed higher in their algorithm.

Nick Clason (21:05):
Yeah. And even as a church, you can even take some sermon content and put that in a seven second video. Right. Like you can, you can do one of those videos that has like way too much text to read in seven seconds. And so it's gonna force people to rewatch it, which is also gonna tell the algorithm like, Hey, this is a good video show this to more people.

Matthew Johnson (21:25):
Yes. Yep. And something else that's super important about that short form content right now is the fact of how digestible it is. Yeah. So when you're reaching millennial and gen Z and we're, let's think of like youth leaders, you're mostly gonna be reaching you to gen Z right now. Um, you're going, they're gonna want that short, digestible content that they can share with other people, or they don't have to think wrong about at all. So that content doesn't have to be the super polished piece. Mm-hmm I, I want to like, make sure that we're pretty clear about that. Like if you look at YouTube, um, and what people are watching, like most of these guys are just, you know, taking their iPhone and they're recording themselves and then they post it and it's get millions of views now. So, uh, that as long as the content is solid and it's short and digestible, you're gonna be totally fine.

Nick Clason (22:23):
Yeah. And I, I think that's the piece that, that also, so, you know, number one, we are content creators by nature in the church. And then number two, uh, the level of Polish, uh, has really diminished. In fact, I think some, some things that are so polished are sometimes a little bit of a turnoff mm-hmm to gen Z and millennials. And so both of those things bode well for you and I, because I don't need a several thousand dollars camera aside from the one that's already, probably on my phone. Right. Yeah. And I don't, I don't need to re like, gosh, man, I can't imagine if I was like a washer and dryer company trying to do social media. Like, what would I do? But I'm a church. Like I have, I have hundreds and thousands of pieces of content on my hard drive right now of old sermons. I've preached, like I can dust those off and I can turn those into short form video content and use it as a way to, you know, to reach people. So, yeah. Um, and it's not even, it's not even bad, like, it's, there's a lot of like serious or like thought provoking things on TikTok. It's not just dancing and, and trend videos. Like those things are on there for sure. But you know, like you can, you can, uh, find an audience there on, on TikTok, super easy by doing some type of stuff.

Matthew Johnson (23:42):
So, absolutely. Yeah.

Nick Clason (23:44):
So, um, if, if Matt, if, um, you were someone's, um, marketing consultant and they were saying, Hey, we have nothing. You know, we don't even record our sermons. We don't have a camera in the back of the room. Um, what are the, what was be three to five things that within the next like month, you could see a church maybe start to start to take steps towards, to enter more into this hybrid world to reach millennials and gen Z.

Matthew Johnson (24:10):
Oh yeah. So let's see, you have no digital presence at all. You're a church of, you know, 300, let's say a hundred. Yeah. Small plant. Um, just getting going. Uh, I was actually just talking to a church that has 50 in Denver. Um, and, uh, some of the stuff I would tell you is, okay, so create a Facebook page, start there, get a Facebook page going and a Facebook group going for your church. And just,

Nick Clason (24:38):
And by the page, you mean the, like the business, the thing so that you could be able to run ads off that if you wanted to

Matthew Johnson (24:45):
Yeah. Yeah. Creative Facebook business page, um, for your church, that is just a place that people can come like and make comments and you can start posting content on. So Sunday morning, pull out your phone, take a photo of the outside of your building and just say, come join us and give me the service times or whatever, like start, just start, um, pushing stuff on to digital platforms. And I also say create a Facebook group. Um, whatever that group looks like for you, I would really strategize and think about what you're trying to do with it. Um, don't just create a Facebook group just cuz oh, you know, these guys are telling me to create a Facebook group, like think about what that group should be, but really that group should be a place that your community can come together and start talking to each other. And there's not a lot of work you have to do for that. You create the Facebook group, you come in and put a post and let people facilitate those conversations. And if it gets, uh, little rowdy or crazy, you can start, you know, facilitating it. But I highly doubt that's gonna happen as you're getting going. Um,

Nick Clason (25:46):
Well, and you can even do like, and like you're saying like strategize, right? So you can be like, okay, every Monday we're gonna post like the, the song set from Sunday or something like that. Exactly. And then every, every Wednesday we're gonna do a Facebook live at noon and the pastor's gonna jump on and do a devotional. Then every Friday we're gonna do like a funny Friday and we're gonna post like a meme or something like that. Exactly. It can be that skeleton of a, a strategy because in a group you're hoping that everyone else kind of drives the conversation. And so you don't even really unlike Instagram or unlike TikTok, where you have to continually kind of feed the content yep. A group you can let the other people be like, be creating that

Matthew Johnson (26:24):
Absolutely like post post questions. Like what can we be praying for you for this week? Uh, what's going on in the community this week? Is there any volunteer opportunities like really get that conversation, just going, just spark the conversation and sit back and let everyone go. Um,

Nick Clason (26:39):
Okay. So get on Facebook,

Matthew Johnson (26:40):
Get on Facebook. Yep. And then, uh, another great thing is to start, like we said, making short term video, short term video content, and I'm, if you don't have a smartphone, which there's probably not a lot of us out here, that'd be listening to this podcast right now that don't have a smartphone. Um, so pull out your smartphone, take your sermon notes that just look at your sermon notes and find the minute chunks in there that you like and record that real quick vertical. Just shoot it vertical, throw it on your Facebook. Um, you can from Facebook post it strike to Instagram. Mm-hmm and there's not a lot of work there for you and that's gonna start getting your digital presence up too. And I, what I say is like, find those minute chunks, or even if you are like, you, you could speak into this more too, Nick, cuz you're obviously a pastor, but like, you know, you write your sermon and you go, okay, I know I'm gonna summarize this in a minute. I have my synopsis of what this is like record that though that on camera.

Nick Clason (27:45):
Um, yeah, honestly, I'm like it's, it's, , it's a little bit of a bummer how I can like preach a message for 30 minutes and then I can take my outline and basically summarize it in five minutes and do a five part series on TikTok. And I'm like, oh, what was I doing up there for 30 minutes?

Matthew Johnson (28:03):
You just have more stories of illustrations and

Nick Clason (28:06):
You. Exactly. And then the other thing you'd say is try and start recording your, your audio so that you can have a audio podcast. Would that be one of your things or is that not even as high on the list for

Matthew Johnson (28:18):
You? Um,

Matthew Johnson (28:21):
So the thing is, is if you have a audio set up at all at your church, so usually you, you know, it could be the most basic soundboard in the world, which you probably have right now you can throw an SD card and their press record while you're on stage. So I would say, yeah, go ahead and make your audio content a podcast right now, as long as you have that soundboard. Um, but I'm, if you have a mic set, as long as you're not, you know, using a mic, like a karaoke mic, you should be able to do that, but don't go buy new equipment yet until you're ready for that next step. Cuz here's what happened during the pandemic and all these guys I talked to as I was consulting with churches and figuring out how to help them go digital or okay, I'm gonna go buy these three Sony cameras.

Matthew Johnson (29:07):
We're gonna have this three camera set up. Uh, we're gonna have some students in the back, you know, try to figure out what we're doing. Hey, uh, Matt, what is all the equipment I need? And my answer always was like, first of all, okay, if you had the budget for equipment, let's talk, but don't go get the top tier of anything. You don't know where this is headed for you guys. So yeah. Tweak your time. Um, and really have a figure out that strategy, not just the, oh, everyone's doing this, so I need to do this before you go do it. So, um, yeah, get that podcast going, uh, the audio for that podcast or whatever that looks like for your congregation or your group going, that's gonna help you digitally. Um, and then, you know, another easy thing to do is, like I said, you know, post that short term content on like, uh, Instagram and Facebook. Like if you are already starting to post social and stuff, like start posting doesn't necessarily like not graphics per se, but like just take a photo outside and go, how can I be praying through this week?

Nick Clason (30:14):
Yeah.

Matthew Johnson (30:15):
Or, uh, take a photo of worship this week and go, Hey, what worship songs would you wanna see this? You know, this semester or whatever, like you can start asking those questions that are related to those options that you were talking about earlier. So, um, you can really start figuring out what it is that people are looking for with your group.

Nick Clason (30:35):
Yeah, well like we recently doubled down in our student ministry on, on TikTok and on reels. Um, and we actually pulled back on some of the more formal, uh, or traditional styles of posting like on Instagram or whatever. Yeah. And we just used, uh, we're just using our short form video content sort of supplement in those areas. So for example, like I was trying to post a story a day and I was trying to post something on the Instagram feed a day and I scaled those back cuz I saw those starting to underperform a little bit mm-hmm um, but I saw our reels and our TikTok content starting to skyrocket. And so I was like, all right, instead of five things a day or five things a week on the feed, let's just move it down to three, make it really quality content, like get a nice photo.

Nick Clason (31:23):
Um, and then the rest, um, of everything and just throw, throw that short form video content. So again, like we were saying, depending on when you're listening to this at the time of the recording like that right now is everything. Yeah. And the beautiful thing is that doesn't require a lot of, you know, like software knowhow, like you can edit right in the app, like TikTok has a decent editor. So does reels, like you don't have to have Adobe premiere pro or any video skills. And like you said, you have, you have the ability to just shoot that kind of raw on the cell phone. That's sitting already in your pocket. So yeah. And what was that back to podcasting? What's that HubSpot stat? You said about uh, uh, the average adult and podcast.

Matthew Johnson (32:10):
Yeah. Listenership. Yeah. I think it's 84% of people listen to eight hours of podcast a week. And I know I'm one of those guys, like, you know, I've, I've always listened to podcast. You don't even realize how much is I listen to when I run, I listen to, when I drive, I listen to it. When I'm cooking, I listen to it when I'm doing housework, like I'm always listening to, you know, my podcast. So, um, you wanna be where people are. So as you start seeing where your people are, know that to go for them and you're gonna hear people go, well, I don't listen to podcasts. Remember we are, we're here talking about millennial and gen Z. They listen to podcasts. yeah, I promise so

Nick Clason (32:51):
Well, I think that's a great way to put the, I think great way to end it. You said go where people are, cuz that's what this is about. And if we look, if we pull this all the way back from, from the great commission of Jesus, which is to go out and make disciples of all nations like it, when, when we dovetail that off of the acts one eight, uh, commission, where he says, you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea Samaria, and then ultimately to the ends of the earth, it's this ripple effect. But it starts where you are. So find where the people are. Yeah. There's, there's a quote that said theology is all the more important today because there are so many messages being delivered into your home that you need to be able to determine then what is actually true? that quote came from CS Lewis in the 1950s.

Nick Clason (33:37):
Yeah. When the advent of television was coming into the, to the American and, and world's home, right? Imagine the, the importance of that same idea, that same quote now with not only television, but internet, YouTube, TikTok, cell phones, advertising, all the things like that. Like the, the time is now like the amount of untruth that's out there. And so the world needs you, the world needs your church and your people and millennials and gen Z. Like they, they do, I, what I've seen as a youth pastor, they do care about spiritual stuff. Oh yeah. They just don't think the church wants to talk about the spiritual stuff that matters to them. Yeah. So don't be afraid to Wade into that space because oh yeah. Because relationship equals influence and so you can help to start build that through, uh, some of your digital channels.

Matthew Johnson (34:30):
Mm-hmm yep. Totally agree.

Nick Clason (34:33):
All right. Well I think that'll do it for us, uh, today. Any, any final thoughts, Matt?

Matthew Johnson (34:39):
No, just go get it and just start, you know? Yeah. Go, just start. Um, your digital presence. That's all I can say. Like that's the thing that we, we can sit here and talk to strategize, but just go shoot your first video. Go create your Facebook or whatever that looks like. Just take that first step. You guys got this.

Nick Clason (34:56):
Yeah. Well, Hey forever. You update on this. Follow us on Twitter at hybrid ministry, uh, website is hybrid ministry.xyz because of course.com was taken and uh, and uh, yeah. Be sure to subscribe, share it with friends. And uh, we'll talk to you guys next time.

Matthew Johnson (35:14):
Hey, thanks guys.

Follow along on twitter - twitter.com/hybridministry

Or find full transcripts and show notes at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TIMECODES
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:46 Why Hybrid Ministry Matters
00:02:34 Trends of Digital Ministry
00:04:21 Ministry post Pandemic

TRANSCRIPT
Matthew Johnson (00:00):
Plan. I'll just play off of you.

Nick Clason (00:02):
Oh, I love there. All right. You're you ready to rock and roll?

Matthew Johnson (00:08):
Yes, sir. Are you in a closet?

Nick Clason (00:09):
Yeah, bro.

Matthew Johnson (00:11):
I love it.

Nick Clason (00:12):
This is, uh, the nursery closet.

Matthew Johnson (00:14):
Love it.

Nick Clason (00:15):
I haven't got a little blanky over here.

Matthew Johnson (00:18):
I love it.

Nick Clason (00:21):
All right. You ready to rock and roll?

Matthew Johnson (00:23):
Ready?

Nick Clason (00:24):
Okay. And 3, 2, 1. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the first ever episode of hybrid ministry podcast. I am your host, Nick Clayson. And along with me is my friend. And co-host Matthew Johnson. How you doing Matt?

Matthew Johnson (00:44):
Doing all right, Nick. How are you doing

Nick Clason (00:46):
Good. Good. Let's uh, let's talk a little bit about what this is and why we're, why we're so passionate about it. So Matt, tell us a little bit, like, who are you? What's your experience and why is this something that you're, you're passionate about?

Matthew Johnson (01:01):
Yeah, I love it. Um, so my name is Matt Johnson. I have been in marketing for the greater part of my adult career. Uh, worked in the ministry world for six years of that. Now, um, started out in video multimedia production and then moved my way up into a marketing manager role. And since then I've, uh, done marketing management market and a marketing director role, uh, for big churches and parachurch organizations with, uh, focus on, uh, you know, just helping out youth ministry was my original goal at dare to share ministries. And then, uh, now I'm at the churchwide role at our current church, so

Nick Clason (01:45):
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm a youth pastor. Um, and right now I work at same church. And so, um, I just, I'm passionate about this cuz I, as someone who's trying to reach gen Z, you know, I see, I see the trends shifting, um, and I wanna make sure that the church stays on top of it, you know, and I wanna make sure that they are doing everything they can to continue to reach the next generation, I guess, you know, for me, like I'm seeing a lot of teenagers, they are interested in spiritual things, um, and interested in God, but in a lot of ways, I don't think they're necessarily interested in the church. And so I want to make sure that we're doing everything we can, you know, to be the most, the most effective that we can be. Um, is that like, would you say you see similar things, similar trends with that as it pertains to digital and, and like a hybrid type of ministry?

Matthew Johnson (02:43):
Oh yeah, absolutely. Uh, you know, the countless studies that you can go on a Barna and Gallup and read all about what's going on with gen Z and, um, being in the trenches, you, and I know the need that is there for these, uh, for this generation. And you know, we're not even talking about generation alpha yet and they'll be, your kids are gonna be generation alpha. My kids generation alpha. We have no idea where we're gonna be headed with them. So, um, and I don't think enough people are kind of talking about how we can reach gens Z. We're more talking about the problems that gen Z is facing, which is great. The problems can help us, you know, frame what's about gen Z, but we know that these students have a spiritual need. They are curious, they're asking some of the deepest questions over here and, uh, we just need to be talking to 'em. So it's very PA uh, very big passion of mine to help other youth leaders be able to, um, reach their students. And also, uh, just a passion in general for gen Z also has like, you know, the coolest dances and the kind of the funniest people around so

Nick Clason (03:54):
Well, and I think like, I think for us in church, like we've done it, done it a certain way for so long. And I just think it's, it's gonna look different, you know, and we have to be willing to, um, adapt to some new practices. Um, and it's terrifying. Change is terrifying for people, you know? So we, that, that's what this is. Um, and the reason for the name hybrid, right, is I think in the pandemic, a lot of people, obviously not think I know a lot of people shifted to digital. Um, and now post pandemic, a lot of people are shifting back to physical and I feel like it's very binary thinking like it has to be one or the other, I think the way you and I see it is that it's, it's not one or the other. It's both. Right. And that's why I like the, the name hybrid. So we wanna explore best practices of online, digital marketing, um, and look at some gen Z stuff. And, uh, listen, I don't think either one of us would claim to be experts or that we have the, all the answers, but we just think that this is an important conversation. So we wanna have it and hope that there's other people out there that are interested in that as well.

Matthew Johnson (05:06):
Yep. I completely agree. And, uh, I'm excited to kind of see where this can take us. So

Nick Clason (05:12):
Of course. All right, well, that's it for the pilot? Um, just a quick little intro and, uh, we'll see for episode one, bye, everybody.