EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/037
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
FREE EBOOK: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

SHOWNOTES
How to Run a Successful Ad: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/009

TIMECODES
00:00-03:35 Introduction
03:35-09:00 Facebook.. Does Gen Z care about Facebook?
09:00-15:11 The History of Facebook and what it is today
15:11-18:36 Reason 1) Create a Facebook Page
18:36-20:59 Reason 2) Link your Facebook & Instagram Accounts
20:59-24:00 Reason 3) Create a Facebook Group
24:00-25:55 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode in addition of the hybrid ministry show. My name is Nick Clason. I, as always, I'm your host, excited to be with you. And in this episode, we are going to be diving into our third platform that you should be focused on as a church in building out the six step framework for social media or churches in 2023. Now, this one, um, is gonna be a little bit of a zig or a zag because my guess is if you, uh, know me, you know my story. I am a youth pastor and so I'm gonna be, I do this a lot from the realm of and um, position of being a youth pastor. And so this one you're gonna be like, wait a minute, what is he recommending before? What other one? Cuz you know, so far we've done YouTube and we've also done TikTok.

Nick Clason (01:01):
And so probably your assumption would be that we would be moving on to Instagram and if I were to rank platforms in the order of importance, it would go TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and then Facebook. But today we are going to talk about Facebook and there's a few reasons why and we're gonna get to that. So make sure you stick around to the very end of the episode cuz we're gonna talk about the three primary reasons why you should start with Facebook as opposed to Instagram, especially if you're starting from scratch. And those three reasons are also relevant and prevalent. If you are already on both of those platforms. There's just gonna be some things and, uh, some technical, uh, linking things that you're gonna need and want to do that are gonna help you optimize your performance on both of those platforms, Instagram and Facebook.

Nick Clason (01:49):
All right, um, real quick, let's talk about, uh, before we dive in, you know, too much. I want to remind you, you can head over to our YouTube channel. If you are listening on a podcast, hit the link in the show notes and give us a subscribe there that would help us out tremendously. If you're discovering us and watching us on YouTube, hit the link in the show notes over to hybrid ministry.xyz. That is the homepage and home base for our podcast. And every single episode, including this one, which will have a link to the show notes, has a fully flushed out transcript. So you can go and you can grab the fully flushed out transcript for this episode and any of our past episodes as well as that's where you can get the free download called, have I already Ruined my Church's TikTok account?

Nick Clason (02:32):
And that is your complete guide to handing your phone to someone and say, Hey, post me a TikTok. And if they have no idea what they're doing, that will walk them through step by step. All of that is available, um, in our show notes. That's also available on our website. So give us a subscribe, give us a rating or a review, we would love it. And follow us in all the places. I personally, uh, am on TikTok and I am on YouTube and I'm trying to grow on both of those places to just the word out to help more people like you, church content communicators, church social media managers, youth pastors, part-time college students who got handed a phone from your pastor and said, Hey, we should probably be on social media. Yes, I am here to help you. And that is my entire goal is to help show you one of the ways that you can approach this in your church, in your life and in your ministry.

Nick Clason (03:24):
So without any further ado, let's hop into this episode of Facebook, the platform that Gen Z doesn't care about or do this. All right, so Facebook, does Gen Z care about Facebook? So there was an article back in 2015, um, by Pew Research that found that 71% of teenagers from the age 13 to 17 say that they used Facebook. And at that time they easily beat out platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. That's an encouraging number. And so for a lot of youth pastors, a lot of people working with Next generation, a lot of people doing social media, um, it kept the impetus and the importance of making Facebook a priority, making it something that you continually should be investing in. All right? However, back in 2022, which is not that long ago, from the drop of this, uh, podcast or the drop of this videos only a year or so ago, it tells us a different story.

Nick Clason (04:26):
So that number in 2015 was at 71%, but it has now dropped to that same age demographic. 13 to 17 year olds is now dropped to 32%. Then you might be thinking then like, why in the world are we making this a priority? Obviously it's tapering off with younger people, it's really only relevant for older generations. And while our church may have a good crop of people in older generation who are still using and active on Facebook, the reality is like that is dropping more and more. And that is true, and I will a hundred percent affirm you. And if you do decide that you don't want to take on Facebook as a platform, I totally get that. Um, especially if you wanna trend younger and be more relevant. Because the reality is this is like even Gen Z, or I'm sorry, gen X, uh, millennials, boomers, they use some of the other platforms that we're talking about here.

Nick Clason (05:16):
They're active on YouTube, some of them probably do have a TikTok account. And so if you want to abandon Facebook altogether, you can. The thing is, reality is probably you as a church, you probably already have a Facebook account. It's already probably been established and it's probably been active for years. And so what do you do and how do in this, you know, ever shifting landscape, do you continue to even use and reinvest in Facebook? I do think that there's a spot for it. I do think that there are some pertinent things that are worth you understanding and noticing. Um, and I'm gonna talk about those and especially in the very final episode of this six step kind of framework, we're gonna, um, put all of these platforms back together, right? And we're gonna gonna say here with all these different platforms, all these different like things we talked about, what is a full fledged church social media framework and strategy, taking all these pieces and putting 'em together.

Nick Clason (06:09):
So you're gonna see where Facebook fits into that. Um, but the answer to this is why we think we should continue to, um, participate in Facebook. The answer is twofold. So part number one, like we said in the last episode about TikTok, if you only have time to invest in one, invest in TikTok, I say that primarily for younger ministries, youth pastors, but quite honestly, uh, I think I would still say that the purpose for that is, uh, true, uh, for even like a church, not just a youth ministry like church, trying to reach people for their, you know, their community, their town, whatever. Like nothing wrong with just investing in TikTok. Uh, and a lot of the things today that we're gonna talk about are gonna feel like a lot of groundwork. And so that might be boring and you might not yield as many returns on it.

Nick Clason (06:52):
And so you're probably gonna have to spend a day or a week slow out some of these things, figuring out some of the things. Um, however, if you do wanna build out a fully robust holistic social media strategy, like I said, we're gonna put that together in the final episode of this little mini-series that we're doing. Facebook needs to be a part of it, not necessarily for the reasons that you might think. However, I will caveat this and say in the ranking of importance for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, Facebook is very last on my list for the specific platforms to invest in, right? Like I've, I've said, okay, however, your usage on Facebook on meta is gonna be for three primary reasons. And starting with Facebook's GI gives you an easier road, uh, to launch some other social media or, and this part's important or marketing endeavors that you may be interested in or your church or your pastor or your executive pastor might be interested in you carrying out, overseeing and executing.

Nick Clason (07:48):
All right? And so we're gonna look at this as more of a, um, foundation building as opposed to like a v going viral and, and drumming up a lot of interest and reaching a lot of people. Okay? So be that as it may, Facebook still plays a pretty crucial and important role. Before we go too much further, I do wanna share one last stat with you. 32% of users on Facebook are teenagers. That isn't a lot, but that also isn't nothing. And those teenagers are still users of Facebook. They may not be contributors, but they are as some social media people have dubbed lurkers, which means they are viewing what's going on on Facebook, and they will grow up and they will become, um, the age of the, uh, adults in your church. And in addition to that, a lot of families have parents who spend a lot of their time on Facebook.

Nick Clason (08:38):
And so if you're a demographic, if you're a church reaching families, you may not be reaching their teenagers, but you may be catering to and reaching their parents and there's um, uh, there is a benefit to doing that. All right, so let's dive into Facebook before the history of it and what it is now. Okay, Facebook before and now let's go back to the beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. Okay, maybe not that far back. Let's go a little further. Okay, let's go to 2004. In 2004, you probably heard of a guy by the name of Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg launched and started Facebook as a social media platform. He launched it in 2004 on Harvard University's campus. He was a sophomore, and his primary purpose there was to connect Harvard students to other Harvard students. And so back in the very original OG Facebook days, it was built primarily for college campuses so that you could see the faces of other college students, know their names, get to know them, but by the end of the year, the almost unimaginable had happened for Zuckerberg and over 1 million users, 1 million users were on Facebook, and the reach had then expanded beyond just his simple campus.

Nick Clason (09:55):
And the spread was like wildfire. And Facebook changed the game forever. Facebook is often thought to be one of the major contributors of ushering in the, uh, the, the, what am I looking for? The setting or the, the, the, gosh, why is this word so hard for me? I don't know what I'm trying to say, but ushering in the idea of Web 2.0. So Web 1.0 was just basic HTML website's, text on a screen, web 2.0 allowed the users to actually be contributing, formatting, crafting what was being said. We are now, by the way, in a world of Web 3.0 where users can create their own reality. Right now it's primarily through things like vr, but the algorithms which are less social graph and now more discovery based are helping you sort of find and create your own reality, which by the way, I think is a little bit dangerous, especially if you are a pastor and you are anchored in the truth of God's word.

Nick Clason (10:53):
However, as opposed to bucking that and saying that you need to just ca cast your phone into like a fire, um, and not look at TikTok, I think you need to help people steward that, that they've been given because now honestly, the reality is social media is not very social like it was back in the day. Uh, we've seen that Gen Z has watched millennials and Gen Xers use and, and lean into their community being all digital, and it has honestly yielded not very good results. So I honestly see a good pendulum shift in some of our Gen Z students and people that I interact with because they lean into more real authentic community. So why are they spending so much time on platforms like TikTok and YouTube? They're, they're, they're honestly there for entertainment more than they are for like social connection. And that's the thing, Facebook was built as a platform of social connection.

Nick Clason (11:43):
And so now it is a legacy platform and it's been around forever and it is still a major player and a major contributor in the game. However, they are having to, having to adjust to TikTok and YouTube have been ushering in, in these last several years that they've seen the younger generations adapt. And because Facebook knows that great Aunt Betty is going to eventually no longer be a user at some point because she's not going to be living on this planet of earth, they need to start catering to the younger generations if they want anyone to even adopt their platform. The reality is a lot of people are not huge fans of Facebook altogether, but whether they know it or not, they're using platforms under the Facebook umbrella. So all that being said, Facebook still remains the number one social media platform to this day based on, uh, based on number of users according to an article, which we will link in the show notes of backlinko backlink.io, I always get that one messed up.

Nick Clason (12:38):
Backlink io Facebook presently has 1.9 billion daily users, which is 6.89% increased year over year. In addition to the massive usage that is found and seen by Facebook users and contributors. Uh, Facebook has been acquiring more and more products, uh, over their lifetime and life cycle. Here are some of the products that they've acquired. You may be have heard of them, Instagram, WhatsApp, gfi, Oculus, and many more. In fact, if my counting and calculations are correct, Facebook has a total acquisition of over 88 different products, um, or companies or tech like focused things, okay? And the total cost of those acquisitions is estimated to be north of 23 billion with a B dollars. So I will link that, that article as well because honestly, uh, I didn't read all of them to you because you get really bored. There's really only like four or five that you probably actually recognize by name, WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus gif, you the rest are like, what?

Nick Clason (13:46):
And they just absorbed these companies into them and, and stole their intellectual property, not stole, bought their intellectual property to use for their, their behalf and their betterment. Okay? And so as I was first, uh, sitting down to record this podcast and thinking about all this Facebook stuff, um, the reality is this, fast forward to October, 2021, Facebook announces this is the big shift here from Facebook back then to Facebook. Now, Facebook announces a change in their name from Facebook as the parent company to the name Meta. You probably know that if not, you've probably seen it and been unaware that that is, that is where that comes from. All right? And so the name reflects as the company says, um, the name reflects the company's growing ambitions to be relevant beyond just social media. They want to build technology that will help connect people. That's what they say their ultimate goal is.

Nick Clason (14:38):
Uh, I'll link that article in the show notes, but with the announcement of the name change from Facebook into Meta, this giant conglomerate of products that Meta has acquired over the years, it leads us specifically now to how you in your church can and probably should be using Facebook in your context here in 2023 as a part of the six step Church social medium framework. So without any further ado, let's hop in to reason number one, why you should be using Facebook. Reason number one, and the way in which you should be using Facebook in your church and in your ministry is to create a Facebook page. Now, Facebook page is the corporate side of Facebook. It is where businesses and corporations go to have their hours. It's where they link their website. It's, it's where they, at some point in time, we'll run ads and your church more than likely has a corporate company Facebook page.

Nick Clason (15:37):
I would recommend that you start with a Facebook page, not necessarily, because I think it's a great strategy for reaching people organically anymore in 2023. However, it is going to help sort of be the anchor for everything that you do on Facebook. And if you start there, especially if you don't have anything already launched right now, but if you start there, then sort of from there, the rest of everything else can kind of spread, which is one of the reasons why I have jumped Facebook over Instagram, for example, because Facebook is the owner of Instagram. And so if you start with that Facebook page, then you can sort of build things out from there. One of the things that you need to know about Facebook is it's not just a simple username and password sort of login. So if you're inheriting a Facebook page, what you need to do is you need to discover who the admin is on the Facebook page.

Nick Clason (16:24):
The person who has a personal specific profile, their first name and last name, they are an admin to an account. And that is who runs or who is kind of doing the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, um, managing of Facebook pages. That's how Facebook works. So for example, I just moved to a church about six months ago. They had a a Facebook page, and everyone that I asked, I kept asking to try and get login information for it. They're like, oh yeah, the username password should be on this password document sheet that we have. And, and I just was like, no, that's, that's not how it works. Like, it's not just like I log into Facebook, I have to log in as myself, Nick Clason on my Facebook page, and then I have to be made an administrator or an admin or an editor or a moderator or whatever the case might be, whatever the role is that is decided that has to happen to me, my account, not a login into a specific place.

Nick Clason (17:20):
Okay? So when you start on this place, everything else can sort of be driven from that. The other reason that you would wanna start with a Facebook page is that some point you may want to run ads on your Facebook page. Um, and you may, you can do that either on Facebook, you also can do that through Facebook to your Instagram count if you find Instagram more beneficial to your audience. But you do that through the business suite, the meta suite. And so, um, learning to run an ad is probably one of the most maddening processes, especially if you have no idea what you're doing, what some of the language means or whatever if you're a complete nbe. And so one time I interviewed my friend, former co-host of this podcast, Matt Johnson. He is a marketing freaking guru, uh, and he has done some incredible things, marketing, especially in the ministry space, if you are or have ever heard of or are familiar with the company, dare to share.

Nick Clason (18:16):
He was behind a lot of what they did and a lot of what got them out, uh, visible to a lot of people out in the world. And so, um, he walks us through in a former episode, not link that in the show notes of how to step, how to set up an ad, step by step, uh, running a Facebook ad. So that's there for you. Hopefully that's helpful to you. All right? Step number two is beyond the Facebook page. You should also link your Facebook and Instagram accounts. This is probably one of the most obvious or low hanging fruit reasons why you should start with Facebook, because once you link them, then it's really no extra work, especially if you start on the Instagram side, which we'll get to that in the next episode. But if you start on the Instagram side posting something, all you do is simply toggle on a switch that says also post to Facebook, and boom, you're posting the same content in two places.

Nick Clason (19:08):
That used to be a no-no. That used to be something that you shied away from. But now it's actually something that I and many other church social media marketing managers encourage, especially with the current thing that every social media is focusing on short form video content. It doesn't matter if it's also posted on Instagram, on Facebook, I did a thing the other day, we do this stupid game on our, uh, Instagram, on our TikTok, on our YouTube shorts called, um, , it's called ABC Cheese. So we have a little craft singles and we try to bite like just two of us and try to bite out a letter. And the other person was trying to guess what it's, and so I just was like curious and I was like, how many views did this video in total get? And so I, I looked on YouTube, I looked on TikTok, I looked on Instagram reels, and I looked on Facebook reels, and in total we had somewhere between seven and 800 views on just that one stupid video alone by posting it to all those different platforms.

Nick Clason (20:05):
You know, like one had 600, one had a hundred, one had 300, one had 200, you know what I mean? That kind of all adds up. And you start to think about it, you're like, dang, that's like seven, eight, 9,000 hun. You know, thou not a thousand hundred, 900, a thousand people reach. Like it's a lot, man. Like that's, that's, that's something that churches, youth ministries would've been begging for in years past and before with Facebook pages, primarily as the marketing tool and engine, you had to pay to do it. And you, I mean, you still do if you wanna market stuff, but you can kind of like punch your lottery ticket with any of these reels or short form video and just blow up, or not even blow up, but just get a hundred views across four platforms that adds up to north of 500, north of 700, north of 900 views on any single video.

Nick Clason (20:56):
I think most people would say that that's worth it. All right? The third and final way and, and um, path that I think you should take on Facebook is create a Facebook group. According to a 2021 study, there were approximately 233 million Facebook users in the US alone. 18.2 of those users belong to the 18 to 24 age group, while 18% of those users are 35 to 34 years old. So in total, you're looking at, almost 40% of your users are between the age of 18 and 44. So while your teenagers, your youth ministry might not be spending a lot of time on Facebook, other platforms, um, other people, older demographics definitely are. And I think that you, one of your largest wins as a church is to create a group because that is where you can make community on social media feel intimate and in, in fact, it's probably one of the only platforms that offers a close sort of intimate community style feel.

Nick Clason (21:56):
And so I do think of all of the features that Facebook does have to offer. You can have a group. And so again, if you start with a page, then out of that you can create a group that's connected to that page and you can post as the page admin or you can switch your profile and you can be interacting as yourself in the group, and you can make that that switch. And they've started to make that a lot easier. If you go onto the page on your phone or on your browser, it'll give you a little notification in one of the corners somewhere that says you're interacting as the, the brand, you're interacting as the page or you're interacting as yourself. And then it just gives you a button there. Do you wanna switch? And you click switch and it switches over between yours or your page.

Nick Clason (22:37):
And so you can make some of those things. You also have the opportunity to go to the business suite and schedule some stuff. You can also link and schedule that over to your Instagram. And they now offer scheduling for reels. They offer scheduling for stories, which were not things that they offered previously. All the schedule tools really only posted like static images to pages, um, and your Instagram grid feed. But now they're starting to offer more. Uh, they do, in my personal experience, I've really only been experimenting with schedulers for a little bit here now, but they do seem to choke down your organic reach all of those platforms like it, when you post live time, there really is no way around that. No matter how much you try, no matter how, how much these like schedulers promised you, you're gonna just have better performance on all of your stuff if you are posting it.

Nick Clason (23:26):
Um, and that, but that's a value proposition that you have to weigh through, especially if you have a million other responsibilities. Is it worth it to peace of mind, have it scheduled and you don't have to worry about it? Or is it something that you should, you know, wade into and navigate choice is yours? It's kind up to you. Um, so one of the best things that can do though as a church is to run a Facebook group. And over time you don't even have to be supplying that with a lot of content. The content hopefully will be generated by the users that are already a part of your Facebook group community. Well, everyone, once again, thank you so much for hanging out for this entire episode. I hope that you found this episode helpful. Like I said, the Facebook, uh, episode's a lot more focused on nitty gritty groundwork, building up some stuff so that you can build up a more robust and full social media strategy.

Nick Clason (24:18):
We are going to be diving into that in the future episodes. But coming up next, we are finally moving on to Instagram. We're gonna talk about some strategies and some reasons behind how you can be using Instagram effectively as a church in your 2023 social media framework. In addition to that, before we, we get to the very final piece where we put it all together, we are gonna talk email and texting and website. And so those three things are also critically important, I think to sort of serve as a backdrop and or as a lead generator for some of these other social media platforms to your already existing church audience that you have access to through a database and Excel spreadsheet or whatever the case might be in your particular context. Again, excited to be with you and excited to be right here now on the downhill slide of our six part church miniseries on church social media in 2023.

Nick Clason (25:13):
If you found this episode helpful, do me a favor and please send it to a friend, share it, rate it, review it, all those things are incredibly helpful to me, and they're a free for you to just give back in a very small way to our podcast and the work that we've been doing here at Hybrid Ministry. You can also check out free transcripts that we provide for you for every single episode, and that's over http://www.hybridministry.xyz. Hit the show notes for all the articles that we mentioned for all the other, uh, episodes that we reference for all the other social media places that you can follow me. And until next time, and as always, stay hybrid.

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 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.

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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.