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💥Erik w/a "k" Channel [Practical Youth Ministry Tips]💥

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DESCRIPTION
We all want more people at our events, but how do we get more people at our events without promoting things to Social?
In this episode Nick and Erik, fellow youth pastor and youtuber, sit down to discuss better event promotion as a part 2
(Check out Part 1: erikyoutubechannel.com) of this super mashup episode exploring the value of outreach events and how to get the word out.

In this episode we'll explore a better more wholistic social media strategy for 2024 and beyond, as well as how to write better emails and create a culture of invite amongst students in your youth ministry.

Finally, we'll explore how to build out a social media and hybrid strategy for your 2024 youth ministry school year.

Tap in to check it out!

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📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
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//START FROM SCRATCH
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👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
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Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

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🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 IDEA #1: Stop Promoting Events on Social Media
04:48 Two Types of Social Promotions
10:38 IDEA #2: Write Better Emails
14:00 IDEA #3: Create an Invite Culture
17:10 A Wholistic Hybrid Approach
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✍️TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;24;21
Nick Clason
Well. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. And in this episode we're going to talk about better event promotion as well as a holistic digital and social media approach for your church and your youth ministry. And this is actually part two. Part one is linked right here at the top of the screen over on another channel, because we're doing a massive mash up collab.

00;00;24;28 - 00;00;49;07
Nick Clason
And I am joined today by my friend Erik with the K Erik.

Erik w/a "k" Williams
Good morning bro. How you doing? Good to see you Nick. So excited to be on your channel. Love what you're doing bro. So so good.

Yeah, well if you weren't listening or privy to the conversation that we just clicked stop and now rerecord on, we talked through an entire, like, outreach strategy, right?

00;00;49;08 - 00;01;08;17
Nick Clason
Yeah, well if you weren't listening or privy to the conversation that we just clicked stop and now rerecord on, we talked through an entire, like, outreach strategy, right?
You gave out a bunch of games. You gave out a full run sheet on, like how to do a great outreach style event at your church. And one major piece, right? In all of that, in churches and in youth ministry is promotion. We want people to come to our event. It's natural. It's a human nature, you know what I mean?

00;01;08;20 - 00;01;31;07
Nick Clason
And so one of the ways that we're always trying to get people to come to our event is through social media. Yeah. Is that not a normal like strategies and a normal thought process? Erik, for the average American youth pastor.

Erik w/a "k" Williams
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm totally I've totally used social media to promote events like for a long time. Yeah.

00;01;31;13 - 00;02;03;02
Nick Clason
And is it effective?

Erik w/a "k" Williams
I don't see a lot of likes on those posts. Yeah. And, I don't know, I'm not seeing, sharing and whatever. Yeah, I think I think it's just if, like if you look at in the past, a lot of my social media stuff for youth ministry, it tends to be mostly promotional. Okay. And watching your channel, one of the things I've learned is that's not a great idea because then it's just promotion.

00;02;03;02 - 00;02;25;00
Erik w/a "k" Williams
And it's not like, hey, because I looked at this, I'm going to get 20% off my next event, right? Right. It's just an announcement. Yeah, yeah. And that's what I am trying to steer youth pastors, church communicators away from, because if we're not careful, we're going to view social media as another announcement channel. And it's really not built for that.

00;02;25;00 - 00;02;46;06
Nick Clason
And if you treat it that way, it's not going to be incredibly successful. And so you should still get the word out and you can still use social media. But before you do, I want you to tweak and adjust your strategy on it. And so the first I have three ideas for better event promotion for your event, Erik, that we just talked through.

00;02;46;14 - 00;03;07;00
Nick Clason
The first one is don't post announcements announcing announcing it on social media. And what I mean by that in particular, because I'm going to get a little nuanced here, is I still think you can and should announce it, but don't just post your graphic that you cooked up on Canva or on Instagram Stories or wherever you cooked it up.

00;03;07;00 - 00;03;27;22
Nick Clason
Like, don't just post that because you will probably see as you see, as you said, two, three, six likes on it and likes aren't the only metric, you know, get the word across. Of course, like people will still see it. But you got to think about, our habits. Why do you, Erik, why do you get on social media?

00;03;27;24 - 00;03;48;25
Erik w/a "k" Williams
I want to be entertained, all right? I want to catch up with people, but I want to. I want to be entertained. That's. It's one of the things I love scrolling. Super. Particularly scrolling through videos. Right? Is I want it to be funny. Yeah, yeah. And, if you're watching this live, the month of August, your download youth ministry, I think it's like, God, an up or maybe silver and on up.

00;03;48;27 - 00;04;04;17
Nick Clason
I provided the mystery item for the members, and it was a let's go free e-book on how to crush your social media. And so one of the concepts in there, and if you know you're not a member or you missed the download perk, I'll drop a link in there. You can get it for just a few bucks, down below in the description.

00;04;04;17 - 00;04;27;05
Nick Clason
But one of the stats I included is that reels or short form vertical video TikTok style videos account for get this 90% of the internet's traffic. And so you're right, we get on social media to to be entertained or even to be inspired, maybe learn some stuff, but we don't get on there to catch up on our announcements, to catch up on what's the latest on our church.

00;04;27;05 - 00;04;52;20
Nick Clason
So stop posting static announcement graphics and start posting the types of content that people get on social media for i.e short form vertical based video. If you make it less than 60 seconds, you can post it on any of your social platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and even YouTube shorts. And so if you are going to post about an event, I would recommend two styles of posts.

00;04;52;20 - 00;05;13;29
Erik w/a "k" Williams
So there's one. It's like the cap cut meme. Have you seen this before? The different cap cut style memes? absolutely. Lovely. I'm not. I haven't really gotten into using them yet much. Yeah, but I love I love using that like the, the the one where the guy who is The Mandalorian, I forget his name. Yeah. where he's laughing.

00;05;13;29 - 00;05;32;05
Nick Clason
Yep. Like really hard with that other guy. Like, I love that meme where you, you can put stuff in the background, right? Because it's kind of green screen concept. so, so good. Yeah. So find a way to, to catch the wave of a trending kind of like cap cut meme. And if you don't know, ask one of your teenagers, they'll help you.

00;05;32;08 - 00;05;53;15
Erik w/a "k" Williams
Speaking of speaking of cap cut, like, That's something. Now I use Final Cut to do most of my video editing. Yep. But when I'm doing, stuff with my phone, like, I do, like, screen like words on the screen, all that stuff, I use cap cut all the time. So last year I decided to invest in paying for it's a yearly fee.

00;05;53;18 - 00;06;19;17
Erik w/a "k" Williams
I think it's like 75 bucks. Typically. They almost always have some sort of save a certain percentage off. So I paid 50 bucks last year. I just got a reminder that my subscriptions almost out. So they're giving me a 36%, 34, 36% off of the yearly yearly fee. So grab those, grab those discounts when you can. But for me, it's been a totally worth it expense because I use it all the time.

00;06;19;20 - 00;06;39;27
Nick Clason
Yeah. And and I don't pay for it. My youth, ministry, doesn't pay for it. So I'm still using the free version, and you can still get a lot out of of cap cut, even if you don't want to go that paid for out. So the other one, the other idea I have, and these are like on the rise right now with in churches and stuff, are the like, transition videos.

00;06;39;29 - 00;07;00;07
Nick Clason
and I don't know the other way to, to describe them, but essentially it starts with, a video like, a popular video of some sort. And the one I've seen a lot recently is the guy running away from, like, a bull in the streets. It must be like a running of the bulls thing in Spain or whatever, and he gets speared in the back and so on screen.

00;07;00;07 - 00;07;22;07
Nick Clason
You see, this guy just gets speared right in the back and just fly forward, and then it cuts out to your church or another church and some dude or girl getting, I guess, jumping or thrown into like the row of chairs. And then they like, you know, get up all, like, hurt and then turn around, look at the camera and they invite, you know, invite to church.

00;07;22;07 - 00;07;40;23
Nick Clason
And so there are, you know, a bunch of different ones of those. And I discovered there's so many more than I even thought, because I got on one of my accounts and I started just kind of creating a library of them, sharing them over to my church account. And the more I shared them, the more the algorithm kept feeding me those.

00;07;40;25 - 00;08;04;07
Nick Clason
And so now I've gone around with students and stuff and I'm like, hey, film this, walk into this chair or dive into these. These couches, or, you know, we'll spill one of the other ones. There's like a baby puking on screen and you see all the puke come out and then it like it dive the the milk dumps into the cup and you hear the little splash, and then someone takes a drink of it and it's like there's always free coffee at church.

00;08;04;07 - 00;08;27;02
Erik w/a "k" Williams
Something like that. Like, oh, so gross, so gross, but so funny. And, really, really popular right now. And so that's another way to invite someone to your event, but again, in a way that leans into what social media is built for and made for. Yeah, I love the one where somebody is running and jumping does like a cannonball into into, a pool.

00;08;27;08 - 00;08;53;03
Erik w/a "k" Williams
Yeah. And then the next scene is like sugar cube dropping into a cup and it's like, yeah, like much smaller. Yeah. They're just funny. And again, you can still get the word out, but with like a little tweak. Right, a little adjustment. Don't just post your cooked up Canva graphic but include faces on social media include entertainment and entertainment style elements on social media.

00;08;53;03 - 00;09;10;27
Nick Clason
So that's that's my first kind of point. Do you have anything else to add there before we I just say,

Erik w/a "k" Williams
you know, you just said it in to include faces like students love to see themselves. Yep. I think that's brilliant. The more you can get students in there instead of just you same face over and over, talking head kind of thing all the time.

00;09;10;29 - 00;09;27;21
Erik w/a "k" Williams
I think that's brilliant. I love that dude. Yeah. And in addition to my doing my book, I got one here on my channel as well. It's free. It's down. The show notes. It will lay out this whole, this whole thing. So if you haven't grabbed it yet, go check that out. My site. I just want to support that, by the way, because that's I've downloaded that.

00;09;27;21 - 00;09;54;18
Erik w/a "k" Williams
That's been super, super helpful to me. You give so much inside of that e-book, bro. I absolutely love it. Well I appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sure help churches do better and get the word out that. What's up everyone Nicholas in here hopping into the middle of this episode to say that as I was ending it, I got this idea that I just wanted to give you my top six favorite transition videos and my top six favorite cap cut template.

00;09;54;18 - 00;10;14;10
Nick Clason
So if you hit up the link down below in the description and YouTube, it will give you a word document. it will just, the form will drop it into a drop box for download that word document, and it will give you six links to the Instagram videos, six links to the cap cut videos, as well as websites that you can use.

00;10;14;10 - 00;10;37;22
Nick Clason
Once you post those to either TikTok or to Instagram that you can download directly from that social channel, and then repost it without the tick tock or Instagram Reels watermark. out to Facebook or YouTube or wherever else you want to cross post things. I hope it's helpful to use these in your next event promotion. Without any further ado, back to the rest of them.

00;10;37;23 - 00;10;56;22
Nick Clason
So that's the whole goal of it. Yeah. Speaking. Getting better, getting the word out. write better emails. People like, if you're anything like me or any of the churches I've been in, we've done things like, you know, such and such church weekly student ministry update. And then in that, of course, you're like announcing your back to school event.

00;10;56;22 - 00;11;17;29
Nick Clason
You're announcing your costume party around Halloween time, you're announcing your Friendsgiving event. But nobody, who doesn't if they don't open the email, they don't read that content, they don't see it. And so it misses them. And so a new idea I had, and this is relevant because it just happened to me this week at our church, in our children's ministry.

00;11;18;02 - 00;11;39;00
Nick Clason
They were having an event I didn't know about. And the the subject is, you know, my church's kids ministry update, and I never read them. Guilty. All right, I work there. I'm a dad of kids in the ministry, but I never read them because I figure there's really nothing new in there. But there was something new, but I didn't open it.

00;11;39;02 - 00;11;54;09
Nick Clason
And you can look at it two ways. I'm I'm to blame or they're to blame. And most churches would be like, I'm to blame because they look back at open rates and they see that they're really low and they're like, well, you don't know what's going on because you don't open it. All of that is true. Guilty as charged.

00;11;54;12 - 00;12;30;06
Nick Clason
However, no, this most open rates, like a good open rate for like a business is like in the 20 to 30%. And so if you're a church, yeah, you're probably higher than that. But if you start putting some of what's going on, even in the subject of the email, even if people don't open it, then if their eyes ever glance through their inbox and they ignore your emails, but they still take a glance or a gander over at the subject, they'll at least be aware of what's going on in your in your youth ministry, and so you can prevent your outreach event to your parents and to any of the students who are subscribed to

00;12;30;06 - 00;12;51;22
Erik w/a "k" Williams
your email list with just better subjects and intake in inside of that when they open the email. Because, I mean, I've been guilty of this. I've seen I've been on emails from churches that it feels like I mean, you've got a template which I think is good to have a template. So you have to keep recreating something every single week.

00;12;51;24 - 00;13;15;06
Nick Clason
But it sometimes it can feel like I've seen all this information every single week. so I don't even bother opening. Yeah. Anything you could do to to kind of freshen inside of the email. Yeah. I mean, and you don't want to get clickbaity or sensational, right. But the more interesting your subject is, the the the more prone people are to open it.

00;13;15;09 - 00;13;33;08
Nick Clason
Keep in mind, too, that people want to people want to just like, social media. They want to interact with people. So if they're getting it from your ministry, like they they may be a bot in parent or student that wants to know what's going on in your ministry, but that's not enticing to them to correspond with the brand of your ministry.

00;13;33;11 - 00;13;52;19
Nick Clason
So send it from your name. Send it from your senior pastor's name. Like those types of things, you will see an uptick in engagement in that way. If it feels personal, like they're getting an email from a person as opposed to getting an email from an organization. So. Good. Yeah. the third thing, and I don't want to belabor it because we did we hit it in your episode.

00;13;52;19 - 00;14;15;24
Nick Clason
So go check that out. But really, I think the key to getting more people to your event, beyond just promoting it on social media, is really like creating a culture of invite, where students from your church will invite their friends to your church and you got to build that culture and over time it's going to take time. So if you're brand new, like just keep working it, keep working the soil, keep doing the thing.

00;14;15;27 - 00;14;36;05
Nick Clason
Create a safe space that your students know they can trust you. If they bring a friend to an event, you're not going to do something weird on them, and you got to do that a few times to prove it, to prove to your students that you're going to do that. But then eventually they'll start to realize that, like, oh, this is going to be a safe place and a safe event for me to bring my friend to.

00;14;36;07 - 00;14;57;26
Nick Clason
And they will start bringing students. And you know how it is like a word of mouth invite is so much more valuable than, static graphic that they scroll across on social media. Yeah, I think I think so. I mean, if you're if you run lame events, that word is going to get out to a. Right. So you want it's got to be a good event and that invite culture.

00;14;57;26 - 00;15;24;00
Erik w/a "k" Williams
I think is an interesting conversation. And I just want to say a real quick thing about it. Nick. Yeah, is I remember when I came to a church and, we had this annual event that had been happening for a long time, and, the high schoolers were coming because it's really, like, competitive. experience. So there was there was like, students were showing up no matter what.

00;15;24;03 - 00;15;58;19
Erik w/a "k" Williams
But the middle schoolers, we hardly had any middle schoolers that were showing up. And so we talked about that, like, why is that? But there wasn't a there wasn't a culture of invitation. So we at that, that meant we had to do groundwork within the youth ministry to go, okay, there's an importance for our students that come regularly to understand they they need to be inviting their friends, because this is an easy, open opportunity for them to be able to share their faith with their friends by letting somebody else kind of set the groundwork for it.

00;15;58;19 - 00;16;14;06
Erik w/a "k" Williams
They show up to something fun. Then they have this conversation, then in the car ride home or whatever. Hey, I know we had a lot of fun with some highlights, but but it was so fun. Were telling your parents whatever, but what was something that you heard the the youth pastor talk about this? What did you think about that.

00;16;14;09 - 00;16;39;09
Erik w/a "k" Williams
Yeah. And then having that conversation. So setting them up for success, if you will, rather than just show up and and do it and then don't ever talk about it again. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And that's, that's just going to take time. And if students are not bringing their friends to events, then maybe ask them why they're not and be prepared for the gut check of their honesty.

00;16;39;11 - 00;16;57;16
Nick Clason
yeah. But they'll be if they're honest with you. That is just absolutely good information that you have to, like, grab Ahold of, take to the bank, and then try and figure out what you need to do to create more of a culture of invite. So, so good. Well, here's the thing, Erik. Right. So like, we just we promoted this event.

00;16;57;16 - 00;17;20;20
Nick Clason
We did a few like fun Instagram Reels. We did a few different like, emails. And we got students inviting students. But my my recommendation is more than just like a blitz. Like a marketing blitz on your social media for your upcoming Back to School bash, your upcoming Halloween party, your upcoming fill in the blank whatever event. Like you should be doing this on a holistic strategy, you know?

00;17;20;20 - 00;17;40;09
Nick Clason
And in the book that I referenced earlier, I lay out a very detailed and very like high level strategy, like it's it's a high bar and it's often and it's like a full time job. But recently episode 106, I'll link it down below in the show notes. I scaled it back and that's what I also put in, like my doing my book as well.

00;17;40;09 - 00;18;08;03
Erik w/a "k" Williams
And I said, hey, listen, if you're just getting going like focus on three times a week and I think three times a week is much more attainable for youth pastors. And I would guess, and I love you to speak into this. Like, I would guess that most youth pastors can look around and see other social media accounts are doing well and want to do that, but are just thinking, bro, I don't have the time.

00;18;08;06 - 00;18;24;04
Nick Clason
And I would imagine that that's the boat that most youth pastors are and would. Would you agree with that or disagree with. Absolutely. I, I think of that for just myself. Like if I'm going, man, five days a week, I mean, there's so much to do. Three days a week feels a little more a little more comfortable. Yeah.

00;18;24;05 - 00;18;44;27
Erik w/a "k" Williams
I'm a big fan of like batch recording where you just I'm just going to take an hour on Monday and I'm going to record these three videos. Yeah. And then take the time. I mean, it does take time, right? But like some of those cap cup meme videos, that's not that's not much time at all. You're just kind of putting that information in and taking something that's already been used.

00;18;44;27 - 00;19;06;24
Erik w/a "k" Williams
And on the green screen you drop your information and like that's that's more simple. But I love I mean, dude, you're crushing it with how you do it with your youth ministry. I love like the, the, drafting videos and the seven seven questions to try to figure out what is it? I'm thinking of those those kind of things I think are so brilliant.

00;19;06;26 - 00;19;28;21
Erik w/a "k" Williams
It takes some time, but if you batch it, record it, do it all in one day, like I know on Instagram you can schedule videos to, to, to, to, yeah to go at specific times and dates and all that stuff. Yeah. So it takes time. But I think it's important and there has to be a, a belief in the value of it, for you to actually do it.

00;19;28;24 - 00;19;52;20
Erik w/a "k" Williams
You're not going to see the return on your investment overnight. Yeah. That's a, that's again another time. Just like the invite culture. It's going to take time to build your channel and students getting on it. Yeah. But you get those students involved with it both on screen and owning the the shooting of the videos and editing. Because there's you're going to find students that are that like to do that even if they're decent.

00;19;52;22 - 00;20;17;27
Nick Clason
Yeah. You can do some training with them. Yep. Give somebody some responsibility and go, hey, I want you to take on one of these a week or whatever. Yeah, that's on it. That's exactly right. And that's exactly what we've done. So I got it up and going all by myself. Proof of concept, sustainability, all these things. But now I've started recruiting other students, you know, and to your point, we just batch record.

00;20;17;27 - 00;20;37;00
Nick Clason
So anytime it's a Wednesday night we'll we have a four week strategy now. So one week we'll do those draft style videos. If you're watching here on YouTube you can see some examples. and we'll film as many of those as we can with as many students as we can. So I like to walk out of the night with anywhere from 4 to 6 of these different style of videos.

00;20;37;03 - 00;20;55;12
Nick Clason
Then the next week we'll do our seven question style video and same kind of concept as many students as we can. As many as we have time for will knock them out and, you know, get 4 to 6 in the hopper to edit later. we'll do the next week. I do like a man on the street style of walking out the microphone, interviewing kids or whatever.

00;20;55;12 - 00;21;10;29
Nick Clason
And so that's getting out of our room that we film in and more like on the streets. You can kind of see what our youth ministry looks like and everything. And then the last one is we'll just walk around, we'll do this. Those transition style invite videos. So hey, this week we'll do the one where the kids getting rammed by a ball.

00;21;10;29 - 00;21;29;23
Nick Clason
Next week we'll do the one with the the baby puking or whatever. And you do a few of those. You get. We got, last night, two nights ago, we got six of them, you know, in the hopper. And so. And I'm not doing that like, I got it set up. I got all the infrastructure built, but now I've handed it off to one of my students.

00;21;29;23 - 00;21;50;17
Erik w/a "k" Williams
And so he's doing it while I'm running the youth ministry program out playing basketball on the courts. And he's somewhere else in the building filming these these videos and that. Then the night he hands me the camera, I pop out the SD card and we're off. We're off to the races. And the good news in all of that, right, is that you can train up students and they want to help with.

00;21;50;17 - 00;22;09;18
Nick Clason
And when we look at it like the growing Young Study and Fuller Institute and all these things like keychain leadership is the key to sustained faith. So it shouldn't just be you as a youth pastor, like cooking all these things up, like bring about your leaders, bring about your volunteers, and and bring about your students, man. Like they want to help.

00;22;09;18 - 00;22;28;25
Erik w/a "k" Williams
So let an A side side bonus on that. You start handing some of the stuff off to students. They some of them are going to get like an excitement for doing that. And it could build into something even more. I had a student who I taught him how to do some PowerPoint stuff this like early on, and then I showed him how to shoot and edit video.

00;22;28;26 - 00;22;53;02
Erik w/a "k" Williams
Yeah, he went into marketing as a business. Yeah. Like all because he learned that stuff in youth group in middle school. Yeah. And the principles transferable beyond just social media, right. Like you might get kids are not interested in that, but they're interested in other things and isn't our job, as the apostle Paul puts it, to train the saints and equip them for works and acts of service.

00;22;53;02 - 00;23;10;21
Nick Clason
It's not our job to do all the works and acts of service. And so in the same vein, while social media feels like this maybe foreign kind of concept punch fear in the face just get started. And like I said, link down below. Episode 106. I'll detail an outline how to do all of that and just get those steps taken.

00;23;10;25 - 00;23;32;22
Nick Clason
Love it. Anything else? Erik, before we wrap this week up,

Erik w/a "k" Williams
I just say on the social media world, just just make a decision to do it. Like John, John Acuff is a guy I love to read and listen to. He talks about the hardest part about running is putting your shoes on. Once you put your shoes on, you're committed.

00;23;32;25 - 00;23;53;11
Erik w/a "k" Williams
Actually, when he's going to run in the morning, he puts his whole running outfit on the floor the night before. And then when you put your shoes on, that means you're going to actually run. So I'd say pick up your phone and, you know, sketch a few ideas and then go actually do it. Yeah. And then you start getting into a rhythm and it becomes a lot easier once you get into a rhythm of it.

00;23;53;18 - 00;24;12;06
Nick Clason
Yeah, that's 100% right. Well hey everyone, so glad that you made it all the way to the end. if you haven't, go check out part one. Erik's got a bunch of freebies there. And youth ministry, you're definitely going to want those. Those are premium level freebies. But until next time, and as always, stay hybrid. See you.

https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/coaching

💥 [LIMITED TIME OFFER] YouTube Editing for Youth Pastors💥

https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/editing

======================================
DESCRIPTION
✨If You’re a youth pastor, looking to reach the 95% of teenagers who spend time on YouTube, study according to Pew Research, and You’ve shot a video you're ready to share with the world...
How do you get the word out?
📈In this video we'll talk about Growing a YouTube channel
💥The Viral Reels Framework
🪄And the Incredible AI Tool you can use for your social media!
FULL PLAYLIST
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaLHMhNNfqmmmAsKRJ1VCBJl
======================================
📓SHOWNOTES
//SHOWNOTES & TRANSCRIPTS
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/094

//YOUTUBE VIDEO
https://youtu.be/qf600kbri2Q

GROWING A CHANNEL FROM SCRATCH
//CROSSCREEK STUDENTS ON YOUTUBE
https://www.youtube.com/@crosscreekstudents

//UNDER $100 GEAR KIT
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

//SONY ZVE-10
https://walmrt.us/3IyaDWv

//[FREE] EDITING
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/editing

//[FREE] COACHING
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/coaching

VIRAL REELS FRAMEWORK

1. Attention
2. Context
3. Captions
4. Relevant Hook
5. Sound Effects

//ADOBE PRESETS FOR ANIMATIONS
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis

THE MAGIC OF OPUS.PRO
//[FREE] HYBRID STRATEGY GUIDE
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

//OPUS.PRO
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

👉 STAY CONNECTED WITH NICK
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hybridministry/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HybridMinistry
Website: https://www.hybridministry.xyz

======================================

🆓 FREEBIES 🆓
📅 "The Full Hybrid Ministry Strategy"
https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/free-hybrid-ministry-e-book

🖥️ "My 9 Favorite DYM Resources"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym

📨 Full Proof Recruiting Email
EMAIL: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/recruiting-email

🍩 "FREE World's Greatest Donut Event Guide"
GUIDE: https://hybrid-ministry-40060036.hubspotpagebuilder.com/worlds-greatest-donut

😨 "Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account?"
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

📹 "Adobe Premiere Pro Presets for Animating Layers"
https://share.hsforms.com/1VL1oWwWwQ82PLwsPFkPITgnumis

======================================
🛠️TOOLS
Some of the below links are affilate links in which we do recieve a small commission based on your purchase or use of products

//BEST DYM RESOURCES
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/dym

OPUS.PRO FOR AI SHORTS & REELS
https://www.opus.pro/?via=a5d361

//YOUTUBE STARTER KIT FOR UNDER $100
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/youtubestarterkit

AUTO POD
https://autopod.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=MX7Vv

TRY REV.COM FOR TRANSCRIBING
https://rev.pxf.io/R5nDOa

--------------
🕰️TIMECODES
00:00 Getting the Word Out About your YouTube Video
02:05 Growing a YouTube channelf rom 0 to over 500 subs
06:15 Viral Reels Framework
11:47 Opus.Pro the Mindblowing Shorts Creator!

--------------
✍️TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:28:05
Nick Clason
If you're a youth pastor or church ministry leader of any sort looking to reach the 95% of teenagers who declared, spend time on YouTube, according to a Pew Research study that was done recently. And you're following everything that I've laid out in the playlist linked right here. You have pre shot a video. You have edited a video and now you are getting ready to then have posted the video to YouTube.

00:00:28:07 - 00:00:42:00
Nick Clason
Well, those are the first three steps that now now that you've taken those steps right you've taken the time to upload that video to YouTube. How do you get the word out about the fact that you have a video now on YouTube?

00:00:42:00 - 00:00:49:21
Nick Clason
Well, one of my favorite features embedded into YouTube is the shorts tab. It's very similar to TikTok.

00:00:49:21 - 00:01:19:01
Nick Clason
It's a discovery based short form vertical video category kind of algorithm. And it's it's kind of taken social media by storm. I'm curious what what your choice would be because all social medias have it now, right? Like maybe like me, I'm a millennial and a lot of millennials sort of settled in on Instagram. If you're an Instagram person, go ahead and give us a like, maybe some of you, you prefer TikTok and TikTok is sort of your social media of choice.

00:01:19:01 - 00:01:31:26
Nick Clason
Go ahead then and give us a subscribe if that's you. And, well, if you're YouTube itself and you need to turn the bell on because you definitely don't want to miss any more videos in the playlist that we're in right now. Titled

00:01:31:26 - 00:01:43:25
Nick Clason
YouTube for Youth Ministry. But YouTube shorts is a great way, along with some of those other social media platforms Facebook, even Instagram and TikTok to get the word out and to be discovered.

00:01:43:25 - 00:02:08:17
Nick Clason
And so in this video, I'm going to share with you my strategy for growing a YouTube channel 100% organically with zero paid reach. My viral Shorts five part framework and give you the not one, but two mind-blowing tools to help you do it all. Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry Show. You know, I haven't had a chance to meet yet.

00:02:08:18 - 00:02:25:27
Nick Clason
My name is Nick Clason and I right now I'm employed as a youth pastor in DFW, Dallas Fort Worth area, and I started at the current job in which I'm at now in September of 2022 and in January of 2023.

00:02:25:27 - 00:02:35:16
Nick Clason
So if you do some quick math, you'll realize there's just four months, before in January of 2023 when our church made a name change.

00:02:35:16 - 00:02:58:23
Nick Clason
And so that's significant because when I started in September of 2022, our student ministry did not have a YouTube account. And furthermore, I did not launch the YouTube account because of the name change coming in January. And so I held off, which gave us which gives us very clear kind of markers and timelines and stuff like that. So

00:02:58:23 - 00:03:02:26
Nick Clason
hold off did not start the channel until January and didn't start posting until January.

00:03:02:26 - 00:03:27:00
Nick Clason
And so as I'm looking right now, I'm typing it into my computer right in front of me right now, Cross Creek students on YouTube has 530 subscribers in just over a year. It's now March 20th when I'm recording this. And so we're looking at a year, and about three soon to be four months, 530 subscribers. Now, that's nothing to write home about.

00:03:27:00 - 00:03:46:24
Nick Clason
There are certain channels that have far more you know, subscribers and engagement than than we do. But my guess would be if I were to ask you, like, hey, do you want to get the word out? Some of your students, do you want to get the word out? Some of the parents in your ministry, and you want to get the word out to just some other people about the message of hope found in the gospel through YouTube?

00:03:46:24 - 00:04:07:05
Nick Clason
You would probably say yes and say, hey, would you be okay? 530 subscribers, which, by the way, is also continually growing. And so, in that time we have pre filmed our videos. I did it all off of my cell phone, which is actually what I'm recording on right now as well. and so it looked videos looked very

00:04:07:05 - 00:04:18:09
Nick Clason
similar to this with, you know, maybe different set, different locations in our church and one of our offices behind us filmed all the videos off of my cell phone for the first about a year.

00:04:18:11 - 00:04:28:28
Nick Clason
got all my gear for about under $100, got a little tripod, some lighting, some microphones, and that is actually linked down below in our gear for under $100. And

00:04:28:28 - 00:04:43:17
Nick Clason
then if and or when you are ready to upgrade to a little bit nicer camera in a little bit, it's a little bit easier to not do it off of a cell phone, when you do it off a camera, because it doesn't, eat up your cell phone space, you can use SD cards and stuff like that.

00:04:43:20 - 00:04:57:25
Nick Clason
I recommend the Sony Zv-e10 that is also linked down below, and it is about $600-$700. $600. And then if you get a good lens with it's another, you know, 100 bucks or whatever. So in the $700 ballpark,

00:04:57:25 - 00:05:04:13
Nick Clason
which is not a ton, but maybe you're not ready to do that. And that's why I would just stick with the under $100 thing.

00:05:04:13 - 00:05:12:24
Nick Clason
And then once you've shot the video and you're staring down at a video editing screen, you might be like, I don't even know what to do.

00:05:12:24 - 00:05:27:01
Nick Clason
Right now, I'm offering a limited time offer for anyone who's interested in my video editing services. and I will actually edit your videos for free. I'm just simply trying to get the ball rolling on this for me.

00:05:27:01 - 00:05:52:21
Nick Clason
And so I'm asking for you to, to shoot it pre film sent me out, edit it professionally and get it ready for you for YouTube. And maybe, as I say, that you're sitting here thinking like, I'm not ready for that. Like I don't I don't have the infrastructure for that. Well, then I can help you implement a hybrid strategy through some one on one coaching sessions as well.

00:05:52:23 - 00:06:19:03
Nick Clason
Those are also being offered right now. Limited time for free. All you gotta do is hit the contact tab down below in the show notes. Let me know. Reach out if I have space available still in my time and in my schedule, then I'd be happy to add you to something like that. Now, when you are posting on social media, when you are using short TikToks, reels on Instagram, Reels on

00:06:19:03 - 00:06:25:12
Nick Clason
Facebook, there are five kind of key categories and key factors, and I like to call it my viral Reels framework.

00:06:25:12 - 00:06:49:21
Nick Clason
It's five parts. but really it's isn't as formulaic as much as it is like when you're posting, these are the five things you need to attempt to try to make happen. So viral reel framework, category item number one is attention. Attention is everything. On social media. You know that there are certain reels that capture your attention better.

00:06:49:26 - 00:07:11:01
Nick Clason
And then there are other reels that are just plain, flat out boring. And think about your own viewing habits on social media. When you're on there, you're not necessarily on there to just, be informed, right? Like in some cases, you might be you might be on there doing a little bit of research. And the information is also inspirational.

00:07:11:01 - 00:07:36:20
Nick Clason
And so therefore you do like gather and capture some information. That's great. But whatever, whatever causes you to stop scrolling and hover over a video or hover over a post for a while, that's going to be the key. And the same is true with you, and the same is going to be true for all of your youth ministry, social media, your, goal is to get someone to stop and give you their attention.

00:07:36:20 - 00:08:05:05
Nick Clason
And so the better that you do, stopping and grabbing their attention, the better. So that could be, you know, opening the the reel with a zoom in or a sound effect or some sort of, like, surprising thing, or someone running at the camera or, I mean, there are all kinds of different ways to sort of grab and capture someone's attention, but if you don't have their attention, they're going to continue on scrolling as you know, as you probably use as well.

00:08:05:11 - 00:08:35:09
Nick Clason
Boom boom, boom boom boom. And now you're seven reels back and no one gave you any more time of day. So be thinking about how can you capture someone's attention. One good way I like to do that is, to give them context. And so that's my second, that's my second framework piece, is that if you are pre filming your messages and if you are dropping in little clips from your messages, give them the the more fuller embodied context of what you're talking about

00:08:35:09 - 00:08:40:04
Nick Clason
so that it's not just a soundbite, but they understand what

00:08:40:04 - 00:08:44:25
Nick Clason
what this clip is referencing and where it's coming from and what you're referring to.

00:08:44:25 - 00:09:13:11
Nick Clason
So you can accomplish that with like an AI voice, or you can accomplish that with just some text on screen. And then that way, boom. As I scroll there, it's got a little text on screen. And if you want to make that context, make that hook, whatever it is, make it a little bit interesting, give it a little bit of intrigue, like the four surprising ways that you can connect with God or one thing that makes Jesus mad, or seven ideas or, you know, whatever the case may be like.

00:09:13:14 - 00:09:34:26
Nick Clason
But give them some context, because if you are going to be giving them a real from a longer form clip, you're going to want to give them some background so they know what you're talking about when they enter into it. And so both that text on screen and or I voice is hopefully getting their attention, but also filling in and giving them context.

00:09:34:28 - 00:10:12:17
Nick Clason
And whoever you are, youth pastor, social media person, just person on YouTube, person on the internet, whoever is listening to this, please all, no matter what you do, put captions on your videos. That is framework thing number three. If you don't have captions, you will lose out on a segment of your audience. A wide majority of people watch, reels, watch TikToks, watch shorts in places where they can't have their headphones in in order to have their audio turned on, or you're just like, mean your wife is asleep next to you in bed and you are watching reels.

00:10:12:17 - 00:10:33:02
Nick Clason
But you I don't watch it if it doesn't have captions on it. Why? Because she's asleep and I'm not turning my sound on. So put captions on your videos so that anyone and everyone can access them. Number four, you need to have some sort of relevant hook. Now, if you're just pulling out clips from YouTube, that's going to be trickier, right?

00:10:33:02 - 00:11:09:06
Nick Clason
Because you're not speaking in such a way that has a relevant hook. And maybe as you begin to start speaking more and more direct camera, you may just weave in naturally. Things like this is one of the seven most surprising things about following Jesus, or whatever the case may be. But if you're not natural at that because it's not a natural skill to do, nor a thing that's easy to figure out, then as you are editing it and or as you, start to clip it up for social, that's where the context is important, because the context piece can actually serve as a little bit of your hook, and then may also serve as a

00:11:09:06 - 00:11:38:05
Nick Clason
way to kind of garner and gather and capture your viewers attention. And then the fifth one is sound effects. If you have editing ability and you're able to offer your reel with some sound effects, sound effects make a big deal. You can do animated text, you can do things on screen. I have some presets down below. If you're using a thing like Adobe Premiere Pro, I got some some presets that'll make you look like a professional, but if you can pair it with some sound effects.

00:11:38:12 - 00:11:41:21
Nick Clason
Now that right there, my friend, that's next level.

00:11:41:21 - 00:11:59:13
Nick Clason
So I get it. You're like, dude, okay, cool. Yeah, let me get started right on that with attention grabbing context and captions and some relevant hooks and sound effects. did you know me? Youth pastor? Did you know that I have other things I have to do in my job?

00:11:59:14 - 00:12:21:10
Nick Clason
Yeah, I do, I look, I do mean, and it's that's the thing 95% of teenagers find themselves on YouTube. We need to find a way to get over that. We need to prioritize putting ourselves over there. Which is why I want to start editing videos for youth pastors to help them out. I want to help take some of that burden, some of that load off of their plate when they don't have the time to do it.

00:12:21:10 - 00:12:28:23
Nick Clason
But some of that stuff, it just does. It comes a little bit at a cost, either a time cost or a financial cost. So this is what I want

00:12:28:23 - 00:12:47:01
Nick Clason
to offer for you two mind. Mind blowing, life changing, life changing maybe. Resources. The first one, definitely not life changing because I created it, but it is my 100% completely free e-book, and I'm actually thinking about changing the name of it to my fully fleshed out hybrid strategy.

00:12:47:04 - 00:13:13:25
Nick Clason
Either way, this is a framework for not only how to build, edit, capture, and post done for you, but done for you ideas. But things that are or are relevant and contextual and personal. You, your students, your leaders. You are the heroes. You are the people on these social platforms. I'm telling you to use social media to help get the word out.

00:13:13:28 - 00:13:33:25
Nick Clason
Yes, for your YouTube video, but also just for additional content above and beyond that. And my e-book will detail that in outline. How to do all of it, not only how to film it, but also how to edit it and how to schedule it so that you are staying relevant and current with stuff that is going on. So go ahead and check that out.

00:13:34:02 - 00:13:55:03
Nick Clason
But then my second tool that I want to let you know about is that in all the things we're talking about, relevant hooks, text on screen, like all these types of things, you can use opus clip. It's free. It's free for a time up to a certain number of credits. And then if you want to add some more credits to the cost, you can go ahead and do it.

00:13:55:03 - 00:14:16:20
Nick Clason
I think, I got it when I was still kind of in beta, but I paid like a hundred and like $12 or something like that for the year. and like, you see right here, it's for 31 hours and five minutes. what happens is like our videos are, you know, 10 to 15 minutes long. And so I calculated that out and it's enough for a year.

00:14:16:20 - 00:14:37:24
Nick Clason
It's more than enough for a year. So I can use it for some other things too. We film the playlist and I use it for some of those as well. But what you do is you, you drop either a YouTube link in here or a zoom link, or just the actual full file. and then when you're in it once, it's already like kind of process it through whatever, it creates it and puts it down here and all these different projects.

00:14:37:29 - 00:14:59:12
Nick Clason
So you see, these are all old projects that I've used before in the past. And so in this particular one of I'm just going to click on it. You'll notice it scroll all the way down to the bottom. That has given me 15 different shorts that I can use, 15 different videos that are clipped up vertically based with captions, all the things we talked about and that you can use.

00:14:59:14 - 00:15:18:12
Nick Clason
then once it gives it, once it gives it to you, it it ranks it with some of these things. I don't really use those. I write my own headlines and taglines, but you can use that if you want. you can download it, in Adobe Premiere Pro. You can download it in, in high definition. or you can go in here and edit it, which I recommend doing.

00:15:18:14 - 00:15:33:28
Nick Clason
it'll, it has a full video transcribe. But so in this particular clip it has it transcribed right here. And so you can select the start spot like if you like I don't want it to turn the word Android or you want to send the word student. You can just change it to just select the start spot there.

00:15:34:00 - 00:15:49:14
Nick Clason
and then you can have it end in a different spot. you look over here, you see how long it is. A YouTube short needs to be under a minutes of. It's greater than a minute. You need to find places to shave it down. then over here in design, I like to generate B-Roll with some stock footage.

00:15:49:20 - 00:16:05:08
Nick Clason
And so all these little spots are. Here are places that the video decides to generate some B-roll. So this one is generating B-roll based off of the word process. And so if I don't like the word process right there, or if I don't like the video that they chose for the word process, I can research the word process.

00:16:05:11 - 00:16:25:23
Nick Clason
And, these ones right here are Shutterstock images, which I don't pay for, so I can't use. But these other ones right here without a Shutterstock watermark are, from pexels.com, which are free. So the free for me, they would be free for you to use. and then if I'm like, I don't like any of those words, I can research a new word and just say, like, I don't know, computers.

00:16:25:26 - 00:16:40:29
Nick Clason
and then search that, and I can see what kind of words I'm going to get for computers, and then I can just swap it out right there. And now it goes from my iPad thing to this little computer based thing, when I'm done with it. by the way, it also has, auto emojis over here.

00:16:40:29 - 00:16:58:14
Nick Clason
So like, as it, as it's talking, you might see moments where emojis pop up on screen just like that. just as another, like, visual stimulant on the screen. you can choose your caption style. You can also create your own brand kind of template. I'll show you how to do that here in just a minute. Caption lines per page.

00:16:58:14 - 00:17:16:29
Nick Clason
Three lines or one line. How do you want the captions to transition with the bounce and underline box? you can select your underline color. You can figure out where you want your captions to go. You can change fonts, all these types of things font, color, font stroke, font shadow, keyword highlighter and then screen overlay. So let me show you that to so.

00:17:16:29 - 00:17:34:19
Nick Clason
So when you're done you can click click save and compile. And I'll just put right here. It'll need a minute to process. And then boom you're done. And you're downloading. if you want to create a brand template, which is what I like to do, in my brand template, I have created this little guy right here as a watermark on the top of my video.

00:17:34:21 - 00:17:58:24
Nick Clason
on our student Mr.. Have something similar, which points people back to our YouTube channel. Now, when you're on YouTube and uploading it to shorts, you can click related video. And on shorts you can actually link your YouTube video, which is my favorite feature of all. But if I'm using this over on TikTok, Instagram or Facebook, I use this little watermark as sort of my way to like, encourage them to go check us out on YouTube.

00:17:58:24 - 00:18:19:04
Nick Clason
But, here here are my caption preferences. Here is my brand kind of template. and I have it all saved. I have it all. Whatever. I made this little I made this little watermark thing, and then this is where I uploaded it. Right here. I just built this in, like, a thing, like Photoshop with a clear background, and I uploaded it in,

00:18:19:06 - 00:18:36:18
Nick Clason
And then I saved it. And so this is my pre preset template number one. But I could go to preset template number two. And I could create a whole different look, a whole different flow a whole different feel. Now when I'm done I download them all. I save them in a folder and I post them, I save them in a folder to be posted later.

00:18:36:18 - 00:18:57:27
Nick Clason
And so you can use Opus clip, you can use my e-book, both of which to help you level up your social media game and get the word out. Once you've shot your video, once you've edited your video, and now it will help you create in a matter of minutes, social media content for you and for your youth.

00:18:57:27 - 00:19:25:09
Nick Clason
Ministry, But. Now, now you've done all these things. Okay, now it's ready to go on YouTube and post like you're going to click the plus button and create. And then it's going to give you the YouTube dialog box. So you have to put in titles and descriptions and tags. One the world you even post on there. I'm glad you asked, because we're actually going to be unpacking that fully in the next video, which is linked right here on screen.

00:19:25:16 - 00:19:35:17
Nick Clason
We're helping you take digital discipleship and make it easy. And don't forget and as always, stay hybrid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long Form Video:
https://youtu.be/uZzatZ4KFyE

Hang out on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick

ShowNotes & Transcripts:
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/055

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

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

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

TIMECODES
00:00-01:13 Intro
01:13-02:14 Setup For Editing a Short Form Vertical Video for Church Social Media
02:14-02:52 Converting from Widescreen to Full Screen in Adobe Premiere pro
02:52-03:12 Setting in and out spots on a Sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro
03:12-03:26 Starting your TikToks to catch people's attention
03:26-03:55 Shaving Down Excess Space for Quicker Jump Cuts on TikToks and Reels
03:55-04:19 Zooming in and out for TikTok Videos and Shorts
04:19-05:12 Animating Text Layers in Adobe Premiere Pro
05:12-06:08 Adding Sound Effects
06:08-07:14 Add a Call to Action to Watch the Long Form YouTube Video
07:14-07:57 Adding Music to your Short Form Video
07:57-11:30 Adding Captions to your Reels and TikToks in Adobe premiere Pro
11:30-12:19 Rendering the Short Video for Social out of Adobe Premiere Pro
12:19-14:33 Determining Which Clips to Add for a Social Media Clip
14:33-19:13Clipping out the Spaces
19:13-19:48 Adding the Call to Action
19:48-22:49 Transcribing the Sequence for Reels and Shorts in Adobe Premiere Pro
22:49-22:32 Rendering out the Sequence
22:32-24:17 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
What is going down everybody? Welcome back. Another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. If, uh, you have not, um, if you've not gone back and seen the last one where I edited a full, uh, video down, then I want to encourage you to go back and check that out. That is what I would do for, um, editing a full video for YouTube. Once that's done, render out some thumbnails and some time codes and stuff like that. However, for, um, this episode, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna edit out three short form TikTok style videos. So I wanna make sure that you can see that. So I'm gonna be using the same premiere file. I'm just gonna resave it and make it vertical as opposed to horizontal. So I wanna show you how that goes down. Um, hey, don't forget, we are on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

Nick Clason (00:46):
Go subscribe all three places, check those things out and hit the show notes for transcripts and my free ebook. Um, tell you how to post a TikTok from scratch on your phone. This, however, is about posting a TikTok. Um, first saving it on, uh, in a video editing software. In particular, this one's Adobe Premier Pro. And then, um, saving those somewhere that you can repost them later. So, without any further ado, let's dive in. Check the sucker out. So, like I said in the last video, you would've seen, um, something like this. This is, um, me opening up the Adobe Premiere Pro file. Um, I don't think I need those, so I'm not gonna worry about those. All right, so here's the, the final. So the first thing I do,

Nick Clason (01:36):
Okay, you'll never be left

Nick Clason (01:38):
Out. All right, so the first thing that I do is I, um, file save as. Um, and I'm gonna save it as underscore social one. I do every social, I do a new one, um, just cuz I sometimes move around like backing tracks and audio and resync some things. This is more, this happens a lot more with my podcast than these, but I just try and do a different one every single time. Sometimes I forget, but the more that I I file save as the source file, the less chance for error. Um, and so I'm just gonna start here. Um, so now this is the source file. So now I can change the sequence settings. I'm going up here, sequence settings. Frame size is 1920 by 10 80. That is wide screen. I'm gonna change it to, um, up, up and down, whatever that's called. Verticals vertical video. So that's 10 80 by 1920 pixels, click. Okay. And then, okay, so now you'll see here in my preview I have it, um, uh, 10 80 by 1920. Problem is I need this video to be fully screened. So that's why I kind of change it every single time. So I'm gonna, um, zoom that in in a minute. But first I am going to, um, create a title track. So I'm gonna make it this one right here. In this

Nick Clason (02:52):
Video we're gonna talk about how, about how, how you, how you can get,

Nick Clason (03:01):
So I want to do it right there. So I clicked I how you go in. Um, and then right there I hit C to get my razor tool and then v to select that and get it outta here. Now one of the things I like to do is I like to open it with an animation. I feel like as people are scrolling, when they see an animation, it jars them and at least gets their attention at least a little bit

Nick Clason (03:22):
How you can get,

Nick Clason (03:24):
I'm going to need to zoom that in though, right? So it needs to be like that.

Nick Clason (03:28):
How you can get invited to every single party.

Nick Clason (03:34):
I'm gonna do c v, get rid of that, bring that in ever. I'm gonna make these quicker cuts, you'll

Nick Clason (03:42):
Never be left out again.

Nick Clason (03:44):
So where there's a gap there in the audio, how I'm clipping

Nick Clason (03:50):
This party started and find out.

Nick Clason (03:53):
So go back here and now I'm gonna just do some zoom. So that's at 1 94. I'm gonna zoom in even more to 2 27, 2 27 and then 2 27. So

Nick Clason (04:10):
How you can get invited to every single party ever. You'll never be left out again how this party started and find out.

Nick Clason (04:19):
All right, so, um, I also want to take my, uh, thumbnail, which I made in Photoshop. Um, I don't think I showed that on camera, but that's what I ended up making. So I'm gonna bring that in in the P S D and then since I have all those layers, I'm gonna animate those and this is gonna be like my announcement or like title sequence. So I always do one that just like explains what the video is. It's just like an announcement. Um, and so this is that one. This is me, you know, right here at the beginning. So I'm gonna go

Nick Clason (04:51):
How you can get invited to ev.

Nick Clason (04:56):
So I'm gonna have that come in at the same time and then I'm just gonna move it so it fits

Nick Clason (05:07):
How you can get invited to every single party ever.

Nick Clason (05:13):
I'm gonna do a sound effect as that comes in. I still have that sfx saved from earlier. If you don't have it, um, go find it. Um, wherever you have sound effects saved, um, go find it in your finder and then you can drop it right here in this bin. Since I did use that earlier in my long form video, it's already saved in here. Um, so that's one of the reasons too where I like to go back to the original file cuz all the things that I pulled in are already still there. So I'm gonna do I right there, o right here. I have a lot of other options, but I'm just gonna pick that one. Let's see how that sounds.

Nick Clason (05:49):
How you can get invited to every single party ever. You'll never be left out again. How

Nick Clason (05:58):
I feel like that needs to be

Nick Clason (06:00):
How let's get party start. Oh, how, let's get this party started and find out.

Nick Clason (06:08):
All right, so over here, um, in my shared file, I have created a graphic that I use for my enders. So it's in, uh, shared students social media, TikTok and reels. And then I think I have it in admin. And this is just where I push people to watch the full video on YouTube. So I'm gonna put that right here. I'm gonna let that bounce in, right? And I'm gonna get a, I'm gonna get a whoosh sound with it. Take just the audio there. Boom, put it right there. Yep,

Nick Clason (06:51):
Let's get party started.

Nick Clason (06:53):
I wanna make that a little later. Let's do it right here.

Nick Clason (06:57):
Party started. Find out

Nick Clason (07:00):
We let it linger a little bit past the talking. Make that oh for out and then I'm gonna go back in here into messages. Um, start the party and I'm gonna get the party music so that there's a little audio track with it. Um, is it necessary? No. Um, does it add to it? Maybe you can be the judge of that. Um, I'll just, I'm just gonna drop it in here. I'm gonna make it negative 25. So it's real low.

Nick Clason (07:27):
You can get invited to every single party.

Nick Clason (07:32):
Adjust. I'm gonna adjust these audios right here. So I'm just gonna highlight them all. Select, all right, click audio game. I'm gonna make it 15. So it should be pretty substantial difference how you

Nick Clason (07:42):
Can get invited to every single party ever. You'll never be left out again. How, let's get this party started and find out.

Nick Clason (07:52):
All right, the only thing is I lost my right there.

Nick Clason (07:56):
Start and find out.

Nick Clason (07:58):
All right. Now last thing is I wanna add captions. So I'm gonna go to window workspaces, captions and graphics. Um, here's where I transcribe it. So I'm gonna click, um, from captions to transcript. I'm gonna click transcribe. Uh, okay, I don't know what this is doing. This is new. Okay, so let's do transcript.

Nick Clason (08:37):
Oh,

Nick Clason (08:48):
All right, let's try it again. So this is just gonna take a minute. There used to be, this is an updated version. So like I said, I have a new computer in my last video. So there used to be an option to just transcribe the in and out portion so it wouldn't take quite as long. Uh, looks like it got it right here. All those right there. So I'm gonna click captions, click captions from transcript, click this dropdown arrow. I like to do single lines and then create captions. So

Nick Clason (09:37):
I do,

Nick Clason (09:37):
So there you see they right there. So I'm gonna go over here and highlight that one. Click command A to select all. And then I'm gonna go change all. So I'm going to, I like to do, uh, every one of my captions for students has been Babe New Pro. Um, I put it in the middle here, but then I do uh, bottom line text, um, take away the shadow and I want to give it a little background. So I'll give it a black background. I'm gonna make it a hundred percent a opaque and then I'm gonna give it some roundedness and some size. See, so it looks like that. Now problem is, it's still covering that. So I have two options. I can lower that. I can lower the texts. So I can do like this and then like top aligned or middle aligned, or I can move this, um, in, in affects controls. And so I think I might do that so my face isn't covered. Um, and then, but that still doesn't solve this problem. If I go there, yeah, if I go there, it's still a little bit. So I might still move this down, just ale and then over here and text command A.

Nick Clason (11:01):
Yeah, I'm just gonna leave it there in the middle. It's fine.

Nick Clason (11:04):
Oh, you can get invited to every single party ever. You'll never be left out again. How, let's get,

Nick Clason (11:13):
You just gotta go back in here and edit anything that didn't get picked up. So how, let's get this party started and find out, out

Nick Clason (11:22):
Again how, let's get party started and find out started and find out.

Nick Clason (11:30):
I'm going to cut it right there, back to V to select it. So now when my under slide comes in, it's gone. All right, so now I'm gonna click on sequence command M, make sure my format is set to H 2 64. That's for MP4 files. And now I'm gonna go back out here. Instead of putting it in messages, I'm gonna put it in TikTok and reels. 2023, start the party oh three Nick, oh one title and change it from, uh, entire source to in and out. So it's just gonna do that a little bit right there. Export, there's TikTok number one.

Nick Clason (12:20):
All right, sweet. Now I'm going to go file save as I'm gonna gimme social two, I'm gonna go back up here to window and get my effects panel back. Some switch from workspaces, from captions to effects. It's probably an easier way to do it, but I'm not gonna worry about it now. It autogenerated all these captions for me. That could be good, that could be bad as long as I keep the same order. I like to tell stories on TikTok as much as I can. So if this story right here can make sense, I'm gonna go with it.

Nick Clason (12:54):
Church, I, I used to work at one time, likes to be the person ever. Nobody.

Nick Clason (13:12):
All right, so these captions are messing me up. So honestly, I'm just gonna start this over. So no, I'm not gonna save that. Um, I'm gonna go back in here three premiere and pull this up. So now I'm going to just get myself a clean copy and all I gotta do is change the sequence settings, file, save as social. I'll just make this three. All right, sequin. Gotta click on sequence. Sequence settings. 10 80 by 1920. All right. Now back to my story. So I don't want these things here, okay? I don't need those things for TikTok

Nick Clason (14:00):
Ever. Whoop,

Nick Clason (14:08):
Cut V out. I'm gonna animate this in motion. Presets position in smooth bottom. Let's be

Nick Clason (14:17):
On

Nick Clason (14:18):
And I'm gonna zoom in, go over to effects controls, and I gotta cut the gaps.

Nick Clason (14:27):
Nobody, let's be honest, nobody ever likes to be the person left out. One time I moved away from a church that I used to work at

Nick Clason (14:54):
Just cutting out all these gaps. So C then V and then sliding over.

Nick Clason (14:59):
And at this church at this,

Nick Clason (15:04):
I don't need that big long. And

Nick Clason (15:09):
At this church I did retreats with an

Nick Clason (15:25):
So I'm gonna bring all of these photos over

Nick Clason (15:33):
Treats. What's another,

Nick Clason (15:36):
I just gotta zoom in.

Nick Clason (15:38):
A friend of mine down the road, he worked at a church. And so together our church would, our two churches would come together. We went on this fall retreat. And so before I moved, I was was one of the ones who went on the,

Nick Clason (16:08):
All right, let's go back here and shave out any fluff. I don't need whatever this is.

Nick Clason (16:14):
Our church would come to our two churches would churches. So together our church would come to our

Nick Clason (16:21):
Cut out that, so it's just this

Nick Clason (16:25):
Boat. He worked at a churches, our two churches would come together and we went on this fall retreat. And so before I moved, I was one of the ones who went on the retreat, helped plan it,

Nick Clason (16:42):
Speak,

Nick Clason (16:42):
Do all the things. And so every single fall we went to camp Fall retreat. And so

Nick Clason (16:49):
I'm gonna cut all that goal is to make it as short as possible. And

Nick Clason (16:52):
So every single fall we

Nick Clason (16:53):
Went to, I felt losing the story

Nick Clason (16:56):
CSA in Briston, Indiana. And we called the retreat, the Recharge retreat. And it was awesome. And it was awesome. It was awesome and the same place. And because I followed both my and it was awesome,

Nick Clason (17:23):
Roll

Nick Clason (17:23):
Around,

Nick Clason (17:26):
Same.

Nick Clason (17:27):
And it was awesome. I leave that church, I move on to another one, and that same weekend rolls around.

Nick Clason (17:33):
Gotta get that out of there. I could have left. It just chose not to the same place.

Nick Clason (17:39):
And because I follow both my old church and my buddy's church on Instagram, I see that they're both on a retreat.

Nick Clason (17:47):
And I

Nick Clason (17:47):
Was like, God, it's interesting both that church and this church are both on a retreat together at, but on the same

Nick Clason (17:54):
Weekend, probably gonna cut all this out. That's

Nick Clason (17:56):
Interesting. Wait,

Nick Clason (17:58):
It

Nick Clason (18:00):
Go wait.

Nick Clason (18:04):
And that same weekend rolls around.

Nick Clason (18:07):
Wait,

Nick Clason (18:17):
And it was awesome. I leave that church. I'm watching that same weekend roll around, wait in ton Indiana, hold on, hold on. They're together. And what I began to notice, hold on, was that these two churches came together and instead of calling it the Recharge retreat, they called it the Lifeline Retreat or something like that, that these two churches came together and instead of calling it the Recharge retreat, they called it the Lifeline Retreat or something like that. I don't remember, but I felt, so

Nick Clason (18:59):
This is why I wanna end on right

Nick Clason (19:00):
Lifeline retreat, but

Nick Clason (19:01):
I, I felt so left out, left, boom. And then I just wanna kind of leave a little cliff hangry. So I'm gonna go back over here. I'm gonna grab my ender screen. I'm gonna bring it in. It's gonna position in, right? I'm gonna get the sounder for it.

Nick Clason (19:31):
Same weekend.

Nick Clason (19:35):
So that's at 1 30 46. All right, so it's less than a minute. Um, YouTube shorts only allows a minute. So I always make my goal to be less than a minute. So transcript, get this outta here. I think that that's my in-out points. I just want the audio transcribed. I don't need all that transcribed. That might be all the little ones. Listen, you and I are learning this all together with the new transcription interface. In the meantime, Marvel at me in this old shirt. All right, so I don't want that. I want create new caption track there. So I need to get all these, I'm gonna do Babes New Pro. I'm gonna do another black. Actually, I'll do a white background with black text this time. I don't want shadow, I want background. And I'm just gonna put it right in the middle and then lower it down just a little bit beneath my face. And let's see how it looks.

Nick Clason (21:48):
Let's be honest. Nobody ever likes to be the person left out. One time I moved away from a church that I used to work at this church. I did retreats with another friend of mine down the road. He worked at a church and our two churches would come together and we went on this fall retreat. And so every single fall we went to a camp called Camp Tecu Tecumsah in Brookstown, Indiana. And we called the retreat the Recharge Retreat. And it was awesome. I leave that church, I move on to another one. And that same weekend rolls around. Hold on. Was that these two churches came together and instead of calling it the Recharge retreat, they called it the Lifeline Retreat, but I felt so left out.

Nick Clason (22:38):
I'm just gonna cut that right there. I'm gonna put my out there. I'm gonna come back over here, put my in, and then command M, switch it to H 2 6 4 TikTok, start the party. Boom. All right. And then one more. I like to do three week. I typically post my Title one on Sunday, um, and then I post the other two, um, on a Thursday and a Tuesday. So that's just kind of been my rhythm. Leaves some gaps in the calendar or in the TikTok posting schedule for some other things. So, all right, as this encodes, I am going to wrap up to the next one,

Nick Clason (23:37):
Actually. Um, I'm going to, you get the gist. Um, I will do the third one the exact same way. Uh, just realized I have a meeting in two minutes, so I'm gonna go ahead and wind this down. Um, I will, I will make the third one without you here. Um, but I hope that you found this helpful, um, in pre-recording and then making TikTok in Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop. So, sounds helpful. Leave a like, subscribe, rating, review, hit the notes, uh, show notes for transcripts or my free ebook. And, um, we'll talk soon. Don't forget, stay hybrid.

Watch the Video on our YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g

Hang out on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick

ShowNotes & Transcripts:
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/053

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

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

SHOWNOTES
NBA Article:
https://sportsnaut.com/tom-thibodeau-coach-players-least-like-to-play-for/amp/
6 Things We can Learn:
https://joinhandshake.com/blog/employers/6-things-gen-z-wants-from-their-job/
Gen Z Coping Mechanisms:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ra73jZJKw-dxIXxkZZfY-9RF5V0TH4RF/view?usp=sharing
Honesty as a Faith Value:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WaZbfMyIZUCUPYIx4joBkMvC2-hoJ-Ez/view?usp=sharing
Justice Motivated Generation:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wYwsRP3-p5_gExKS0g3L6UDOFhL4H149/view?usp=sharing

TIMECODES
00:00-03:07 Intro
03:07-10:33 Nobody Wants to Play for Tom Thibodeau, why?
10:33-20:26 6 Things we can learn from the Next Generation
20:26-28:25 3 Learnings for us as the Church
28:25- Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
Well, hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. My name is Nick Clason, sipping coffee with you on this beautiful Monday morning.

Nick Clason (00:17):
And if you're just listening to this, you're missing out cuz you didn't get to see me drink out of my beautiful Ohio mug, which I would, uh, widely consider to be my home state. Anyway, in this episode, I am excited to, uh, talk to you about a, a really weird kind of topic a little bit, uh, but I'm gonna talk to you about my learnings from NBA head coaches and the shift that is happening with the next generation. And so what I mean by that is we are going to dive in a little bit. There was a recent study that came out, um, from the Athletic, uh, I'm a big basketball fan, you guys probably know that about me. Um, there's a big study that came out about the worst coach, the, the coach that the players would least want to play for. And that was fascinating to me because what that signified was that is that coach was a very old school coach.

Nick Clason (01:09):
What that signified to me was that this means that there is a shifting in the way that people are, are having things be done, and there's a shifting in the way that people want things, frankly, to be done. And so because of that, uh, I wanted to inspect that just a little bit. It's like, what is going on there? So that's what we're gonna be diving into and talking about. But before we do, I just wanna remind you that you can follow me over on YouTube. We have a full YouTube channel with I post daily shorts as well as a weekly podcast, full length video. Um, it's complete with overlays and statistics. And more and more we're diving into statistics and things like that. And so if you hear something of, what was that again, it will more than likely be over on YouTube. Uh, and on that section of the video also, it could, um, if it's not there, it definitely will be over at Hybrid Ministry xyz.

Nick Clason (02:01):
And for this episode, it's slash 0 5 0 because we are on episode. Can you believe it? Episode 50. Crazy. I know. Um, also wanna remind you that if you would be so kind, we would love a rating, um, or a review, just sign into your Apple Podcast app. If you've been listening for any length of time, it would mean the world to us to have a little review, to hear from the people, uh, about what's helpful, what's beneficial, um, and what you like about this show. Um, and as a token of our appreciation, we will give you our 100% completely free ebook on how to know if you've even ruined your church's TikTok account. By the way, your church probably should be on TikTok. And so if you're not yet, head to the link in the show notes and grab your 100% completely free ebook unknowing if you have ruined your church's TikTok account.

Nick Clason (02:56):
But without any further ado, let's dive into what I have learned from NBA head coaches about the upcoming shifting and new generation that's upon us. So what have we learned from the NBA and their head coaches? Like I said, big basketball fan basketball nut over here. And so there was a recent survey done. It was a player survey. They surveyed, um, as many players as they could, I think something like 500 players. Um, and they asked was the coach that you would mo least like to play for and the overwhelming winner. And in that response was, um, Tom Tebeau of the New York Knicks. And so if you're not a basketball person, lemme try to paint the picture for Tibs. He's sort of this rough and tumble like old school kind of player. Um, uh, a good example of this, like a reason why is there is a guy drafted a couple years ago.

Nick Clason (03:50):
I'm a I'm, I'm personally have an affinity for him because he's from the University of Dayton, which again, I would, I would widely consider Dayton, Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio, that sort of like southwest Ohio region, my hometown. I lived there for, uh, more than half of my life, my wife born and raised there. And so that also helped kind of tie my roots back to there. Anyway, Obi Toppin was a player who played for the University of Dayton. He was drafted to the New York Knicks and Tom Tido or, uh, nicknamed Tibs doesn't play rookies. Like he just doesn't. And so what's funny is Tido had really big and good success, uh, over in Chicago. Uh, you might remember Derek Rose, he was an mvp. Uh, rose played for tdo. Well, a couple years back when they drafted Obie Toin, he had Rose who's like the ghost of himself cuz he's had like multiple knee surgeries.

Nick Clason (04:40):
Uh, and Taj Gibson, who's like just this older mid thirties player and those guys are getting all of the playing time. Tdo often plays his players, uh, upwards of 40 something minutes and there's only 48 minutes available in a basketball game. And so he really just like locks in on his, the players that he likes and drives them hard into the ground and they just play a lot. Now you might be thinking like if you want playing time, isn't tid the guy? And yeah, that may be the case, but in recent years, N B A players have taken on more of a, uh, slower approach and a little bit more of like a self-care type approach. Kawhi Leonard has made this famous, he, uh, was traded away from the Spurs because he, he wasn't recovering fast enough because he needed more time to help heal his body.

Nick Clason (05:29):
In fact, Kawhi Leonard, uh, does these things where he, uh, and it is made famous by him, but now a lot of players do it. It's called load management. And so if there's like a back to back game where like they play one night and they also play the next night, he won't play the next night, um, just to preserve and take care of his body to make sure that one, he's fresh for himself, but two, that he's fresh for the playoffs. See, with Tom Tipo, almost all that stuff is out the door. And in the, in the nineties the nba, there was sort of this mentality, this like bad boys' mentality. Like you, you gotta like get in there, be rough and tumble. Uh, they, they refereed the game very differently. You could be a lot more aggressive and dramatic with your contact and the way that you played.

Nick Clason (06:14):
And I just, I say all that to say is that Tom Thibodaux will be a great coach, I think in that era, the Bad Boys era of 1990s basketball with the Detroit Piston and Joe Dumars and Isaiah Thomas and Bill Lamb beer and Dennis Rodman of the Chicago Bulls. But it's 2023 now and the game has changed and it's a much more fluid offensive game. I mean, if you're, again, if you're a basketball person, hang with me if you're not. Cuz we're gonna get to some of the implications of this cuz this is the only like real basketball section right here. But like the, the New Age Warriors, they have completely changed the game. And they don't even run with a traditional center like Draymond Green, who's only like six foot eight, six foot nine. Draymond Green is running their, uh, center position, their tallest player on the floor, and they have five guys out who can all shoot.

Nick Clason (07:00):
You got like Clay Thompson and Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole and all these guys with Draymond in the middle, the only guy who really can't shoot, but he's short and he's helping facilitate and kicking the ball all to all these places and it's much more fluid. And what's interesting is that you got their coach, Steve Kerr, who came in and completely reinvented and, and brought the game to the way that the players wanted it to be. Now if you're sitting here listening and you're a church leader, you're a pastor or you're a business owner, you're thinking, well that generation, like they need this next generation. They need to chill out. They need to stop being so, uh, soft and needing things their way. And here's the the thing I would just say to you like, yes, maybe that is true if they come to work for you and your business, but what do we see?

Nick Clason (07:47):
What, like look around post covid, look at every like donut shop, every drive through every burger place. Like people are not coming back to work. Why? It's not because they don't want to. It's not actually, it probably is because they don't want to, right? But it's not cuz they don't wanna work, they just don't wanna work there. They don't wanna work for you. They want to work for themselves and make money. I recently heard a podcast of this, a 19 year old kid who's out on TikTok making millions and billions of dollars and thousands and thousands of followers, and he will probably never go flip a burger over at Burger King. And so while we can be like those kids, they need to learn this, this, and this, they're not learning that in a traditional workplace. They're out there hacking it for themselves. And so here's the thing, if you are a church leader specifically, or a business owner, you have this generation who's out here kind of paving their own way, hacking it for themselves.

Nick Clason (08:48):
If you want that generation a part of your organization, you can't be like the nba, uh, or you can't be like Tom Tito of the nba where you just keep doing it your own way because that's the way you've always done it, right? In fact, you need to shift your thinking to start figuring out how you can accommodate that generation. Not because the church is about serving and self, self-serving and and selfishness and all, not, it's not about those things, I get it. But if you are a follower of Jesus, you have a mandate to reach every generation with the message and the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that includes generation Z. And by the way, soon to be generation alpha, who is already starting to graduate into our youth ministry next Sunday, we promote our fifth graders into our sixth grade and fifth grade is not considered Generation Z.

Nick Clason (09:42):
They're considered generation alpha. So what that means is our, our current youth ministry and current college and young adult ministry that is Gen Z. So pastor, if you're still trying to figure out how to reach millennials, I'm a millennial. I'm mid thirties. Like they're already the majority of our workforce. They are our current parents of younger kids. You need to start figuring out if you wanna reach younger generations. It has shifted. And Gen Z has a very different mindset than a millennial. It can be similar in some ways, but it is different. And so what can we learn? What has the NBA shown us? So I, I came across an article about six things that Generation Z is looking for in their next workplace. So let's power through those different six things and take a look at what we can learn from them.

Nick Clason (10:34):
All right? So this is article, it's from Handshake blog. I'll throw the link in the show notes. I thought it was interesting. I'm gonna give them the credit for all of this cuz they did all the work on it. But I just wanted to provide a little bit of commentary cuz we're not a workplace like employment podcast, we're a ministry podcast. So I, I would say if you're a pastor or church leader listening to this, there are two ways to kind of think about this way. Number one is think about this from the generations of people that are a part of your ministry. But way number two is think about this from the people that you employ at your church. If you want to grow younger and have younger people, younger congregation and younger staff specifically, and particularly younger staff, I want to encourage you to think about it this way.

Nick Clason (11:18):
So number one, generations Z is looking for compensation that affords work life balance. 70% of Gen Z survey respondents say that pay and or compensation is the most important factor again, right? Let's look back to our NBA analogy. Kawhi Leonard doesn't wanna play all 82 regular season games. He wants to play in the playoffs. No, granted, he doesn't even play in the playoffs anymore. If you're not a basketball person, you don't get that reference, but that's another conversation for another day. But the reality is Gen Z is looking for a better work-life balance. They've looked at their older millennials, gen X parents, grandparents, whoever working in the workforce, and they don't wanna work that 40 hour a week grind. If you spend any amount of time on social media or TikTok, you see people saying like, make six figures in like five hours a day of work.

Nick Clason (12:09):
Like that is the major hook out there because that's what people want. Is it realistic? I don't know. I think a lot of those things probably require a lot of work and at least a lot of like hustle on the front end. But the reality is they're looking for something that will help serve them to live a more full life. Not because they're lazy, not because they don't wanna work, but because they realize that it's not all about work. The other thing, the second thing is that they want clarity into career paths and internal mobility options. 71% of respondents expect to be promoted between six months to a year and a half. 64% attend career events to ensure that there are growth and development opportunities. What does this mean for a church? Well first of all, if you're employing them at a church, they wanna look around and see if there's ways to move up.

Nick Clason (12:56):
What do most churches do? Most churches don't have ways to move up. In fact, one of the times I left one of my jobs is I was, me and the senior pastor, we were the only two full-time pastors on staff. And I looked around and I said, there is no way that I'll ever get a chance to move up here. Like it. We have to hire like an adult discipleship pastor. We'll have to hire, um, an executive pastor. We'll have to hire, um, a college ministry, uh, pastor or associate. Like, I will not get a chance to move up until we make several other hires. And, and at the trajectory at that point, I had been working there for five years. I was like, that is not going to happen anytime soon. And the same, I would say is gonna be true of generation Z in working for your church, but also attending your church.

Nick Clason (13:43):
How, where can they insert themselves into leadership? If leadership is only reserved for old people, old, like of a certain ethnicity, people maybe like look around at your leadership board. What is the youngest elder that you have? The, there's a stat out there. I don't know where it's from so I can't credit it, but, um, I think it might be from like some church growth type stuff. They say that a church congregation generally is within 10 years on either side of the senior pastor's age. So if you have a 55 year old senior pastor, you are most well-positioned to reach 45 to 65 year olds. Think about that. Now, how are you gonna reach a 25 year old? Well, that's a youth pastor's job. Not really. A youth pastor's job is to help serve the kids of the 45 to 65 year olds that are being brought to the church in most cases.

Nick Clason (14:37):
And that's, you know, 11 to 18 year olds, not 25 year olds. Well, we'll make him be in charge of college ministry too. A that's a gigantic job. I'll tell you that as a youth pastor. But b uh, oftentimes I heard this analogy one time. Um, my, my, a friend of mine, he worked for GE and he said that GE used to be in the dishwasher business and they gave cheap, crappy dishwashers to, uh, apartment complexes. Like they struck a deal and they just, they, they served the majority of apartment complexes and they were GE dishwashers and they sucked. He said, and he said they always broke. And he said because of that, because most people would start out in their first apartment with a crappy GE dishwasher, they all had a bad taste of GE because all their dishwashers broke. And he said, is that what's going on in college ministry?

Nick Clason (15:27):
They get the bottom of the barrel, the lowest rung they don't often get, um, like their own minister or like paid full-time staff person or anything like that. And if they do get a paid person, it's like a very, very part-time person who's basically a glorified small group leader. Is that why young people are leaving the church in droves because they're getting the lowest wrong bottom of the barrel? And why do they get that? Probably because they're the least, uh, generous in contributions in giving. And so, I hate to say this, but if churches are looking like an ROI thing, like the lowest ROI from like financial gifts is coming from the young adult ministry. That being said, they're the future of your church. So if you don't find a way to invest in them, they're not gonna be there in the years to come when the 45 to 65 to 75 to 85 year olds are no longer living in your church and, and giving in your church.

Nick Clason (16:18):
So how are you gonna reach and help pro promote and provide inroads for that generation to promote up into leadership? The third thing is they're looking for a modernized approach to benefits with an emphasis on flexibility and mental health. This goes with what we've been talking about a little bit before. 73% of survey respondents said that benefits is the number one reason why they would stick with an employer. Healthcare is the most important benefit of that. Um, according to 76% of the respondents and 73% said that they are looking for a flexible schedule. I would say that that flexible schedule piece, that's where this hybrid idea comes from, right? Like one of the main things about this hybrid kind of ministry in-person and digital is flexibility. Can we provide flexibility in how people can grow in their faith? Number four, they're looking for community culture and collaboration, even in remote settings.

Nick Clason (17:15):
Strong peer relationship. 63% say, um, feeling a part of the organization and 57% are key early reasons why early talent would choose to stay with an employer. Does your, does your church offer younger generations? Community culture and collaboration? If you're set up, like most churches, you offer a program, Hey, we got the young adult college ministry, it meets on Sunday morning during the second service. So that there it is, right? And does that community actually act like a community? Those are the questions I think that we as church leaders should be asking ourselves. Number five, um, committing publicly to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. 55% of respondents say that a commitment to D E I B um, is extremely important when evaluating an employer. They're looking for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. That's really valuable to Generation Z. So again, I'll say, look at your board.

Nick Clason (18:20):
Go to your staff page. Is there diversity, diversity? Is there equity? Is there inclusion? Is their belonging shown there? If not, they're going to be looking for a church staff or church leadership that embraces those values. And then finally, number six, accountability. Actually, lemme go back before I say that. Uh, I had a, uh, an intern a couple years ago at church and diversity was really important to him. And we tried really, really hard to hire this kid. He was a, he was a stud man, he was a rockstar. And, um, he his like number one or number two, knock on knock, wanting to come to our church. Uh, one, he was from la we were in Chicago. So like, that was a big one. But the number one a or maybe even more than that, but he wouldn't say it or I mean, he, he was honest with us.

Nick Clason (19:09):
But, uh, the other thing he was like, just basically saying was like, there is no diversity here. Um, and he was like, and I don't mean diversity with door greeters and people on the platform, I mean diversity in leadership. And I mean, it was a profound statement and one that honestly, I don't even know that that trickled up to upper level leadership. Like I don't know if that, that that phrase ever got there, but the reality of it is like, that's what he was looking for and he didn't see it and he didn't see a path forward to it. And we lost out on an amazing, talented, you know, kid. So that's just another example. All right, number six, accountability on the environment, sustainability and social responsibility. 70% of generations, these survey respondents, they attend career events to ensure the role and responsibilities aligned with their interests and values.

Nick Clason (20:01):
51% attend to ensure that the company aligns with their interests and values. So these are the things that matter to them and these are the things that they're looking for, yes, in workplaces. So if they wanna work at your church, but also in organizations that they're gonna choose to attach themselves to. So with that being said, I have three kind of takeaways, three learnings I think that are important for us as a church to understand and to explore. Let's dive in. Learning. Number one, 51% of generations, these say that their ultimate goal in life is happiness. Now, before you're like, that's not what a Christian's goal should be, I agree with you. Uh, I agree that a Christian's goal should be love and joy and peace, patience, and the fruits of the spirit. But if our target audience is saying that over half of them are looking for happiness, how are we going to help facilitate some of that for them?

Nick Clason (20:55):
Listen to some of these things too. A lot of this is, uh, from survey from Barna, um, of people, generation Z and some of their coping mechanisms. Okay? So just think about this in light of your church, and I'm not, I'm not giving commentary or creating like a, a roadmap or a like thing that you should do as a result of this. This is more just interesting coping mechanisms, the way that Generation Z is choosing to spend their time. So, um, the most common coping mechanisms are connected with non-family members at 45% connected with family 20%, and with music at 18%. So here are some of their quotes, TikTok, they're people feeling the same way as me, the ma, and that makes me feel less lonely. Um, another one, I will disappear into a world of my own, whether one I make myself or one that has already been created already, like books, shows or games doing one of my hobbies such as writing or violin, a good beat and a song I find solace in social media.

Nick Clason (22:01):
I like to be alone sometimes because it's peaceful and it's zen to me. I like to have conversations with the important people in my life by opening up to them, I receive positive affirmation, validation that I am not alone. I like to do comforting activities, reading fantasy books. I like to imagine myself as the main character because they're usually the ones with the perfect life. Sitting down to a single player game with a good story, looking in the mirror and saying, affirmations, getting on my bike and going for a ride. I like to send memes to my friends and then we will discuss them sleeping until the loneliness goes away. I watch videos of concerts on my phones playing with my many pets. They are my world. Those are some of the most common coping mechanisms out of generation Z. And I just wonder if we read those as older church leaders and think those sound ridiculous, maybe. But how are we showing up in some of these ways for our younger attenders that we're looking to reach and have be a part of our church?

Nick Clason (23:13):
Uh, idea number two that I think we as church should be, uh, at least aware of is honesty is one of the most important things as it pertains to generation Z, especially teenagers, but generation Z as a whole. I mean, we saw that right in that handshake art they want not only good pay, but they want transparency in pay. Like that is what's most important. So in a recent Barna study, um, these five categories we're given to, to Gen Z and to teenagers about what's important, what what, um, traits are important as it pertains to belief. And those were being correct, being knowledgeable, being open to new ideas, being curious, and being honest. The number one far and away, um, area that was most important was being honest. So we have, uh, broken down different categories, all of Gen Z teenagers and young adults. So I'm gonna read to you the, the statistics of each of those from those three categories.

Nick Clason (24:19):
So in being correct, only 8% of all of Gen Z cared about it. 6% of teens cared about it, and 9% of young adults cared about it being knowledgeable. 21% of the entire scope of Gen Z cared about it. 16% of teens cared about it, and 24% of young adults cared about it being open to new ideas. 28% of Gen Z cared about it. 29% of teenagers cared about it, and 28% of young adults cared about it being curious. 11% of Gen Z cared about it. 7% of teenagers cared about it, and 13% of young adults cared about it. But being honest, 32% of Gen Z cared about it. 41% of teenagers cared about it, and 25% of young adults cared about being honest. Honesty with one's belief is of utmost importance to Gen Z and specifically and especially to teenagers. So how can we create an environment in our organizations, in our churches that are more open and more honest?

Nick Clason (25:14):
The final area that I think that matters for churches is that churches, uh, or, um, gen Z young adults, they care about justice, they care about equality, they care about diversity. So some of the top ways that churches can address injustice, this is what, um, justice motivated, justice oriented and justice neutral generation Z um, categorizes said, all right, so they said that, uh, encouraging people to address injustice, 31% of justice motivated 28% of justice oriented and 18% of justice neutral said that the number one way that people could, um, address this was to simply walk into it, right? Go towards the injustice, the top ways that the church can do it. Other, other, like options that were given to them in the survey were by advocating for meaningful change, by welcoming people into a local church, by creating relationships with people who are experiencing injustice.

Nick Clason (26:17):
And by teaching that the Bible encourages special kindness to people who are experiencing injustice. So again, of those last four, the one that was most highly selected was simply by addressing it. So church leaders, church social media people, youth pastors, whoever's listening to this, the generation that's not a part of your church is mostly looking for you to address areas of injustice. I know that it's a difficult area to wade into. I know that it's polarizing. I know that it can get political and you can tick off some of the 65 year old members who sit all day and watch, um, news media and they'll tell you that this is an agenda from the left or an agenda from the right. But the reality is this is what's important to our younger congregate congregants and congregation members. So what are we gonna do? How are we gonna reach them and honesty and openness and justice motivation and helping them experience, um, what they would view as happiness.

Nick Clason (27:26):
Like these are the things that they are looking for. How can we as a church lean into this and help create the types of environments that these types of people go to? Because if we're not careful, we're gonna become like Tom Tido, head coach of the New York Knicks, who's outta touch, who no one wants to play for, and no one wants to go be a part of the team. Like literally the majority of the NBA players don't want to go play for him. Is that the way that younger generations, young adults and Gen Z is looking at your church and your church right now? I'm just gonna be honest, your church can get away with keeping on doing things the way that they've always been done because the majority of the people that you off or a pastor, uh, senior pastor are gonna surround themselves with are going to be the people that say it and do it, and are okay with the way that things have always been done.

Nick Clason (28:21):
And that may work for you for the next five or 10 years. But what about in 10, 15, 20 years when Generation Z is no longer 1920, but they're 25 30 and they've, they haven't been in your church for the last 10 years because you haven't done anything to help reach them and they're off experiencing faith in some other community in some other way. See, here's the reality. Gen Z is not out on Jesus. They are out on institutionalized faith and religion. And I think it's because of some of these reasons. I hope you found this episode helpful. I know in a a few ways it stepped on my toes. I just wanna encourage you, don't give up, keep leaning in the, the, the next generation needs you. And if you are the only person in your church advocating for hybrid, remember that is the value of the next generation.

Nick Clason (29:14):
We, and you and I, we may not have all the answers and that's okay. But what we are doing is we are trying our best to figure out the best way to create flexibility, honesty, co coping mechanisms, justice-oriented content that's going to help make our church one that a younger person is at least aware of and at least excited about being a part of. Thanks so much for hanging in there. Love to have you part of this journey. Make sure you head to the, uh, uh, show notes for, uh, full transcripts of this, uh, show notes, links, resources, all that type of stuff. I'll have some of those, those graphs and the stats that I've mentioned. All of that is available in the show notes. Go ahead there, leave a rating or a review. We would love to talk with you, love to see you over on YouTube or on my TikTok. But until next time, and as always, stay hybrid.

You can get full episode transcripts at:
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/051

You can watch the show at:
http://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick

TikTok:
http://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick

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

SHOWNOTES
http://www.nucleus.church

TIMECODES
00:00-02:45 Intro
02:45-07:36 Should My Church Focus on Social Media or Website?
07:36-17:06 There are too many announcements to make, what do I do?
17:06-21:56 What are Digital Media Ideas for Churches in 2023?
21:56-25:03 What are my Top 5 Cell Phone Apps as a Content Creator
25:03-26:02 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Well, hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. In this episode, we are going to be answering three pressing and one maybe not so pressing church communication related questions. Before we do, excited to have you with us. I am here drinking my coffee Joffreys if you know, you know, in my new Avengers mug, cuz we just got back from Disney World. It was amazing. Uh, I took a week off from recording and editing and all the things, but you missed nothing cuz we did some peer recording. So you are all set to go. Anyway, pumped about that. If you, uh, want to see any of the recaps of that stuff, it is on my YouTube channel, my TikTok, or if you just wanna see me hold my new Avengers mug that is currently streaming on YouTube right now as well. If you're just listening to this, you can go to the link in our show notes and hit the YouTube button, hit the subscribe, hit the bell, hit the, like, all those things are good for the algorithm.

Nick Clason (01:03):
Help us get found. If you're just watching on YouTube and you're like, wait, this is a podcast. Yes it is, it's a podcast. Come hang out with us. Link in the show notes for that in every single episode we provide for you and 100% completely free transcript. Just head to the website and check it out. And, uh, in addition to that, we have a completely free ebook. It is basically your step-by-step guide on how to create a TikTok, post it, save it, and then post it to other social platforms so that you can be up on what's going on social media right now, vertical video is king and it is giving the church a leg up for one of the very first times in social media history. So we don't want you to be missing out on that. Finally, hey, if you are here, a rating, a review would be incredible.

Nick Clason (01:51):
It really helps us get indexed and found and helps get this word out to other people. So if you feel so inclined to leave a rating or a review, we would just absolutely love that. Without any further ado, let's dive into these three pressing and one not so pressing church communication questions. They are going to be question number one, what should I focus on first? Social or my website? Question number two, there are altogether too many events happening at my church to effectively announce anything. What do I do? I have some advice on that. And what is the best digital media for churches in 2023? What should I be doing? And they're maybe not as popular out there. Like, what are some ideas? And finally, what are my top five used apps on my phone? So there you go. That's what we're diving into. Let's go.

Nick Clason (02:46):
Okay, question number one, what should I focus on? Should it be social or should it be my website? And this one's, honestly, my personal estimation, pretty easy. I think the answer should be your website. Here's a couple reasons why. It is your home base. If you create your website, you own it. You are the, you are the primary real estate manager of it. If you're on social media and you're growing a following over there, you should do that as well. But if you had to pick between one or the other, social media is a little bit finicky because it changes its rules. I e the algorithm you've been there before where someone's gotten big on, on some sort of platform, whether it be Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. And then one of those platforms shifts underneath them, the algorithm, and they're no longer getting found.

Nick Clason (03:38):
Their videos are not getting as many plays, they're not getting as many likes, and that's because they are not the owner of their content. They're on borrowed or rented space on social media. Meanwhile, on your website, you can make it everything that you need or want it to be. And I honestly recommend, and I, this is not an original idea with me at all. I stole this one 1000% from the guys up at Pro Church Tools Nucleus Church, but make it your centralized hub. The reason for that is because like on social media, for example, you might post, uh, a fleeting thought or an idea or a devotional or, uh, engage in ministry in the dms in some sort of way with people. However, if, if you are using social media as your primary vehicle for announcements, if it is a glorified billboard, then people are going to be like, wait, I saw that post a couple of weeks ago, let me scroll back and try and find it.

Nick Clason (04:37):
That's a pain in the butt, man. But if you put it on your website and if they know, if people know that it's on your website, then what you can do is you, when they ask you a question, you can be like, Hey, yeah, the answer is whatever. But also it's on the website. Anytime you need that and you do that a few times to any individual person and they learn, you kind of start to feel like a jerk, like early on with it. Like we're in that phase right now. We just got a website that we are dumping everything too. I told you a couple episodes ago, it's not exactly what I hoped it would be. I want to go with like a nucleus site. Uh, but we have to go, you know, with our church communications people. Uh, I, I work in our youth mystery department and so like I have to make sure that what I'm doing jives with the rest of the church, which I totally get and I'm am in support of that.

Nick Clason (05:28):
Um, however, because of that, the website has certain things on it that we just, we are not able to kind of work around ourselves yet. And so, uh, anyway, all that to be said, it's still a full service location. And so if a parent or someone's like, Hey, you send an email a couple weeks back, where was that information about? Or what you can just say, yeah, yeah, you know, camp deadline is May 31st, but also did you know that it's on the website at film url? And you say that, you just start saying that a bunch, right? And it becomes like a part of your, like vernacular a part of your answer. And that's why I think that you should go website first because website is your own real estate. It's the equivalent of owning or renting an Airbnb from somebody for vacation, which can be fun, it can be exciting, it can be sexy.

Nick Clason (06:23):
And you have like all your stuff. Like that's kinda like social media, right? It's kind of fun, it's kind of exciting and it might even feel a little more sexy than building out a full website. But at the end of the day, you don't own it. It's owned by Mark Zuckerberg or someone in China who, whoever's owning TikTok or the YouTube gods that be that pick the algorithm. But if you own your house, it's not as fun. You know, when the HVAC system goes out that it's on you to fix. You can't just call the owner or call the landlord. Like that's your responsibility because it's your house and you own it, however, it's yours and you build equity in it and you get to ride the housing market and it's all the unseen, not as fun, not as glamorous, not as shiny things, but it is still better.

Nick Clason (07:09):
That's how we, we all know, like when you own a house, it's better. However, it's more of a pain in the butt and it's not as shiny, it's not as glamorous, but it's better. So that's what I would recommend. I would recommend if you have to pick between the two social or website, definitely lean website. Make sure that you own your real estate, your videos, your uh, announcements, your, uh, people are aware of where to go and what to do when they get there. Okay? There are too many ministries and too many events vying for attention and wanting to be announced. What do I do? Well, I would create some sort of rubric, some sort of, uh, church communications, uh, ranking system. And you have to make a determination and certain things get certain priority, right? Like the Easter service, which affects the entire church body is going to get all the publicity and all the stage time.

Nick Clason (08:10):
Meanwhile, the woman's bunko night, while still important and still matters and no hard feelings to Phyllis who's planning it, uh, is not going to maybe get the same amount of announcement or same amount of run, but you know how it goes, right? You don't announce it. And now Phyllis is angry because you didn't announce her thing from the stage, but you got Pastor John over here who needs the Easter announcement to go out as well. And so you're trying to make Phyllis and Pastor John both happy, but you work for Pastor John and Phyllis is just this like, uh, volunteer sweet old lady who's volunteering for the women's ministry, but you work for Pastor John, right? And so that's kind of, that's what maybe the mental gymnastics are that you're going through when you're determining what to announce and how to announce it. Now here's the thing.

Nick Clason (08:59):
I think that churches have very much fallen in prey to announcements being a one track sort of thing. It being the announcement time on Sunday morning from the platform. And that's it. And that's just simply not true. So, uh, while you can create your, uh, rubric and you can grade like, okay, the woman's bunko night, unfortunately we don't have enough space for these announcements. Uh, and so it's gonna get bumped from the Sunday morning announcement time. However, there are other channels and other avenues in which you can lean into and which you can help create so that people are in the loop about what is going on. And so create your rubric, create your metric or your grading system about what pops through what actually gets a stage announcement so that you're not, you know, announcing 25 things, you're announcing only a handful of things or, or honestly, if I could find a way, I would make it be announcing only one thing so that people really know it.

Nick Clason (09:58):
And then really craft that announcement to be good and well done. Um, captivating, inspirational, perhaps try and find a way to share a story. People are gonna connect to a story, especially a story about life change and then announce it. But then, yeah, you did, you left Phyllis's, uh, bunko on the cutting room floor. So what are you gonna do? So there are multiple communications avenues and I wanna just kinda like, uh, stream of consciousness, rapid fire, some of the ones that I have, uh, or that are in my brain and maybe, and so doing that, that sparks something that works for you and uh, you can use that in your setting as well. But, uh, one of them is your pre-roll, right? As people are coming into service, utilize that time with rotating or scrolling announcement slides. It's not very innovative, I know, and it might even seem outdated and antiquated, but it is, I think, worth it because you have a very captive audience, people filtering in, sitting down, looking ahead at a screen.

Nick Clason (10:57):
And you can have announcements, you can have things popping through, obviously. Also you can utilize, uh, your social media channels on there though. What I would do is I would try and lean into what social media is made for. So for example, instead of just posting graphics on reels or TikTok or just like graphics on your Instagram or Facebook feeds, I would find a way to creatively, uh, do memes or games or, uh, silly like p o v type content. But you do those things and it, it adjacently announces your event while also being something on there that is, uh, leaning towards entertainment. Uh, also think about signage. Where is the signage and what is the available signage in your church? Could be bathroom signage, which is one of my favorites. Having a sign above urinals for men is a great place to put something because why no man wants to look side side.

Nick Clason (11:53):
So look good straight ahead. Okay? Uh, you also got banners if you have like a table setting, like we, in our student ministry, we have a table setting, um, where like people sit around round tables and there's a like clear placard that sits right in the middle. You can do tabletop type announcements or tabletop type signs. You also have your work weekly church email and then also your weekly stage announcement, right? And then I think every announcement, no matter what should get included into your one-stop centralized hub, your one stop website so that everybody knows no matter what to always go there. So even if they see Bunco in the pre-roll, but they're like, ah, shoot, I didn't catch all the details, that's okay, because they know it's on the website, right? It's the same thing. That's true of like, if you watch a movie trailer, if you watch a movie trailer online, you're like, man, I have to go see the new Marvel movie.

Nick Clason (12:48):
Yeah, you do. But what it didn't do was it didn't pop up an end card at the end of the trailer and say your hometown, your movie theaters and the showing times for each day for the next week. No, it puts the onus on you If you wanna see the movie, if you wanna go to Bunko night, then you will chase down that information. Historically, what's been the issue, churches haven't done a very good job of making that information readily available. They think they do by, by including it in the announcement or the graphic is like a bunko thing. And then it's just got like worlds and worlds of text, like six 30 to eight in the f building with Phyllis. And uh, if you want to go make sure you email Phyllis at flower lady 37 29 aol.com cuz apparently Phyllis is still using aol.

Nick Clason (13:38):
And, uh, if you have questions, you can swing by the welcome desk in the front lobby. And you see what I'm saying? Like, instead, if you streamline everything and you say Bunco Night Info app, boom, your website, everything you go to your website provides itself as a bit of a backdrop. Now let me give you one of my favorite church communications hacks of all time. And that hack is, this is, this is a little bit not a pet peeve, but I I just, I think that you're missing an opportunity if you do it this way. So for example, I am an author on Download Youth ministry, and one of the things that has made very famous, made very available are five minute countdowns. They put the five minute countdown on, um, right, you know, five minutes before the service is supposed to start. And that's a very popular thing.

Nick Clason (14:28):
Our churches do it. Your church probably has some sort of iteration of a five minute countdown. One of my pet peeves, or one of the things I just honestly think is a little bit of a miss is that you have a, a lot of churches, they'll have a pre-roll and then at the five minute mark, they'll switch off of the pre-roll to this five minute countdown. Um, and this actually happened yesterday where I was gonna church. I looked around five, there were, I don't know, probably like 20% of the people that were going to end up being in the service, um, or that ended up being in the service at that time. And they switched off the pre-roll, which was very information and announcement heavy to a generic, um, a good, very good like cinematic good, uh, picture and encapsulation of the church and the life of the church and like serving and events and all the things, but no information.

Nick Clason (15:21):
And in that five minute time, it went from 20% of the service to probably like 70, 80% of the service. And all the people that walked into the room at that moment, they didn't get any of that benefit of the pre-roll. And if they got in there a minute early, if the pre-roll was still rolling, they could sit there and they could still see the last little bit of the pre-roll. They would still catch some of the things and maybe, maybe Bunco would roll in front of them and then they would know, oh, Bono's coming up. And so one of my favorite hacks is create a pre-roll and, and create a dynamic pre-roll if you have what it takes, one that's video based and all the things. And then, and instead of swapping a five minute countdown, just create a loop and then put a five minute countdown on through pro presenter or just throw a five minute overlay on a video and render out two videos, one without a five minute countdown, one with a five minute countdown.

Nick Clason (16:17):
And so that way when they switch from the pre-roll to the five minute countdown, the sa it's the same thing. That's, that's what I do in my ministry. It's the same video. Just one has a five minute countdown timer on it, one does not. And that's one of my favorite hacks because I believe that you have a captive audience of people filtering into your auditorium. They are actually paying attention to the screen once it starts counting down, or they should be at least because they don't want to be late or they have to get from one place to the other. And so in so much as paying attention, the theory then is that they're at least going to be mildly aware of the other announcements that are going on behind the five minute countdown. So that's one of my favorite hacks for you as a church communications person.

Nick Clason (17:01):
Hope it's helpful. Let me know if you implement it. Let's move on to question three. What are three digital media ideas for churches in 20 20, 20 23 that aren't as popular? So idea that I have number one that I don't think is as popular now, they're very popular, don't get me wrong, but they may not be as popular with churches are podcasts. And I don't just mean your Sunday sermon podcast, though, you 100% should be doing that. It's probably the lowest hanging fruit and the most available opportunity for you to start regularly posting podcasts and a podcast catcher. But I also think what about finding ways to create podcasts that educate, that explain, um, different facets of faith or spiritual disciplines or fill in the blank, right? But podcasts I think are an amazing tool that churches should be leaning into as churches. Church leaders and pastors are professional content creators.

Nick Clason (18:02):
And so your people, you are creating content for them every single week on a Sunday morning. And for quite frankly, it is a lecture style piece of information that you are creating for your church. So why are you not taking that skill that you have honed that you are good at? Um, and honestly, maybe you're like, well, I'm, I'm the senior pastor, like I don't have time. Maybe you work at a church with additional other staff and pastors who don't preach as often as you. Maybe this would be an outlet or an avenue for them to exercise their teaching gift to grow in what their, uh, and what God has given to them. Uh, but they don't have time or you don't have time or the sermon preaching calendar doesn't allow for the time or the space for them to get a lot of stage time.

Nick Clason (18:47):
That's okay. You can give this other outlet, this other avenue for them to exercise those gifts for them to teach people via podcast. So I think podcasts are a really creative way and a really potentially effective way for churches to lean in, um, and to create additional content for their churches and for people who are interested in what the church has to offer. Another idea that I have are TikTok style teaching or inspirational videos. So while podcast is long form, I think TikTok style videos are the best, like zig to the zag of that where they are, uh, short. So podcast, really no, no matter how long it is, you can go as long as you want. TikTok, make it as short as humanly possible, and perhaps to even marry those two, just film your podcasts and then cut out clips of from the podcast.

Nick Clason (19:43):
And then the short videos can serve as both inspirational and educational, but they can also serve as an advertisement of sorts or a marketing technique for your podcast. So you post on your social channel some of those short clips, and then people begin to discover and realize that there's a longer form version of this out there via audio podcast or even video podcast. I mean, if you're gonna capture the, the video, uh, and you have the bandwidth for it, there's really no reason to then marry the, the audio and the video, put it together, and then just create a video based podcast as well. And then idea number three that I have eBooks right, the, in the same vein, you are a professional content creator. So just take the content that you have that's good, that's useful, that's beneficial that you have studied, that the Holy Spirit has laid on your heart, and that you then are now, uh, presenting and showing to your church congregation.

Nick Clason (20:40):
Take that and put package that in a way that makes it available for people. Why maybe you, uh, maybe it hits a different audience than those who are in the church on Sunday morning. Maybe they weren't there on Sunday morning, but it's still something that's out there and that's available for them to do, right? Like if you're a pastor and you create like three ideas for studying God's word, you can create that in an infographic or an ebook or something like that, and you can offer that to your church and you have that to live on in perpetuity. Meanwhile, if you preach that sermon on March 12th, 2016, that's lost back on March 12th, 2016. But if you repurpose some of that content, then anytime anyone has a question about, Hey, how do I spend time with God, Jack? You know, I created this resource, and you just pull it back out or you, you post it on your website or you have it somewhere that's accessible, that's available for people to come to, for you to share with them.

Nick Clason (21:37):
And that's, I think another way that you can help kind of, uh, rejuvenate or repurpose some of your already created content into something that feels fresh. It isn't fresh, but it's beneficial and it's helpful to people's spiritual growth and their journey and their information and understanding of God's word. All right, question number four. What are the top five apps that I as a youth pastor and as a, uh, content creator used on my phone often? Number one is Google Drive. I would be sunk without Google Drive. I store all of my photos, all of my videos on Google Drive, and they sit there and then I download them off of Google Drive and then I post them and then I can delete the storage off of my phone. So that is the first thing. I would absolutely be lost without it. I use it both for business and for personal, and I can toggle very easily between both of those accounts in my Google Drive.

Nick Clason (22:33):
Do it often, do it all the time. The other app on my phone that I use a lot is Cap Cut. There are templates galore out there, and TikTok, um, honestly is pushing cap cut templates right now. So if you post a tick, uh, cap cut template, you can go viral pretty easy. Um, I have not had as good of luck with that on TikTok, but you know, where I have is YouTube shorts. I can get videos up over a thousand views pretty easily just by using a cap cut template. Uh, another thing that I use is gonna sound weird, but I use my Google Chrome app all the time. And if I post something that I created in TikTok by itself, then I go into Google Chrome and I search, download TikTok video without watermark, I go to the very first search engine result there.

Nick Clason (23:18):
I paste the link from my TikTok video, I download it, I copy the caption that I, that I created in TikTok. I go over to Instagram and I post it and I paste the, the caption and then I go over to YouTube shorts and I post the video and I paste the caption. And that is one of the quickest, easiest and hackiest ways for me to get the TikTok, uh, watermark off of my videos and onto other social media platforms. Couple others that I use that are just kind of for me, uh, cast box. I'm an Android guy, so I don't have the purple podcast app for podcasts, but I listen to podcast galore. Like I told you at the beginning. I was in Disney World last week and I got behind on my podcast. So I have something like 60 podcasts in my catcher right now that I need to, uh, pound through.

Nick Clason (24:06):
I also am subscribed to maybe way too many, and so I might need to cut some of those back. But I listen to podcasts a lot. I have a decent commute and so, um, I'm able to, you know, listen to them as I go. And finally, one, uh, that I don't use a ton, but it's good to have there for reference is Kindle. I use Kindle across all of my devices. Uh, if I'm reading some sort of book for work, I try to get it in a Kindle version. That way I don't have to lug the book with me. Or if like I'm at a doctor's or dentist's office and I wanna sit and wait for a minute, I can pull it open and read wherever I am on my phone, on my iPad, on my computer. Um, and then I can quickly reference back to other things, other books, other, um, ideas that I've read before.

Nick Clason (24:49):
If I want to use them for something on social media or whatever the case might be, those are five must have apps that I use on a pretty frequent and regular basis to help make my life easier as a social media manager in a church. Well, hey everyone. So glad you hung out with me on this episode. And if you're on the YouTube stream, you're looking at my Avengers mug right now. Glad that you hung out and you stuck around as always. Transcript hybridministry.xyz, give us a light, give us a rating, give us a share, give us a review. All those things would mean the world to us. And as a token of my and our appreciation back to you, we would love to give you our 100% completely free ebook title. Have I already ruined my church's TikTok account? The answer is no. But go download the book so that you know how to use and post to TikTok whenever, and however you want, head to the link in the show notes for that. And without any further ado, we're gonna get you outta here. Thanks for hanging out. Don't forget to, as always, stay hybrid.

SHOWNOTES
YOUTUBE ARTICLES
https://tiptopbrain.com/blog/is-youtube-for-kids-the-pros-and-cons-of-kids-on-youtube/#:~:text=Well%2C%20YouTube%20allows%20kids%20to,to%20learning%20a%20new%20language.
YOUTUBE ARTICLE #2
https://join.marketing/blog/youtube/#/

TIMECODES
00:00-03:39 Intro
03:39-09:24 Introduction to Generation Alpha
09:24-15:05 What does the Google Machine have to say about why kids are so obsessed with YouTube?
15:05-20:14 How Generation Z & Gen Alpha's consumption of YouTube might be changing things for the church
20:14-22:41 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. So excited to be with you. I, as always am your host, Nick Clason, along for the ride. And in today's episode, I want to talk about this dude, my kids are obsessed with YouTube. What does this mean for the future? That's what we have on store. So make sure that you stick around. We're gonna talk about Generation Alpha, we're gonna talk about what's unique about YouTube, what I've found through a little bit of research and as well as just give some, as I've done before, some stream of consciousness kind of thoughts. This is what some implications might be for you and for your church moving forward, and how you can rethink the way, potentially the way that you do ministry or the way that you supplement what you do for ministry. Don't want you to forget that we are on YouTube.

Nick Clason (00:52):
And today I'm going to share a couple of exclusive graphics on the screen, so make sure that you head over there if that's something that you're interested in. Um, you can subscribe to that in the show notes, subscribe like the video. All those things will help. A rating or a review of the show, maybe even a share with a friend. All of that stuff really, really helps us get indexed gets found. And I just wanna say thank you. Like we have had, the last three or four months have been our biggest months by far, by like combined with almost all the other months before that. So we are well on our way to a thousand downloads. So pumped about that, we are almost up to 200 subscribers on YouTube. And so, again, very excited about that. Thank you guys for hanging out. I also want to toss this out there.

Nick Clason (01:34):
If you're listening, head to the show notes, http://www.hybridministry.xyz, and I'm gonna leave a link for the Q and for a q and a section. If you have questions that you want answered on this show, send them in. What are you grappling with? What are you wrestling through and how can we help be of any sort of assistant answering some of those and just giving some ideas and thoughts about. Again, uh, if you don't know my story, I am a youth pastor, Nick Clason in the trenches at a church in Dallas Fort Worth area. I am doing all the things. I am running the programs. We got Wednesday nights, we got Sunday mornings, and I am also someone who's just passionate about digital and hybrid ministry. Not because I want to forsake the gathering together, but because I want to add supplemental opportunities for you and me and us as a church to show up in the lives of our people, in my case, my students, in potentially your case, your congregation members' lives.

Nick Clason (02:26):
And so that's the whole mission and desire behind what we're doing here at this show. And so that's what we're gonna be exploring is different social media platforms, church marketing tips, digital communication opportunities, church, social media, and church growth ideas, especially talking about younger generations like Generation Z and Generation Alpha. And so that's in particular what this episode is going to be aimed at is this I idea and this realization that I'm coming to with Generation Alpha. If you don't know Jen Alpha is the, um, most, uh, they are the youngest kids in our student ministry age right now, sixth, seventh, eighth grade. Um, and so we're gonna dive into that a little bit more. Again, so thrilled to have you along in the show. I just wanna let you know one last thing before we dive into the actual content free ebook link in the show notes.

Nick Clason (03:20):
It will help you and give you your guide from posting a TikTok from zero all the way to finished. Again, thanks so much for hanging out on this, uh, show and let's dive into, dude, my kids are obsessed with you two. What does this mean for the church? First, we're gonna talk about Jen Alpha, so let's go ahead and do that on the other side. All right, so generation alpha, the the oldest generation Alpha was born in 2010. So a little bit of Lucy Goose goosey math that makes them 13 years old. That is what I often do for, um, like age like that. All right, so like someone's 13 years old. I always, if you subtract five, you'll know what grade they're in. That's a little pro tip youth pastor tip that I use. So 13 minus five equals eight. That means that the, uh, oldest Gen Z is eighth grade.

Nick Clason (04:12):
That means that seventh and sixth grade. So our entire middle school ministry is Gen Alpha. I might have said Gen Z, but I mean Gen Alpha, generation Alpha is basically our entire middle school ministry. So youth pastors, if, if you're a youth pastor like I am, you've been trying to crack the code of Gen Z. Gen Z is high school and in about four years, they're done. We're not worried about Gen Z anymore in student ministry, or we shouldn't be. And you know, some churches are just now grappling with the idea of reaching millennials, bro, millennials are in their forties now. Like I am a millennial. I am 33 years old, I'll be 34 in a couple of months. I am dead in the middle of my working life. I have children and my children are not Gen Z. My children are gen alpha. Um, so 2010 is the bracket.

Nick Clason (04:58):
So I have two kids, they're born in 2016 and then 2018. So they're square in that Gen alpha range. So a couple of things that are unique about them. 2010, keep in mind about this, right, 2010, for those of you listening, those of you older was the year that the ipo, the iPad was introduced. You might remember that. I remember when I was in college and the iPad was introduced, and when the iPad came out, I thought to myself, wow, who is even gonna use that? That's just an over-inflated iPhone. It doesn't even do anything for you. Now let me ask you this. How many iPads in your life have you owned me? 3, 4, 5, maybe at this point, right? Like at the time it was an ex exorbitant price tag. And I remember when it came out, we all in college, I was in college, all my friends were like, we're not ever gonna get the iPad.

Nick Clason (05:47):
That's ridiculous. I can do all the same things on my iPhone and carry it around in my pocket. Doesn't even have data then if they did introduce one with data. But I had this really cool opportunity, did an internship one summer in Connecticut, and me and the guy that I was staying with, my host family, we were chatting up one day about the iPad and its functionality. And he worked in Times Square. So I was in Connecticut and he, he commuted down the train an hour into Times Square, worked at a bank in Times Square. And so he had the iPad as a thing to do on the train so that he could work and commute, respond to emails, all those types of things. He got the plan with data, so we're talking about it, whatever. And I get ready to leave after my 10 weeks of staying at their house needing all their food.

Nick Clason (06:28):
And uh, they give me a going away gift of an iPad, like a brand new iPad. And so I walk into school the next year as almost the only kid in the entire, like sophomore class or junior class, whatever class I was in that had an iPad. In fact, all my friends made fun of me because they, they talked about how like, uh, bougie or how like, um, over the top I was for actually owning an iPad. And there was this hashtag that would go around, it's like hashtag Nick has an iPad. Like it, it was a joke. But my point in saying that is remember when the iPad came out, how long ago that was, how or how recent that might feel to you. That was the same year that the oldest group of generation Alpha kids were born back then when the iPad was created.

Nick Clason (07:16):
So hopefully that gives you just a little bit of context, a little bit of frame of reference timeline wise about when they were born, when that shift from Gen Z switched over to Generation Alpha. And so my kids, my personal kids are squarely in that Generation Alpha category and they are obsessed with YouTube. And so much so that our Disney plus our Netflix, all those things are not as important as our YouTube premium subscription that we just signed up for. In fact, I'm viewing YouTube Premium as one of my streaming services in my house. And quite frankly, the reason for that is my kids prefer to watch people like Ryan's World or Dude Perfect. Or, um, what's the one Rainbow Friends like on YouTube? So much so that I was like, I wanna get a, um, premium so that I can keep them away from commercials.

Nick Clason (08:07):
And in one hand, yes, Jen Alpha has a much lower tolerance for commercials than you and I might do, uh, or you and I might have as people who've grown up with traditional broadcast tv, but also like, bro, I'm letting them loose on YouTube. Like I, I want to at least, and I'm in the age with them still where they'll listen to me. They won't be defiant intentionally or disobey intentionally. So they'll watch what I tell them. They're allowed to watch shows that I'm okay with them watching, but I had no control over the ads. And so I bought premium to control the ads. I e get rid of the ads and it's a nice little feature. Um, I, I like it for my phone and stuff like that as well, cuz it's my, my account and then their, so their subsidiary kids' accounts, but they are obsessed with it.

Nick Clason (08:51):
And so I was, I was just, you know, fighting them again. They're like, Hey, I wanna be on YouTube, I wanna watch you on YouTube. And I'm like, all right, whatever. That's fine. And they're just watching our tv, you know, they don't even really watch it on like their phones or tab, they don't even have phones or, or devices really, but they'll watch it on just like our Smart TVs, our Rokus. And I was like, why are they so obsessed with YouTube? Like what gives, like, why is the deal? And so I just, I wanted to explore that and that's what I wanted to explore in this podcast episode. So let's dive into the next section, which I'm titling, what did the Google machine have to say about this? Let's check it out.

Nick Clason (09:26):
All right. Like any good millennial parent, I did what we've all done before, right? And I had this idea, and so I asked Google, Google, why do my kids like YouTube so much more than any other shows? And here's what, um, the first result spit out, it said, YouTube allows kids to explore their interest on a whim deeply, easily. And with great entertainment from week to week. Kids can go from, uh, routinely watching videos about plant-based diets to learning a new language. And so basically what I was saying is like that YouTube has just a vast array, a vast library of ideas to allow people to kind of explore. And that's one of the things, especially with Gen Z, I think we started to see that shift. I think that's gonna be even just as true, maybe even more true of generation alpha in the land of they get to tailor make their experience.

Nick Clason (10:17):
And I think that that right there is going to be a massive shift for churches. I don't think that we should compromise on our standards or our, the truth of the gospel or the truth of the message of Jesus and the fact that he redeems us from our sins and gives us an opportunity to have salvation found in him. But we oftentimes equate that truth of the gospel, that truth of Jesus with, uh, like, like church has to look this way. And if you're not coming to church every single week in person for 52 weeks a year listening to a pastor's sermon first and above all, and then maybe secondarily and ancillary finding community. But first you gotta make sure you go to that worship service. I mean, it's a very fun prolific approach. Uh, we've, we've all learned that marketing the concentric circles Rick Warren.

Nick Clason (11:07):
And I don't know that that like funnel approach is, or that like large groom gr large room gathering experience is the top of the funnel anymore. I think the top of the funnel is what I'm trying to, to propose to all of you digital and hybrid options and digital and hybrid ministry. And then if someone is interested in custom making their experience, they may not find, I'll just be honest with you, like, and don't crucify me for this, but like, I would rather listen to my pastor sermon o on a run or on my way to work than sit and listen for an hour just to a talking head. Like, I love my pastor, but like I can put it on 1.5 speed. I can get just about all the same experiences out of it. There's really no, and for me, I, I'm always, almost always late cuz I'm, I'm working on something ahead of time cuz my job is to work at church and I'm leaving early cuz I have to get to something else to run something else.

Nick Clason (12:02):
I'm not talking to almost like a single soul in the auditorium. Like the one element that I really can't get is live praise and worship. That is the one thing that I, I don't think like Spotify or something else digital can replace. That being said, like I do really want that connection, that community. Like that's really important to me. And, and I would almost argue, especially for our younger and next generations, like they want that real authentic like opportunity for connection and community. They want that more than they want a large group gathering auditorium. So I say that to say we have the message of the gospel, but we've equated the, the why or the mission and we've tied it very tightly to our method. And we've said the mission and the method are one and the same. And if you don't love coming to church at eight 30 to listen to a sermon, you don't love Jesus.

Nick Clason (12:57):
And while again, I think that there are benefits of that, and I think that that's like in a lot of churches, that's the way things are done. And I think that that's not a bad thing necessarily. I do think that in this like create your own experience world, how are we gonna reach people that can literally get on YouTube and watch whatever they want, yet we say, but you gotta do it this way over here. Like how much longer is that experience going to last? And so continuing on YouTube is the second largest search platform in the world, like right behind Google and it's owned by Google. So not only is it the second largest, and it's like, it's not like it's trying to compete with the first one, right? The first one powers the second largest search engine in the world. Some people say it's the third largest.

Nick Clason (13:43):
And and they would put Google images in between. Again, all three top three owned by Google. 400 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube. Every get this, every minute, 400 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every single minute of every single day. That is bonkers to me. 1 million, or I'm sorry, excuse me, not million with an m, billion with a b, 1 billion hours of content are watched on YouTube every single day. Crazy. All right, this is from an article. Um, I got a couple different articles that I use to, to get some of these stats from. I'll drop those in the show notes. Um, so check those out. But television viewing figures from across Europe, this is a European art article, are in decline. Children and young adults now watch a third less broadcast television than they did in 2010. So like I said, that graph is up here on the screen if you're watching on YouTube.

Nick Clason (14:41):
If not, head on over to the show notes and you can check that out. But what I want you to know is that there, that YouTube is changing the game in television and I'm wondering what implications might be for church. So let's dive into some potential church implications on how generation alpha and generation Z consumption of YouTube might be changing things for the church in 2023 and moving beyond. All right, so what are our church implications? What does YouTube and the rise of it have as far as churches are concerned? What are the implications? I mean, here's the thing about churches, right? Like church is a social entity in a lot of ways. And like I know we're like, no, no, no, it's about Jesus and it's about relationship with him and it's not religion, it's relationship, all those things. That's fine. But at the, at the core of the day, like at the end of what we're talking about here, like when people feel connected to a church, it's because they feel connected to the belief system, probably, hopefully first and foremost, but then secondarily the community that they've found there.

Nick Clason (15:39):
And so if students, people, kids, parents, adults, anyone are not connected to the rest of the people, the rest of the larger organization of the church, they're not gonna stay in the church. And so the reality about this, this is very simple, this is very basic. I'm not trying to say anything honestly, really profound to be a part of a church. You're either a part of it or you're not a part of it. Like that's it, right? There's really only two options. You either feel a part of it or you don't feel a part of it. And there's all sorts of in between about people who maybe feel in the margins are trying to get a part of it, can't get a part of it, are not really trying to get a part of it, and are not really connected. But other people maybe like their parents are super connected.

Nick Clason (16:16):
There's all sorts of stuff in between. But at the end of the day, you either feel connected or you don't feel connected, okay? And like I said, there may be some gray, some nuance in there, but if you're not feeling connected, the reality is this, is that, is that your like tie to your church, your interest in your church is not gonna be that elevated based off of what we typically offer. And so how are we going to find ways, find inroads into our people's lives, potentially through YouTube? Uh, I said this a while back, 70, I think three or 79% of, um, people have at one point in time watched some sort of explainer how to video on YouTube. That's a great spot for churches to just start. How to read your bible, how to find accountability, how to pray short form, long form, long form clipped into short form.

Nick Clason (17:07):
There's all kinds of opportunities there. And you're probably thinking, I don't have time for this. I get it. That is where like there has to be a, a vision and a mission like fueling behind this idea. Like we are going all in on this because this matters to generation Z and generation Alpha and the younger people in our church. It may not be the biggest like priority for your top givers and donors in their forties, fifties, and sixties, but it matters to the younger generation. So how can we do that? Recently I was talking to a church and the funniest part about this is that, um, we had met where we had a planned meeting on the calendar with two youth pastors from another church in town. And they walked in as me and my boss and my other coworker associate were all, um, filming a TikTok video.

Nick Clason (17:57):
And it was one of those tos where it was like, do you know it or do you not know it? And the the theme was high school musical songs, and if you knew it, you went to one side of the, the frame on the camera, and if you didn't, you went to the other and they walked in on us doing that. Uh, but of course that led to a conversation like, what, what were you guys doing? How often do you post a TikTok? What's your philosophy and strategy behind it? But they told us that they were a youth ministry with 800 kids coming at one point in time and they don't have those numbers anymore. And so we like, that got me thinking like, again, the 800 kids that were a part of the church back in the day, why are kids less and less interested in church?

Nick Clason (18:35):
And I think it's because there's more and more opportunity out there for them. And a lot of times our response to that is, well then we need to get kids off phones. We need to get kids off social media and get them back in church. And that could work, like, that could modify their behavior to make that happen. Um, but are they really there? Is their heart really in it at that point? Um, and the then the question I thought of was like, well then what was the commitment level of the 800 back in the day? Was it just the best, most poppin social gathering to come to? Or was it, um, they felt forced, they felt expected, they had not as much, you know, distraction opportunity as they do now. And so maybe the, the quality of those 800 though, the quantity was there, the quality wasn't maybe now same thing.

Nick Clason (19:26):
The quality is there and the quantity is not. How do you raise, how do you raise both? And I think one way that you can raise both is to lean into this hybrid ministry. How can you on YouTube with 400 hours uploaded every minute with 1 billion, um, what was it? 1 billion, 1 billion hours of content watched every single day with 1 billion hours of content watched every single day. How can you lean into that, um, as a church and show up where it matters most in people's everyday lives? What matters most is not showing up on YouTube. I want to be clear, but what matters most is showing up in people's lives on a regular and consistent basis and maybe in the unexpected zones, i e not just the times you're expected to show up Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. Well, hey everyone, thanks so much for hanging out on this episode.

Nick Clason (20:19):
I hope that just this kind of brain dump thought process, like live reaction to me exploring why in the world do my kids like YouTube so much? What does it mean for our churches helped? I still don't really know the actual why. I think it just gives them like their own control, their own algorithm selection. The algorithm shows them more and more of what they wanna watch and I think that they enjoy that. You know, um, some of the other streaming platforms are trying to sort of adapt that sort of algorithm ai thought process into what they're doing. I mean, so the reality is like they're still losing right to YouTube, like they're still losing to YouTube. And so, um, I just think that that trend is worth noticing. And uh, one of the reasons I notice it is, is threefold. One, I'm, I'm the church communication guy in our student ministry.

Nick Clason (21:04):
Two, I'm a youth pastor, so I interact with generation Alpha on a regular basis. Three, I'm the dad of generation alpha kids, like little, little kids, um, who are going to shape the future generations. And so those three things I'm noticing, and I hope that in immunos in them you find that advantageous and useful for your church to not grow outdated and stale, but to continue to grow young and and relevant to the students, kids and younger people in your congregations. Again, thanks so much for hanging out. Hey, I do wanna give you an update In episode 48, I talked about a shift in my content, what I'm doing now, and I did recently notice an uptick in my engagement and my views by focusing more on, on quality overt quantity. Um, and so again, I said in that episode it came down to just a margin or just like a capacity issue.

Nick Clason (21:54):
Um, and so the fact is, I have noticed that going up, going up and I did talk several episodes back about a posting service kind of tanking my YouTube shorts views, my YouTube shorts views have finally bounced back. And I'm so grateful for it and I think it's because I, I fed it more quality content that people would hopefully interact with and engage with more frequently. So I just wanted to give you that update. I've always told you I'm gonna keep it real with y'all here. And so that's just me trying to do that. Hey again, thanks so much for hanging out and uh, we will talk next time and don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.

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

YOUTUBE:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g

TIKTOK:
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick?lang=en

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SHOWNOTES
RUNNING A DIGITAL AD:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/009
MY CHURCH YOUTH MINISTRY ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
https://www.instagram.com/crosscreekstudents/
MY CHURCH ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
https://www.instagram.com/crosscreekcolleyville/

TIMECODES
00:00-01:56 Intro - VBS & Camp
01:56-05:31 Classify the Proirity of Your Events
05:31-08:36 Before your Event
08:36-13:17 During Your Event
13:17-15:05 After Your Event
15:05-16:41 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Well, hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. You can head to http://hybridministry.xyz for all of your needs, including transcripts, show notes, and old archived episodes. But today, and in this episode, what I want to talk about is I want to talk about church communications and church social media for VBS and summer camp. How do you handle these two major monumental tent pole style events in your church that you no doubt are having to already probably try and reconcile and figure out? And so we want, I want to talk about what to do before your event, what to do during your event and what to do after your event. Now, here's what you need to know. In most cases, when this episode is dropping here in the middle of June, you were probably already full bore into your pre VBS or pre-camp planning, and I get that.

Nick Clason (00:56):
And so this episode may be helpful for future, uh, years, future seasons, as well as give you some good ideas or thoughts during your, um, during your event or after your event of ways to handle church communications or church social media. Before we dive in, I wanna remind you that we are on YouTube, head to our YouTube channel to subscribe. We're on TikTok and I wanted to let you know that you can head in either of those places, the website or on YouTube or on TikTok to our show notes where you can get our completely free ebook on how to post to TikTok. It'll also put you on our email newsletter, which we are going to start getting going on a more regular basis. So far it's mostly just been, Hey, sign up for this ebook. Thanks. You're on our email newsletter and we've done nothing with that.

Nick Clason (01:40):
Um, but we're gonna start sending out some thoughts and ideas here in the future. Uh, noth nothing in the works just yet, but it will be coming. So without any further ado, let's dive in. How do you handle VBS and how do you handle camp in your church? Let's go. All right, so at our church, we have events classified as tier one, tier two, and tier three. Tier one are like the lowest rung events. They may get like an a scrolling announcement and that's it. Tier two is a little higher and then tier three, all right, honestly, I might have that reverse tier one might be the best. Tier three might be like the worst quote unquote. Uh, but both VBS and camp are like the top tier events. And so in your church, I would recommend that VBS and camp also be top level events.

Nick Clason (02:26):
If you are a senior pastor, uh, that recommendation is for you. If you're a church communications person, that recommendation is for you. If you're a youth pastor or kids pastor listening and you're screaming at your car or your phone or your headphones right now, like, yes, it is the most popular event. Like, you already know that, right? And you're trying to get other people on board with that idea. So I would recommend making it your top tier event and pulling out as many of the stops as it takes in order for you to be able to do that. Now, before we dive into the pre, during and post suggestions for your event, I do just say, if you don't have an event or a communications classification, uh, spelled out in like a handbook of some sorts, let me, let me recommend that that might be your first step because one of the challenges in churches, you, every ministry wants to announce their thing.

Nick Clason (03:15):
The women's minister wants to announce her thing. The senior adults ministry wants to announce their thing. The college ministry wants to make sure that their thing is announced. The kids' ministry of course, wants VBS announced Student Ministry of courts wants camp announce. How do you announce those? How do you celebrate those when they're over? Like how do you categorize and classify what gets air time? What gets screen time, what gets stage time? And that is where I would say if you have a classification, tier one, tier two, tier three, and then explain what falls under each of those categories, it's helpful, um, so that like people can request those things. And then when, like ladies bunko on a Friday night at, you know, Pauline's house is vying for the top tier event, you as a church communications person, you're gonna have to say, well, that's not a top tier event because it doesn't affect more than 50% of our population.

Nick Clason (04:05):
Or, you know, whatever the reasons might be. But sit down, work through what those things might be. A good rule of thumb is typically that you want the event or you want the thing that you're announcing that you're, you know, making known. You want it to affect a wide and vast majority of your people. And the reason that VBS does that is because it not only is for all of the kids in your church, but also you're gonna need just about as many volunteers or more than kids in your church to, to step up and serve. And so it is a big wide scale production. The entire church, the entire staff is usually involved in it. It's usually like a non-negotiable. You are not on vacation if you're on church staff during that week, like you are there. And so that's one of the reasons why it is such a top tier event camp is a little trickier, honestly, cuz it probably doesn't hit 50% of your people.

Nick Clason (04:53):
Uh, but it is a massive financial investment. And it is also probably your student ministry's most, uh, coveted or or biggest like event moment throughout the year. Um, it does also require a good portion, definitely a good portion of your student ministry, student ministry staff, student ministry volunteers. Does it include everybody? Maybe not. Um, but you may. And and that's where, right, like you can have your, you can have your, uh, categorizations, your classifications, but then sometimes like in that case you may fudge that and be like, this is still gonna be tier one. So let's dive into some ideas that you can do promoting and before your event, let's go.

Nick Clason (05:33):
All right, so if this is a top tier event and before your event starts, I wanna just give you some ideas. Do whatever you can pull all the stops to give it all the publicity that you can. What does that mean? Well, I would say give it all of your in church announcement moments. Give it all of your, um, give it all of your promotion that you can do inside the church. Video announcements, stage announcements, bathroom signs, uh, ev everything that you pull out, church bulletin, everything that you do on a week to week basis for your church. Give it everything that you got. All right. Like put all your gas behind all your effort, energy behind this event. Make sure that everyone in your church at least is very well aware of it. And then from the digital perspective and digital standpoint, how do you do and what do you do beyond that?

Nick Clason (06:22):
Well, I would recommend that you create for yourself a individual dedicated landing page on your church website. Maybe it's, maybe you buy a domain, maybe it's whatever the theme is, you know, dot com. Like, uh, if your theme is like wet and wild rapids.com. Now if you're doing like VBS in a can or VBS from like a curriculum content place, that that website is probably gonna be taken by another church or just by the, the VBS curriculum provider in general, right? But create some sort of like website and maybe you can get like VBS in yourtown.com or VBS in yourtown.church or something like that, that you can just own and use every single year. And then recycle it and refresh it to match and go along with whatever the theme is. But then when people, um, are searching for VBS in your town, that is hopefully gonna index well in SEO and in Google search for the town that your church is in.

Nick Clason (07:18):
Uh, but, but create a website. And in my mind, that website can be your centralized hub. Now, you should already have some sort of centralized hub to your church. And so if people do go to your church and then they do wind up going to vbs, you can just simply link it over to that one. It can also be a subset of your page. You already are paying for a church page. You can just do, you know, whatever church.com/vbs, uh, or whatever church.com/camp. But give it its own dedicated page. And in vbs laying a camp, you want to do packing list, you wanna do themes, you want to be, let that be the place where parents can go for daily recaps posts, uh, links out to social links, out to videos, um, packing lists, forms if you're going away. Um, let's see. Uh, like I like to include Spotify playlists, uh, that the kids, uh, have been worshiping to so that people can access that. They can continue to listen to that on their own time. And then also, last but not least, an idea might be put some energy and effort behind some Facebook advertising. All right, I'll link in our episode here on how to run a Facebook ad, uh, with me and Matt from a couple of, uh, almost a year ago at this point. But I'll link the how-to step-by-step process of running, creating, targeting on a Facebook ad. But get some ad power behind your, uh, your two events, VBS and camp.

Nick Clason (08:38):
All right, what are you gonna do during vbs and what are you gonna do during camp? Right? Like I said, odds are when this video and, uh, podcast drop, you're already there. You don't really have a lot of the, the pre-work probably to do anymore. Or if not, you're, you're, you're minimal. And most of those decisions have already been, it may be too late to create a website. It may be too late, you know, to uh, run an ad. And so during, I would do whatever you can to create daily content for your screens in your room. And so what I mean by that is you're gonna have large projector screens, probably wherever you are, camp vbs, either of those. And if you can have 1, 2, 3, uh, photographers, videographers around the better VBS is probably easier for that cuz you can get volunteer ones, um, camp, you probably need to pay to have that person go and pay them to be there, right?

Nick Clason (09:26):
You gotta pay for their, their room and board and lodging. And then you also have to pay them to be there. If you're on a bigger church staff, you may have a full marketing department, communications department and they may be able to spare a, a member of their team to go to camp with you for the week. Um, and so you don't have to necessarily pay them cuz they're getting paid by the church, but you do have to pay for them to be there, if that makes sense. But those investments are worth it because capturing those memories, capturing those photos and being able to capture those videos are amazing. And one of the best things I think to do is every single day have a daily recap that you post on your screen. So as soon as the kids come in, the top of the service is a daily recap video.

Nick Clason (10:07):
They can screen for their team, they can scream for 'em, they see themselves, they can laugh, they can giggle, they can sing along with the songs. I think all those are great, amazing ideas. Um, also I think you should post daily recap stuff for social media. So think about the multiple avenues in which you may wanna post. You may wanna post on, uh, the feed, Facebook feed, Instagram feed in on Instagram. It's gonna be 10 photos. You may also wanna post videos or things in your stories. Um, and you may also wanna post some reels. So one of the things we just got done with VBS this last week at our church, our church was doing a daily recap video with like a voiceover. So one of the people on staff did it, I did it from one of the days cuz we were hosting, um, a sixth grade event called Cross the Creek Week.

Nick Clason (10:50):
Um, and it's for our incoming, uh, sixth graders that was running in tandem in conjunction with their VBS across the, across the way. Um, but I would do like a recap, Hey, here's the, here's the theme, here's the word of the day, here's the verse. Um, and all the while there was just b-roll back behind of things going on events, uh, footage that they had for, for the event. I also posted on our own individual student ministry channels. The first two days I just did basic recaps. I just like got my phone out and just kind of captured the day, put a video on it, honestly edited it in TikTok or cap cut and just like let it be. And it was super simple text on screen, you know, cross Creek week day one. Uh, super easy way to do that. The, the third day I pulled students aside individually and I asked them, what's your favorite part of this event?

Nick Clason (11:38):
And I, I just clipped all those together real fast. And then on the fourth and final day we had our missions offering and we offered a contest to our sixth graders that if they were able to meet some sort of goal, um, they could pie a leader of their choice in the face. And so there were six groups, six teams, and five of the six teams met that goal. And so five of the six teams got a pie leaders. And so we captured five pies in the face. If you're on YouTube, check this out, here's my photo of me getting pied in the face. Cuz they did in fact choose me for one of them. Um, but I posted a video all five, like boom, boom, boom, just real fast. And then at the end, the group photo of the five of us being pied.

Nick Clason (12:16):
And so, um, I captured that. So on social, I would just, uh, look for different ways to capture what's going on. Um, I thought what, what my church was doing with the voiceover for the theme. I thought that was really good, um, and really well done. Um, and so I would, again, so you're looking at the, the challenge with it right? Is that you're looking for, uh, stuff for your screen. So you're looking for 10 80 by 1920, you're also looking for, um, you're also looking, what is that? No, that's 1920 by 10 80, then you're also looking for verticals. So then you're looking for 10 80 by 1920. Uh, so the way you capture it is gonna be different. So if you can have some people like you do social and you do, um, for the screens, vice versa, or you're just gonna have them like, come in, film this way and then come in and film this way, right?

Nick Clason (13:02):
Whatever the case might be, I would, uh, try and find a way. And the more people you hand have, the more hands you have on deck to help with that, the better for during your event that you can produce on a daily sort of basis. Let's check out what we can do after, all right, after, I would do a big total recap of the whole event. So you've done daily recaps and now you're doing like the big total recap that can just be B roll and uh, maybe voiceover or something like that. One of my favorite things to do is bringing that like camp person, uh, with me. The video person to camp is have them capture eight to 12, uh, testimonies of people, um, student and a couple leaders, and then splice that up together with some good B-roll over it and, um, show it in the service or show it in the, um, like whatever sort of recap event you have, uh, for, for your people.

Nick Clason (13:58):
Uh, and also post it, you know, to YouTube clip it up verticals so you can post it to social. Um, we did an event, uh, we will do an event after camp this year called camp. So it's the camp recap, um, and we're gonna invite parents to it. And that's what we're gonna show our, our video for, for camp, for returning students, um, and for returning parents to be able to check out what's going on with, uh, what went on at camp, what went on with student ministry, um, and get that also, um, if it's good enough, it'll be able to get played in your big church lobby. Um, and it, what it'll do is it will help your parents. It'll help your donors, it will help anyone who gave fundraisers invested in student ministry. It will give them a picture of what their financial and what their monetary and what their time investment went to.

Nick Clason (14:45):
And so, uh, this is why I think that capturing these moments digitally, um, and on video is so, so widely important because it just gives such a good picture and it helps bring your church along to what's going on in these monumental events for these, uh, for kid ministry and for student ministry. Well, hey everyone, so glad you hung out. I, uh, am thankful that you stuck around to the end of this video. Hey, I also just want to say like, I hope that you found this helpful and I also hope that you, um, have a great vbs and a great camp this season. Whether you're just finishing it or whether you're jumping into it this week. Um, prayers, blessings on you. I hope that it's amazing for any, uh, if you want to, to preview any of the content we did, I'll link both our, our overall church and, uh, my church's, uh, student ministry, which I run in the show notes.

Nick Clason (15:40):
You can check both of those out. You can again, head to YouTube to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Um, see the photo of me having Pie in the face. Uh, you can also follow me on TikTok for short video clips. And don't forget show notes and transcripts are available every single week http://hybridministry.xyz. This is gonna be episode number 049. Hey, listen, I'm gonna give you quick heads up. I may say that in some future episodes I lost a bunch of episodes on a hard drive, um, that is currently getting recovered now. Um, and so unfortunately, uh, there may be some, some shuffling. That's mostly a problem I have to deal with. Um, but I'm just letting you know that there be, there may be some clerical errors here in the next couple of weeks of me staying episode, whatever, and then it posting later cuz I currently don't have access to it. So anyway, all that to be said. Without any further ado, glad you're here. Thanks for hanging out. Head into the show notes to get everything you need. And as always, don't forget, stay hybrid.

Follow Along on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
Come Hang with Nick on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick?lang=en
Shownotes & Transcripts for this Episode:
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/048

SHOWNOTES
The Original 2023 Posting Strategy:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/025

FREE E-Book on Posting to TikTok in 2023:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

To see Nick's Church's Social Media in Action:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crosscreekstudents/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4f4bABQ6RgYF8CHY9G4HKw
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@crosscreekstudents?lang=en

TIMECODES
00:00-04:37 Intro
04:37-06:55 Why I'm shifting from posting less content on social media in 2023
06:55-15:30 Reason #1: Quantity to Quality
15:30-18:59 Reason #2: Margin for more variety of Social Media posts
18:59-23:03 In Conclusion

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
Hey, what is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am with you as always as your host, Nick Clason. Excited and thrilled to be with you on this episode. And in this episode, I want to give you my updated church social media posting strategy for 2023. Uh, I will link in the show notes if you've been around any length of time, my ultimate, uh, church social media posting strategy. Um, and I, I gave that back, I believe, around Christmas time, um, in 2022. And so here we are. It's May or June, depending on when you're catching this, or maybe even later if you're watching back through the archives, um, or listening back to the archives. Um, but now I want to just give an update and, uh, say, Hey, here's what I have been doing. Here's where I have been, and here's what I now know and here's the direction that I am now gonna go.

Nick Clason (01:06):
So tune in for that. But before we do, uh, if you haven't already figured out, we are on YouTube. So join us over there. Give us a, like a subscribe, all that stuff. Super duper helps with the algorithm. Um, and we would super appreciate it if any of those things, uh, were available or a thing that you could do for us. Uh, if you're in a podcast catcher, uh, subscribe so that you get this episode for free. It will automatically, uh, download, automatically show up in your feed every single Thursday morning at 4:00 AM when these things drop. And a rating or a review, either on Apple Podcast, on the YouTube podcast, any of those places, Spotify, we are all those places. So we would welcome a rating or a review. Um, it really helps with the algorithm. And, um, I believe in this message. I hope that if you're listening, that you two also believe in this message.

Nick Clason (01:57):
And if you are finding it helpful, um, getting that word out there in some way, just by helping us give it a rating that helps other people find their show, that helps other people attach to the mission message, um, of what hybrid ministry is all about. If, if you're new, you know, what we're essentially saying is, uh, this is not a all about digital ministry, though. There is a lot of elements of digital ministry in here. Um, and this is not all about in-person ministry. What this really is, is this is a melding of the two, and it's helping kind of fuse where, where the road meets between, um, just in person or just on online or just in digital. And so that's why we're calling it hybrid. It's a both and sort of experience. That being said, most churches are really good with their in-person experiences, um, and they may not be as good with some of their hybrid experiences, and it could be streaming your service.

Nick Clason (02:57):
That could be what a hybrid experience is. That's what most churches, uh, do. That's, that's what most of their online or digital strategy is, is like, well, we streamed the service, COVID forced us to buy a camera, stick it in the back of the room and stream the service. And that's all well and good. And if you're doing that, I'd recommend continue doing it. But there are many more ways, I think, to enter into that space, uh, and to offer more than just your Sunday morning experience to your church members, your church attenders, and your perspective people. So again, thank you for joining us. One of the major players right now in 2023. Um, and this will still bear itself out and you're about to see and hear in my updated church, uh, media posting strategy in 2023 is short form, vertical based video. And I have created for you a 100% free ebook.

Nick Clason (03:49):
I would love for you to click the link in the show notes and head there and download your very own copy of it. Uh, it's just a way for you or a church social media manager or an intern or a college student to grab a phone and start creating tos completely free and from scratch. It is an ebook that we created step by step, walking you through. It's titled, have I Already Ruined My Church TikTok account? And we would just love for you to check that out and use it, and hopefully that will be to your benefit and your advantage as you're trying to lean into more and more of the hybrid space here in 2023 in an effort to reach Gen Z and millennials and beyond. So again, without any further ado, glad you're here. Thanks for joining us. Let's dive in to my updated church social media posting strategy in 2023.

Nick Clason (04:38):
The day was May 7th, 2023. That's the day I finally shifted my strategy from before. So a little bit of historical context so that you understand. Like I said, if you wanna go back and listen, drop the link to that in the show notes, check that out. But I have been posting three short form vertical video based content pieces every single day for five days a week. The reason I choose the five days a week thing is because I'm attempting to have rhythm and rest in a Sabbath and a weekend. And so I don't post on Friday and Saturday as a a member of church staff. Sun Sunday is for sure a working day, right? Um, and so therefore I just, I choose Friday and Saturday as my two days off. It works pretty well. So I post Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. That's why really, that's really the rhyme or reason works well with my schedule.

Nick Clason (05:32):
Um, and I would recommend that, like, I would recommend not overdoing it on your days off, because the, the reality is social media is relentless. It is a never ending beast, and it is always hungry. And so the more that you give to it, the more it's gonna want and the more it's gonna need. And so unless you have boundaries, there is really no, uh, stopping to it. And so it's up to you to create the boundaries to stay healthy, to stay in a spot that is gonna keep you mentally strong and all those types of things. So anyway, I've been posting three times a day, five days a week, and I just now shifted down and this is my new strategy. It's not earth shattering, and it's not a big shift. Okay? I've shifted down from three a day to two a day. So let's talk about what caused and what brought me to that shift.

Nick Clason (06:19):
It's multifaceted. There are two main points, and in the next couple sections, I'm gonna break down point number one, I'm gonna break down point number two. Um, but all of this is, while it's not monumental, it is a slight shift. And so if you have been following my recommended strategy, I will explain why I still think that there is benefit and merit to the three posts a day versus maybe the two posts a day. That is honestly ultimately gonna be up to you and up to your call. But before we do that, let me dive into my two-pronged reason for shifting from three a day to two a day. Let's go. Reason number one, why I am making this shift is I am hoping that shifting from posting three day to two a day, it's gonna take my weekly from 15 down to 10. Um, and there's already a rhythm baked in what I'm doing.

Nick Clason (07:12):
Like, for example, we're pre-filing all of our message content on video. And so out of that, I pull three, uh, shorts, three tos every single week, um, that are short message clips, um, Brady Shearer and the, and the people at Nucleus call it social sermons. Um, but essentially we're clipping a, a message with hopefully what I would consider to be a good hook, whether it is or not, I don't know. I'm still growing in that skill, I would say. And then at the end, we're pushing them to go consume longer sections of our YouTube, um, or podcast content. Uh, and so hopefully they find it and then they go, they go discover and, and become, you know, more engaged, more entrenched in what we're doing on social media. Anyway, all that to be said, right? Like, I am trying to, so, so there's three right there.

Nick Clason (08:02):
Okay, so outta my 10. Now I already have three. I only have to come up with seven more. And so ultimately I'm trying to shift, uh, creating quantity content to quality content. Now, I, I have not been trying to produce crap. Like, that's not been my goal, right? By any means. Like, I'm trying to do good work. I'm trying to be thoughtful, I'm trying to be creative, but there's just something about three a day that just feels relentless. And yesterday, May 7th was actually the very, and that May 7th, as of this recording, this will drop multiple weeks later. But, um, May 7th, when I first posted this, like, that was my very first day of posting only two a day. And it, it felt different. Like, I don't know it, you know, you might think like, what are you talking about? Like, it's only one different, like, I know, but it just, it, there's something about it, it just did.

Nick Clason (08:48):
And, uh, the illustration that I would make is I'm trying to produce really good quality content now, like part of the quantity, um, has been a little bit of an antiquated, I think, algorithm thing. And by antiquated, I mean, like a couple months ago, in social media land that's antiquated. You had to show up a lot and you had to show up frequently. You had to show up often. And if you can do three a day, if you can do quality content multiple times a day, you should. And I would still a hundred percent recommend it, but I just know my personal margin, like was not really allowing that anymore. Um, I was ha I was struggling with coming up with good ideas. And in like one of my original iterations of our plan, I've told you before, I work as a youth pastor.

Nick Clason (09:30):
I'm on a team. I'm one of three on our team. I have a director. There's me, I'm like the, the social media guru. And then we have, uh, another associate on our team. And, and she's a female. And so like the two of them, like I I, I dished out some social media stuff early on, like, Hey, you take three and you take three and I'll take the remainder. And they each both struggled with it for different reasons. Um, and, and so I pulled us back together and I said, what if we filmed some stuff together? We got all of us on camera at the same time. Instead of it just being like my talking head than your talking head, than your turn for your talking head. And they loved that idea. It was easier for them, but that dumped a lot more of the editing load back on my plate.

Nick Clason (10:12):
And so as a result of that, that's why I'm making this shift. The other thing is, you, you're in grow mode. I think when you're starting from scratch and you're doing a lot a day, we've, we've grown a lot. Go back to the last episode, I'll link it in the show notes. I give you my progress support. We have a fair bit of followers, we have a fair bit of subscribers in all four of the places. And so I think we've established ourselves. So now I wanna start creating really good content because that is the other thing that the recent TikTok algorithm has made very clear, is that like they are now going for good solid quality content. It's not just about hopping on a trend or a sound. And if you're on that sound, you can ride that wave to a lot of views, a lot of subscribers like that just doesn't work anymore.

Nick Clason (10:56):
I mean, and you saw that born out in some of my most recent like deep dives into analytics, is that like, we're not catching those waves the way that we were hoping that we would. And so therefore we have to not just try to rely on good cap cut templates or good trending sounds and funny dances. We have to actually create quality content that people are going to want to see, watch and consume. That's gonna be the path forward. And so to do that, I'm trying to pull back the number of, of posts I do a day so that I can spend more time on quality content. Right now, I am doing a series, you can check it out. It's at Cross Creek Church right now. I'm hoping it'll change to at Cross Creek students, but TikTok and name changes. So, um, but I'm doing a series, um, on all of our, our short form video platforms called Grow.

Nick Clason (11:47):
And i, I want to give bible and Bible study hack ideas. And so I'm opening with a hook with, it's all gonna be like bot ai voice, uh, filtered. And so it says like, this Bible study hack is an absolute game changer. That's how it starts. And then I post screenshots from the Bible app, or I post, uh, screenshots or downloaded images from other things. Uh, like the one today is gonna be about the, uh, printing press and how we now have access to the Bible everywhere. The early church didn't have that, right? We have it now in our pockets on our devices. Um, I also post one about like second Timothy three 16, how God's word is, uh, God breathe and useful for teaching, re repeating, correcting and training and righteousness and how that's gonna benefit to us. And so break down some of those verses give them hacks in the you version Bible app.

Nick Clason (12:42):
So that's gonna require some more effort on the prep side before I just get out there and start farting out, right? Some, like, some some TikTok. So I'm trying to put in some good thoughtful preparation, and then once I do the prep, then I have to turn around and edit it. So I'm, I'm really seeing a lot of these things from start to finish. In a lot of cases, if you're like a church social media manager, you might just be on the editing portion of it. And so you have the time and the bandwidth. Um, if you have content creators, pastors, whatever you're gonna call them on the backend doing the work, great. Like keep, keep letting them pump that stuff out. And the more you can produce, the better. If you have a good strategy and can post more than five times a day and you're handing it off some people on their days off and whatever, like yes, yes to all of that, right?

Nick Clason (13:29):
But at the end of the day, like, I am making this move to just try and build in a little bit more, uh, margin for me. And so, um, like I said, I'm, I'm trying to, um, in addition to creating good content, I'm trying to become a little bit more aggressive on my edits too. Um, spending more time on my edits, edits that are gonna be, um, good and stop the scroll and grab people's attention and all those types of things. So all of that just takes more time. And the more time I have, uh, is gonna be used to create 10 really good pieces of content every single week that I may have to edit every single one of them in like Adobe Premier Pro or my video editing software of choice. Um, as opposed to just pulling some random quick ones out off my phone, which is what I, I have been doing for some of the filler pieces.

Nick Clason (14:18):
There's nothing wrong with it. I mean, quite honestly, on my personal YouTube shorts, I posted, uh, one of those Jonas Brothers filters a couple weeks ago. Like, don't get stressed, we're gonna get figured out. Oh, deep conversations at the Waffle House. You might have seen it if you've been on TikTok, if not, you're welcome for that glorious singing in your ear holes. But I posted that and it's got like 53,800 views on YouTube and it helped drive my subscribers up over like 30 overnight. So you never know when one of those is just gonna like catch. And quite honestly, I posted it a week and a half ago and yesterday was when I saw my subscribers just freaking skyrocket, like outta nowhere. And so those still play a part. Those still work and those still happen, you know, every now and then. And so, um, leave space for some of those good cap cut templates, I would say for some of those good training audios, um, so that you can ride some of those waves cuz that that stuff does still happen.

Nick Clason (15:19):
So that's reason number one. I'm, I'm hoping to, uh, shift from quantity to quality. I'm hoping to buy back some, some time and some margin just in my working flow and schedule. Reason number two is I would like to create additional quality content that's not just video based. Now, hear me right when I say that you're gonna be, like you said, video was king and it is, and it, it a hundred percent still is. Everything we've posted on social media since I've been at my church has essentially been video based and I love it. Um, but I , i I will liken it to my current rhythm with video is, uh, one day, there was a day when I was working a couple years ago and I had to have a really tough conversation with a resident of mine. We ended up, I believe this day, or maybe it was a couple days later, uh, letting him go and, um, I needed to sit down and create for him what we call in our organization, a p I p a performance improvement plan.

Nick Clason (16:19):
He needed to sign off on that p i p and if he didn't like see it through to the end, we had, we had to and were going to let him go. Um, but my schedule that day was stacked. I had like two liter lunches, um, or a liter coffee and a liter lunch. I had several other meetings filtered in there. And so my boss at the beginning of the day sent me, um, his like templatized, p i p and maybe one that he'd used for someone else before. And by the time I got to that meeting, I literally swapped out the name that he sent me on his, with my, my residence's name and flew into the meeting five minutes late, slapped it down and had the conversation. And, uh, I told my boss about it later and he's like, that's not the way to have that conversation.

Nick Clason (17:03):
And I knew that, right? I just didn't have the margin in my schedule that was necessary that day. There was no other gaps, there was no other breaks to make that happen. And in a lot of the same way, the three a day is very aggressive. It's an aggressive growth strategy and it's caused me to not have any additional margin because I do want to lean into some carousel posts on Instagram that are more like learning based. Um, and that's gonna just take some time with me sitting down in Photoshop, building some of those out, thinking through them. And so all of this really, I would say at the end of the day is, is to build out a more robust social media strategy. One that is including good, strong and frequent quality content, short form video based things, but also has some supplemental content happening like on our Instagram feeds and stuff like that.

Nick Clason (17:54):
And so this isn't because Instagram, uh, is not working on reels anymore, it very much still is, we're still catching fire on there. Um, you know, I I just have a bigger vision and more things I want to do. So more feed posts more, I would like to do more longer form YouTube videos that aren't just messages. Like I would like to start creating some classes and, and fun things like that. But like, I don't have the margin for it. Some podcasts that are more regular, like I would like to do some of those. I don't have the margin for those. And so the, the more things, more a more fleshed out parent Facebook strategy, like, uh, any of that stuff I don't have the time for right now because of what I'm doing with, with Rios. And so this is hopefully gonna help me take a step back on the video slightly.

Nick Clason (18:39):
I, I'm, I'm, I, it's still king and so I don't want to abandon it at all, but I just wanna take a slight step back, focus on my editing and my content and then focus on my additional pieces of content, additional avenues of social media, um, as we trudge forward. So that is why I am shifting here in 2023. So ultimately, in conclusion, this is a margin move for me. I gave it a fair shake, an eight to nine month runway. We evaluated it, we've done that in recent episodes. Um, we took a couple accounts from zero and, and complete scratch to where they are today. And that the, the aggressive three times a day vertical video posting strategy helped get us there. Um, and frankly, I am in a church that, you know, when I, when I dropped my strategy for you, I was taking it from a multi-site megachurch with people from all over the Chicagoland area that called our church home and was still very much in the midst Andros of C O V I D or at least like living in the wake of that to a church that is in Texas in the conservative Bible belt, where they very much live out an in-person experience.

Nick Clason (19:49):
And so those were not apples to apples by any means. And so I was in a church, has a very in-person, um, environment and strategy. And so leaning into a hybrid ministry in there, still necessary for generation Z, not necessarily because it's like a Bible belt, you know, thing. But Gen Z still appreciates and uses hybrid ministry. We've even seen it here. People have appreciated it and liked it, but it's been a shift and it's, it's not the norm for what you would normally see in Texas. And so, uh, I, I say all of this to say like, I only wanna point out how big and how long and how far that hill was that we have been taking. And now as we step back, as we do deep dive into some analytics, it is causing us to shift ever so slightly. And that is why.

Nick Clason (20:38):
And so I hope that you, um, you know, I hope that you can take my context and compare it to yours and like, is this true for us as well or do we have the margin to continue to keep going with what we've been doing? Like I just want to let y'all know and be honest with you, like, this is where I am, this is where I'm coming from and I, um, always just wanna shoot it straight with you. Like here's where I am, here's where I'm coming from and here's how it's going. And uh, I will always do that and I will never fabricate or lie or say one thing's going better than another. Like this is just what it is and how it is. And, and this is where we are today as it stands. And so when I make another shift, you guys will be the first to hear about it.

Nick Clason (21:24):
Cuz I love to workshop it. And, and part of the reason why is y'all help give me a community, uh, for me to like, filter out some of my thoughts. I'll make shifts. But like sitting down to prep this podcast helped me figure out the, these are my two main reasons why I'm making this shift and that makes me more articulate in my job or with my boss or whatever the case might be. So I appreciate it, it's cathartic for me. I hope it's helpful for you. If it is, please drop us a rating, a review, all those things. Grab the free ebook, that will subscribe you to our email newsletter list. And it'll also give you a freebie on your own that you can use and help. Um, moving forward for a social media posting guide and strategy. Um, as always, we are appreciative of you. If you found this episode helpful, please consider sharing it with a friend, a family member, a coworker, a grandparent, your cat. I don't care. But sharing really helps. So if that's something that you have the margin or are able to do, please consider sharing it. We love you guys. Thanks for sticking around until the end and until always, that's not how I do it. Let's, I butchered it.

Nick Clason (22:35):
How do I say it? as always. No, don't forget, this is it. This is it. That was the worst ending in the history of mankind. And you know what, I'm keeping it in there. I face planted in front of you. Not everything's perfect. That's okay. We're gonna show the realness. Don't forget. And as always, stay hybrid.

Follow Along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
Show Notes & Transcripts: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/045
Follow me on TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
FREE E-Book: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

SHOWNOTES
Plain Text vs. HTML
https://www.mailmunch.com/blog/html-vs-plain-text-email

Singular Calls to Action:
https://unlayer.com/blog/call-to-action-in-emails

Central Hub:
[Nucleus.Church](nucleus.church)
[LHC.life](LHC.life)

Posting Content Online or to YouTube:
http://www.hybridministry.xyz/042

Running Ads:
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/009

TIMECODES
00:00-04:19 Intro
04:19-07:26 What is Marketing? And Should Churches even be focused on it?
07:26-09:14 Church Marketing Tip #1: Plain-Text Emails
09:14-11:12 Church Marketing Tip #2: Send From Your Pastor
12:12-15:23 Church Marketing Tip #3: Single CTA
15:23-15:52 Church Marketing Tip #3a: Include a PS Section in Email
15:52-18:00 Church Marketing Tip #4: Create a Central Hub Style Website
18:00-20:00 Church Marketing Tip #5: Put your messaging and sermon content online
20:00-20:48 Marketing Your Church to Those not a part of your church
20:48-21:53 Church Marketing Tip #6: Consider Running an Ad
21:53-22:58 Church Marketing Tip #7: Use Short-Form Video Content
22:58-26:19 Church Marketing Tip #8: Create an e-book for your community
26:19-28:28 Church Marketing Tip #9: Captialize on Word of Mouth
28:28- Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Well, hey there everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. In this episode, I am going to give you nine church marketing tips. We're just gonna fire through them one by one. However, we're gonna break them up into two different sections. Section number one is marketing tips for people who already considered themselves a part of your church and a part of your congregation. And then the back half. So those are gonna be the first five. The back four are going to be church marketing tips for people who are not yet a part of your church congregation. So, so excited to have you with us. Hey, if this is your first time ever, welcome to the show. Excited to have you. If you don't know, we stream and film every single one of these episodes out to our YouTube channel. So you can grab the link to that in the show notes.

Nick Clason (00:48):
If you're on YouTube and you're like, wait, this is the podcast, yes it is. Hit the link in the show notes and that will take you to hybridministry.xyz. And there will be a specific link that will take you directly to this episode number and will give you completely free access to our transcripts, which is a free resource that we offer for each and every single episode. So make sure that you go and take advantage of that because listen, if you're anything like me, you're on a run, you're cooking dinner, you're walking your dog, and you might hear a thing that you're like, that's interesting. I want to dive deeper into that. And if that is the case, it's often hard and and difficult to do that, you know, when you are on that run, when you're walking that dog, when you're doing those dishes.

Nick Clason (01:29):
So you just make a quick earmark and like, I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna download those transcripts, I can see a little bit more. So that is an opportunity and definitely an option for you. So make sure that you take a look into that and take advantage of that. We're so excited to have you with us. Hey, listen, if you are excited to be here, if you're excited to be listening, it would mean the absolute world to us. If you would share this episode with a friend, it would mean the absolute world with us. If you are going to, if you help us by making a rating or a review, we would be thrilled with those things. Um, it just helps us get the word out. It helps us get indexed and ranked and search. Um, not because we're trying to go big, go viral or go famous, but man, we just, we're passionate about this message and we just really want to get the word out there.

Nick Clason (02:18):
You know what's interesting, before we dive into the church marketing tips, I was at a Bible study last night. Um, if you don't know me, my story, my name's Nick Clason, I'm your host, uh, here every single week with y'all. Um, new episodes drop every single Thursday at four o'clock in the morning. But I'm a youth pastor. I'm a youth pastor in the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex area, um, at a big church for most, but in Dallas it's not super big, uh, cuz everyone goes to church here. But I was at a, a bible study that we do, it's a yearlong bible study on Sunday night, which is not a normal ministry night, and it's for seniors only. So it's creative name called fso. So it's that fso and they're talking about finding a church when you go off to college. And um, it was just interesting cuz like the hybridness of ministry really reared its head in those moments, uh, because they're talking about visiting a church, how often you should visit a church, uh, what if you go in the main pastors, isn't there preaching like how many more times you need to give that church a shot?

Nick Clason (03:20):
And I just was like, guys, um, I was nice, right? But I was like, guys, you don't have to just only attend in person. Like if what you're looking for is the pastor's message and the content. I said Covid has forced just about every single church in America online. So check out their services, check out his preaching, uh, check those things out online, gather some of those data points. And then when, you know, based on what I've heard so far, this church, this church and this church are all options for me, then go visit them in person. So I just wanna say like even in my own life, even in my own realm, even in my own world, hybrid ministry is rearing its head. So encourage you, stick with it, it's important, it matters. There's a world out there of people that are trying to grasp and grab a hold of this message and you just might be the key for some of those people.

Nick Clason (04:09):
So what you do is worth it. What you do matters. And so without any further ado, let's dive in to nine different church marketing tips before we give you marketing tip number one, I just wanna do a quick like 10, 30 seconds, something like that. Little primer on what is marketing. If you Google search, what is marketing? This is a response you're gonna get. It says this, it's the activity or uh, the activity of business, sorry, the activity or business of promoting and selling products or services including market research and advertising. So you might be sitting here thinking like that. Yeah, great, but that's not what the church is supposed to do. And I agree with you mostly, uh, in the traditional sense, like you might think of marketing as a way to make money for a business, and that's true. Um, however, that is not necessarily the church's goal.

Nick Clason (05:03):
Our goal though is to bring about brand awareness and not cause we're a brand, but because we want people to know about our church. So what is your church about? Does your church even exist? Um, and then beyond that, once they do know that you exist, how do you help add value to their lives? And not because we're trying to get their tithe money, though, maybe we are at some point. That's part of the thing. You gotta make money. You know, you gotta, you know, you gotta take people's ties and use that for the overall betterment of the church. And if you don't, the crass reality is that your church that's gonna have to shut their doors. And so at some level you are gonna want that, but that's not the main reason. And you know that, and that's honestly not why you're in this.

Nick Clason (05:48):
Okay? You're in this so that people know about you, know about your church and then make a decision to commit and connect to your church. And with that commitment and connection, especially if that person is far from God and doesn't know Jesus, that's not only gonna come with a decision to join a social gathering and entity, but that's also gonna come with a major crisis of faith and a major faith hurdle decision that they're gonna have to make. So this isn't just, you're like, Hey, do you want to come shop at Walmart? This is, do you wanna give your life to Jesus radically and and forever change everything about that. And then do you want to commit to our social gathering where we help equip you and encourage you in that? And if you've grown up a Christian your whole life, you're like, yeah, that's exactly what this is.

Nick Clason (06:37):
But if this is completely new to you of faith, you're like, that is a lot and it is right? You gotta just keep that in mind like that. There are about 37 things that go into that. And so while our logo and our color scheme matter, we are asking people to do major things in their life. And so what is marketing? It's bringing about awareness of your church. It's adding value to people's lives. It's helping them commit and connect to you and your uh, organization. And then finally it's helping create, um, fans out of them disciples, super fans, people who will give their lives to the mission of Jesus and the mission of your church. So that's just a quick primer on marketing, specifically what is church marketing? But let's dive in now to nine different church marketing tips. Here we go. Church marketing. Tip number one is send emails and send plain text emails to your church.

Nick Clason (07:36):
Now what am I talking about? There's a difference between uh, plain text email, which is just white background, black text. Just like you would send an email to a friend, a coworker or your son or daughter's elementary school teacher, right? And then there are graphically designed newsletters that look amazing. It's what you'd get from Bath and Body Works or Target or Old Navy, right? And they're trying to sell you something. And a lot of times, especially foreign in church communications or foreign church marketing, we have a graphic design skill and we like to use that and show that off. We can make that newsletter if we're honest, look incredibly sexy and sleek and amazing. However, there's been a lot and considerable amounts of research shown. And it goes to show that email marketing is done best in plain text. I have a quote here from a male Munch article is from a blog, it's HTML versus plain text email and they dive deep into it.

Nick Clason (08:30):
I'll add that link there in the show notes if that's something that you're interested in. But their conclusion said this, it can be a pickle to choose one type of email, but here's the secret that no one lets you onto in email. Less is always more so less is more. And I just wanna encourage you don't lose sight of that fact. Less is more. And if less is more, you may get your message across more clearly, more concisely. Two more people. You may get more clicks, you make it more opens. And so I'll just encourage you in your email marketing, if you are doing a graphically designed thing, consider trying and beta testing and AB testing if you will. Send some graphically designed ones and then send some plain text ones and see which perform better. Church marketing tip number two, when sending emails, edit your from section and send the emails from your pastor's name.

Nick Clason (09:25):
There's a very big difference psychologically when you're getting an email from Pastor Todd as opposed to getting an email from Crossroads Church. You see what I'm saying? You're getting an email in one case from a friend, from a person, from a human being, somebody who you know, who you connect with, who you love, and then you're getting an email from an entity or, or an organization and he doesn't have to actually be from Pastor Todd. If Pastor Todd's worried about putting his name on something, then ghost write it for him and then just send it over to him to get a stamp of approval and let him make the final edits and tweaks before you send that out. But you are gonna, you are going to see your email open rates skyrocket when you're doing both plain texts and when you're sending it from Pastor Todd, because think about it, people open their emails and I don't know if you're anything like me.

Nick Clason (10:12):
I open my emails and I see junk, junk, junk, junk, junk. And then there's like one or two things that I'm like, oh, this is from a person, let me read it. And when there's something from a person that's personal, that's different, that's not the same, it's going to peak my interest differently because I actually want an email. Like if I get an email from my grandma or my grandpa, they're checking in on my life. They're trying to see how things are going. Like I don't delete that email, but I delete the Old Navy email. I delete the emails from my kid's school. I delete the emails from frankly my church because they come from not anybody, right? And all I know they are is they're just lists and bullets of announcements. Announcement, announcement, announcement. There's nothing personal in there. And here's the reality, when you are sending an email from a church, it is going to have an announcement flare to it.

Nick Clason (10:59):
So if you can personalize it a little bit more in these two ways by making it plain text, cause that's how you would send an email to a friend and by sending it from your pastor, that's gonna help your open rates skyrocket. Church marketing tip number three, give yourself one singular call to action. Call to action is just a marketing word for what are you trying to get the people that you're communicating with to do what is the one call to action or the one thing, the one action step that you're hoping that they take. Now here's the thing, we will put together a full on smorgasboard of a church newsletter, basically a bulletin board of church email stuff all in one email. And that's why we do these html amazing graphically designed newsletters cuz we can include everything and the kids ministry and the women's ministry and the senior adult ministry in the youth ministry in college of ministry.

Nick Clason (11:56):
And everyone gets their announcement in the church newsletter. And so nobody's left out and nobody has to worry it. But you will see a dramatic rise in calls to action if you give one singular call to action. Now, you might be thinking, wait a minute, you just named like five ministries just off the top of your head, that doesn't even include some of the real ones that I have in my church. How in the heck am I supposed to get all of these things communicated if I'm also only, maybe you're maybe only sending an email newsletter one time a week. Well, we fear this, right? We fear because we are afraid that some people might not know all that's going on. We also are afraid that some people won't get the info that they need. And also for just honest, we live and work in an office culture.

Nick Clason (12:42):
And so there's gonna be awkward vibes if you pick the Kids ministries announcement over the youth ministries announcement and the kids pastor loves you, but the youth pastor now hates you, right? And, and so you got that pressing on you too, and you shouldn't let that be a reason why you do it, but it is, if we're honest, we're all human, right? And so I wanna, um, link, uh, an article for you. Um, I'm gonna read a little excerpt for you, but it's from unlayer.com. It's a blog called Call to Actions and Email. And here's what it says, just a reminder of this, when you are sending to somebody, you're saying, Hey, it's a selfish world out there. And the question that they're asking is, what's in it for me? So here's what it says, what's in it for me? Selfish world out there? Why expect your audience to listen to you, right?

Nick Clason (13:25):
For them to perform your desired action, you need to highlight what's in it for them. So let's take the example of an e-book of reducing debt you're offering as a reward for subscribing to your mail list. Which call to action sounds better, download now or give me financial freedom. So as you're writing these things out, be thinking about how can you offer and provide value to these people's lives? That's what they're saying, right? Like this give me financial freedom button is gonna be a lot more appealing than simply download now because in the back of people's minds, they're thinking, what is in this for me? Now the tricky thing is you're gonna have to get really vigilant with which announcements get promoted where, especially if you're only doing one email a week and one singular call to action. But what I would do is I would choose one thing every single week, the number one thing, and send that out.

Nick Clason (14:17):
And if the entire email is focus on signing up for kids vbs and nothing else is vying for his attention, for people's attention in the email, because it's a plain text email, it's from Pastor Todd and Pastor Todd's inviting you to VBS because he's sharing a story of life change and life transformation that happened at last year's vbs. You can't help but be compelled to be like, give me that same experience and I want to invite my friends, I wanna invite my neighbors into it. And that's the email. But then next week, maybe it's not about kids, maybe it's about youth camp. The next weekend Pastor Todd's doing the same thing in a plain text email because it feels like he's emailing a friend. Narrow your emails down to one singular call to action and then you are as a, this is why you get paid to big bucks as a church communications, a church marketing manager, church, you know, marketing director, whatever your title is, to figure out how to communicate the other elements, the other announcements without just cramming more and more and more and more and more into an email.

Nick Clason (15:24):
Let me give you church marketing tip, bonus tip four or three a, um, in your emails include a PS section. A lot of times we as as, uh, humans, we just skim our emails and we, we skim, skim and then we see a PS boom. Give the same message in the body of your email as you do in the PS of an email. One singular call to action all the way down. Boom. PS don't forget it sounded from vbs. Church marketing tip number four, create for yourself a one-stop shop centralized hub. Uh, this has made famous and I have been on record on here promoting the mess out of them from the guys up at Proach Church Tools in Canada, Brady Shear. Um, and all those guys, they have made famous the idea of a central hub. They call it Nucleus. So you can go ahead to nucleus.church and make that your website's one stop shop.

Nick Clason (16:20):
So every single next step lies on your website. That's gonna help, especially if we are doing these one singular call to action emails where not everything is on your, um, not everything is on your email, but everything is on your website. And so if they go there, it's a full service bar. A lot of times we make it where it's like, Hey, if you wanna send up for vbs, go to the children's lobby and if you wanna sign up for youth camp, go talk to Pastor Doug. And if you wanna sign up for the women's brunch, you need to email Kathy. And if you're interested in the senior adult ministry, make sure that you email Harry. Um, but Harry's not here this week, so email his wife Sue today to make sure that you get, you see what I'm saying? Like we have all these different scattering spots.

Nick Clason (17:05):
The human brain is not wired and frankly not interested in remembering all those specific intricacies. But if you beat it weekly into their head, central hub, central hub, central hub. And listen, don't call it that. One church I worked at was called Liberty Heights Church. And so short lhc, right? And the centralized hub was lhc.life. In fact, we outfitted a whole section in the lobby, um, as like a next steps hub in the lobby, but we called it lhc.life. So both the web URL and the in-person room were all called the same thing. And that was it. We ingrained it from the stage, we ingrained it in our emails, we ingrained it online. lhc.life, lhc.life lhc.life eventually becomes a part of the vernacular. Um, and people know where to go when they're looking for things. Number five, I just wanna remind you, create and put your message content out there somehow.

Nick Clason (18:07):
You may or may not have the live streaming capabilities. Odds are in your church, you're at least using a soundboard. And if you're using a soundboard, you have the ability in most cases, if not with a couple of adapters, you're gonna have the ability to record your sermon audio at a minimum starting there. You can record the sermon audio, you can take that and you can put that on a podcast. Um, and you can be on Spotify, you can be on Apple Music, you can be, um, apple Podcast, all the places that you are gonna want to be on a podcast. If you do have video capabilities, I would recommend posting those to YouTube. And I also, honestly, I recommend doing a direct to camera message anyway. So if you're not pre-filing in some sort of way or, or filming your message content in like a studio type of form, pre-fill it, even if it's just on a phone or whatever, have someone edit that down and post those to YouTube and then leave your live streams as a completely different entity.

Nick Clason (19:04):
So yeah, you may have duplicate content out there, but one's gonna be aimed towards your YouTube audience and one's gonna be aimed towards just your people that are in person, right? And finally, uh, if you have the bandwidth ability margin, brain power, come up with some additional forms of content to supplement your weekend weekly messages. But put your content out there, like I said at the top right, the seniors in FSO trying to figure out where to go. This is going to be a goal mine for people as they're trying to discover your church. And it's also gonna be a goal mine for the people that can't make it every single week or don't make it every single week or aren't in the discipline yet of attending church on a Sunday morning every single week for whatever reason. They're a new believer. They're out late on a Saturday night, they just had a new baby.

Nick Clason (19:51):
So getting up early is hard and getting the baby there. Maybe you don't feel comfortable bringing the baby to the nursery, but let them still feel part of what your church has going on. All right, so what do we do when we are looking to reach people who are not yet considered a part of your church? Let me give this caveat that these are all gonna be digital marketing ideas only, not because your in-person experience doesn't matter. Your in-person experience matters greatly. I'm gonna just give the caveat that you have to crush your in-person experience. And so I'm going to carry in two assumptions with this. Number one that you are doing that, that you are attempting with all your might to make your in-person experience as rock solid as possible. But number two, this is a hybrid ministry podcast. And so I wanna focus on the areas in hybrid space, in digital space to help reach some of the people that are gonna be out there that you want to be bringing into your church.

Nick Clason (20:49):
So with that being said, maybe consider, if you really wanna market to people that are unaware of your church, really maybe consider running an ad. If you go to hybrid ministry.xyz sa slash 0 0 9, episode nine, I talk to Matt who I consider a marketing genius and guru about the step-by-step process of running an ad. Now granted, that was in 2022, and so we may need to revisit that and look at that maybe one day I'll see if I can get him back on the podcast. For those of you who don't know, he was our um, co-host on this show for like the first 12 or so episodes. And then him and I both made cross country moves and, uh, for a lot of different reasons, he did not make that jump back into podcast co-host dumb. Uh, and so maybe one day I'll bring him back on as a special guest to help us walk back through that.

Nick Clason (21:37):
Definitely not my forte. Maybe you personally have some experience doing it, so that'd be great. But if not, if you have no idea what you're doing, head there. Hybrid ministry.xyz/ 0 0 9 for a free look into that. Um, and check out how to run an ad. Number seven, uh, church marketing tip is use short form video content. Short form video content is still king. We talk about it weekly. YouTube shorts, Instagram and Facebook reels and TikTok. All four blowing up right now, all four asking for the same types of content. So create quality content in short form video versions. Post it, put it on your social media channels. And here's the other good news about it, right? Like once you've done one that does well, you can boost that or turn that into an ad. And so that will help also bring about awareness. But just in your general area, TikTok specifically shares geographically in your area first.

Nick Clason (22:34):
And so post in your area, geotag it. And then as people are experiencing and spending time on TikTok, just consuming things for themselves, they may run across on therefore you page something about your church, a video, whether it's spiritual content, fun content, marketing type content, but create some of those short form video pieces for the chance and for the opportunity to go viral. Church marketing idea number eight, this one is next level in my personal opinion. We were doing it at the church. I was at both Matt and I, the co-host I had, like I had just mentioned, um, create an ebook for your community. So one of the things that we started doing was we were creating, uh, a seasonal e-book. And so the first one we did was leading into summer and I think we titled 101 things to do in this area, like South Chicago land in this area for the summer.

Nick Clason (23:29):
And it was aimed at families with younger kids and it just gave them like park ideas, splash pad ideas. It gave them like movie night dates and places that they could go see movies under the stars or you know, whatever. Um, but then what you can do with that is if you're giving away your a right, you're adding value to people if you give some of those things away. The other thing is you can include your stuff in there. So you give them 95 ideas of things all around the community. Splash pads and parks and ice cream cone trails and all those types of things that you either borrow off of or just create, like we created our very own ice cream trail in the South Chicago suburbs area. There wasn't one in existence, but we just brain pooled our heads together, like this place, this place, this place.

Nick Clason (24:14):
It's make an ice cream trail. And then you give them like the family, like a one page tear out, you know, thing that they can use and put in their fridge and they can keep track of all the different ice cream places that they want to go throughout the summer. So you give 'em 95 ideas of just like places around. But then five ideas are your ideas and maybe you like make those colorful, you know, where you print the rest of the ebook and like black and white or whatever, but your pages are full page spreads color, whatever, and you're highlighting your church vbs, you're highlighting your own church movie nights, you're highlighting, you know, whatever stuff you are doing that would, that would be a great place for somebody not connected to your church to make an introductory connection step with your church, with your faith family and with your organization.

Nick Clason (25:03):
And then replicate that. Make a fall one winter one spring one. You see what I'm saying? Um, or it doesn't have to be that, but but think about ways in which you can add value. What you're looking to do in those is you're looking to capture people's emails, name and email. You could and should be able to do that through your church communications, um, or church marketing, uh, database. But those aren't always geared and built for marketing. So I do remember when Matt would work, um, at Parkview we used like the Rock as like a church management software, but Matt was like, I want to use HubSpot and you can do all the same stuff through HubSpot. I don't know if Matt knew all of the things that we needed, um, for like a pastoral side of things with like baptism dates, membership and whatever and whatnot.

Nick Clason (25:52):
But he knew that you could do a lot of stuff with like, um, an actual marketing tool like that. And so, um, you'll, you may have to figure out the best way to do that, to capture those names. Um, it is difficult to find a free email capture list out there, so you will more than likely have to pay for it, but it's worth it, especially if you're saying we wanna reach people who are far from God, who are not connected to our church and help get them connected to our church. The last idea, not necessarily a digital marketing idea, but word of mouth and, and you can take word of mouth and turn it into a digital marketing thing, right? Like when you're encouraging your church congregation to invite people to Easter, give them some shareable Easter graphics that they can download and share on their, their social media platforms.

Nick Clason (26:40):
You know, um, give them some of those tips and tools like, Hey, text us to a friend. Send this to a friend. Post this on your Instagram, post this on your Facebook, you know, whatever. Because that word of mouth, like while all the best ads, e-books, signs, website, like all those best things are valuable, the most valuable. It's when a friend says, Hey, you know what I've been doing recently, going to this church, going to this restaurant, reading this book. I mean, I'll say like, I was listening to a podcast the other day, we're gearing up to go on vacation here in just a couple short weeks. And I was like, I need a book. Like I need to read a book when I'm on vacation. I never do that. I always just read non-fiction books. Someone said, you know, I read such and such book and I'm not a non-fiction reader, but that book was phenomenal.

Nick Clason (27:25):
Or he's not a fiction reader, but that book was phenomenal. That's all I needed to hear. I'm also not a fiction reader. He's a pastor. I'm a pastor. That book's phenomenal. Boom, bought it. I literally got on Amazon and write that moment and bought it. Word of mouth. I have no clue who that author is. I'm sure they did all kinds of book tours, podcast marketing. I didn't listen to a single word of it, but someone else gave a word of mouth reference and boom, I bought it instantly. So think about that. Your people can become a raving fans of your church question, are they willing to be raving fans of your church or are they embarrassed by it? And if it's the latter, I would do some heavy introspection to figure out why that is. Because you want your people to be proud where they go to church so that they tell their friends, then they come, that could be digitally or that could just be very analog in a backyard barbecue scenario when they're at their kids', you know, sporting event, end of season recap or whatever, and they're just talking about stuff.

Nick Clason (28:23):
So those are some nine different church marketing ideas. Hey, hope you found them helpful. So thankful that you stuck around to the very end of this episode. If you did find it helpful, please consider shooting a rating or review alike, a subscribe, any of those things really help the algorithm and we will be forever in your debt as a token of our thanks to you for that, head to our website, hybridministry.xyz, click on blogs, click on the article that says ebook and grab your very own free copy of this e-book. TikTok. Have I already ruined my account? A complete guide, I'm posting your church's TikTok from start to finish. You're the church marketing manager, or you're the pastor and you know you need to make short form video content and you just don't know how to do it or where to turn. Take this e-book ZBook, hand it to a friend, hand it to a student, hand it to a trusted anybody who you're like, Hey, help me out with some of this stuff.

Nick Clason (29:19):
And if they don't know what they're doing, it will be their complete guide to starting from scratch, from start to finish. So hope that you find that helpful and with, again, as always, we're so grateful that you're here. Head to the episode, uh, show notes for all the links to articles and all the different things that we've referenced throughout this, this episode so far. But if you did find it helpful, please consider sharing it with a friend that would mean the absolute world to us. I'm so glad you're here. So glad you're along for the ride. This matters. What you do matters. So don't forget. And as always, stay hybrid.

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RECENT GEN Z STATS
*GEN Z *
70% are spiritually open

TRAITS
Correct
6% Teens
8% All Gen Z
9% Young Adults
Knowledgeable
16% Teens
21% All Gen Z
24% Young Adults
Being Honest
41% Teens
32% All Gen Z
25% Young Adults
Being Open to New Ideas
29% Teens
28% All Gen Z
28% Young Adults
Being Curious
7% Teens
11% All Gen Z
13% Young Adults

51% HAPPINESS IS VERY IMPORTANT
Happiness Looks Like
43% Success
23% Education
20% Family
8% Spiritual
6% Health

TIMECODES
00:00-02:46 Intro
02:46-06:32 A BeReal Generation vs. an Instagram Generation
06:32-11:37 The Latest Gen Z Statistics
11:37-18:52 Church & Workplace Implications of these Cultural Trends and Shifts
18:52-21:49 Gen Z Still Likes Jesus, just not our Church
21:49-22:44 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Hey, what is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I am your host, Nick Clason, excited to be with you. And in this episode, we are going to talk about the workplace gap and generational gap between older generations and younger generations, specifically generation Z and those that have come before them. And also, I want to pull out some principles that I think might be true about what that means for you and your local church and how they're the, the gap is causing a riff in potentially church attendance. But before we do, I just want to say thanks for being here. If you're on YouTube, hit that subscribe and notification button, that like button. If you're on TikTok, give us a follow. And if you are just listening in your podcast catcher, I wanna let you know that you can head to hybridministry.xyz for all of your podcast needs, including show notes and transcripts.

Nick Clason (01:00):
We will link all of the notes to everything, uh, all the links, everything that we're talking about. And, uh, all of the, uh, transcript is there for you, 100% completely free of charge. We also wanna let you know that LinkedIn, the show notes, both on YouTube and in your podcast, our free ebook, have I already ruined my church's TikTok account. That will be available for you. Again, free of charge. Just hit that subscribe button and sign up for that email list. We'd love to give that to you as a free gift and our token of appreciation. Uh, and also, without any further ado, if you are able, willing, or, uh, have any sort of interest in letting us know, this would be great. We would love a five star rating or review that would really help us out, that would help us get index in the search for all these things on podcast.

Nick Clason (01:47):
All those things matter, and they're just, they would just be a small token of appreciation from you to us for all that we do. Um, but again, we are just thankful and thrilled to be here. So without any further ado, let's dive into the workplace generation gap conundrum. Hey, what's up, hybrid ministry fam, thanks for watching this or listening to this. Hey, I just wanna drop a quick note and let you know about halfway through, uh, the audio recording. Somehow my audio got corrupted. You'll notice a drastic drop off in quality some way through. Sorry about that. You're still gonna be able to hear it cuz I was recording it on my phone just like I'm doing this little announcement right here, right now. So this'll be able to hear it. It's just not the best, it's not our favorite quality level. We'll get it back, you know, we'll figured out the issue.

Nick Clason (02:40):
Um, but just wanna give you that quick disclaimer. Heads up. Hope you still enjoy the rest of the episode. So if you have been paying any bit of attention recently, you know that the social trends have been shifting. We all know that TikTok has grown in immense popularity. All of what Congress and the US is trying to do with it, it's grown in immense popularity. So much so that some of our more, um, legacy platforms like Facebook and Instagram have adopted many of the AI features that are available in TikTok. But another trend that I've noticed recently, uh, is the trend of the, the social media app. B real bre has been, uh, launched recently, um, within a year or so I would say. And Gen Z and current teenagers have gone crazy for it, at least in my anecdotal experience. And they're using it.

Nick Clason (03:37):
And if you don't know what B Real is, it's basically an app that one time a day says it's time to be real. But they, uh, you know, you can, you can, it has like dual meaning like cuz BRE is also another thing that you use in like film or whatever, but it says it's time to be real and they just take a picture of what you're doing wherever you are, right there in that moment. You have two minutes to post it, you can post late and that's what a lot of people do. But it's really just like a once daily posting app. It's not the curated feed and the beautiful like Brazilian vacation photo pictures that we would get in the old school, Instagram and Facebook, right? So that was a lot more curation and now Gen Z is leaning a lot more towards just like, this is how it is, this is what it is, take me for me, it is what it is, take it or leave it.

Nick Clason (04:29):
Like that's essentially right? Like that's essentially, uh, what they, uh, have kind of leaned into. And I think it's fascinating shift this like perfect polished, kind of curated down to this like little more nitty gritty just as I, as I am, take me or leave me for who I am. That's kind of what BeReal is. That's kind of why I think TikTok shifted too. And one of the things that's interesting is burial is where you follow friends, but they only post one time a day. There's like not as much pressure on social media on the curation of it. And I just, I think that that's a trend. I think that that's, uh, a, a way, a thing that Gen Z is attempting to adopt less curation, more just realness, more rawness, more authenticity. Um, and meanwhile like, uh, take, uh, Instagram, Facebook, and some of those more legacy platforms, millennials and up, that's not as much the priority in fact, or it hasn't been, you know, and as they've shifted into reels, which is much more discovery based, more raw, more quick cuts and more like entertainment based.

Nick Clason (05:36):
Um, like you would go on on TikTok or any of the other platforms, shorts, reels, and you would watch something, it's like 98% or, or something like that. 90% of what you actually watch and consume is not from people that you know. So that's not really a social media anymore. It's honestly much more of like a entertainment platform you get on TikTok at the end of the night or whenever you do to be entertained. So the actual sociability is happening on apps like be real and other, just more like basic, very like nitty gritty, not a lot of bells and whistles type of thing. And I think that there's an attraction to that. And so, uh, I I just, I think that's one, one interesting shift that I'm noticing in the generation gap. I wanna also look at the workplace gap here in a minute and how I think that that plays out for you and your church.

Nick Clason (06:29):
But first I have some new stats I got from Barna. So let's dive in to those recent stats from Barna on Gen Z. Um, found some of these interesting, just wanted to share them with you. According to Gen Z or according to Barna, 56% of Generation Z claim to be Christians, which might be higher than you thought it was. I think that there's sort of a notion out there that Gen Z is deconstructing, gen Z is rethinking their faith, but 56% still claim and classify themselves as Christians. Granted, I know there's, you know, all kinds of different things on spectrum. You may claim to be a Christian, is it nominal y or whatever, whatnot. The thing that's staggeringly high though is Gen Z considers, uh, only TW or 25% of Gen Z consider themselves to have no faith at all. And here's the the crazy thing, right?

Nick Clason (07:19):
Like that is, that's the part that is alarmingly high I believe because that is the highest of any other generation by a lot. So US adults, according to US adults only 13% say that they have no faith. And the next highest, um, like breakdown age demographic thing is millennials and they're at 15%. Gen X is at 13%, boomers at 8%, elders at 5%, all of that under not saying that they don't have, uh, faith. And so here's the thing is that while you and I, if we're older and not generation Z, we may look at that and we may be like, wow, that that's alarming. And they are definitely deconstructing and that may be the label that we give to it. But what's interesting is that they surveyed Gen Z gr deeper. And these five words were the words that most defined and clarified their spiritual journey.

Nick Clason (08:12):
And they were these words, number one, they're spiritually growing. That was 39% of the population checked that, uh, number two, they're spiritually open, 35%, they're spiritually curious, 32% they are, um, spiritual in general, uh, 29%. And then they are spiritually exploring 27%. So like I said, we might have that classification as like, man, you're deconstructing what they call it a different word. And I, that was a very, very, um, uh, important learning, at least for me. I was like, okay, we're freaking out about it. And they're like, no, I'm just open. I'm just exploring. I'm just growing. I'm just checking things out. That was how they would describe it. Uh, big bucket of that, 70% of Gen Z claim to be spiritually open. 70%, that's a large stat. Um, and then furthermore, to expound upon that and that this is where I think this really gets interesting and important for churches is that these were some of the traits that, uh, the survey asked Gen Z, what do you want in your, um, church?

Nick Clason (09:20):
What do you want in your religious institution? What are the key things you're looking for? The first question, are you looking for it to be correct? 6% of teens said that they were looking for their religion to be correct. 8% of all Gen Zs said that and 9% of young adults said that. Not very high, right? Are you looking for it to be knowledgeable? Are you looking for people in your religious institutions or people around to be knowledgeable? 16% of teens said, yeah, I'm looking for them to be knowledgeable. 21% of all Gen Zs said, yeah, I'm looking for them to be knowledgeable and then 24% of young adults, so I'm looking for them to be knowledgeable. You can see that jump right from teenager to young adult. Once you become an adult, you're like, I do want someone to know something, right? To help me out.

Nick Clason (10:02):
Uh, this one was the, the highest, the highest on the graphs. You had different graphs of all these different, um, characteristics. Being honest, this is the highest one. 41% of teens want their religious institution. To be honest, 32% of all Gen Z ask for that. And 25% of young adults want honesty, want authenticity, right? Back to be real honesty, authenticity, the real you being open to new ideas. That was another category. 29% of teens want that. 28% of all Gen Z, 28% of young adults. And finally, curiosity, that one was lower with 7% of teens wanting to be curious. 11% of all Gen Z and 13% of young adults. And so they're looking for honesty, they're looking for transparency, they're looking for realness. Okay? Furthermore, and this is the last bit of the stats before we dive into what I think are pot, some potential implications for this.

Nick Clason (10:55):
51% of Gen Z say that happiness is very important to them. They are looking for happiness. Well, you know, once, once they heard that stam in this like Barna kind of collab thing where they are sharing these statistics, one other person's put in the chat, how do you define happiness? And they ask that question, they're like, what does happiness look like to you? So 43% say it looks like success and, and they used images for them to choose. So that success image was a guy holding money. That's what 43% say, happiness looks like. Successful man holding money where 23% say education is happiness. 20% say family, 8% say spiritual and 6% say health. All right? So what does all that mean? Let's dive into it and check it out. Okay? So I think that there's a workplace shift that needs to happen. Covid ushered a lot of this stuff in and your church is probably in a different spot than it was pre covid, but it may not be fully there where generation Z is interested.

Nick Clason (11:56):
Cuz here's the thing, whether this matters to you on paper or not, you are going to need to start hiring generation Z by the year 2025, which at the time of the podcast recording is only a year and a half away. Millennials and Gen Z are going to make up the majority of the American workforce. That may or may not be true in your context and in your church, but the fact is, if you're catering to boomers and Xers in the workplace, just because this is the way we've always done it and they need to get over it and they need to get used to it, that may not be your most effective strategy moving forward. And it may not bite you right in the year 2025, but 2026 rolls around 20 27, 20 28, and you're trying to recruit new young talent and they're just not interested in coming to work for your church or your organization.

Nick Clason (12:43):
Why is that the case? Here are some thoughts I have based off of this research and just some things I've observed in the last couple of years that I think might be contributing to it. So the first is this, the time off conversation and or the work life balance conversation. These are wide sweeping generalities, I understand it. And so if you're like, Hey, I'm a Gen Xer and that's not true of me. I'm saying by and large wide sweeping, um, I work for a boss, he's Gen X, he is phenomenal at giving me time off, taking care of me, making sure I have balance, work life balance, all those things. But he will of his own admission and, and own accord say that he is a workaholic and he will push it to the limit. And so, uh, that is something that is of the older generation, much more the norm.

Nick Clason (13:36):
They're looking for people who are gonna work hard and give it their all and bust it. And while that may be true, and that may even be what's necessary at times, that is not the natural disposition of millennials and Gen Z, I'm a millennial and I I am friends with and work with a lot of people that are Gen Z. I don't think that they're lazy and don't wanna work. I just simply think that they are more aware of their work life balance. They've looked to their older parents or wiser people in their life and they've seen how they've approached work and they have not, they don't want to fall to those same, you know, pitfalls that they've seen over time. So work-life balance, PTO rhythms, taking time off vacation. I have a coworker, she's Gen Z and this is her first job. And so she's been with us, um, at our job for the, about the same amount of time that I've been working there, eight months or so.

Nick Clason (14:32):
And this is her first time with like a true weekend, but she has to come back for Sundays. Sundays are not a weekend anymore, but we get Fridays off. And so she will often try to get out of the office a little bit early on a Thursday and she will often take a trip somewhere, go meet some friends, you know, whatever. So she's leaving at like two o'clock, three o'clock, hitting the road, getting there on Thursday night, hanging out. Like, and that's important to her. And so there was a Thursday night commitment that she had and she's like, I can't do that. And it was like, because this is my weekend. I need my weekend to explore, to have fun. And that's just like, I think most older generations would be like, no, you have to work yet to stay here until five. Like, that's the rules.

Nick Clason (15:16):
And I just think that that that's a shift that is happening and that's probably an adaptation that I would say is gonna need to take place in the workforce. Uh, also flexible in workspaces, like remote working should be able to be a thing. Now I get it. If you're at church and you're in ministry, you know, just how valuable and important like in-person face-to-face meetings are. If you're gonna disciple somebody, if you're gonna grab coffee with a leader, if you're gonna sit down and have breakfast with a couple and you're counseling them, like all those things are valuable. But there's a lot of computer work, there's a lot of email based work, there's a lot of like software things that can take place via remote work. And you don't have to be 100% completely in the office, your butt in a chair because the natural like tendency for that is like everyone's here.

Nick Clason (16:06):
And so if anyone needs anything, we just pop in and out of people's offices. There are tools nowadays, there's slack, there's as much as I hate it, there's Microsoft teams, there are chat based features that you can stay in touch and you don't have to have a quote unquote office or hallway or pop in type conversation. Why do we do that? I think we do that because it's comfortable, it's familiar to the way it's always been done, but the tools are there and they're probably a little bit more effective on, uh, efficiency workflow, getting people like, you know, in and outta conversations as opposed to like, Hey, how are you? And that conversation taking an extra 10, 15, 20 minutes, there's value in those things, no doubt. But generation Z and millennials are looking for more flexible workspaces if they can get their job done while out, while also being on vacation somewhere so that they can work for a few hours, they can close their laptop and then they can go and have fun on vacation.

Nick Clason (17:03):
If we are so tight and stringent and say, no, you have to be here in the office, that's not gonna lend itself well to that flexible workspace and that first one, that time off that work life balance. The other trend, the other thing that I'm kind of noticing is that the older generations, uh, Xers and boomers, they're holding on longer, they're working later, they need the money to retire, they still need the income. And this one I think is big, is because while Gen Z is pursuing happiness, uh, corporate work environment may not be the cure or key to their happiness, but if it is, especially in church, they may say like, well, I'm looking for purpose and the church helps bring me that purpose. I want to be a part of a church. However, there are older generations that are still hanging on and that are still working.

Nick Clason (17:54):
So the question is, while we want to hire younger people, where is the space for them to come into your organization attached to it, take ownership of something and begin working toward any sort of authority in your organization because you have people already holding those most important positions. And that's gonna get tricky, especially if you got those people sitting there and and holding those most important positions. Where are they going to lay down and pave away for generation Z to come in and take opportunity? The last thing I think is that Gen Z is very concerned and rightly so about their mental health, about their mental state, about their mental wellbeing, making sure that those things are taken care of, that they're important. And so your organization, if you're bringing in millennials and Gen Z, consider finding a way to help prioritize their mental health, make counseling a part of a employment benefit for them, um, and for, you know, a thing that you offer to them.

Nick Clason (18:56):
So I have one last idea, let's check it out on the other side, right? So here's my conclusion. Gen Z, well, 25% would claim that they don't have faith. I think one of the things I've noticed in my experience is that generation Z, they still love and like Jesus a lot. In fact, in this Barna co lab, they sat down and talked with two guys who were Gen Z business owners. And what shocked me and was just an interesting thing that I noticed, uh, they didn't necessarily say this, they're a part of their church, but they're Christians running a Christian organization, not doing it through the local church. So my question to myself in that moment was, if Gen Zers, like these are passionate about faith, passionate about God, they love going to things like, you know, passion, these people, they were in the event business as well.

Nick Clason (19:51):
They love going to those things, but we're not seeing them in our churches, both on the workplace side or the attendance side. Do they like Jesus and just not like the way that we do our church? I think church has a propensity right now to feel very institutionalized. And I think that that, that if that rubbed you the wrong way, and especially if you're older and you're listening to it and you're like, my church isn't institutionalized, this is what we've been doing it for years. While that may be true, the way that we've been doing church for years is American, not necessarily New Testament. The New Testament church looked very different from the American church. So are you doing church like the Bible or are you doing church like America? And there's nothing wrong with doing church like America unless it's not effective in reaching the next generation.

Nick Clason (20:36):
And in that case, that's where it becomes an issue. And so I think both from older generations holding on from workplaces not being very friendly to Generation Z, millennials and those with that type of mindset and the fact that there's just not as much space for Generation Z to, to go into these spaces, they're creating them over here to look more New Testament, to look more authentic, to look more be real, to have more community, to have more places to lean in as opposed to coming to your institutionalized church. Because if they're not there in the seats from eight 30 to nine 30, then we consider them deconstructing. And that just may simply not be true. They might just be open to exploring new ways, new, new ideas, new places to engage with these things. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're out on Jesus. It just might mean that they're out on you. So what shifts might you need to take place? What stats have you heard that you're like now that's interesting and that might change some of the way we do things because before long, millennials and generations here are going to make up the majority of our workforce. They are Gen Z is not just teenagers in your youth group, they're graduating college now. They are looking for a church to attach to. Is your church friendly to them and what they need? Or is your church stuck dogmatically to the way that things have always been done?

Nick Clason (21:59):
Well thanks guys so much for hanging out in this episode. Thrilled to have you with us. Don't forget everything that you need is gonna be available to you in the show notes. Make sure that you like, make sure that you comment, make sure that you subscribe, rating, review, all those things. Glad to be with you. If you find this helpful, we would love to continue to create and produce content like this for you. So all that stuff helps keep us going as well as head to hybridministry.xyz Click on the contact form and if you have questions, submit them there to us. We would love to start taking some questions, answering some of your questions and giving back to y'all and letting you know what our perspective is on certain hybrid things, digital, social marketing, communications, generation Z, all the above. Let us know on those topic. But until next time, and as always, stay.

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http://www.hybridministry.xyz/043

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https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/metricool

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SHOWNOTES
Metricool Posting Service:
http://www.metricool.com

TIMECODES
00:00-01:39 Intro
01:39-08:53 My journey to using a social media posting service
08:53-13:07 The Results from 18 posts used on a social media posting service
13:07-18:30 Breaking down the stats from Metricool
18:30-20:08 3 TakeAways from using a Posting Service
20:08-25:23 What does this mean for social media moving forward?
25:23-26:02 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
One. Well, hello there, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I, as always, am your host, Nick Clason, thrilled and excited to be with you wherever you are consuming this. Whether you are over on YouTube or whether you have found this via your podcast catcher, know that we do offer the other. So if you are on YouTube, you wanna check it out on podcasts, you can head to http://www.hybridministry.xyz If you're just listening to this. And today in particular, I am gonna drop some like visual aid representation stuff on screen as we're chatting through what we're chatting through. You can head over to YouTube today. We are going to talk about a scheduling service. Yes, I have been against this for years and years, and if you have been listening to this podcast, do you know that it has taken a minute for me to ever convert our TikTok account over from a personal to a business?

Nick Clason (00:56):
I've finally made that shift. I will tell you why, and make sure you stick around to the very end of the video for me to give you my final conclusion on whether or not you should be using a scheduling service for your social media. Before we dive in though, let me let you know that we have created a 100% completely free e-book and checklist, and for signing up for our email newsletter, you will get a copy of both of those immediately sent to your inbox. So go ahead, head to the link in the show notes for that. And without any further ado, let's dive in and let's start talking about scheduling services on social media. Here we go. All right, let's talk about scheduling services. Now, if you've listened to this podcast any length of time, you know that I have not really been much of a scheduling service person.

Nick Clason (01:51):
And so let me give you just a little brief history on all of that for me. So, uh, I started really getting into social media and social media scheduling and planning. Every church I've been in, I've had that to some level, some degree, but I've gotten mu I've really honed that in, I would say within the last three ish years. Um, and it dated back a couple churches. I'm trying to think like I really got into trying and experimenting with some stuff. Um, when I was at church in Cincinnati, I was there for a couple of years. Um, and then when I moved to Parkview, which is the church I was at before here, uh, in, in the South Chicago suburbs, I had nothing to do with social media. But then I offered to have something to do with it. Like I took on a portion of it.

Nick Clason (02:46):
And, uh, there is when I really started to hone in on more of what I'm focusing on now, TikTok and reels and stuff like that. And then that's when I met Matt, if you've been around since the beginning, you know, Matt was my co-host, the first, you know, 10 or so episodes. And so, uh, he worked at Parkview with me. Anyway, all that to be said, one of the things I discovered, cuz I had used both at my church in Cincinnati, and at the start of my time at Parkview, I used Hootsuite as a scheduler. And I think Hootsuite is fine as a scheduler, uh, for anything like Instagram feed posts or Facebook posts. Those are fine. The issue was, and I, and it may have changed, and so I may be eating my words a little bit on this. It may have changed since I most recently used it, but it could, when I started really, really taking over social media at my last church, I went to Matt, um, and I said, Hey, is there any way for me to schedule stories and, and reels or tos?

Nick Clason (03:44):
And he said, not really. And then I think within about a month of that conversation, a both of us started our exit strategies out of there, A and b, TikTok, A and Instagram all came out with, uh, schedulers. Okay? And so, uh, about a week or month ago, actually, about a month ago, I had a conversation with another youth pastor friend of mine from Indiana, and he's like, do you know that you can schedule your TikTok? And I was like, what? And so I did dive into it and yes, in fact you can, if you are a business account, you can, uh, schedule TikTok through the TikTok website. And so I was like, okay, interesting. So I started to play around with all these different things and I was like, this might be a game changer. Now let me explain to you what happened and what my journey was to end up where I ended up.

Nick Clason (04:37):
So, uh, you can natively schedule through all four of the core platforms. We're talking about Facebook, uh, which Facebook and Instagram are linked together through the Meta Business Suite, TikTok, and then YouTube. Of course you can schedule on YouTube. Um, but, but none of them, in my personal opinion, are, are optimal. And I'll give you some reasons why. Uh, when I was trying to schedule through the Facebook Business Suite, I personally, our account for whatever reason, wouldn't allow me to schedule Instagram reels. I could schedule Facebook reels, but I couldn't schedule Instagram reels. And so then that sent me on a search and I could do the other ones. I could do TikTok and I could do YouTube. However, I will say YouTube, it's just like you're uploading a regular video. And when I, when I upload on YouTube shorts on my app, it's a completely different interface.

Nick Clason (05:33):
And so, honestly, half the time I wasn't sure if I was doing it right because I'm like, is this where I put the caption? Is this where I put the title? And YouTube shorts are still a little weird and they're, I think they're still trying to figure out what they're doing over there. Um, they have put a lot more time and effort and energy into it. And so it's getting better for sure. Um, but YouTube has actually been my number one, uh, culprit, uh, downfall in all this. Anyway, I'll get to all that in a second. Uh, so I went, I searched through all these things, discovered and landed on a platform called Metro. Cool. I'll drop the link in the show notes. It might be helpful, it might be useful for you. Check it out. I can't make a blanket statement and say like, you should do this, you should do that.

Nick Clason (06:13):
I'm just gonna give you my experience and then what I would recommend if you were consulting or asking me. Um, but you might not be. And so you might be like, oh yeah, that totally works for me. Uh, but I landed on this thing called Metric Cool. I could link all four of those services, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube shorts. I could link all four of those and I could post auto post to all of those. I could schedule it ahead of time and then it would post on its own when I, I said to post it. Okay? And so I was like, this is going to change my life. And so let me tell you the results, the stats and how it all went down, uh, on metric. I used it for two and a half weeks. I posted a total of 18 videos on that time.

Nick Clason (07:00):
And, uh, the reason I didn't use, you know, post every single piece of content that I was planning to post is cause I had some TikTok sitting in my TikTok drafts. I had some that had, I had, uh, like recaps that I hadn't even filmed yet that I couldn't like preschedule. And I was like, I'll just take care of these live. Also, metrical is free for up to, um, what was it I I calculated that was free for up to like 30, uh, days. Um, not like a trial, but like 30 days worth of posts. Um, but however, it's like if I posted Instagram reels and Facebook and TikTok a and YouTube, that counts as four. So it was like, it was more than 30, it was like 120 I think. Um, but if I post on four of those four 30 days, then I'm going to use them all up, right?

Nick Clason (07:49):
And so that was another reason I didn't schedule everything. Cause I was like, I can leave some gaps in here, uh, to save back some of their, their free, you know, posting stuff, whatever. Anyway, I digress. So I used it. Um, and the reason I used it right was because I couldn't figure out a way to do Instagram and, uh, real scheduling and all these things. The other thing is I liked it cuz it's all in one, right? If I was gonna do all the native schedulers, I'd have to have like three tabs open and do TikTok and then go over to YouTube and then go over to the meta business suite. Possible doable and definitely worth my time if that takes away from me having to schedule live, you know, live posting. And so, um, finding this was, I was really exciting moment for me.

Nick Clason (08:35):
And so I, like I said, I went all in. I was like, let me try this thing and see what happens. So I'm gonna give you the results here. Let's dive in and look at the actual nitty gritty stats. And this is where, if you're listening, you may wanna switch over to YouTube, um, and see some of these things cuz I'm just gonna, um, screenshot my spreadsheet and put it on the screen. So here we go. Okay. Like I said, I, uh, uploaded and used metrical for 18 different posts over the course of about two and a half to three weeks. Um, I posted on all four platforms, morning, evening, and night. And here were some of the results that I came up with. So, uh, let's just go, uh, one by one through each platform. So on TikTok, like I said, I posted 18, here were our watch results.

Nick Clason (09:22):
1 63, 1 44, 141, 1 77, 1 52 91, 2 21, 1 49, 1 50, 1 28, 1 35, 1 40, 1 40, 1 48, 1 40, 1 53. Those are low for us. Um, we typically, um, and we don't go super viral on TikTok. I'll just be honest. I honestly, I think we started at a time where TikTok is kind of choking down the watches. And um, you know, like I mentioned Matt, he even said something to me interesting. He's like, I think TikTok might know you're church and if they know you're a church, he's like, I don't know that they're gonna give you a ton of organic reach, which was an interesting thing. Um, so he was saying that even back when I was at Parkview that it might not be, you know, that might be some of the case. So anyway, um, we, you know, we typically live in the two 300 s and then we'll pop, you know, for some over a thousand or whatever here and there. Uh, so the average TikTok wa uh, watch analytics of my metrical posts were an average of 122.

Nick Clason (10:24):
The highest I got was 2 21 and I had two tied for the lowest at 41. So not great. Okay? Um, Instagram reels, this is what we did on Instagram reels 2 51 8 5 19 3 18, 1 38, 1 46, uh, 2 53, 2 1 45. There was one that didn't post cuz there was an error that happened actually a couple different times. I had to go in and manually redo it. That's another story for another day. 2 2 3 2 0 2 180 6, 1 34, 3 94 for an average, uh, view of 1 68. And so our highest was that one of five 19, which was the third one that we posted. And then we had three that were tied with only two views. So again, not great, we did have some perform better. And I will say this, um, between TikTok and Instagram reels, we go, we have much higher views on Instagram reels than we do on TikTok, but I think we have less engagement on Instagram than we do on TikTok.

Nick Clason (11:27):
And so it's, it's, you know, watch isn't isn't equal to engagement and engagement is a loose term, I get it. But that's comments, that's shares, that's likes those types of things. Uh, Facebook reels. Interestingly, and this was really helpful for me, and I'll share some of this in a minute with some of my takeaways, but Facebook was actually quite a beneficial, uh, it was quite beneficial for me to go back and look on Facebook. Honestly, I had it and just let it do its thing. Um, and I never really go back to Facebook to engage much, but we had some decent traction on Facebook, surprisingly, and as a youth pastor, not necessarily my goal, right? Uh, we're probably catering to and reaching parents over there. Um, which might be a good thing, might be a bad thing. I don't know. Like, I don't have like a stance on whether or not, you know, I'm happy with that or whatever.

Nick Clason (12:15):
But we did quite well on Facebook. So here's what we had on Facebook. 1 92, 62 18, 3 38, 98 4 19, 2 24, 2 57, 2 62, 1 98 42, 2 0 6, 1 93, 3 78 39, 180 9, 2 0 3. Average view of two 18 with our highest being four 19, our lowest being 39. And then finally on shorts, this is where it got bad. 4 0 7 7 4 15, 2 3 17, 6, 6, 8, 6, 3, 2, 2, 1 for an average view of 5.4 highest 17 lowest zero. So let's extrapolate and look at some of the takeaways from all of this. What does this mean? All right, so what does all of this mean? Should you schedule? Should you not, should you use metric? Cool. Here's, here are my personal takeaways. So you need to know this. I'm not using it anymore. Like what it did to us on YouTube was, was horrific. Um, and I'm not blaming metrical necessarily, right? But I I, after a couple of days I started screenshotting some of these things to my, um, free under the table consultant, Matt, Matt Johnson, former co-host of the podcast.

Nick Clason (13:36):
May he rest in peace. Uh, but anyway, I was like, bro, what's going on here? And he's like, yeah. He's like, I was worried about that for you. Cuz they, those platforms, they, they don't typically like you using third party services. So these third party services, they may be able to tap into the api, uh, and, and like allow you this, this may be a thing that they're able to actually allow happen. But basically what he was saying is he's like, I don't know that that is your optimal strategy moving forward. Kind of a bummer because it's easy for you or me as a social media manager, but it's more difficult. Um, you know, and your views might go down. And so you have to weigh out like what's more valuable. And honestly, there is a moment where it being easier for you, especially if you're going to post at the volume that I have recommended you do.

Nick Clason (14:26):
Uh, that's a lot. And so sometimes you're like, I don't wanna have to always be thinking and remembering to like get on there and live post everything. I don't wanna have to input every single thing into to Google Calendar. You know, like I used to put every single thing into Google Calendar to remind myself to post, honestly. Now I just kind of know like, oh, I gotta post three. And so I, I go to just like a picture I took of like a calendar that I wrote it all out on and I just go off of that. I don't even have anything alerting me cuz it's so woven into my rhythm and habit of just posting. So anyway, here are some of my observations. First observation is this. Not one single video across all four of the platforms was like highest. Like, it's not like this video performed well and it performed well across all four.

Nick Clason (15:15):
Like when I say the highest performing one, like the highest performing one overall, um, I think was the, the Instagram reels one. And that was one about Fruity Pebbles, right? Meanwhile on TikTok it was, it only got a hundred views on Facebook reel, it got 218 and on YouTube shorts I had four. Then my lowest overall video was the one that got zero plays on on YouTube shorts, but it got 260 on Facebook, eight on Instagram reels and 144 on TikTok. So it, it's a lottery ticket we've talked about, right? Like you punch it in all four places because it might perform well over here and not well over there. And so similarly, the highest on Instagram, I could read you those same like stats across the line. And, and the same thing, like it's not the best performing video overall, it's just simply the best performing video on that platform.

Nick Clason (16:10):
The other observation I had was that, uh, of my overall, um, analytics, Facebook had the best watches and YouTube had the worst watches, okay? In the midst of this, like I said, right, I used it for 18 posts. In the midst of this, I did have a video that had 300 or 3000, um, 556 views on TikTok. And that was posted in the middle of this run of me using Metrical for two and a half weeks. It wasn't one of the metrical videos, it was one that I posted live. Cuz it was one of those that is like, um, it splits the room in two and you got a bunch of people and you decide like, do you know this song? Do you not know this song? If you know it, go to this side of the room and sing it. If you don't walk over here in shame and then it'll change to another song.

Nick Clason (16:54):
And if you know that one, you can move over to the room, but if you did know this one before, you have to move back over here. It was one of those and it went well for us, and we're gonna do more of those and, and shoot more of those and post more of those because it worked for us. And who knows, it may be a thing that we can lean into more. Uh, or it was just a one-off. You never know how those, how those work, right? So we're just gonna try some stuff. Um, my Facebook views remained consistent. It, I saw no appreciable difference between before Metric Cool after metric, cool during metric, cool. Whether I posted it via Metric cool, or whether I posted it manually. My Facebook views pretty much remained the same. Um, this was the most disheartening one before I started using Metrical.

Nick Clason (17:37):
Like right before I had videos within a week or 10 days of posting on YouTube shorts that got 2,400 views, 1,400 views and 634 views. There were some other smaller ones in there, right? But I had some pretty hefty and big views on YouTube shorts since posting on metrical, like pulling the plug and being like, I'm not using this anymore. The highest I've gotten on YouTube shorts is 49. I've had the majority of my views in single digits and I've had several with just no views at all. And so that's disheartening. And I have to, I have to start back over basically on YouTube shorts and I may have dinged myself permanently, um, or at least for a really long time by using Metric. All right, so three takeaways. What does this mean? So three takeaways. As of right now, I'm back to posting everything manually.

Nick Clason (18:37):
I'm not using the service scheduling service anymore. Perhaps, uh, that's takeaway number one. Takeaway number two, perhaps the native schedulers would, would be more advantageous. You know, I'm assuming if TikTok has a scheduler built into their website that they're gonna, um, promote and prioritize that more than they would like just a third party service like Metrical. Um, but like I said, right now I need to focus on growing our YouTube engagement back. And so therefore it's for me, I'm an all or nothing kind of person, so I could, yes, I know you're think you're listening, watching, like why don't you just schedule on on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, again, remember Instagram, I couldn't figure out a way to schedule. So for that one it would be like, I can schedule for Facebook and TikTok, but then I need a live post for Instagram and YouTube.

Nick Clason (19:29):
It just, it, I I I would rather do it all at the same time, um, to just know, like I post all four, boom, boom, boom, boom, and I'm done. And when I say all four, I only need to post in three places. I need to do TikTok, I need to do Instagram and make sure Facebook is toggled on, and then that's taken care of. And then I need to go do YouTube. So when I say four, it's three. It's still a lot, but it's not, you know, as many as that sounds. Uh, the other thing, the other, the third takeaway for me is it's definitely tedious work, but a non bot scheduling still has proven to be the best for engagement for me, for us, and for our ministry. So, big picture, um, I have been for years, um, and on this podcast, if you go back and listen, I have been promoting two to three posts per day, five to seven days a week.

Nick Clason (20:21):
And that's a hefty content load. Uh, one, a couple things like, you know, just let you know, I, so for example, I have like a lot of games over on D y m. Um, I'll link some of those in the show notes if that's something you're interested in going, checking out. But like some of my favorites are like a gif flashback game. You watch a gif for five to seven seconds and then you're asked a question about it to immediately recall it. Another one, my all-time favorite is called emoji phraseology and it's like emoji phrases. And so I have these emojis come in animated. And so one of the things we've been doing is I've just been taking those games and we've been playing them. Um, they're 10 questions each, but I use them as one singular piece of content. And so I, I film someone playing the game or someone trying to guess the emoji phrase, but then that also like all the animations or all the like icons or whatever, all on the screen, all at that same time, so the viewer can also watch it.

Nick Clason (21:18):
And so those have really proven helpful. Those and other like I've, I've gone on D Y M and gotten other games and just had like, film students playing those games. Like those each usually come with 10 questions and I can edit those down to be like one TikTok with 10 questions each. But I've decided to extrapolate those out. We've done that with other things. Like we've used like an ABC cheese game where you bite cheese, you know, and then make a letter and the other person has to guess. And instead of, I originally shot that with the intent of it being like a one, a one hitter, but it took so long and I was like, there's a lot of like funny laugh moments and like silly things happening in between that. Like I didn't want to cut those all out and I could use, I could go from one to 10 and that can really help flesh out my calendar.

Nick Clason (22:05):
So I've done that. Um, and that's proven pretty helpful for me in helping fill out that calendar. But all that being said, I'm personally debating on scaling back a little bit after. Um, currently I'm in the month of April. This may drop in May, but I'm currently in the month of April planning out my TOS and Instagram reels and stuff like that. And I'm doing three a day and I'm personally thinking maybe I can scale this back a little bit. Um, and scaling it back will help me on the edit side not have to be so frantic and quick with everything. Um, and then I might be able to focus more on quality content instead of necessarily quantity. Um, I've been doing two to three for about six to eight months now at this point. And so our platforms are sort of leveled out, stabled out.

Nick Clason (22:49):
We've grown, we've reached the people we need to reach. Now that we're there, maybe we can focus more on bringing like some quality content. And again, I'm the editor and in a lot of cases I'm on this side of the camera too. Like I am the person doing the talking as well. And so, um, you know, I I focus a lot of timer energy on one side or the other. And so that might mean if I'm focusing more energy on the editing side, I'm not focusing as much effort on the content delivery side. And that also needs to be really good too. The editing needs to be good, the content needs to be good. And so you can't have all, you know, you can't have all those things if uh, all those things need to be good. You can't have so many and a great edit and great content.

Nick Clason (23:29):
Sometimes you just gotta throw out not so great stuff. So I'm wondering about scaling it back a little bit and I'll let you know right on here. Like, you guys will be the first to know. I will be honest with you all the way through. I'll take you with me on the journey. Like I want, if you guys have questions, like I want this to be a place where like I just workshop what I'm doing and you're hearing what I'm doing. Um, however, lemme say this, going back into the analytics, um, on all my platforms was actually encouraging and helpful to me because I thought that this third party service metric flopped and tanked me and on YouTube it for sure did. But I, like, I hadn't looked at a single one of those Facebook stats until last night when I was preparing for this episode.

Nick Clason (24:12):
And so it was helpful for me. And let me just say this as a guiding principle, not for social media only though it definitely count, but also for other areas. Go back and look at the stats. I mean that's honestly, that's one of the things about journaling, right? Is like if you journal, you can go back and you can see this is what I prayed about a year ago and here's where I am now. And it's a completely different moment than you were even a year ago, you know, but where you are right now feels overwhelming and crazy and whatever the case might be. And so go back and look and remind yourself. That's why the Israelites often built monuments. They could go back, they could look and they could be reminded of where they were and then they could see how God had been faithful to them, to his people and how they could continue to take steps forward closer to him.

Nick Clason (25:02):
So that's just what I wanna say is help, what was helpful for me, I need to do that more. I'm always looking ahead, rarely looking back. So I just wanna encourage you, if that's something that's helpful, try and find a way to bake that into your regular rhythm as a social media manager, as a youth pastor, as a pastor, whatever your role is as you navigate this. But I just wanna remind you that what you're doing matters. You are trying to reach the people of God, um, and the people who are maybe even far from God through the means and methods that God and, and the world has allowed us. We can use these things to help spread the good news of the gospel. So blessings on you, blessings on your ministry as you continue on this. And as always, don't forget, stay hybrid.

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SHOWNOTES
6 PART CHURCH SOCIAL MEDIA FRAMEWORK:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIbzg_DNJrTrCtBHQnxcOVo

Episode Referenced:
https://careynieuwhof.com/episode549/

TIMECODES
00:00-02:24 Intro
02:24-05:15 Everything you do is Marketing
05:15-08:03 Every Touch Point Matters - Church Marketing from Street to Seat
08:03-11:51 The Reality of Hybrid - Beyond Street to Seat
11:51-15:40 What "est" is your church?
15:40-1643 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Well, hello there everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. We are now officially finished with the six part church social media framework. Be sure to head to the link in the show notes, either http://www.hybridministry.xyz/041 for this episode of the Hybrid Ministry Podcast. Or if you're watching on YouTube, be sure to check out the link in a description where we have linked the full and complete hybrid ministry church, social media, six part framework, four churches in 2023. We walk through setting up a platform all the way at YouTube through TikTok, through Instagram, through Facebook, linking all of your accounts, how to use email, text, messaging, website, and then finally, how to put all those together for a completely full free and flushed out church social media framework. We hope that you find that helpful, advantageous, beneficial. Just wanna say thank you for watching.

Nick Clason (01:02):
Thank you for sharing. Uh, the month of February and March have been our two highest downloaded months in the entire history of the podcast. We could not do what we are doing without you, so, so thankful that you are along for the ride and for the journey. One major piece of the church social media framework is short form video content. That's the beautiful thing with YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. All four of them right now are focusing on short form video content. And so I wanna encourage you, if you have not hit the link in the show notes to check out our 100% completely free ebook, our ebook, which asks the question, have I already ruined my, ruined my church's TikTok account? The short answer to that is probably not, but we wanna help you walk through taking a step-by-step approach to filming, posting, editing, adding audio, all the things that you need to do for short form video content.

Nick Clason (01:52):
And you can do that right in the TikTok app. And then you can take that same video and you can disseminate it out to all the other social media platforms. Once again, so thrilled that you are here for this episode. In this episode, we are going to be looking at Starbucks. Does Starbucks actually market more on that in just a minute? Last thing I just wanna ask you for is if you are available, interested or willing to give us a five star review, that will be incredible. A subscribe, a rating or review. All of those things help get the word out about what we are doing here on this podcast to help you get out to the masses and the people who are along for this journey, and also trying to navigate this church communications, church social media landscape of 2023. Without any further ado, let's dive into this question.

Nick Clason (02:39):
Does Starbucks Market? Hey everyone. I was recently listening to a podcast the other week, um, and I'm gonna link it in the show notes. It was with Bill McKendry. He is the, um, the guy kind of behind the, um, Jesus ads that you might have seen in the Super Bowl, the ads. Um, he gets us and he was on with Carrie Newk, who is a prolific author, podcaster, blogger in the Christian kind of Roman space and in leadership. And they were talking about, um, marketing, the whole idea of marketing. And so there's just so many good things in that episode. If you haven't listened to it or list or heard it yet, check the link in the description. But one of the things he said really stood out to me, and I kind of want to, um, dive into that a little bit deeper, especially with a lens and an eye for and towards church, um, marketing and church spaces.

Nick Clason (03:27):
And so he said he had a conversation with Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and he said that, um, everybody, this is what Howard Schultz, the guy of Starbucks, I said, everybody assumes that branding and marketing is all about advertising. It's not right. And he goes on to say, if you think that branding and marketing are just about advertising, then you really don't understand branding at all. So you might be thinking like, what is he even talking about? And the the reality is, is that what McKenzie Cano is pointing out to to new H on the podcast is he says, you don't see a lot of Starbucks ads or commercials, do you and Kerry Newhouse's like, no, I guess you're right. I I don't really see a lot of those things. And McKendry goes, that's because of this guy Howard Schultz. He says, every single thing you do is branding.

Nick Clason (04:10):
Every single thing you do lends itself toward marketing. And so you might be thinking as a church like, well, that sounds great. That sounds amazing actually, cuz we don't have a giant budget. And you know what actually it is. But if you are a church with a small budget and you don't have someone with an eye for this or someone who has the intentionality towards what Howard Schultz of Starbucks is actually doing, it's going to be difficult for you in my personal opinion. And so, um, I wanted to think through what Starbucks actually does, like what they consider a successful, um, encounter, a successful opportunity. And so if every single thing you do is marketing, if every single thing you do is branding, that means that every single touchpoint matters. And so what McKendry was pointing out to New H in the podcast is he was saying, that's why Starbucks cups look so cool.

Nick Clason (04:56):
That's why there's such a particular way that every Starbucks is, uh, required by corporate to be laid out. That's why the music is a certain level. That's why the vibe looks a certain way. All of that stuff matters. And so I just wanna kind of pause and think through that, through the lens and through the eyes of the church. So if every single touchpoint matters, let's think about somebody visiting, coming to, um, exploring your church for the very first time. Um, let's think through they are going to be going from the street to the seat. So what are all of the touchpoints between the street and to the seat? So when they pull in the signage that they see the way your parking lot looks, how upkept is your, are your ground? Do you have a parking lot team? Do you have signage for visitors?

Nick Clason (05:43):
Flash your lights if you're a visitor, honk your horn If you're a visitor, do you have people with signs? Do you have greeters? Once they finally park their car and they get out, how are they greeted? Are your greeters just glorified door holders that a lump of, uh, block of wood could also accomplish their job? Or are your greeters actively looking for new guests, actively greeting people standing at the door, keeping the door propped open? You know, more than just standing there and saying, hello sir, hello ma'am. But like, are they using names? Are they trying to get to know people? Are they helping escort new people to the lobby? What does your lobby look like? What's your guest experience in the lobby look like? Do you have a newcomers welcome kit or anything like that? Are you just gonna give them a mug, which is what every single church in America does?

Nick Clason (06:30):
Or are you giving them some sort of tailor-made thing that's gonna be maybe a little bit more beneficial or advantageous to them as a family? Um, how is the kids' check-in process as a dad of young kids? The kids' check-in process when it's assumed that you know what's going on is an absolutely awful experience. So what does that experience look like for people who have no idea what they're doing? Is it clear where they're supposed to go? What do they do if they're new? How do they fill out the information needed to get a kid checked in? How long does that process actually take? Is it clear where they're supposed to go? Is your room, are your room layouts clear? Is your building clean? Does your kids' area seem safe? Do you have safety? Do you have security? Do you have people with branded t-shirts for your church and all the way through finally walking into the auditorium?

Nick Clason (07:20):
How does you know the, how does the bulletin look? How does the actual auditorium look? How do the screens look? How, like, think about the all of that and this like, this is leaning a little bit. Guest services, I get it right? And I'm, I'm doing that all with the, the purpose. But like, but I want you to think about this. When is the last time that you walked through your church building through looking through the lens and eyes of a first time guest, someone who has no idea, no context, no framework for what it's like being in your church? That's what I want to encourage you to do. I want you to encourage you to think about those things. And then the reality is this, is that if every single touchpoint matters, think about all the opportune touchpoints that we just walked through. So let's talk about the reality of hybrid.

Nick Clason (08:07):
This is the hybrid ministry podcast after all. And a lot of times we focus on digital because I think most churches do actually do a decent job at least having their, their mind or their eyes set on the physical or thinking about and thinking through what a physical experience is going to look like for somebody coming to your church newcomer or someone who's been going to your church for a hundred years. But what does your pre street to seat experience look like? See, the reality is most churches do have someone thinking street to seat. They have someone thinking guest services, they have someone thinking worship team, tech team, kids team. Like you have someone thinking about that, whether they're doing a good job or not. That may be a whole nother story. But what about before they ever even determine they're going to come to your church?

Nick Clason (08:54):
Because here's the god honest truth, most people are not just driving by at a Sunday morning at 8 45, 9 o'clock, whatever time they would need to be driving past your church and be like, you know what we should do? We should go to church. Like they're going to come to that decision over a, a sequence of weeks, months. Um, and maybe it's from driving by your church, maybe it's from seeing an ad. Maybe it's from seeing t-shirts that people are wearing of your church in and around the community. Maybe it's just a word of mouth recommendation, any sort of thing. But the, the fact is, once someone that has narrowed in their focus on your church, they have gotten to that conclusion and they have come to that place for one reason or another. What was that reason? And then, and then here's what they're gonna do.

Nick Clason (09:44):
If they're under the age of 35 or 40, probably they're more than likely going to check your church out online everywhere. Your website, your socials, your livestream, your kids' ministry page, all those types of things. I'll give you an example. A couple weeks ago it was March Madness and my wife, um, and I were watching March Madness. Let me be more clear. I was watching March Madness and I was trying to get her interested in March Madness. And there was a commercial about wings from Wingstop, which I'm not a big Wingstop guy, it's very, um, commercial. It's very chain. That's not my thing. I don't love Wingstop, don't love beat up. I love like a good kinda like dive bar wing place. That's, that's typically my preference when it comes to wings. And so my wife was like, you know, sounds good Wings. And I was like, I mean, yeah, wings always sound good to me, but for that night wings sounded good to her.

Nick Clason (10:37):
And so she started googling in our town Best Wings in our Town and started getting all these recommendations, Yelp, Google Maps, five stars, four stars, four and a half stars, whatever. And we found this little bar that served wings that were supposedly pretty good. And so we start researching that, researching the wings, and then we're like, okay, is this gonna be a place that like, is kid friendly? Like can we bring our kids to this bar? Is that gonna be okay? And so we start like researching that and reading through the reviews and reading through what people say. My point in saying all of that is that before we ever stepped foot in that restaurant, we did all kinds of different research. Not a ton, right? But like five to 10 minutes worth of research about wings, about the environment, about the prices, about the menu, all those things before we ever took our step into the, um, the bar.

Nick Clason (11:31):
And so I just wanna say that, and I just want to encourage you as a church to start thinking greater than street to seat. Every single touchpoint that you offer from your church matters. If that's what Starbucks does, which is the largest coffee chain in America, then your church can probably learn a couple of things from Starbucks. Another thing that was fascinating from the episode that I want to point out here before we wrap it up is that he went on to talk about this marketing and branding firm that works with all kinds of different competitors. And he used the example of Walmart and Target and he said, each and every competitor, each and every store, each and every entity, whatever it is, can only have one e s T. And when he said e s t, he said, for example, like Walmart is the cheapest and Target is the coolest.

Nick Clason (12:20):
But I just wanna ask you a question. Is Walmart always the cheapest? Sometimes Target is actually cheaper than Walmart, but you could, you, and he uses this example in the podcast. He says, there's a guy who's like, I, I would throw on slippers and a hoodie and not wash or wash my hair, brush my teeth, anything like that, just head into Walmart and grab something quick. But if I wanna go to Target, I gotta get myself ready, right? Why is that? He said, because each of those places have embraced what their e s t is Walmart being cheapest, target being coolest. So what is that for your church? You probably have something in mind, whether you've thought about it or not, um, spoken or unspoken, just about every place has an E s T that they want to be. What we often run into as agencies, churches, whatever, is that we want to be multiple of them.

Nick Clason (13:09):
Well, we wanna be the coolest and we wanna be the cheapest and we want, you just can't be that. You have to pick one of those things and really hone in on it. So is your church gonna be the church that's all about worship or is your church gonna be the church that's all about kids and student ministry? Or is your church gonna be the church that's all about ex expositional, expository preaching? Is your church gonna be the trendy church? Is your church gonna be the church with good coffee? Is your church? You see what I'm saying? And like, those things matter, but like one thing often rises above and rises to the top of what your church is. And and this is true of businesses and whatnot. And here's the thing. He used an example in the podcast. He says, Southwest Airlines always said, we love you, we love our customers.

Nick Clason (13:52):
And he said, that works until it doesn't. And when Southwest had their debacle around Christmas and they couldn't get people home for their Christmas and family gatherings, no amount of messaging, no amount of like, we love you, we are the airline oven for the people. None of that mattered. He said anymore why? He was like, because they failed. Like they dropped the ball big time and people didn't feel that love sitting in the airport for 24, 36, 48, 72 hours. That is not the messaging that Southwest was giving across during those times. And so you can say what you are, but then you also have to turn around and deliver it. And so everything you do about your church, every single touchpoint that you make, it matters. So what are you going to do? What is that, that key core marker that you're going to be with your church?

Nick Clason (14:41):
And listen, I would, I would recommend if you're a youth pastor, if you're a church communications person, a church social media person listening to this podcast, you're probably gonna wanna have to have a sit with some upper level leadership around this conversation. If you're not a person at the table to have that conversation, ask your direct report. Hey, what, like, how, how can we come up with this? And your church may already have had some of those things. So then go back through and grade those things. Hire a secret shopper, like all sorts of different things. But I like, I just, I wanna point out that I think most churches do a good job, a decent job, you know, with people like secret shoppers, first time guests, all those things. But what are you communicating beyond the doors, beyond the Sunday morning, beyond your primary meeting experience?

Nick Clason (15:26):
And what is your messaging to them? Because if, well he said the Starbucks guy, everything you do is branding, then have you taken enough time to distill that one to your primary core, what your messaging is going to be? Well, thanks everyone for hanging out again for another episode in the Books Hybrid Ministry episode 41. We are now only about 15. No, that's a less than that. We're like 11, 10, 11 episodes away from one year worth of podcasting. So we'll do something exciting on episode 52. I'll need to look, cuz I have a couple bonus episodes that have dropped that have, you know, kind of messed with our, our numbering there or whatever. But, but super excited to be with you, grateful that you're continuing to be along in the journey. Hey, if you have questions, if you wanna get in touch with me, follow me on YouTube, follow me on TikTok, hit me up in the dm, head to our website, hybridministry.xyz. We would love to hear from you. We would love to start answering some questions. So if you have those, send them our way. But once again, thrilled that you were here with us and we will talk to you next time. And don't forget, and as always, stay hybrid.

Entire Show: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/038
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FREE e-book: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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http://www.hybridministry.xyz/036
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SHOWNOTES
Is Digital a Valid Method of Preaching?
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/029

9 TikTok and Reels Videos to use at your church this week!
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/023

The Ultimate 2023 Social Media Calendar, Strategy and Posting Guidelines
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/025

TIMECODES
00:00-02:12 - Intro
02:12-08:40 The Current State of TikTok
08:40-13:35 What does all of this mean?
13:35-18:52 What content should my church post?
18:52-23:40 The Nitty Gritty of Posting to TikTok with Hooks, Captions and where to place your text on screen
23:40-24:59 Conclusion and Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
All right. 3, 2, 1. Well, hello there, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry Show. I, as always, am your host, Nick Clason. So thrilled to be here with you, uh, on this episode. And we are going to be continuing on in our journey of the sixth Step Church social media framework. But today, in this episode, I am gonna talk about a social media that if you don't have time to go in on any of the other things that we talk about, this is the one that I highly, highly recommend as a youth pastor myself. Um, I recommend this primarily for student ministries. Um, however, I wanna be very clear that, um, this is a, the number one, uh, social media for Generation Z. And you might think, oh, I'm exempt from that. I don't have to worry about Generation Z. And that's just simply not true.

Nick Clason (00:58):
You do. Um, and it will become more and more of a prevalent, uh, problem, so to speak. Not that Generation Z is a problem, but, uh, more and more of a prevalent, um, uh, demographic in your church congregation. More and more, they're graduating every single year, and then they're soon becoming a part of the church or not a part of a church. If we're not willing to speak their native language, and if we're not willing to, uh, reach them where they are soon as youth pastors, we are no longer going to have Generation Z even as a part of our ministry because Generation Alpha is right now sitting in our sixth grade, our fifth grade, our fourth grade, they are the soon to be new generation. And so Gen Z, this digital strategy matters for them. And yes, you guessed it. We are talking about TikTok.

Nick Clason (01:44):
So all that, and more on this episode, as always, show notes, hybridministry.xyz, subscribe on YouTube. Follow me personally on my TikTok, uh, give us a light, give us a subscribe. A subscribe. And please, we would love it if you would give us a rating, especially if you find this information helpful, share it with a friend. But without any further ado, let's dive into why TikTok matters. All right, well, let's talk about the current state of TikTok as it stands in 2023. So, uh, TikTok in just 11 years, so starting back in 2011, all the way now to, um, 2023, so I guess 12 years, uh, TikTok has grown from zero users all the way up to 1 billion estimated users ranking it fourth in social media usage and platforms. So it's only behind Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and then TikTok is fourth. Facebook is at 2.9 billion.

Nick Clason (02:48):
YouTube is at 2.2 billion. Instagram is at 1.4 billion, and TikTok is at 1 billion. Now, keep in mind that I think that, uh, Facebook and Instagram both play a role, but if you're going to go all in on one, I think you should go all in on TikTok. Facebook often is, uh, really popular with the generation of generation X. Instagram is much more popular with my generation, generation of millennials, and TikTok was made famous by our favorite, um, generation, generation Z and TikTok is driving what these other legacy platforms of Facebook, of Instagram, and even YouTube are doing. So all of the players ahead of TikTok in the, um, estimated users, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, all three of those, if you notice, have a TikTok feature, uh, element woven into 'em reels, Instagram reels, Facebook reels, and YouTube shorts, and they're all three trying to compete and catch up with the wild craze that is TikTok.

Nick Clason (03:49):
So what even was TikTok, you might remember that TikTok originally started as a brand called a musical dot l wire or Musical Lee, and it was branded and started much as a lip syncing app. I remember as a youth pastor, there were students that would just lip sync and do the musical Lee, uh, type of deals. And so, uh, it was rebranded as TikTok, and it has come around and it has shot up in a meteoric eyes of popularity to become the almost number one. Um, and not like number one downloads, like I just read through the stats, but like number one in, uh, just desirability, right? Of like entertainment apps and social media switched right from being like this social, legitimately social like connection of like human people. I'm friends with my grandma and I'm friends with my aunt to a, uh, platform of entertainment.

Nick Clason (04:43):
You get on there to watch, to be entertained, to be informed, to be inspired, to be encouraged, to learn something, to laugh, all right? That's what TikTok has kind of become. And so, TikTok, um, was historically thought to be adopted and used by teenagers primarily. And that's why, again, when we think of Generation Z, we think, oh, those are teenagers, right? But I wanna read for you something. Um, some of the most recent data says this, 10 year olds to 19 year olds make up 32.5% of the users on TikTok, where 20 to 29 year olds make up 29.5% of the users on TikTok. 30 to 39 year olds make up 16.4, 40 to 49 year olds make up 13.9 and 50 plus make up 7.1. So if you do some quick dirty math, you're looking at greater than 60% of your users are anywhere from the age of 10 to 30.

Nick Clason (05:36):
And if you do a little bit more math, 75% of the users on the TikTok app are under the age of 40. Now, let me ask you, is this something that youth pastors only need to be worried about? And I would contend that the answer is no. Yes, the greatest use is of the younger generations, but 10 to 19, that 19 year old's gonna be 20 pretty soon. And my guess is you wanna reach a 20 year old. Like, my guess is you wanna reach a 25, a 27, a 32 year old, and so start going where they are. So according to an article from, uh, September, 2022 in the New York Times, uh, this is what it has said. It said, TikTok is now becoming the new search engine for Generation Z. Here's what the quote says. This is a powerful tool for teenagers, for students, and for the people in your congregation.

Nick Clason (06:30):
So according to this Afor engine, New York Times article, more and more young people are using talk's powerful algorithm, which personalizes the videos that are shown to you and your for you page, which is based on your interactions with the content. And so to find, uh, information that UNC candidly caters to their tastes, the tailoring, that tailoring is then coupled with a sense that there are real people on the app and are synthesizing and delivering information rather than just simply faceless websites. So there, right there is where you find the social component, but greater than 80 to 90% of the content that most people interact with on TikTok comes from people that they have never met. So pair in mind that the, the usage is meteoric and it is rising faster and faster. And also that now Generation Z is going to TikTok as one of their pry Mary places for search.

Nick Clason (07:31):
And what did we talk about was the reason in the last episode that YouTube was such a crucial, uh, ground for you to be diving into as a church, as a church creator, is you could create very custom howto content. So that's also now the case with TikTok. One last thing that is, uh, important for you to know about TikTok, while the, while TikTok does, uh, have is only fourth, right? In the overall ranking of, um, social media apps, there was a term, um, coined as power users and 29% of TikTok users are considered power users, and they're the ones who will use the app every single day and further study on that TikTok users spend wait for it on average 95 minutes per day. That's over, that's an hour and a half of their day spent on the app, which does rank number one amongst all of the social media apps for most time used on the TikTok app.

Nick Clason (08:34):
So that is where we are. What does all of this mean? All right, so what does all of this mean? Like we said, TikTok is beginning to trend older, and even the users themselves are just simply getting older. And it is right now the leader, right? The leader for Generation Z, um, and I think probably soon to be millennials, and those, uh, people are soon to be square in the main demographic of people that your church is likely going to be focused on reaching. The other reason, like I said earlier, consider the fact that Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube have all recently adopted a TikTok algorithm, reels, shorts, right, to make as a cornerstone of their social media, um, strategy moving forward. And so they're, they are responding to this social media app over here, which is why I don't think it's it's necessarily worth, uh, your, I don't know that you need to be ignoring it or that you should be ignoring it, right?

Nick Clason (09:34):
These other social media platforms, I feel like, oh, we're gonna be all in over here on YouTube, on Instagram to perform well on YouTube and Instagram right now. You need to go all in on the TikTok feature that they have implemented. It's not called TikTok, it's called reels, it's called shorts. But you need to still be all in over on that. And so the legacy platform that made that famous, you should start there. Those are reasons why I think TikTok is currently the most important of all the things you might be wondering. Well then why we talk about YouTube last week, and we're gonna talk about this in the very final episode, but just as a sneak peek of this little, uh, series that we're doing, um, you always want to be able to take your short form content and point it back to something more longer form, and that's where that can live over there on YouTube.

Nick Clason (10:16):
That's the short answer to that. Okay? So I also want to consider some of the theological implications for this, okay? Acts chapter one, verse eight, very famously, the Great Commission, Jesus says, but you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit. He'll come upon you, and then you'll be my witnesses telling people about me in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and then ultimately to the utter most parts of the Earth. You might be thinking, well, yeah. So why does me posting a dancing video of my senior pastor on TikTok accomplish the mission of reaching people? Talk's? Algorithm is largely a mystery. People have been trying to crack that code. Obviously, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube are all studying it to try and create their own versions of it. However, there is one thing that we do know is that what, the way that TikTok spreads the message is very much in the same concentric circles that we see described by Jesus in Acts chapter one.

Nick Clason (11:08):
Verse eight starts by sharing it to your followers. And if they respond well to it, it'll share it to more of their followers. And it starts even geographical. It starts around where you are. You can geotag yourself in your TikTok when you post them. And so it, it does accomplish the mission of helping spread that message until you, more and more people, hundreds, thousands of people can get to hear the message of Jesus every day. Consider this. Let me just give you an anecdotal example. I have a, uh, I'm a youth pastor in an ministry where on average, on a given set, like Wednesday night, we probably average anywhere between a hundred and 150 students, okay? If I post a TikTok about, uh, just a clip from a message or a, a message on there that has something to do with God or theology, or I'm helping share and spread the good news, I'm helping teach people, encourage people, equip people an average video, that that does not perform very well to my standards on TikTok, we'll get somewhere between two and 300 views.

Nick Clason (12:14):
That is literally double the number of people that see that content then come to my, uh, regular in-person gathering. So why does this matter? I think it matters because we have an opportunity to reach far beyond just the people that have their butts in their seats in the ministry that I lead. And the same is true for you. You have the ability to help get the message out there. Now, you might be thinking, well, why don't, our church doesn't wanna do that? Every church has been tasked by Jesus Christ himself. Acts chapter one verse eight, Matthew 28 18 through 18 through 20, to help fulfill the great commission. And there's an element of discipleship in there where, yes, you have to teach them to obey everything that he has commanded us to do, but also there is a reach component. Get the message of Jesus out there.

Nick Clason (13:04):
Can that be done via digital means? I would contend that yes, it, it can, and we talked about that early on. Um, we talked about that, uh, actually a couple episodes ago in, uh, the can, can the, can the message of Jesus be done and shared digitally? And, uh, you can go back and listen to it. I'll link to it here in the show notes. But yes, I would contend that yes, it can be done that way. Uh, and you'll see why, and you'll be, you'll have an explanation of why that matters. All right? So this is the age old question, right? What do I post? You might be wondering that you might be asking that. Well, uh, I'll link to an episode that I did at the end of 2022 on this podcast, but it, it's titled, I think, nine TikTok and Short Form Video Ideas that you Can Post on your Church social Media this week.

Nick Clason (13:58):
I also, uh, laid out for you my complete weekly strategy in another episode. Um, I think it's episode 25, the Ultimate 2023, uh, social media calendar strategy and posting schedule. I'll post both of those if those are something that you find interesting, but they're just chock full of ideas, and honestly, they're very like boots on the ground for me, uh, and stuff that I post every single week. But real quick, uh, a high overview on some of those is, uh, there are really, they're like 3, 4, 5 different categories of things that you can post. The first one is trends. If you spend any time on TikTok, on TikTok app, just yourself personally, I use that save feature incredibly liberally. It's the little like bookmark looking thing on your app. And then I can go back to my personal profile and see things that I've saved. And, but you gotta jump on those trends fast.

Nick Clason (14:51):
So I always, on my, my posting calendar, um, I don't schedule myself out so much. I leave just some space to do some trends. And so two or three times a week I say post a trend and I go into my saved things, and I'm like, what is going on right now on TikTok? And if there's a certain song or a certain cap cut template or something like that, I just use it and I try to find a, think of a creative, fun, relatable way to use it, and I just use it. Another thing is, um, you can just, you can film like custom content, you know yourself. So like, uh, let me give you an example of, of just that thing I'm trying, um, and you can go check it out on our church, uh, TikTok right now. I I don't wanna, um, give you the link verbally here, so go to the show notes because I'm working on changing the name to it.

Nick Clason (15:39):
I don't know if, if by the time this post, uh, if the name will be changed or not. But anyway, um, I, I made this game. Um, I'm an author on download youth ministry.com. Um, so I made this game called gif flashback, where you watch a gif for like, uh, seven seconds, and then, um, immediately you're asked a question to just recall what you saw. And so I tried something where me and another, uh, member of my team are named Bailey. We went around all different places in the church, and that's intentional. Uh, as far as TikTok is concerned, we'd, we'd swap out like, uh, outfits and we'd go to different places in the church. And so we shot them all at the same time, but they're in all different pockets and corners at the church. Some are outside, some are inside, some are, you know, whatever.

Nick Clason (16:20):
At my desk, her desk in the, in the Gaga pit, whatever. And, uh, one of us would run in and be like, quick, Bailey, give flashback, and we'd watch the, the game, all right? And while we're watching it on one of our phones, I would then edit where I'd put the game in on top of the phone. And so I, or she would be playing it by answering the questions and giving the, the answers, but the user, while they're watching it can also, um, watch it and interact with it and play the game as well, right? And so that's a way to use a game that's made for social, um, but also like post it on your TikTok and just have some fun, right? Um, you can do like emoji bible guessing games, which by the way, go to my D ym, uh, link. Uh, I'll drop that in the show notes here as well.

Nick Clason (17:04):
And you can buy, I have all kinds of like, uh, a game called Emoji phraseology, and every single one of them has a vertically formatted video or, uh, wide screen, or, I'm sorry, uh, video or static, uh, slide that you can post as well as you, uh, interact with or as you, um, edit your video so you can play like emoji guessing games, get flashback, all those things. Um, but yeah, po uh, post some of those just different like fun game type things to do. I also like to do like a lot of minute to win it style games, right? And I just film those, and then I clip 'em up, I edit 'em, um, have fun with them. Other things I like to do post educational videos, like, not, not like, here's some math, right? But like theologically educational videos. So the entire month of January, I posted a, I talked a lot about habits.

Nick Clason (17:51):
We were in a series of habits, and so I talked about the psychology of building a good habit. And then the entire month of February, I answered some deep theological like questions or just some core tenets, like of the faith. And I walked through, you know, salvation and the Holy Spirit and sin and the problem of evil. And I just like, I, I posted those, you know, occasionally. Um, also, you can always post message clips. And this is why, if you go back to the last podcast that I posted, um, about YouTube as the first step of the strategy, if you're pre-filing or if you're live streaming, you can find two to three short message clips, and you can edit them with a good hook in where you resolve a good hook and you have some good music behind it. And you can post, uh, some of those message, uh, clips on your, on your TikTok, and then you can point those back to the longer form video or audio content for people to find and consume.

Nick Clason (18:45):
So speaking of hooks, speaking of archetypes, speaking of how to build it, let's dive into that. Next, let's do it. Let's get nitty gritty here. Posting best practices. Number one, you want to have a good hook. You can use the text on screen option, or you can use the text to speech option as the narrated, uh, the narrated, uh, AI sounding voice. But essentially, you need to tell your audience within the first three seconds what this video is going to be about. Because, you know, swiping habits, people are not hovering on videos for very long. If it's not interesting, boom, they're onto the next thing. Boom, they're onto the next thing. This often requires a mindset shift for pastors who hold their hook or who hold their, like, ace up their sleeve usually until the very end of a sermon. Get it out at the very beginning.

Nick Clason (19:35):
What are you talking about in this video? The other thing is use onscreen captions. They're not for just people who are hard of hearing at this point. Captions are useful because a lot of times people can't watch videos in public places with headphones in. So if your video has captions, they can still watch it, even if their phone is v is, uh, volume is turned all the way down. In fact, check this up. 69% of people say that they view video with their sound off in public places. 69% is almost 70% of users and 25% watch with sound off when they're even in private places. So if you have captions on your videos, people can still watch wherever they are. TikTok will has an auto trans transcribed feature. It works really well. Just pop that onto every single video that you use. All right? You need to make sure you have a call to action.

Nick Clason (20:23):
So as you're building your audience on TikTok, make sure that you give them a call to action. Tell them to follow for more, save or view this video for later, or head to the Lincoln bio to watch the full message. Again, this is why if you are using our six step framework and you have your YouTube channel linked in your bio, you can send people who are watching message clips to go on and watch the full message to link in bio. And just remember that more than just going viral and building an audience, um, is not just for vanity metrics, right? Is that if you have something significant and meaningful to say, people will want to dial in and listen to longer versions of what you have as they're in their discovery algorithms, finding things on their phone and online. Also, watch where you're placing your text in a TikTok video.

Nick Clason (21:07):
The top, the bottom and the right side are all off limits. So you really need to hit right in the middle and more, uh, left of center. Uh, I hate when I see people who post things and they, they post it behind the natural places that TikTok covers things. TikTok screen is incredibly busy. So, uh, just look and know where you can and cannot post your text on screen and make sure it doesn't get covered up. Uh, captions and hashtags, I recommend no more than a one sentence caption and no more than three to five hashtags. And if your caption, um, has a word in it, you do not need to hashtag that same word later, right? Like we said, gen Z is using, uh, TikTok, and TikTok is also building on the back end of more searchability. So, um, if, if one of your words is already in your caption, you do not need the hashtag to find it, it will, it will search all of the text on your screen, which again, use text on screen, use their text editor.

Nick Clason (22:09):
Um, I actually use TikTok. Um, if I'm, if I'm editing on my phone, I'd probably do 50% edit on my computer, 50% edit on my phone directly. Um, if I'm editing on my phone, I edit in the TikTok app, then I download that without the watermark and I post out to all my other content. But TikTok is the, the starting spot for me. And so, um, all the texts on screen, all the things I use natively, they will search my video and find those things and, and help index that in their search back out to other people. Um, and then finally, audio. If you are a business account, your audio options on TikTok are going to be far more limited, which is why if you can do an edit in a computer, it's gonna be better for you. Um, if you're not a business account, and I talk about this in my ebook, which will link to that in the show notes as well.

Nick Clason (22:57):
Um, there are pros and cons to whether or not you want to be a business account or not. I still, to this day, have not converted ourselves to a business account, but that, that day is probably coming to an end here soon. The biggest disadvantage is I can't just lazily use trending audio. Um, that almost always is, you know, you know, not royalty free and I, you have to pay royalties on it or whatever. There are workarounds to it where you just, you edit the video with that audio in a, like, Adobe Premiere Pro or something like that, and then it's like an original sound for you. It's, but it's not being indexed in search based on that audio. Um, less and less. I think that the quality of the content is gonna be more important than the actual, like, hacking of the system by finding the certain audio things.

Nick Clason (23:42):
All right. Well, thank you so much for hanging out this entire episode. Like I just said, if, uh, you have not yet grabbed our free e-book, this episode in particular on how to post a TikTok from scratch, the question that the, the title of the e-book is, have I already Ruined My Church TikTok account? And will help you answer that. So go grab your free e-book. Also a rating or review will be incredibly helpful to subscribe over, over on YouTube if you wanna watch this video. We got blower thirds, we got custom graphics flying in. Some of the things I talked about, uh, are gonna be visible on screen that you just have to listen to in your earbuds. And if you heard anything that you're like, that was interesting, I need to go, uh, unpack that a little bit more. We have three transcripts for you over at hybridministry.xyz head there, check it out. But we're so glad that you're on this journey with us. I hope that you are finding this six step social media framework helpful. This was just step number two. Next episode we're step three, which is Facebook. So excited for that. Join us. We'd love to have you there. And until next time, and as always, stay hybrid.

All you need and more at: http://www.hybridministry.xyz
Follow along on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Keep up with what's happening on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/user/@clasonnick

SHOWNOTES

MY STUDENT MINISTRY YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@crosscreekstudents
CHURCH YOUTUBE STARTER KIT: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/033
TRENDS SITE: http://www.trends.google.com

TIMECODES
00:00-02:30 Intro
02:30-08:05 Why you should begin with YouTube when building out your Social Strategy
08:05-11:35 Optimal YouTube video lengths and watch time analytics
11:35-14:33 Make your intros compelling
14:33-17:42 The importance of titling and metadescriptions
17:42-18:07 Thumbnails on YouTube
18:07-18:44 How to find keywords based on trending topics
18:44-19:10 Comments and shares on YouTube
19:10-20:38 YouTube Conclusion
20:38-22:15 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Well, hello there and welcome everybody to the Hybrid Minister Show. As always, I am your host, Nick Clason. So excited to be with you. And if you did not hear the trailer that we dropped earlier this week, we are going to be diving into a full fledged social media strategy. And this is part one of the six part series of putting an entire social media framework and strategy, um, in place for the, for your church, for your ministry, um, and for the people that you are attempting to reach. This is aimed at churches and pastors of what can probably be used and adapted for other places in marketplace and whatnot. And so on. Today's very first episode, we are going to be launching and starting with the platform of YouTube. Yes, we most recently dropped a, uh, episode called Don't Sleep on YouTube, A link to that in the show notes.

Nick Clason (00:57):
But we are going to be specifically looking at the strategy, um, the social media strategy. And we are starting with YouTube. And you'll see why here in just a minute. But before we dive in, do not forget a rating or review would be amazing. You can head over to our YouTube channel and see this live with some lower thirds and some graphics woven in to maybe help, uh, support some of the arguments that we're making. So if you find that, uh, helpful or interesting, make sure that you head there. Also, as always, you can head to hybrid ministry.xyz, both for our ebook. Have I already ruined my Church TikTok account, which is a complete guide to post any TikTok from start to finish. If you have no idea what you're doing, here're just getting started, this ebook is for you. And if you are a TikTok veteran, probably still for you cuz honestly, I learned some things as I made it.

Nick Clason (01:49):
Um, and then the other thing is that as always, we provide free a hundred percent free transcript, um, show notes to every single episode. So you can head to hybrid ministry.xyz.xyz. Yes, it is a suffix to a website despite what people might think. Just I like, I actually think it's a creative one, an interesting one. It's very, very like unknown. Um, so if like a.com is taken, I often opt for a.xyz cause I just think it's, it's cool. So anyway, uh, head to those places and, uh, without any further ado, let's dive in. Little break. Let me get some coffee. Let's dive into why we should start with YouTube. Here we go. All right, so why should we start with YouTube? I believe if done optimally, your church social media strategy to borrow from marketing, if you will, um, I'm gonna attempt to create this with my hands.

Nick Clason (02:46):
So if you're watching on YouTube stream, it's gonna make sense to you, but it's like a funnel, right? And so, especially now in the days of the algorithms where it's discovery, discovery focused as opposed to just following your friends like it used to be, um, you are going to want to, uh, catch people at the top of your funnel. And the top of the funnel is very wide now because of YouTube shorts, because of Instagram reels, Facebook reels, and because of TikTok, you can reach and catch people that you would've never otherwise interacted with. Maybe they're people that are local to you geographically, maybe not. But the reality is, is that you're going to be finding people in the top of that funnel that you never would've had that relationship with before. That's amazing. So that's what churches have been looking for and asking for social media for years.

Nick Clason (03:36):
How can we expand our reach? How can we share the gospel of Jesus? How can we find different people that we might want to minister to or share the, the truth or love of Jesus with them? However, what are you going to do with them once you get them? And I think, uh, for me, a lot of the, a lot of the question I was even asking, um, Matt, who was former co-host of this podcast, I was even asking him early on, like, okay, great, that's awesome. So we go viral on TikTok, then what? And, and he didn't even know. So that's how new all of this is. It, it all lives within the life of this podcast, which is under a year old, um, by the time of this posting. And so, so once that funnel, once we start catching people who are finding awareness, we need to drive them to something, what are we driving them to?

Nick Clason (04:24):
I think, and I would propose that the best thing to drive someone to, especially if they're just finding you on social media, is to drive them to listening to longer form, uh, pieces of content. There was, uh, we talked about it in the, the YouTube, uh, trends, the YouTube trends, uh, not trends report. The YouTube Trends podcast I dropped a couple of weeks ago. Um, and I'm trying to look it up right here. Lifetime. So that's why I'm fumbling around. Um, let's see if, uh, I can find it, but I'm probably not gonna be able to find it. But there's a stat that says, um, some percentage that's, that's the sta I'm looking for. I don't know the number, but some percentage of people look up, uh, or use like short form videos in order to find longer form video content or longer form content of some sort.

Nick Clason (05:20):
So, so, uh, especially the generation, um, that's coming. Gen z, gen Alpha, they might spend time on TikTok, they might spend time on YouTube shorts, see a short snippet of something, and then that might prompt them to go watch something longer. Now here's the thing. Um, no offense, sermons are not, not that new and not that interesting. And so therefore, that may not be the most captivating thing that someone's gonna want to be driven towards. But if they find their way to something creative, something different, or just your pastor's interesting, or the topic that your pastor preached on is interesting, then yeah, I think you are gonna get people to drive towards it. So that's why I say start with YouTube. Now, I I, when I wrote this, I had a very different view of YouTube. We hadn't even started when I, when I wrote this, I wrote this, uh, for a, uh, youth ministry company.

Nick Clason (06:15):
And so when I wrote it, I, I had not even started practically using YouTube in my ministry yet. And, um, what's crazy is even if you listen back to last, last week's episode on Don't Sleep On YouTube, I said, we now have over 70 subscribers to our YouTube. Since the time of that posting, which, or recording from then to now, which is only a week gap in time, we have grown our YouTube to up to 106 subscribers. So we've had 36 or so subscribers join us on YouTube, which is just bonkers crazy. So why start with YouTube? Obviously, YouTube, uh, is owned by Google, so it has a search engine component to it. Um, in addition to that, it's got long form video content and now short form video content. So you can use the short form to get discovered and gain subscribers to then support and supplement and push to your long form video content.

Nick Clason (07:15):
I'm gonna recommend that all the other platforms also PO point to YouTube just as a place where your videos and your containers live. And so, um, that is, that is what I think is optimal, opening the top of the funnel, driving them another step deeper. Obviously, the lowest part of the funnel is them making a decision to follow Jesus, maybe becoming a, a full, fully devoted follower of Jesus, um, integrated into the life of your church and attending regularly in person. But going from watching a 62nd clip to a several minute video, that's a big jump. That's a big step. Let's, let's chat through the elements and purposes and, um, reasons why we should start with YouTube and what we know about it today in 2023. Let's go. All right, so let's talk about watch times. We've talked about this a fair bit on this podcast and other, uh, episodes and whatnot.

Nick Clason (08:12):
But according to backlinko.com, they surveyed 1.3 million YouTube videos, um, to try and better understand the YouTube search feature. And they determined this, uh, fact from their survey. Longer videos significantly outperform shorter videos. Now we're talking long form, wide screen, like typical YouTube videos, not YouTube shorts. It's a completely different section and platform, but longer videos significantly outperform shorter videos. The average length of a first page YouTube video that is indexed on the first page is 14 minutes and 50 seconds. So you're looking in that sweet spot of, I would say anywhere from 12 minutes to 18 minutes is a good length that you want to be shooting for, for your YouTube videos. Now, the question that you might have is like, well, what if I live stream my sermon and my pastor preaches for 35 minutes? Well, that's great, and you can continue to use that and you should continue to put that up on YouTube if you have the live streaming capabilities and whatnot.

Nick Clason (09:18):
However, in some context, if you're starting from scratch, one of the things that I have been pushing and recommending, and one of the things that we have been doing over at our church Cross Creek students, which by the way, if you want, I'll drop a link to our YouTube channel on the show notes. You can see what I'm talking about when I recommend pre-filing your content. So you don't need a lot, I mean, we use a cell phone, which is the same cell phone I'm using to shoot this YouTube video here. So you can check that out, um, on our YouTube channel. Um, we use that to shoot, I grab the couple of like external microphones just so that the audio quality is above average and that is it, you know, some basic lighting stuff, but nothing crazy. Uh, and that gives us a, a multiple different, like, things to do.

Nick Clason (10:06):
Like when we preach live, we're probably preaching that 30 plus minute thing or, or at least bumping up right against it, which is not optimal for the YouTube, um, search length. The other thing is that it does give us extra time with our content. If, if we deliver it once to a phone and then once live in the room, like by the time we're live in the room, like we're pretty well versed with what our content is going to be, it's not gonna be a shock to us. We're not gonna get up there and be like, what is this again? Um, especially if you're using curriculum pre can pre-canned curriculum, you can, um, you can fall under the, the habit of not really reviewing it very well and you get up there and you're, you're much more stuck to your notes than you maybe wanna be, or you wrote it a long time ago and you're dusting it off for a new environment.

Nick Clason (10:52):
Maybe that's exactly what I'm doing all the time. Uh, you know, so, so once YouTube kind of came up with that conclusion, um, that's how, that's how YouTube, uh, chooses what videos get promoted. All right? So the way that they do it is a combination of both overall watch time paired with average percent viewed. So, uh, if it's a 10 minute video and they watch seven minutes, that's 70% of the video viewed. So it turns out that the videos in that 14 to 16 minute range really index well, uh, a couple other factors to help make your videos compelling. Let's check it out. All right, so make the intro of your video compelling. Let's play out a couple scenarios. Scenario number one. Hey everyone, welcome back to church. Excited to be here. Hey, real quick before we dive in, tonight's message, I do wanna remind you about the Churchwide Bake Sale.

Nick Clason (11:52):
It's coming up this Sunday. If you are interested in earning money toward the mission strip, don't forget you have to be in attendance. If for some reason you can't make it, please make sure to talk to, uh, dear Aunt Betty in the back, she's waving her hand, she's got her plaid apron on, let her know that you won't be at the bake sale. So, to dive into tonight's message, we're gonna be in John chapter one, or scenario number two. What would you do if you won a million dollars? Like, think about it, right? Like if I told you that the message that Jesus is giving supersedes the benefit of winning a million dollars, would you be interested in hearing what that message is? All that and more in this video, make sure that you stick around to the very end, cuz we're gonna give away the $1 million checklist.

Nick Clason (12:46):
Like see how those are two completely different things when you pre-lim, that's how you can start your video. When you get up live in a room, you, you might get stuck into giving the announcement about Aunt Betty's bake sale. And, and that's not a bad thing. Like that's, that's not, uh, making you a bad communicator or anything. That's part of what it is to be a pastor, to keep people informed and whatever and whatnot. So make the intros of your video compelling. Now what if you are live streaming already and you, you do get the amp Betty Bake sales stuff? I think that you can drop a minute, 32nd to a minute, uh, separate video in front to do that hook stuff. Um, someone who's already maybe previewed or seen the message or someone who knows what's gonna come and you drop that in before you, uh, drop drop in the rest of the, the sermon video.

Nick Clason (13:40):
Um, now you might be asking like, well, what about worship? I do think that there's pro, there's value in li actual like live, live streaming, like on Sunday morning. But once that's over as far as like posting and indexing to YouTube, I would recommend posting the sermons separately in a separate playlist or a separate video. And when you do that, that's when you can drop that intro video in refrain from the habit of what churches are going to be notorious for, which is like pre-filing one, um, and using it every single week to save on time. I, I would recommend making it custom to what is actually being preached, what is actually being taught so that the hook, the intro is actually relevant to what the actual content of the message is. Not just a generic, Hey, welcome, glad you on our YouTube channel, blah, blah, blah.

Nick Clason (14:29):
No one cares about that, that's not interesting. They're swiping away to the next one. What are some other YouTube best practices? Uh, titling, titling really matters. So for the longest time I was working at church where we, um, were in different, like we would call them seasons, uh, to, to do the video thing, which was at least good, but we would just title it like, um, our show was called Unscripted. So we were titling it unscripted season two, episode four, um, you know, rubber ducky Night or whatever it was. And that titling sucked . It didn't help, it wasn't searchable, right? YouTube is built by Google. So YouTube is a search engine type of content. So a title like, is Hella Real Place dealing with crippling anxiety or is rest even possible in 2023? You see, all of those are much more captivating titles. And so just, uh, a lot of times you gotta think about this, a lot of times churches create a sermon series, um, with a name that's like got some mystery sort of woven into it.

Nick Clason (15:38):
Think about the way that pastors communicate, pastors communicate, where they try to hook you in. They try to hook a live studio audience alive, you know, seated, uh, uh, in auditorium type audience in, but they hold their, they hold their main point. They hold the ultimate thing that they're gonna try and the ultimate truth that they're trying to share till the very end. It's like sort of this like grand reveal. That's, that's a strategy for public speaking. However, think about the videos that you watch online. They tell you instantly right at the top what the video is gonna be. They, they leave some mystery still, yes, some intrigue, but they, they don't mess around. They don't start out slow with some story about their dog from the night before, whatever, whatever it is that, that pastors are notorious for doing. And I can say this cuz I'm a pastor, I was trained that way.

Nick Clason (16:33):
I lean that way. Uh, that's my natural inclination to teach that way. So I'm trying to get better at putting things on the front end as well as titling it. And so, but you'll even see churches like Elevation do this. Um, they'll clip Pastor Steven's message cuz he'll preach for a long time. They'll clip it down to that good window. Um, and then they'll retitle it, even if it's different from the sermon series. Because what you gotta understand is your sermon series may be a good title for an in-person congregation audience, but that may not, that may not index well on YouTube, which is a search platform. So retitling is a helpful, helpful thing. The meta-description matters. So just like the title, the meta description is pulling out keywords and words that you have in there. It plays a huge role in your, your rankings.

Nick Clason (17:20):
And if you link to things like your church's website or your social media or maybe even some products or things that you talk about in your video, that also helps. Tags are important. Um, they recommend tags that, that are included in your video that can relate back to the topic of your video. So all three of those factors, tags, titles and meta descriptions help your YouTube search content thumbnails. Uh, if you're on YouTube, I'm gonna put the, this screenshot right here. Look at Mr. Beast's, um, thumbnails. Okay? Um, so he actually spent some time crafting these, creating these. Obviously he has a team, but you can put more effort into your thumbnails that is also gonna help the clickability and the search rate. Uh, those, those things matter. Another thing is trends. And you can use a free tool like trends.google.com, uh, to look up some more searchable type words.

Nick Clason (18:15):
And so, uh, you can take some words and start, uh, playing with them and see how they rank with, with searchability and whatever and whatnot. And that's gonna help you title it. That might also help you, um, as you're titling it, then putting those words on your thumbnail. And so, um, I'll, I'll show a screenshot of what it looks like, um, and, and how that, how that works. But, um, it's just a pretty basic, like, it's just a basic tool where you can compare the searchability of two different types and styles of words. Uh, last thing is, uh, comments and shares. They have a positive corollary effect on your video. So the more that you can, um, encourage and ask for comments and maybe even drum some up is gonna be helpful. So those things help with your videos. Uh, also embedding your videos if you embed your YouTube video onto like, say your church website or something.

Nick Clason (19:04):
Videos that are embedded YouTube indexes and rates really well. So those things also help a lot. So what's our conclusion? Only conclusion. Uh, according to state of Mobile, 2020 two.com, users spend 23.7 hours a month using the YouTube app. So people in your church are spending time on YouTube. They may not be spending time on YouTube for the purposes of your church and maybe spending time on YouTube to change out faucets and sinks in their house. But nonetheless, you putting your message on YouTube puts you in a, uh, position to be discovered and, um, people to come across your content because we have been tasked with the mission of spreading and sharing God's word and his message to the ends of the earth. And so this me, this method helps really bring your, um, church's message into a hybrid space. Now, beyond just your Sunday sermons, don't forget there are other options of content.

Nick Clason (20:05):
There are, um, some, you know, like there are some other ideas, there are some other classes, there are some other types of, uh, uh, content that you can produce and create. But I would start at a bare minimum. If you just can start, I would definitely start getting your, your regular messages, the things that you're already spending time doing, as opposed to creating another thing or another piece of content. But the things you're already doing in the regular flow and rhythm of your week. Get that stuff created, get that stuff, um, out there for the world to see. Well, hey guys, once again, thank you so much for sticking around to the end of this video. I hope you found this helpful. Hey, listen, if you did, it would mean the world to me if you would give us a rating or a review or even better share it with a friend and make sure that if you have not yet go pick up our free ebook.

Nick Clason (20:56):
Have I already ruined my church's TikTok account? A complete guide to posting a TikTok from Scratch. Make sure you grab that. That would be an amazing gift to us. We would love it if you, um, used that and found that helpful in your context, whatever the, your context might be. And finally, make sure you head over to YouTube, subscribe to our YouTube channel There link is gonna be in the show notes because it is under my personal name. It's not under the ministry that is, um, we're just trying some stuff out. We may convert it, we may not. I dunno. We'll see. Uh, I'm not, I'm, I'm not that deep into it yet. Uh, finally, don't forget every single episode we have Transcript Hybrid Ministries, XY Z for that. Excited to be with you on this journey. In our next episode, we are going to be diving in to, uh, I believe gonna be diving into TikTok and talking about that. Uh, and that's where the inspiration from my ebook came from. So excited to have you in for that. Uh, excited to explain to you and talk to you about the ups and downs and the, the wide swirling things of the crazy app and platform known as TikTok. But hey, until next time, my friends will talk to you. Stay hybrid.

No expensive camera gear or elaborate setups required! With just your cell phone and less than $100 worth of accessible equipment, you can create compelling and professional-quality videos that will captivate your audience.

Together, let's harness the power of hybrid ministry to spread your ministry's message far and wide, making a positive impact on the lives of countless individuals.

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START YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL WITH YOUR PHONE FOR LESS THAN $100
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Watch this Episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
Full Transcript and Links at: http://www.hybridministry.xyz/033
FREE E-Book: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook

TIMECODES
00:00-01:46 Intro
01:46-08:50 Don't Sleep on YouTube
08:50-12:26 Recommended YouTube Strategy in 2023
12:26-16:45 Editing your YouTube Video
16:45-18:04 2023 Church YouTube Channel Gear Starter Kit
18:04-21:00 Turning your long-form content into social clips
21:00- 22:18 Turning viewers of Shorts into Subscribers and viewers of longer form videos
22:18-24:45 Utilizing YouTube videos for Hybrid Ministry
24:45-26:05 The added benefit of Pre-Filming
26:05-27:53 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
Well, what is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode and YouTube video of the Hybrid Minister Show. Hop in the show notes to subscribe or check out the other platform. If you're not on YouTube or if you're not listening on a podcast. Excited to be with you today. My name is Nick Clason, and I, as always am your host. You know what we are going to be talking about today? Do not sleep on YouTube. We're gonna dive into that in just a minute. But before we do, make sure you hit the show notes hybridministry.xyz, episode 33. So at http://www.hybridministry.xyz/033 for all the show notes, especially in this episode, I'm gonna share some actual product links to some things that we're using. I'm not an affiliate or anything like that, but just, this is what we've done. This is what we've used, so make sure you go check that out as well as if you have not head to the, have I already ruined my church's TikTok account, A complete guide to posting a TikTok from Scratch.

Nick Clason (01:09):
And the reason I made this is because I want this to be a guide for anybody who's never even opened the TikTok app to a first be able to shoot and edit a TikTok, but then be able to cross post it to all the different platforms. Um, so go and check that out. That's a free gift from us to you. Hit the link in the show notes for that. Alright, everyone, glad to have you. Thanks for being here. If you're on YouTube, hit that subscribe and bell button. If you're on podcast, I'd love, we'd love to also ask you to hit that subscribe button. But let's dive into, don't Sleep on YouTube, episode 33. Here we go. Well, hey there everybody, and, uh, in this episode, like I said, I want to talk about Don't sleep on YouTube. Now, what does that mean? I think, um, at least in my sphere or whatever, like I think YouTube is like a little bit the forgotten child of social media.

Nick Clason (02:05):
I was talking on the phone this week to my brother, um, who's just getting started at a church and just getting started on his social media accounts. And he's like, so should we do TikTok? And I was like, yeah, for sure, but he is a youth pastor. Should we do Instagram? Like, yeah, yeah, you can do Instagram. Um, anything else is like YouTube. And he's like, YouTube, really? And I was like, yeah, YouTube, uh, here's why. YouTube is the either second or third, depending on how you look at it. Largest search engine. So, I mean, if, if it's not second, uh, behind Google, the argument is that it is third behind Google, Google Images, and then, uh, YouTube is third. And so, um, also YouTube is owned by Google. And so, um, all three of those are owned, you know, by the same person people place.

Nick Clason (02:53):
And so the search engine is going to, um, be tied to a Google, uh, a strength of a Google type search engine. So it's, it's not going to be a small bananas like TikTok is trying to, uh, acutely turn themselves into more of a search engine type platform. And like, that's fine, but it's not powered by Google. You know what I mean? It's powered by by TikTok. And so TikTok was good at making vertical viral style videos. YouTube is owned by the largest, best and most powerful search engine in the entire world. So YouTube has some strength and some weight behind it. In addition to that, uh, YouTube has recently, um, burst onto the scene with shorts. I don't know the last time you logged into your mobile app on YouTube, but there'll be a couple of widescreen long form classic YouTube video recommendations, um, in one, two, or three of the first spots.

Nick Clason (03:52):
But then right beneath that is a list of shorts. It's similar to the Instagram app. Now if you're scrolling through all the square pictures, but then it'll suggest some reels. That's what YouTube is now doing with shorts. And about a year or so ago, I, um, I gave up on YouTube shorts cuz I posted a few and they got like one or two likes and or views, like just, it was useless. And, uh, it was the clunkiest between TikTok, Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. Of those four, it was the Clunkiest, uh, to post of all of them. And also it has the shortest window for shorts. So like TikTok now, um, will offer like an up to three minute video. And for some people creators or something, I'm not sure who gets this. Um, some people can post up to like 10 minute videos. So Rios has now got a longer length on Instagram.

Nick Clason (04:44):
However, on Facebook it's shorter, which doesn't make any sense why like those two who are both owned by Meta wouldn't communicate and talk to themselves. Uh, YouTube still only has a one minute, um, clip option. So anytime I'm making any sort of vertical video content, if I want to post it to YouTube, I need to ensure that it's a minute or less. Um, but that's usually not that hard. Um, and so like even yesterday I posted on our, um, TikTok, we did one of those blind rankings. I had, uh, a girl, um, who's one of our worship leaders at our church that leads a lot in our ministry. I had her do a blind ranking of NFL teams based only on the logo. Cause she doesn't know anything about sports. And, uh, I'm dating myself a little bit, but we posted that on Super Bowl Sunday thinking that'd be, you know, like a funny thing to kind of play off of like the Super Bowl thing, vibe or whatever.

Nick Clason (05:35):
Um, and when she recorded it on TikTok, she recorded it for like a minute and 30 seconds. So I had to go and I had to cut it and shave it down. I did that all in the TikTok app. Um, but then when I was able to then take that link and post it on YouTube, it was less than a minute. So I was able to go on YouTube shorts and I had a decision moment there. Do I just post this on, um, TikTok and Instagram reels or do I do the work, cut it, chop it down to be able to get it over to, to YouTube. Here's the interesting thing about that particular video, you never know because especially when you're posting the four platforms, one might like blow up on one and get like one view over on another platform, but in this case, that video performed best on YouTube, believe it or not.

Nick Clason (06:20):
And so from about a year ago when I first started, um, posting on YouTube, they are much more, uh, they've done a lot more work, I think, on their backend to make shorts a little bit more viable. When I first started posting shorts on our churches student ministry YouTube page, we didn't do that until the very first of this year. We were changing our name in 2023. And so I already had the YouTube channel for Cross Creek students. Um, and I didn't want to start a YouTube channel for first Colville students and switch them over. I just, I wanted to get a clean start from everything, logo, handle, the whole thing. Cuz YouTube's the one i, I know the the least, right? I didn't want any issues. And honestly, even like right now, our TikTok is still under at first Colville students because TikTok holds, um, those names longer, um, to let them become available.

Nick Clason (07:14):
I, I already had a Cross Creek students account on TikTok. I owned it. Um, and I deleted it hoping that within 30 days they would give it to me part, not hoping only for hop's sake, but also because that's what they said that they would do. But then when I did more research, if someone deletes their account, they hold it for four months until it becomes available again. Or at least that's what someone said on Reddit somewhere. So we're gonna see, um, one day we'll change that over. But nonetheless, I digress. I didn't start posting on YouTube until January 1st, 2023, uh, because of the name change thing. And it is now, again, dating myself when this was, uh, recorded versus when it's gonna be aired live. But it's February 13th and we have over 70 subscribers on YouTube. We post a once weekly long form video clip.

Nick Clason (08:04):
Um, and so we have maybe 10, I wanna say something like that. Um, long form longer than 10 minute video clips. Um, the rest we just post are normal three day, three a day, um, short form video content that we also posted, TikTok that we also posted to reels we posted over on YouTube. And we have over 70 subscribers that is easily the fastest growing social media platform of all the other platforms that we're using. Um, we are reaching new and different people on YouTube than we are on TikTok than we are on Instagram. TikTok is probably the second fastest growing. Um, and by far the slowest are Instagram and Facebook. They're just, they're not there yet. So what do we do on YouTube? What is my recommended YouTube strategy? Now and foremost, if you're a church and you're already using YouTube as a container or a holder or a storage platform for your live stream Sunday sermon, uh, Sunday services, uh, that's great.

Nick Clason (09:07):
I would recommend continuing to do that. If you're just getting started and you don't have the money or the gear or the infrastructure or the desire or the know-how, or whatever other myriad of reasons why it might be difficult for you to get your service up onto YouTube, then here's what I recommend. Pre film your messages sitting down in front of a camera, very similar to what I'm doing right here. For those of you who are not subscribed to our YouTube channel, we're watching it there. What I am doing now, sitting in front of a camera, talking directly into it, pre film your content, why I talked about this in previous episodes, and so I'll, I'll ensure that I go link to that. I think it was in like a three part episode, so it'll be behind some other stuff, but I'll link to it.

Nick Clason (09:51):
Um, YouTube indexes videos that, uh, and and videos that perform the best are those videos that are between, uh, 12 minutes and 17 minutes. Um, a Sunday sermon, typically 30 to 45 minutes, um, somewhere in that range. And if you're including the worship and the announcements and all the other stuff, you're church service is probably somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half. Um, and YouTube measures and tracks watch time and retention rates and drop off rates. And so the longer your video, that's, that's good. Okay? It's good to have a long video, but if people aren't staying for the whole video, it's gonna actually be a ding against you. The other thing that you get to do with, um, a pre-filed message, uh, is that you get to, you get to make it accustom and, and tailor the message for people online only you all know, and you've all been there, especially as we've moved from Covid d whereas like digital only into back to in person.

Nick Clason (10:56):
You've all probably noticed and known the hybrid struggle that there's been where you're talking to, you know, during Covid, you're talking directly to a camera that worked really well, but then you're talking to a room and also some people behind the camera, and now you're probably talking to a room and less people behind the camera. And so when you pre-filed, you're able to talk directly to the people that you know that are gonna be watching and consuming this on YouTube with your in-person sort of being the secondary or sitting in the back seat of the purpose of that, that video, right? And so, uh, YouTube, you guys know this. You've watched it before. They even like probably make fun of it or make memes out of it, right? But the whole thanks for being here, watch it like it subscribe, make sure you hit that bell.

Nick Clason (11:40):
You can do all of those things when you prefill the message. Why do we do those things? Why do YouTubers do those things? Because they actually work. Believe it or not. Uh, if you just watch a video or someone just as a video versus if you tell them to and subscribe, like comment below, you'll actually see a, a noticeable uptick in those things happening if you just ask them to do it. And so that's one of the advantages of sitting down pre-filing your message. You can make it shorter. Uh, you can make it fit into what's preferred for YouTube. You can speak directly to an online audience, someone that you know is going to be consuming your message in an online forum, an online first type forum. And you can, uh, tailor your message in that that way. All right, so let's get nitty gritty.

Nick Clason (12:28):
So what do I do? What do I use? Uh, so for phones, believe it or not, I'm an Android guy. Um, and so I am filming this video and, and, um, I film all of my other, uh, videos that I pre-filed people with on a Google Pixel Pro seven. That's the one that they, uh, you know, put on, you know, commercials and stuff where you can do the magic eraser, take people out of the background, stuff like that. I tried that last night actually for the very first time I was watching the Super Bowl and they're advertising for it. And I was like, oh yeah, I have that phone. Let me see if I can actually do that. And so I did. Um, but the camera is top of the line for cell phone cameras. Um, it's, it's not a camera camera, right? Um, and so it's, it's got its limitations for sure.

Nick Clason (13:14):
Uh, but it's the phone I also use for my personal use. And so because I use it for my personal use and I use it for my, uh, filming and stuff, I, I invested in it personally so that I can use it for things both at work and stuff like this I'm using for the podcast or whatever. So I just use my cell phone for church has, um, a budget and they're not willing or able or whatever to invest in livestream. Look no further than the camera in your pocket. It is probably better than most, uh, most like most cameras that we had access to even like five years ago. It's crazy. So what do I do after I film it? Well, I use the Adobe Suite Creative Cloud. My church, uh, pays for that. It's like $55 a month. Um, I think for a business license, and let me just say, I think it's worth it.

Nick Clason (14:04):
There are other free programs and you can nickel and dime your way away from those things, but for like editing purposes, it's really helpful and useful. Now, most computer softwares have a free video editing, um, service and you, you can get by with some stuff. Uh, but they're just like, all those free, all those free things are all those things that are not like a part of the, you know, like industry standard. They're just, they're gonna have shortcomings and they're gonna have things that you wish they had that they don't have, or services that they offer that they just aren't able to offer because they're not free. I always think about the time, one of the churches I worked at that I got, I got really into design, um, and like making graphics. That was like one of the things I, I kind of became the Sunday morning slide graphic maker.

Nick Clason (14:50):
Um, and I, I learned how to do all of that in PowerPoint, but then there were just shortcomings. Like I, for example, I couldn't make a round background with transparent outlines around it. Why? Because that's a Photoshop thing, right? And there's some free programs out there that do it. And now even with things like Canva and whatnot, um, that are even much more prominent than when I started doing it. But I remember asking my, my boss to ask the finance committee if we could please spring for the Adobe Creative Cloud, um, Adobe Creative Suite. Um, and he just, he was unwilling to pay the money at the time. And so I was doing a lot of things, but I just, I, there was always limits to what I could do in PowerPoint versus in Photoshop. And so that's what I'll say, yes, you can, Jimmy Rig and Jerry rigger way around a lot of things.

Nick Clason (15:40):
But, um, and sim this is the same conversation by the way we're just having with the camera. Like my cell phone does a fine job, but like, there are still limitations to it. And so there's always a, an upgrade that you can always make. So you just gotta figure out where and how you wanna spend the money. And so, um, we use Adobe Creative, the Adobe Creative Suite in many more facets and, and you know, places than just, uh, for YouTube videos. But I use Adobe Premiere Pro because it, it links really well with the Adobe Photoshop in Adobe After Effects. Um, and I don't use After Effects for every edit. I use it for like, some initial things for some lower thirds and some animated graphics and stuff like that, that I just store and have and put, you know, places when I'm editing.

Nick Clason (16:27):
Um, so I'll, I'll use it like for the first time or for the first few videos to get a a, a library of some things. But for the most part, when I'm editing, I'm just using Adobe Premier, um, pro and Adobe Photoshop. And they, they talk really well together cuz they're both in the same creative cloud. So what did I get? So in addition to my phone, I have like a ring light. Um, I, I bought a tripod, a desk tripod as well as a full standing tripod. Um, and I bought two style microphones. I bought two lapels that connect via Bluetooth. They just plug right into my phone. Um, and I bought a shotgun style microphone that plugs into like the charging port of my phone. And I'll tell you what, what I'll do is I will throw all of those links into the show notes.

Nick Clason (17:16):
Now, keep in mind they are for, um, like Android connections and so if, if you don't have one of those and you have an iPhone or whatever, there are all the same things for iPhones as well. So you can see what I got and you can then, uh, take that and, uh, adjust your recommendation toward, uh, an iPhone thing. And so that microphone, uh, is probably the best investment, I would say of all the things. It just, it has really good quality, it's really easy to use. Um, and it just makes the video sound just a little bit better and a little bit more professional using the microphone. That way it's, it's not a microphone like this, uh, like this podcast mic that I have for those of you watching, um, it plugs directly into my phone and I can shoot it right at whoever, um, is looking at my phone or at the camera.

Nick Clason (18:05):
All right, so then how do I use, uh, then how do I use that strategy for social? So when I'm editing in Adobe Premiere Pro, um, I find two spots to create just vertical video message clips. Um, I clip 'em out. I, I try to find a good hook. If the person, myself or any of our other, uh, people on our team don't have a good hook, I will have them talk for a little bit, pause and I'll fly in some text and I'll do an AI voiceover. Um, and the place that I've been using for that AI voiceover is, um, a place called V V E E V E E d.io, uh, v and also I'll drop that in the show notes as well. Um, and I, all those AI ones similar to what I was saying earlier, uh, they, they require a payment, right?

Nick Clason (18:56):
They require you, like you can get one, but then you gotta start paying if you want more than one per one per week or something like that. I can't remember. Uh, but v do IO so far has been working well, I'm gonna anticipate it one day, it's not gonna work, and I'm gonna have to pay for an AI voice generator. Um, and that's just that classic, like, that's really popular on TikTok right now. I don't know how long that will be, but for right now, that works well as a hook. So like, I might be talking pause, AI voice come in, and then it keeps, uh, and then it plays the rest of the thing and the AI voice works as a hook. And then the rest of the video in under 60 seconds hopefully delivers when you're editing an Adobe Premier Pro, you can create an in and an out by just clicking the I while you're in your sequence and an o for I in and o for out.

Nick Clason (19:44):
And then you can just render that out, um, just that little section. So in that little section, I'll chop it up real a lot. You know, like, I'll make it real quick. Jump cuts, I'll zoom in, zoom out, like for emphasis and whatnot, I'm able to add captions directly in Adobe Premier Pro, um, and, and use it that way. So, uh, that I will chop that up. I'll chop up two of those, and then I'll also do one of those videos I've talked about and, um, with just like stock motion video background in the background, um, motion video background thing with like a tweet tweet looking screenshot over top of it as, as like a quote from the message or a bottom line. And so I'll, I'll use three different sermon style clips, um, sprinkled in and woven in through our social media throughout the week.

Nick Clason (20:32):
So like, we meet on Wednesday nights. So I have one that goes live on Thursday morning from the pre-recorded YouTube video content. I have one that goes on Sunday morning. I usually do that as like the, the quote post. And then I have one that goes on Tuesday, uh, the day before next message would be preached, or our video goes live in the room on a Wednesday night. So that is my, that's how I use my social media strategy. Um, and how I weave that into our schedule. On the end of those social media videos, I use just a YouTube subscribe ender screen. And so this is probably my favorite part is because we pre-filed and have longer form, uh, YouTube messages, if someone does in a discoverability algorithm stumble across our message, it will then, uh, fade to a screen that says, watch the full message on YouTube.

Nick Clason (21:24):
I like that because I think that when there is an actual like strategy or place to push people to, if they do discover you, um, we talked about it in the vi in the u in the podcast last week that a lot of Gen Z more than more than 50% say they use short form platforms to find short form videos of things that they may want to watch longer form of later. And so, uh, I use that and say, Hey, go watch the full message over on YouTube, then go click the link link bio, you know, something like that, uh, to take them to the full message of the short clip that they just watched. And so that's one of the ways that it's not just about going viral, it's not just about vanity metrics. It's not just about getting a lot of views, but it's hopefully about taking people from an awareness of us to consuming some more messages of us or that we are able to produce.

Nick Clason (22:19):
Now, this is my favorite part because our podcast is called Hybrid Ministry, but what are ways that we use this in a hybrid style? So I say we pre-record, um, and so we do a message on Wednesday Night Live. We pre-record it, um, post it on YouTube when we meet on Sunday mornings, uh, well actually first when we meet on Wednesday nights, we provide a you version live events, uh, event on, on their phones so they can navigate and interact in you version that can take notes, they can read the, the scripture, they can follow along with the outline basically. But then at the end of it, you can push and produce some external links. So a lot of times I will link to a short, a YouTube short, um, or a long form YouTube video that relates to the topic that we're teaching with.

Nick Clason (23:07):
So that's a way that something that we're do, that someone's experiencing in the room, they can experience a hybrid relationship with us, with our social media, with our platforms, um, through that YouVersion events. The other thing that we do is on Sunday mornings, um, our students all come in for a big into the auditorium for a big look announcement time, real quick, five, 10 minutes, not, not much longer. And then we break them out into the small groups all throughout the building. Um, what we're able to do, because our Sunday morning small group ties to our Wednesday night message is now that we're pre-filing, I've been pulling a minute or two clip from the message, um, and playing it. And so like I've told you before, we have a team of three. And so oftentimes whoever is teaching on Wednesday is not the person doing announcements or, or hosting the room on Sunday morning.

Nick Clason (24:01):
Um, and so, and like yesterday, uh, my boss, he preached on Wednesday and we played his clip and he's on vacation, but he was still able to, you know, uh, tee up the morning and, and still give a moment of spiritual influence to the entire room because we're using this message, uh, that we've already, we already have in the can. We already pre-filed it, it already exists somewhere. So for those kids who don't get, don't come on Wednesday and don't get to hear him speak ever, um, it's an opportunity to to introduce them to him, to introduce him to, to introduce them to his style, for them to hear from him. Not just in giving announcements, but also in giving the actual message content. Finally, my favorite reason for not sleeping on YouTube and the added benefit of pre-filing is it gets you into your content sooner and it gives you, uh, just an opportunity to prep, um, before you're gonna take it live to your room before you're gonna stand up and preach it.

Nick Clason (25:04):
And so I think it's valuable that you're not flying in hot on a Wednesday, having, uh, just printed something from a pre-canned curriculum and then just grabbing the outline notes. I think it's good to have ingested it, digested it, um, wrestled with it, interacted with it, and so then by the time you get up there, you're more familiar with it, it's gonna probably be delivered much more naturally because you have a familiarity with your outline and with your message as opposed to just you seeing it now for the first time. And doing it this way, we've pre-filed our messages on the Thursday before they're preached. And so our people are interacting with the message, um, the whole week before they even get up and preach live. And so by the time they get up there, it's gonna be locked in, in their brains and their hearts, hopefully at a lot better level, uh, just by the forced nature of needing to be ready to pre film their YouTube content.

Nick Clason (26:05):
Well, hey everyone, I am thrilled that you stuck around to the end. Thanks so much for hanging out. Uh, if you found this helpful, please share it, rate it, drop a like, uh, all kinds of stuff. All those things help us do better indexing on YouTube in the podcast algorithms and whatever and whatnot. Uh, and so that would be greatly appreciated out of us as a token of our appreciation, we have created a couple of free resources for you. So if you head to the link in the show notes and go grab the, uh, TikTok, uh, have I ruined my TikTok account for doing that. We will also throw in our completely free social media checklist, what you need to be asking yourself every time you post to every platform. Um, but what we don't have on that one is YouTube. You know why? Because when I created it, I was sleeping on YouTube.

Nick Clason (26:53):
Don't sleep on YouTube. It's gonna be helpful, beneficial, it's the largest search engine of all the social medias that we have out there. And it is, it is worth investing in. So regardless of where your church is big, small, have a lot of money, have a lot of gear, don't like, there is a way to make it happen. So I would recommend getting in there, create it, make it hybrid. There are more ways to flush even that hybridization out. But for now, go back and listen to everything I just said for what we're doing to live and lean into a hybrid, digital, physical environment to help point our students closer to Jesus. Again, thanks so much for hanging out. Uh, follow me on, uh, TikTok, follow me on YouTube, uh, subscribe to this podcast and we will be sure to talk next time. Don't forget, stay hybrid.

How does the church shift the way it approaches ministry, not to diminsh or downplay the unchangable truths or things of Scripture, but to best set them up for relevance with Gen Z, Millenials and the next Generation of Church attenders? Listen or watch to find out!

SHOWNOTES
YouTube Trends Report: https://www.youtube.com/trends/report/
Nick on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g
Nick on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Nick's Podcast: https://www.hybridministry.xyz
Full Transcript of this Show: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/032

TIMECODES
00:00-00:54 Intro
00:54-03:27 2022 YouTube Trends Report
03:27-06:22 What does all of this mean?
06:22-11:35 The Pop Culture Formation Formula
11:35-18:07 Creating Community Creativity
18:07-23:11 Multi Format Creativity
23:11-25:18 Response Creativity
25:18-28:26 The Future Exists in Dialogue of Digital Communities
28:26-32:09 The Digital and Hybrid Implications for the church moving into 2023
32:09-34:18 Outro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything you need at http://www.hybridministry.xyz
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Hybrid Ministry Discussion on the Barna E-Book Episode: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/006

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For complete transcripts head to http://www.hybridministry.xyz
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Or YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sonicsman8/featured

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Come hang out at http://www.hybridministry.xyz
Or on TikTok http://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Or on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g

SHOWNOTES
FREE E-Book: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account Video: https://youtu.be/oxBn-p9O-eg
The Do's, Don'ts and lessons learned from launching a YouTube channel for your church in 2022: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/018
Atomic Habits: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299/ref=asc_df_0735211299/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312014159412&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8492597528919365054&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027304&hvtargid=pla-541463258824&psc=1

TIMECODES
00:00-01:31 - Intro
01:31-03:47 - What is the role of the church as a whole?
03:47-11:55 - How the Church should carry out the Great Commission
11:55-15:00 - Build Up
15:00-19:51 - Speaking Truth
19:51-21:42 - Stir Up
21:42-24:24 - 3 Short Form Video Hacks
24:24-26:24 - Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason, excited to be here with you today. And if you have not go check out the show notes or head to hybridministry.xyz I'm gonna put a link to it in here, but we just released two things, a brand new YouTube video and a brand new ebook, both which are built to help you post a TikTok from start to finish. It's titled, have I Already Ruined My TikTok Account? And the entire purpose of it is really this understanding that like social media in 2023 is moving a hundred percent towards short form video content, TikTok, Instagram reels, YouTube, short style content. And so are you prepared and equipped to post that type of content? And are you prepared and equipped? Do you know what it takes to, do that?

Nick Clason (00:57):
Um, and have you, if you've ever logged into TikTok, and if you've ever been confused and you're like, what is going on in this place, this video and this ebook are both, uh, guides to help you walk through and navigate how to post something from something that you pre-recorded, or how to, uh, record something natively in the app, how to, uh, jump on trends, how to use audio, personal, um, business accounts, all kinds of different things. And so, uh, like I said, we got the link to that for you here in the show notes. Go check that out. I hope that that's something that you find beneficial and valuable. But in, uh, today's episode, I want, I really wanted to look at what is the purpose and what is the role of social media in the local church? So if we think about it, the purpose of the church, um, I think it was given to us by Jesus.

Nick Clason (01:51):
So I don't think that that changes. I think, you know, churches all have their own mission and vision statements, but I think they all should be derived and come from, uh, the Great Commission, which we find in Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, where Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Again, this is Jesus talking. And he says, so therefore, go and make disciples. That word go is often used for like missionary conferences, like, go, go, go, go to Africa, go to Poland, to go to wherever. Right? But, but really the verb there is not go. The verb is this idea, the word go is better translated like as you are going. And so the verb, the actual verb is to make disciples. So the purpose of every church, every local, uh, church expression, every gathering, every eia, the Greek word of churches, eia, gathering and coming together, a conglomerate of people, um, that are all built and, and focusing on the same general mission, um, is to make disciples.

Nick Clason (02:58):
So as you are, are going, as you are living your life in the places where you live, learn, work and play, make disciples, help people take meaningful, significant steps towards Jesus. Um, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. He says, and then he, um, says, Baptiz them in the name of the Father, son, holy Spirit. Once they make that decision. And then finally, I will be with you always, even to the very end of the age, Jesus gives us this promise of His presence, this promise that he will not leave us nor forsake us, that he will, as we are taking steps towards him, as we are helping other people make decisions to follow him, um, that people will be, um, that, that he will choose and will be with us to the very end of the age. So that is the purpose of the church as given to us by Jesus himself.

Nick Clason (03:48):
So then if, if the purpose of the church is to go and make disciples, the avenue or the venue with which Jesus lays out for us to do that is, I believe, best to be done in and through the context of his local church. And so I think that, um, what has happened is if we look back into a little bit of church history, which this is not intended to be like a church history podcast, nor am I that well versed in that topic anyway, but the, the, we all know, if we look back to like the Book of Acts and some of the early church, like the church was much more like a family. And now I feel like in America, north America, um, because of Western influence, the church is much more operated like a corporation, less, like, less like a family. So more corporation, less family.

Nick Clason (04:44):
And so social media, um, oftentimes is the marketing arm of this corporate entity that we're all living in and experiencing. And so social media's role often is an awareness. Um, role is often a role on helping people, um, learn about, have brand recognition and awareness of the church. It's all about color schemes and guides and branding and fonts. And, and listen, like as a, as a marketer at heart, like I'm, you know, I'm a youth pastor, right? But like, I, I'm obviously interested in this topic of marketing and stuff like that. So as a marketer at heart, I don't mind those things. In fact, I actually, I appreciate them. I understand what we're doing and, you know, with those things. So with that being said, right, like what, what is the role of social media in a gathering? Is it to help, uh, draw family together, right?

Nick Clason (05:40):
If we're gonna go off the old, uh, new Testament example, um, and framework, or is it to bring brand recognition and awareness, um, the role of the church to make disciples to do that in the context of a of gathering of a family. Um, where, where do we get our basis for what church is? You know, if we look through the New Testament, there's really not a lot of examples of a church built like a business with a c e o, with a head, with a pastor, with a president, with a figure talking head. Um, it's just, that's, that's really not what we see a lot. Instead, what we do see a lot of in the New Testament, right, as we see some of these examples of one another's. Um, so I think one of the best, uh, examples of, uh, what the church can do and what the church should be and what the church should look like is, um, found in the 59 times that we see the phrase one another spelled out in the New Testament.

Nick Clason (06:34):
So for example, we have, um, the command to love one another. We have the command to honor one another from Romans 1210. We have the command to live in harmony with one another, Romans 1216 to build one another up. Romans, uh, 14 for Thessalonians five to be like-minded. Romans chapter 15, to accept one another, Romans 15 to admonish one another. Colossians three, we have care for one another, serve one another, bear one another's burdens, forgive one another, be patient with one another, speak the truth to one another, be kind and compassionate to one another. Speak with Psalms and spiritual songs. Submit to one another, consider one another, look to the interests of others, and finally, stir up, stimulate toward love and good works. And I think most of us would agree that that entire slew of list, that's not even all 59 of them, right?

Nick Clason (07:24):
But the ones that I picked out that I put there on that list, I think most of us would agree that those are best done, or at least most familiarly done and accomplished through, um, being done in person. And so, if we are going to live out the call of the church, then I think, um, you could make an argument. I think some people do, and try to make an argument that the church should be most and best expressed in the context of a family, in person, local gathering type of experience. Okay? Now, just because it's familiar doesn't mean that something different is wrong, okay? And I think if you look at, um, the New Testament, obviously, what is the majority of the New Testament, the majority of the documents right, that we have in our New Testament are letters, letters from the Apostle Paul, letters from James, letters from, uh, Luke, letters, from whoever wrote the book of Hebrews, letters from Peter, letters from John.

Nick Clason (08:33):
And what are these letters? They are written to different churches with what? With the intention to live out these one another's, to admonish one another, to speak truth to one another, to build up one another, to stir up love and good works to one another. And so if those things are the case, um, what was writing in the first century? Well, writing was the means and method to communicate from long distances. Paul was writing to these churches because he was in prison. So he did not have the option to be physically present with them. And I think in a lot of ways, like, so, okay, then like, let's play that out. So yeah, that's what, that's, that was Paul's issue. But our issue, like, we can be together. Yes, that's true, but we also don't live in this very oral, um, slow paced, you know, in the first century, there were no cars.

Nick Clason (09:22):
The main mode of transportation was most likely walking. And so a lot of the, as you are going from Matthew chapter 28, right? A lot of that was probably on the way on the road. Jesus and his disciples probably had so many conversations as they were walking to and from different places in different locations. And so when we think about it, we're like, well, we, yes, we don't have to write letters cause we're not in jail to one another, but we don't live in a culture that really allows us to be together as often as they were in the first century. And I think that we should potentially try to pursue that. I think we should try to make every effort to be living life, um, together, uh, life on life and, um, encouraging one another and moshing another and doing those things in person.

Nick Clason (10:09):
However, I think that distance is still an obstacle, is still, uh, a thing that we experience here, um, in 2023 and beyond. And so, um, the constraints of not being able to physically be together 24 hours a day, seven days a week are real, right? Like, we have jobs, we have families, we have homes, we have sports schedules, we have, um, band practices, we have, um, we have to run our kids to and from all kinds of different things and activities. We have obligations, we have PTO meetings, we have family gatherings that are obligations. We have all kinds of different things that keep us from living life on life with our faith community. And so we should be doing all of these things in person. However, I think that the hybrid side of this is there is a means and a medium that is now available to us that was also available to, um, a a similar means of method that was available in the first century.

Nick Clason (11:07):
Paul used letters. Now I think we can use digital means and digital mediums to get the message of hope across. So let's talk about living out some of these one another that we looked at, right? I want to pick in particular three and, and talk about how those can be lived out in a hybrid world, okay? Because yes, social media can be a good marketing tool, yes, social media can bring a lot of awareness to your church and help get people to your big gathering. But if we're really gonna live out the method of Jesus, which is to make disciples, and then as the New Testament lays out 59 different times to do things with and for, um, one another, okay? Let's look more at the family aspect and think about how we can, um, how we can use social media towards that end. So the first one I wanna look at is build up, build up one another.

Nick Clason (12:01):
What are ways that you can build up the people of God that call your church, um, home, that want to be a part of a, a family and a faith community? How can you encourage them? Maybe you can look down the barrel of a camera and a shotgun microphone and record one video a day, one video a week, and encourage them to keep the faith to make a difference in the world and this sphere of influence that God has placed them in their life. Maybe you can read scripture. I think I don't have this stat very well off the top of my head, but I think it's something like 8% of, um, Christians say they read the Bible on a regular basis. And most people would say that regular means one time a week. Okay? Conversely, they say that Generation Z um, spends anywhere from five to eight hours of screen time per day.

Nick Clason (12:56):
All right? And so, um, that's just one of the generations that we're dealing with. The reality is they're reading scripture once a week versus being on their phone anywhere from five to eight hours per day. What if, while they're on their phones, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook, on any of the social platforms that by the way, are now all promoting short form video content, what if you just read scripture? That's all you had to do. One of my, one of the trends, one of the, um, one of the frameworks that I used in my own ministry that gets some of the most traction is a hook like this where they open the phone and I I'm doing nothing. I'm saying nothing. And all I'm doing is pointing to text on the screen, no words for about 2, 3, 4, 5 seconds. And I'm pointing at the, at the text on the screen, which says either stay or scroll, which is just big and bold, right?

Nick Clason (13:46):
Like that's the whole point. Big, bold. And then right beneath it says, read scripture with me so they know what they're staying for, right? And once you see that, like if you're a Christian, okay, and you see stares scrolling, it says, read scripts with me, you're gonna have this like sort of guttural, visceral reaction. Like, ugh, I probably should stay and not just go onto the next dance video or sports video or whatever other video's gonna be behind it, right? And then just read a verse, one verse and then just riff on it for the remaining 30 seconds that you probably have left. You know, what does it mean? You could, um, promote other spiritual practice. You could help them get into practice of meditating, memorizing scripture, prayer, um, maybe even accountability. Hey, text a friend that you haven't texted in a while, like, do this one another text a friend from your small group who you know, needs encouragement. That's a way to help, uh, through another person, encourage a person in your local body. Um, you could also just deliver some wise words, um, some, some words that come from scripture, some words that come from a wise mentor pastor, somebody who has some age and life experience, but that's just an ex. Those are just a few examples to kinda get your wheels turning of how social media and short form video can be used to help build up the elicia, the gathering, the family of Jesus.

Nick Clason (15:01):
What about speaking truth? Um, obviously you can use sermon clips and we have talked about that ad nauseum, but it's still a worthwhile thing to talk about. If you are live streaming your service, grab a clip of your pastor, cut it down, get it into a 16 by nine framework, put in some sort of hook. If he doesn't have a good hook, use like the voiceover feature or some like big text on screen thing, be like how to navigate conflict. And then boom, cut to the pastor talking, right? If you do not have the technology available to you to, uh, do a sermon clip, um, we've talked in the past, and you can go back to the ultimate YouTube framework. I will, um, put that link here in the show notes. Um, but you can, um, pre-record your messages and you can make that be, um, a thing that you then pull clips from and, uh, give just different quotes.

Nick Clason (15:47):
Uh, 62nd inspirational things from the sermon content. Here's the thing, I'm a pastor, okay? A youth pastor, but a pastor nonetheless. And, um, I, I put a lot of prep into my weekly content that I deliver one time a week to a room full of people, and after that, it goes to die somewhere on my hard drive. But being able to then repurpose this out of your communications department or your digital strategy people, or even if you, it's you the pastor, take your content and put it back out there into the world that you have spent so much time preparing, that's a way to help, um, speak the truth with one another, to the people in your church to remind them of what they heard on the weekend. Maybe they weren't there. Maybe this is a, a primer, a teaser of what the appetite for them to hear a clip of the sermon.

Nick Clason (16:29):
Then they're like, you know what? Maybe I should go listen to that whole thing. Which leads me to the point that if you are, you should have a place for them to go listen to the whole thing, uh, either in full audio form or on a YouTube channel. Again, whether that's your live stream or that's a pre-recorded thing that you are doing, and then posting. Some other examples of speaking truth are sermon quotes, right? You can take just a quote from your pastor sermon and you can create a video out of it, even if it's just like a video of a drone flying over a mountain and then the pastor's quote flies in or a a tweet screenshot or something with some nice music behind it. Um, you can do adjacent type content from the sermon, right? So this month, for example, in our student ministry, we're talking about the, um, sermon series of habits.

Nick Clason (17:13):
Okay? So it's the habit of living in community, the habit of, um, bible reading, prayer, and then accountability. Okay? But what I'm gonna do on social media, and you can go check this out if you want, at our, um, our TikTok, um, it is at Cross Creek Students on Instagram, YouTube, and hopefully TikTok here soon. If you can't find it on TikTok, you might try at first. Colville students, we just changed our name and here's a quick story for you. We just changed our name and I, uh, I secured the handle at Cross Creek students on TikTok, and it said that it has, it has 30 days, um, to totally deactivate your account. So I deactivated and deleted the Cross Creek students account so that I could go from my first Colville account and change it to Cross Creek students, um, because I held it up until the 30 day period.

Nick Clason (18:01):
Um, but I have not been able to switch it over. So everything is Cross Creek students, the new logo, the name, um, and all the other handles are, but that handle specifically is still at first Colville students. I'm looking every single day this week to see if I can change it. If not, I may have to change it to something like first, uh, cross Creek students one. Um, but then once I do that, I have to wait another 30 days before I can make another change. And so I don't know when or if that, um, at Cross Creek students handle will become available. So I don't wanna lock in something temporary and then that handle becomes available, but I'm stuck, you know, for another 30 days. So anyway, um, welcome to the life of someone who's, um, working with these companies, by the way, their support not helpful.

Nick Clason (18:45):
So anyway, um, but the adjacent content that I have written on habits is, um, I just got done reading the book, atomic Habits by James Clear, phenomenal book. Definitely recommend it. I'll put the link to that in the show notes as well. Um, but I am going to share just some, some habit building, um, tips and frameworks, um, general habit building tips. And so that's adjacent content. We're talking about these four disciplines of community prayer, scripture, reading and accountability. And then over here on our social media, we're gonna talk about how habits are built, informed, make 'em easy, make 'em attractive, how to break bad habits, make 'em invisible, make 'em difficult, make 'em, um, something that you don't desire, right? And those two things go together. But this one is a little bit, um, more psychological, not as spiritual necessarily. And this one over here is spiritual. But if you take some of these principles from the Atomic Habits book and some of the other habit building things, you can apply them over to the spiritual habits. Okay? Um, another idea that you can have in speaking the truth is just like a hook. Like, Hey, here's what the Bible has to say about blank. It's a great hook. You're gonna get people start your video off strong.

Nick Clason (19:53):
All right? The third and final one, another I wanna look at is how can we stir up one another? How do we stir up one another toward love and good deeds? Um, you could give them a challenge to think about this. This is what scripture has to say about that. Um, what about, um, toward good deed, you could give them, give them challenges. You could ask 'em to pass along something maybe on like in like a Facebook group, like post a picture of you paying it forward and you do that whole thing at Starbucks line repay for the person behind you, or whatever the case may be. Um, but that just gives a little bit of social proof and a little bit of like camaraderie, like, Hey, we're all in this thing together. And, and better yet, right? Like, you can try to do all that and facilitate all that through social media, but if you can get your pastor from the stage to push that and say, Hey, this week we're all gonna pay it forward.

Nick Clason (20:40):
And then on social media, you're, you're posting, Hey, post a picture of you paying it forward, or, you know, something like, like that. Um, or you get a little, a TikTok video of, of you paying it forward. You have someone just in the passenger seat taking a video of you doing it or someone in your church doing it. And, and you can find a way to grab that and curate that and have them send it to you. Then you can post that and celebrate that. Remember what gets celebrated gets repeated. And so if these are some of the things that you want to do in your church, uh, capture that on video and sell, get that out and celebrate that. Again, we're in this unique time where all the four major players in social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, are all in right now, all in on short form video content.

Nick Clason (21:22):
And so for the first time ever, you do not have to create custom content for all four of those things. You can create one video that works for all four, and I have the, the framework to help you create that, post that and repurpose that to those different platforms. Again, Lincoln Bio, how you can get that free ebook or the YouTube video, check that out. Let me give you, um, three short form video hacks that, um, were noticing for 2023 as we're moving ahead. So hack number one is SEO does matter. If you look at TikTok now, especially, they are trying to use it more like a search engine. So just like YouTube was very much like how to this, how to, that. Now TikTok is moving that direction. So think about your videos that way. And so be using things like captions on screen, be using things like, um, hashtags, and then also be thinking about the actual caption that you are writing as you're getting ready to post your, um, your TikTok.

Nick Clason (22:20):
So try to think of search engine type optimization type of words. Another short form video hack you want is you wanna have a good hook, something that's going to stop the scroll. That's why that stay or scroll thing that I explained earlier is such a good hook because it's literally asking people to stay instead of scroll, which is the main behavior that people are doing when they're on social media, especially in a short form video place like reels or shorts or on TikTok. And then finally, um, use cross platform posting, like I said. So go to YouTube shorts. I just started doing that on our own account. Go to reels for both, um, Facebook and Instagram. And then you can duplicate and do dual purposes through your Facebook and Instagram feeds, right? So like, um, your feeds will help, um, if you, if you like, on reels, if you also post a reel to the feed that's going to go out mostly to your church members, to your eia, um, or into your stories, right?

Nick Clason (23:17):
That's another place that's gonna go mostly to your members. If it's on just reels, that's more of a discoverability. So how having people outside your church find you and see you and engage in spiritual practice with you. And so you can, for, again, you can do dual purposes. You can encourage admonish, build up, stir up, um, speak truth to the people in your church, and also offer some of those spiritual guided practices to some people who may not be inside your, your church. It's a unique and amazing opportunity that we have right now as people in 2023 to use the tools, to use the, the means, mediums, and methods of the day to help share the message of hope, to share the gospel with the people of the world, the people in your church, to encourage one another, to build one another up, and to help make them more like Jesus.

Nick Clason (24:09):
So use it. Be a social media user. Don't let it get you. Don't let it suck your soul dry, but use it to share the message of hope of Jesus because he has changed your life and you wanna share that with other people. Hey, thanks again so much for hanging out on this episode. I hope that you found it helpful if you did share it or leave a rating or a review. Both of those things are going to be phenomenally helpful in our indexing and helping get this message out to other people who are, uh, social media managers, church communications specialists, and their churches. Um, we just really want to be a resource to the local church. Um, I believe that the local church is God's Plan A for reaching the world. And so in every way, in everything I can, I wanna just help, um, the, help those people and help, uh, God's people get this message out there to them.

Nick Clason (24:59):
Um, also head to hybridministry.xyz. Um, you can grab that copy of that free ebook link is in the description or on the website there. Um, and, uh, come hang out with me personally on my TikTok. It's @clasonnick, um, c l a s o n n i c K. Um, I'm posting Little Clips, um, from this podcast to my own personal TikTok and I also just try to have some fun on there posting some football content and other fun things that interest me. So just fun place to hang out. Um, and then I also got my YouTube channel, which, um, is gonna be a little hit or miss admittedly. Um, but that is where that, how to post to a TikTok video is going to live. So you can go check that out. That's something that interests you, and we will talk to you all next time. Keep it hybrid people.

SHOWNOTES
FREE EBook "Have I already Ruined my TikTok account?" https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
Check out the YouTube Video for that:
https://youtu.be/oxBn-p9O-eg
Follow Josh on TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@mr_chasteen101
Follow Nick on TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
For All things Hybrid Ministry
http://www.hybridministry.xyz

TIMECODES
00:00-02:23 Intro
02:23-09:44 How it all Started with Mr Chasteen
09:44-15:00 The TikTok that changed everything
15:00-18:03 What do your family members think of all this craziness?
18:03-22:04 How does TikTok allow you to connect with students for ministry and relationships?
22:04-26:35 The death of curation and content
26:35-27:55 What's the funniest or most fun you've had on TikTok?
27:55-29:47 As a teacher, what's one piece of advice you'd give to pastors or ministry leaders?
29:47-31:26 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
What is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. I'm your host, Nick Clason. And hey, if you have not already, make sure that you jump into the show notes or head to http://www.hybridministry.xyz to grab your free ebook for how to know if you have already ruined your TikTok account. It is your guide, complete guide from start to finish on how to post a TikTok and how to start flooding your social media with this short form of vertical video content. Short form, vertical video content is here to stay. It is the trend for 2023, and it gives churches and ministries and pastors a significant advantage because you are already creating content within the normal rhythm and scope of your week. So repurpose some of that content. Use it on social media. Literally every single platform, TikTok, Instagram reels, Facebook and YouTube has introduced shorts.

Nick Clason (01:09):
They're all out there begging for this type of content to be on their platform, so don't miss that opportunity. I know specifically in my own context, we just started posting to YouTube shorts and just about every single video has over a thousand views. I think. Not a lot of people are out there using that platform. So we already have like 17, 18 subscribers from posting for four days so far. So it's a pretty unprecedented time. Every platform is in a little bit of a different place in their life cycle. Um, and so go grab that ebook so that you have the resources that you need to make that happen. In today's show, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to introduce you to someone who got on TikTok early, um, and had a, uh, uh, TikTok go completely bonkers viral. He has a crazy story to tell you. It's my friend, uh, Josh Chasteen. Him and I are actually friends from college. He was in my wedding, I was in his wedding. Um, but you may have actually seen him on TikTok if you're on there at all. He's a teacher, he does all kinds of fun teacher type stuff. So I'm excited to bring you this interview and conversation today with my friend Josh. Well, I'm here. Josh. Josh, thanks so much for joining me. How you doing today, bro?

Josh Chasteen (02:30):
Doing good, man. Just got done with basketball practice and, uh, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Nick Clason (02:36):
Yeah, yeah, man. So glad to have you. Good to reconnect too. Um, you know it, I was just talking to you offline for a second about how we, uh, or how I was making this, this ebook, um, and I logged on to grab a screenshot and it was your, like, one of your tos that popped up, and as soon as I saw that I was like, oh, yeah, Josh has this incredible TikTok story. So would you mind just walking us through what happened to you? It was about a year ago at this time, or maybe a little longer. Like what happened? How did it go viral? Like all this crazy stuff, like let us know.

Josh Chasteen (03:11):
Yeah. Well, things really got crazy a year ago, but it actually like dates back to 2019. So like fall of 2019, um, I hear about TikTok sounds fun, people doing dances. I'd never seen it. And so, um, I'm a junior high health teacher. I had six classes throughout the day. And so what I did like, and I just kinda like to do this random stuff where I kind of talk to kids about what's going on before we actually get into like, you know, stuff we're supposed to be doing in class. And so mm-hmm. , I was like, I spent the first five minutes of every bell like just asking them like, Hey, tell me about this TikTok app, you know? And so we're like talking through it. Every bells kind of telling me a little bit about what it is. And, um, so by the end of the day, you know, the kids were kinda like, you should get a TikTok.

Josh Chasteen (03:56):
And so we kind of came up with this plan, like, okay, well how about like, what if every Tuesday I did like TikTok Tuesday, where um, I either do a TikTok with like a group of students or another teacher or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, that's awesome. And so it was like, okay, whatever, you know, day or two goes by. And I'm like, I don't really think about it again. But there was like these, um, two girls that would like come by every day during lunch and they'd be like, Hey, you ready to start your TikTok? We'll help you do it. like, no, go away. I don't wanna do this right now. . And then they just kept coming back and finally I was like, okay, come here. Let's, let's do this. So they downloaded the app on my phone. I'd still never seen a TikTok at this point.

Josh Chasteen (04:32):
Um, and they're like, okay, well let's film one. I'm like, well, what do you do? They're like, well, I don't know, like, what's your favorite song? I'm like, uh, I mean, yeah, by Usher, you know, that's like the ultimate hype song . And so they're like, okay. So they're like, all right, we're just gonna film you doing, I teach health. So they're like, we're just gonna film you doing like the day in life of like a health teacher just do like whatever. So we're doing this like off the wall stuff and we're putting it to Usher Usher's. Yeah. And so they post it. I'm like, okay, cool. Well, everybody, like throughout school that day is just going insane. They're like, Hey, we saw your TikTok, saw you on TikTok. And um, you know, like, so I have had, you know, thousands of students throughout the year mm-hmm. .

Josh Chasteen (05:14):
And so at this time, this is 2019, there's no teachers on TikTok, you know, I'm like the pioneer of teacher TikTok apparently. Yeah. So there's no teachers on there. So like, first of all, like all the students in the school district, you know, like we have about 450 kids per grade. So all the kids at the junior high and the high school, you know, are getting on this. And so it's got a couple thousand views and they're like, you have, TikTok has a couple thousand views. I'm like, is that a lot? Like, I don't really know . And they're like, you have like a thousand followers. I'm like, once again, is that a lot? That doesn't seem like a lot to me. They're like, no, you, that really is. So I'm like, guy,

Nick Clason (05:45):
And this is from that very first one. This

Josh Chasteen (05:47):
Is just the first one. It was like that first day, you know? So I was like, okay. So I like went home that day or maybe the next day and I'm like, let's see what talk's about, I had never even opened it myself. So I'm just like scrolling through and I'm hooked. Like TikTok is like the most addicting thing ever. You can just get stuck like scrolling and it's never ending. And so this is me, I'm just watching this stuff and I'm like, this is pretty funny. And I'm like, I, I think I could like put some of this, these like trending things. I keep seeing these common things, which I'm like, oh, this is like a trend. I'm like, I could put like a teacher spin to this. So I did a couple of those and it was probably like my, I don't know, third or fourth one, um, that like really like blew up.

Josh Chasteen (06:27):
Like I just, they kept getting bigger and I'm getting thousands and thousands of views. Um, there was one that I did about like getting out of a te like canceling a test. And that one got, you know, I don't know how many views it got. It wasn't quite a million, but then I did one that was like, when your principal catches you making tos and it was like me and these two students, we were just filming it and it was like us doing like this at the time, you know, it was like this TikTok, you know, this was like the thing. So we were doing it and then like I stopped it and then I wanted the next clip to be like when this beat dropped like my principal looking at us through the window, like the classroom window. And so my principal, he's very stoic, like just looks like he's always angry, you know?

Josh Chasteen (07:12):
And so he had just come out from bus studios. The end of the day I'm like, I gotta get this like second shot of him looking in the window through my classroom door. And he did not seem like he was in the mood, but I was like, Hey, can I bother you for a second? I just want you to look through the window. I'm just gonna film it and then I just want you to give me your normal face. All you gotta do is look through the window. So he does it. And then, uh, it's great. I post it. The thing went insane. Like it had 50,000 views within like the first two hours. I'm getting all these followers. And uh, people thought it was hilarious. Um, and so it was like crazy. It was like really messing with my mind, you know? Cause I'm like, oh my gosh, I've got all this pressure now I've got this video with a million views.

Josh Chasteen (07:51):
I don't even know how to work the app. Like I still have like students filming it for me. Um, and so I'm like, you know what? I remember waking up one Saturday morning. I'm like, this is too much. It's stressing me out cuz now I have this pressure, like I gotta film more stuff. Um, but the kids were obviously loving it and I just, I'm like, I woke up in the morning, I'm like, I'm not doing this anymore. And I get on Instagram and Instagram I had it set up where if you get messages from people that you don't know, it doesn't like notify me. But I like just saw that I had all these messages and I open up Instagram and it's like, bars, stool sports. We wanna partner with you, we want a licensing deal with this. And it was like all these other random companies that were reaching out to me and I was like, what in the heck?

Josh Chasteen (08:32):
This is insane. And so so they found your TikTok and went and and messaged you on Instagram? Yeah, they were messaging me on, uh, on Instagram. Yeah. Cause my Instagram was connected with it. And so I was like, well I don't know, maybe I can keep this going for a little bit, you know? And, uh, . So I, I don't know, I just kept posting stuff and um, would kind of like see what the common trends were and put a, a teacher spin on it. And um, so I signed like a licensing deal on a couple different tos where it was like, and that kind of gave me more notoriety. Like Barsol, Barsol Sports had one where I canceled a test and it was like they had all the rights to it and there was like no money in it, but it was like it was on their Snapchat and all this stuff.

Josh Chasteen (09:12):
And so it just like started blown up. So I got to like 50,000 followers Yeah. On TikTok. And then Covid Hits and all these other teachers get on TikTok now the market's saturated. Mm-hmm. , I got nothing to film cuz I'm not in school. I don't have my students there giving me ideas and filming for me. And I don't want my wife to be like, you know, Hey will you film this? She doesn't wanna sit there and be like, you know, so you know Andy, so she's like not super into it. So like I kind of went like stagnant there for a while and I don't know, we get back into school in 2020 and I'm like posting some stuff here and there, but it's just kind of like a rough year. Um, you know, cuz it's like we're wearing masks and we're doing different things and the kids were kind of down.

Josh Chasteen (09:55):
And so we were behind cuz we had like been shut down periodically at random dates. So we were like not on schedule. So we had this like test that we were gonna take. It's the hardest test of the year. There was no way my kids were gonna be ready for it. I was not gonna give 'em the test, but I was like trying to make 'em sweat it a little bit. I was like, well maybe I gotta like post something on TikTok. If a pro sports team comments, it'll get you guys out of the test. Like I said, I was not giving it to him, but I had 50,000 followers. I was confident one pro sports team would comment. So, um, I'm like, Hey, let's do this. You know, whatever. Well it's like Tuesday of the week of break the bell rings to go from homeroom to First Bell.

Josh Chasteen (10:30):
I'm like, oh crap, I forgot I was going to, um, post this TikTok, I gotta do it today if I'm gonna do it. So I like pull out my phone in between the bells, put it up there, put jingle bells to it. It's an eight second video. It's just me looking at the camera. I don't say anything. I post the little caption. If a pro sports team comments, then I'll let my students get out of the test. Posted it by fourth Bell. The Detroit Lions had commented, so everybody was rejoicing. I'm like, phew, I don't have to like find another reason to get 'em out of the test . And then by the end of the day, like, you know, I think it'd gotten up to like a million views. Um, the Dallas Mavericks had commented the Seattle Mariners, whatever it was cool. Well, the Lions thing, like were te they were terrible last year, which shout out to the Detroit Lions.

Josh Chasteen (11:14):
They're in playoff contention. They're doing awesome. Dan Camp was doing great , but um, they really got the algorithm going. I think this is really, really sparked it. All of this was like timing things. Mm-hmm. . Um, I posted another TikTok like right around that time, um, about, um, like it's one that I post every December about how kids put off like doing homework until the end of a semester. So I posted that one right after I posted this one. And so they were kind of like working with each other. Um, but the one about getting out of a test, um, the lions were the first to comment. And so that was the one that was at, at the top. And so everybody's just bashing the lions, like he said, a pro sports team, not you guys. The lions suck, you know? So the lions are just getting absolutely obliterated in the comment section because it's like a pro sports team, not the Detroit Lions, but that like sparked the algorithm I'm confident of.

Josh Chasteen (12:08):
Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I mean, and so we're talking millions and millions of views and so now it's popping up on all these other like professional sports teams pages and they're commenting. And I remember being, it was like probably the next night I was at a friend's house. We had a little get together like for Christmas mm-hmm. and uh, I'm like pulling this up. I'm like, whoa, pizza hu commented. I'm like, the NFL just commented. ESPN just commented. I'm like going nuts. And everybody's like, what? You know, we don't know about TikTok. I'm like, this is insane. Everybody's commenting. And so it was up to like 44 million views or whatever like by the weekend. Um, and then it was like everything I was posting was like gold. Like these kids were like, it was the last daybreak. They're like, Hey, can we post a TikTok with you?

Josh Chasteen (12:45):
I'm like, the bell's gonna ring in two minutes. Okay, let's do this and we'll put it to a trending sound. 11 million views. Yeah. Like it was just, everything I was posting was insane. And so it became a whirlwind, like all these local news stations are like interviewing me. ESPN, a producer at ESPN interviewed me is like, we wanna have you live on Sports Center on Saturday. I'm like, is this legit? Like, this doesn't seem real. Um, I get, and I felt like it was just for the dumbest thing. It was an eight second video with me not talking. And so, you know, the Detroit Lions had me up to a game. I was on the field, um, during the Lions Packers game. It was funny. I'm on the field and they're like, Hey, uh, go out in between the quarter, stand in the end zone.

Josh Chasteen (13:24):
We're gonna get a picture of you in the end zone. And um, the Detroit, like their comment was roll out the TV cart. And so I filmed another TikTok where I'm rolling out this big 80 inch tv cuz I'm like, I wanna like let people know the kids got out of a test. The lions commented, let's make a video in response to that about the TV cart. So I emailed all the teachers in the school. I'm like, does anybody have a TV cart? Like one of those old school one, nobody had one except our STEM teacher had an 80 inch flat screen tv. I'm like, this will work. Well, I rolled that out and that blew things up too because people are like, that's a TV cart nowadays, like that 80 inch flat screen. And so, and you're like, no, not really. We don't even have beef .

Josh Chasteen (14:03):
Yeah. So they, uh, they had me up to a game. And so anyway, uh, they had me out on the field in between quarters and um, they said they just wanted to take a picture while they like had me up on the jumbotron, they showed the ESPN clip, they rolled out an old school TV cart like the lions mascot did. And they like gave me like a thousand dollars check, you know? So I'm like, oh my gosh, this is insane. So it was crazy. Like all of these things that happened, like Papa John's is like, we wanna sponsor a pizza party for your students. Pizza Hut sponsored a pizza party for like, my staff. Um, like Instacart just sent like a ton of snacks for all of our students. Like, I mean, it was insane. All of these like little partnerships and all these brands were getting involved and yeah. Uh, I think like 150 to 200 different like brands or, you know, verified creators commented and, you know, even like Luke Combs and Paul Abdul and all these people got involved. So it was insane.

Nick Clason (15:00):
Yeah, man. Yeah. Well I think like, there's a lot in there, but, uh, like you saying you got on in 2019 when it was like the wild, wild West and it was like, yeah, you could go viral in a second. Like, now, one of the disadvantages I would say of TikTok is a, it's becoming a much more saturated market. 2020 pushed a lot of people to it. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so now like you really do have to like, put in a lot of work, you know, to grow, um, on TikTok. And so, you know, whoever's listening, whatever, like you still do it. Um, but every, every social media is going that direction. And it's actually interesting cuz YouTube is trying to replicate it. And I just looked at our YouTube analytics. Today's, I'm recording this on January 2nd. I started posting yesterday. Our church just changed their name yesterday.

Nick Clason (15:48):
So I've been holding off on YouTube to, to align it up with the name change. And so I just started posting shorts and the first three all went up over a thousand. Wow. Um, and I think, so it's like every, every social media is like going all in on these like short form things. But, you know, TikTok is, it, it takes work now. And so you say all that. Um, I'm just curious like what , you know, I know your wife, but people listening don't, like, what's, what's your wife thinking through all of this? Like, is she like rolling her eyes? Like you, this is ridiculous that you're getting all this notoriety? Or does she think it's fun? Like what's the, what's her sort of like, uh, take on the whole thing?

Josh Chasteen (16:26):
Yeah, probably a combination of both. I mean, I think that is fun. Like everywhere we go, you know, people would say something to her. She had friends from California that are messaging her like, this is crazy. Like, I know somebody famous now and she's like, well, you don't know anybody famous. You know me, who's like married to this guy. And you know, anywhere we went, like, we would go out to eat at Red Robin and the hostess is like, Hey, I see you on TikTok. You know, people were always coming up and it was like really just kind of like celebrity status and, um, the thing that she didn't love. So I remember one night we're eating dinner. This is like the week that everything's getting crazy. There's a ring on the doorbell, it's, I don't know, probably seven o'clock at night. And then she comes in, she's like, Hey, um, Fox News is outside. I was like, what? I was like, I'm in my pajamas, like eating dinner.

Nick Clason (17:12):
How did they

Josh Chasteen (17:13):
Even fighting me? I, that's a great question. And I'm like, are you serious? And I like, go up and there's this dude out there in a suit. I was like, Hey. He's like, Hey, we're running this story tonight. Like, uh, that's awesome. Is it cool if we like interview you? I'm like, well, can I like go throw on some pants and like ? It was just insane. And so she was like bothered by that. Like, now these people are coming to our house. And um, so actually the public relations lady in our school district actually like, took on a lot of the stuff for me. She's like, I will field all these calls and stuff for you. I was like, okay, cool, thank you. Nice, nice. So, um, yeah, but it was, that was pretty funny and I don't know, I mean, it's died down. Like I think that Yeah, yeah. Uh, you know, but in that time it was just a little chaotic, uh, in . I don't know. I think she likes it, but at the same time she's just like, Hey, I'm my own person too, you know?

Nick Clason (18:02):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, yeah. I'm not just your wife. Yeah.

Josh Chasteen (18:05):
And

Nick Clason (18:05):
Exactly the other celebrity guy's wife. Yeah. I get that. So, shifting gears a little bit, Josh, like w I remember when you, because like, so I'm in ministry and you're a believer, like you, you love and follow Jesus. And I mean, I was youth pastor and you were one of my volunteers at the first church I worked at. And so, um, but, but even before I, I worked there. I remember when we were in college together, you told me, um, you felt called to like ministry or called to like reach in the next generation. Um, but you told me like I w I feel called to do this in the avenue of like, education through being a teacher because just the amount of exposure and the, the sheer volume and number of students that I'm gonna have an opportunity to reach is greater than just an average like youth pastor. And I just remember you saying that. And so as, as I'm thinking about this from a connecting with students standpoint, talk a little bit about how your TikTok account and presence has allowed you to, um, connect with different students, um, make relational inroads and stuff like that.

Josh Chasteen (19:14):
Yeah. Uh, there's a lot of things there. I mean, I guess the first thing I would say is like, you know, TikTok is not this like, you know, magic potion. If you just get on TikTok, you're gonna have all the students that are, you know? Yeah. So I mean, my big thing is building relationships. Like, um, one of the things, you know, you and I both know Doug Franklin, uh, well mm-hmm. , one of the things he said a couple years ago that I never forget is like, if you want to connect with any student, talk to them about their favorite topic in every student has the same favorite topic. Do you know what it is? Themselves.

Josh Chasteen (19:47):
Themselves. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, I love just like talking to students and like getting to know, Hey, what'd you, this is what I do every class bell. Like, or every, like Monday I spend the first couple minutes of every Monday's class, Hey, what'd you guys do this weekend? Somebody raise your hand. Tell me what you did on Friday. Yeah. What are you guys doing this weekend? You know? And then like gathering information and then it's like I get to know students and then talking about that, Hey, you're really into this. How's this been going? How's that? And like the kids, like, now that I've been in this for a while, like really remember that mm-hmm. and it's like, um, you know, I get letters and stuff written back and things where it's like, you know, you really like cared about every student. And it's just like, I don't know that I really went above and beyond other than just like getting to know them.

Josh Chasteen (20:29):
And I think that like in my field, in, in any field, even youth ministry, it's easy to like, Hey, here's the tasks I have to do. I have to do this, this, this, this. Mm-hmm. . And we miss like, the whole relational aspect in it. And it's really about like people and like loving people and getting to know them. And so, um, so first of all, I think that that's like a strong suit of mine is just being able to connect with kids. The TikTok thing has helped, but I could see how it could also hinder, there's this word out there that kids use cringe. Okay. So , you, uh, there's this tough balance where it's like, yeah, I want to put stuff out there that's funny, but I don't want to be cringey. And it's really hard. Yeah. Um, so like, that's why I'm like, you gotta be yourself.

Josh Chasteen (21:12):
Like, that's the main thing. Like when I try to do, like, see things that are funny that other people do and I do it, it comes across as cringey. So like, you have to be authentic. Like if you're funny, be funny. If you're not funny, don't try to be funny, you know? I don't know. That's good. So, um, there's that. And I think that, uh, for the most part I've stayed out of it. And the ones, the videos that have done really well are like, where I'm like just looking at a camera and I have a caption that's like trying to get people to respond to stuff. Mm-hmm. or like, I am being like overly nerdy where it's like, I'm not trying to be cool, I'm just Yeah. Being stupid. And that's like the point of the video. Yeah. So, um, you know, I don't know, I'm trying to remember like what your original question was. Like how do you use TikTok to reach more people? Um, you know, I think that, I don't think it's like the number one thing, but I think it's supplemental to like what's already being done. Mm-hmm. .

Nick Clason (22:04):
No, that's good. I mean, like, really the whole premise of, of this podcast for me is like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of like, digital opportunities for us, you know? Um, and I think that at least some of the ministries I've been in, especially where I came from, like, uh, I, when I moved there, COVID was happening mm-hmm. immediately. And so as we were kind of finding our way out of it, we had pivoted pretty hard into a really like, big, like, digital strategy. And so as, as things were starting to sort of settle down, things were starting to come back, there was this really big argument between like in person or digital and it was pivoted against itself. Like it's either all in person or it's either all digital. And I just think that there's, there's more nuance to it, and it, that's where the idea of this hybrid comes in because you're a real teacher with real human students and real human relationships.

Nick Clason (22:56):
So you have that already going. And I think most people listening to this, if you're a ministry leader of some sort, like you're gonna have that with your students or your congregation or whatever, but you can still kind of show up, um, and use some of these other tools to, to be present, you know? And yeah. And you're, as a teacher, it's, it's different than, you know, like someone who's in in ministry. Cause you're trying to like, actually like share the message of Jesus and stuff like that. You're probably gonna get in trouble for things like that, you know, but, but because you, uh, have that kind of presence, I think it probably, like you said, as fun, you got students who are like, let's do this thing. Like let's download it. And I know I've had experiences where, like I post a lot of the tos on my ministry account, but I'll have, I'll have students who are like, we need to do this trend.

Nick Clason (23:42):
And I'm like, all right, do like, let's do it right now. Like, let's make it happen. Um, and I told them, I remember last year I told them I thought it was stupid and I told 'em all the reasons why it wasn't gonna work, but then by that night they're both like, screenshotting me, like our account. They're like, this is the number one video on our TikTok account because like, they just know better than I'm going to know. You know? Like, yeah. And so that's, I think that's another principle too in your story is like lean into what, like the knowledge that students have, like use them, get them on screen if it, if you're like, allowed to insurance wise and whatever and whatnot. And so, um, that's just, that's sort of the, the thing I love about, like your story is that you are doing this in a mini, like, not ministry, not for ministry, right. But like, it helps sort of aid in their relationships and stuff that, that are going on, um, with you being a teacher, people seeing you, you know, when they're on the bus or at home or, you know, whatever the case might be. Yeah. So

Josh Chasteen (24:41):
It's pretty cool. And I would say too, like, you know, you talked about how it like takes some work and stuff like that. I kind of prided myself on like, I'm not putting a lot of effort into this. Like yeah, I don't own a ring light, I have no editing apps. Um, yeah, I filmed everything on an iPhone seven up until like, the one went insane last year. And then like my camera kind of went out and I actually, I did my e s ESPN interview on FaceTime on my iPhone seven. Uh, but I made a little bit of money, so I'm like, all right, I'll buy a new phone, put it into this. So up until then, I mean, I, I, and even still I, um, don't really have a lot of this stuff, but all that to say is there was like a brief moment, like when I officially blew up, or like first initially is what I meant to say initially blew up that I was like, okay, I gotta keep trying to pump out content and do all this stuff. And it was like, those videos always did really poorly when I tried really hard mm-hmm. . But it's like, when I'm just me and doing things that I love and make videos that are fun to me to make, then those are usually the ones that do well. I think it translates.

Nick Clason (25:40):
No, that's, that's really good feedback too, right? Like, you have almo like to whoever's listening, you have all the tools probably already in your pocket. You don't have to go get a bunch of gear, you don't have to go learn a bunch of new skills. And it, as TikTok has gotten bigger, like there, it has more and more power now too. You know, you can edit more, you can add more effects, you can do all sort of stuff. And so you don't have to get crazy. And that's, that's a thing. I think social media's really just like leveling the playing field. It's like, Hey, everything's about video. You can post, hold up a video and talk directly into it. Do a funny thing, do a trend, and boom, all of a sudden like you're, you're there. Like, you don't have to learn a new skill.

Nick Clason (26:19):
You don't have to go to school for graphic design. You know, I even, I even think about when you and I went to college together, I wonder how many of those people that have like, video degrees or graphic design degrees, like how much of that's like obsolete now, you know, because Right. So many, so many tools are out there. So, alright. So last thing just real fast, like what's the funniest, uh, TikTok or what's like the one that you're like the most proud of or one that you're like, this was, this was the most fun for me to do, or most fun for me to film? Or funniest trend or what's, what's such like one TikTok that you've done that you're like, this is my favorite and here's why.

Josh Chasteen (26:55):
Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think , I don't know, there's so many. Um, it's usually the ones where I get a lot of people involved. Like, so there was one that we did where it was like, um, I don't even remember what the song is, but it's like you show like somebody's yearbook picture and then you show them now mm-hmm. . And so we did one of those with, um, our staff, like maybe that was last year. Like our teaching staff probably like six or seven teachers. Uh, some of my good friends. And so it was like I had 'em bring in their yearbook, I'd show their picture and then I'd show them now. And so, but it's just like fun because it's like the more people that are involved, the more fun it is. Yeah. And so it's kind of one of those, I'm like, I don't even care if this like, ends up being like viral or whatever. Yeah. It's like I had fun making it and actually that one did pretty well cuz I think it got like half a million views or something like that. But, um, so I don't know what, yeah. Like I said, the ones where I'm involving a lot more are usually the better.

Nick Clason (27:53):
Yeah. That's fun. All right, last thing, um, I didn't prep you for this, so, so sorry. But as, as a teacher, um, and someone who interacts with the next generation every single day, what's one thing that you wish, like pastors churches or youth pastors knew about teenagers or about the next generation? Like what's just one thing you're like, Hey, I wish you all knew this, or I wish you'd stop doing this, or I wish, like, I wish you knew this about what I see from my unique perspective as someone not in like a church or ministry related field.

Josh Chasteen (28:25):
Yeah, I think that, uh, this generation like is pretty good at like telling when people are being real and when people aren't mm-hmm. mm-hmm. . So I think, you know, just, uh, be real. Um, but also I would say, you know, I kinda already mentioned this earlier, like put a big emphasis on getting to know students because there's just a lot of hurt. Like, it's just amazing to me the amount of hurt that's out there. Like a lot of like, just junk that kids are going through. They're going through things that I've never could even imagine going through, but you don't know that on the surface. And so it's kind of like really, um, building those bridges and like tearing down walls, like getting to know them, um mm-hmm. where like some of this stuff starts coming out and then, I don't know, there, there's so many kids out there that just need like a trusting, caring adult in their life. And uh, and it's not a ton of work to like make that happen. I mean, it is work cuz relationships take time, but, um, yeah, I mean, just get to know kids.

Nick Clason (29:24):
Yeah. That's good man. That's good. Yeah. All right, bro, well that is it. That's all I got unless there's anything else that you wanna say. Um, I appreciate your time and, uh, thanks for hopping on, bro.

Josh Chasteen (29:35):
Yeah. Don't get too addicted to TikTok. That's the only thing I would say. Set, set some screen limits or else you'll go down a bad rabbit hole, but that's it.
If you're there all day. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But no, thanks for having me. This is fun.

Nick Clason (29:46):
Well, hey, I hope you found that interesting and fun and just kind of an opportunity to kinda look and see, um, at what it is like to, uh, have a tweet or not tweet a TikTok, kind of go crazy and kind of go viral. So obviously that's not necessarily what we're all, you know, maybe like vying for or looking for, but it is, uh, it's a crazy story. And, um, more than that, I think what Josh's message was about, like, don't, don't just, you know, settle in for all the technology, but really get to know people. I think that's the heartbeat of most of us as ministry leaders, pastors, and so I, I just hope that you find that conversation helpful, useful, encouraging. Uh, hey, if you have not, again, like I said at the top of the show, go grab that ebook.

Nick Clason (30:31):
The link is in the show notes. I also have a complete video guide to that, if that's something that's helpful, uh, for you to watch, uh, to, to go through posting your first TikTok. And also if you found this helpful or if you grab that book and you find it helpful, share it with a friend. Um, leave a rating or a review. Uh, you can do everything and get all the show notes and transcripts and everything that you need to find over http://www.hybridministry.xyz. You can come hang out with me on YouTube or TikTok link to both of those in the show notes. And until next time, we'll talk to you all later. Bye.

This also comes with a complete digital downloadable guide: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
Or check out the complete YouTube Video on it: https://youtu.be/oxBn-p9O-eg
As always, every episode available with FREE transcripts at: http://www.hybridministry.xyz
And hang with Nick on TikTok at: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
FREE Checklist: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/free-social-media-checklist

TIMECODES
TIMECODES
00:00-00:53 – Intro
00:53-03:11 - Why TikTok, Reels and Short Form Video?
03:11-03:47- - Logging Into TikTok for the First Time
03:47-05:56 - Video Menu Options
05:56-07:03 - Profile Menu Options
07:03-12:07 - Creating a Video
12:07-17:21 - Editing the Video
17:21-19:34 - Time to Post it!
19:34-20:46 - Make sure you do this ONE THING before posting to other platforms
20:46- - Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
So have I already ruined my TikTok account? Here's a guide on how to post TikTok from start to finish. Hey everyone, my name is Nick Clason. I am the host of the Hybrid Ministry podcast, and this is a little special YouTube slash podcast episode I'm excited to bring to you on the framework for posting a TikTok in 2023. Now, there's a lot of things out there about like SEO and keywords and strategies and tips and hacks, and in fact, I actually have a checklist that I have pre created for all social media, just a basic like, uh, have you done this? Have you done that for posting to social media at your church? You can get the description or you can get the link for that in the description, the video down below, uh, or in the show notes, hybrid ministry.xyz. But why TikTok? Like why of all the platforms that we have, why TikTok?

Nick Clason (01:01):
And here's why. Every platform right now, Facebook, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, they are all going after this short form video content. It's like lightning in a bottle. It's so easy to go viral. Um, and when I say easy, it's like you post the dumbest thing and it goes viral, but then you spend a lot of time and effort and energy on something that you think is amazing and it gets like 14 views. And so the reality is it's this very finicky, very like, hard to like land what is going to go viral, but when you see other social medias copying another social platform's kind of bread and butter, it's worth noting and it's worth, uh, going all in on. And so when every single major social platform is copying TikTok in their, uh, their, their for you sort of algorithm, you need to make that a priority.

Nick Clason (02:00):
It's, I would liken it to win Instagram stole stories from Snapchat, and now TikTok is actually stealing B reels, uh, post, now they call it the now feature in TikTok. So, uh, if you've never logged into TikTok, uh, or you have, and you know, you should, you've heard me talk about the importance of short form video, but you, you open it and it's overwhelming. You don't know what to do or you think you know what to do, but then you get kind of turned around editing videos or whatever and whatnot. This is meant to be a, uh, a thorough guide to every feature available in TikTok. Now, some caveats, I've really only been using TikTok for about three to six months now. Um, I too is just as much of a novice when I opened it. They're constantly evolving and changing, and I'm not even a hundred percent sure if I know all the features. I tried to comb through each and every feature as I was in preparation for this video, but there are several I haven't even used. And so

Nick Clason (02:59):
I just wanna be clear with that. Like, uh, I'm still at a very basic level, and so if, if I can do it, what we're doing in our church, you too can, can get up some very basic sort of content. So when you log into TikTok for the very first time, a video is probably going to start blaring at you at full volume. Okay? That can be a little bit disconcerting and throw you off. You're a rocker because most other platforms keep videos muted. TikTok for whatever reason is the opposite, so turn your volume all the way down, or if you just tap the screen, the video, whatever video they play, um, it'll pause it. Now, uh, if you're getting on TikTok for the first time and they're feeding you things that you don't wanna see, they're not, you're not interested in, hold that video down and just click, not interested.

Nick Clason (03:43):
Do that a few times and you're gonna teach the algorithm what you want to see. So when you, uh, are sitting there looking at a video, video that TikTok fed to you, you have, uh, several different video menu options. And so I want to, uh, run through what those are. The first one is you can, on the right hand side of your screen, you can follow the creator. Uh, that little plus sign right there will give you a, uh, follow, um, or not follow kind of option. Now, if you look at the very, very top of your screen, you're going to be looking at either following or for you, you're either in your following algorithm, all the people that you're following, or you're in your for U algorithm. TikTok will almost naturally bring you to the for U algorithm. So just be aware of that.

Nick Clason (04:34):
Even when you click follow the people, the videos that you're seeing may not be coming from followers. That's, again, that's one of the things that makes this algorithm unique. Um, you can, like the video, that's the heart. You can comment on it, you can save it. That's a little save, uh, little bookmark looking icon there. You can share it. That's the arrow out. You can send it to people within the TikTok app. You can, you can download the video and save it, or you can copy a link and send it. Uh, and then the bottom, uh, icon there, a little round one kinda looks like a, a record turning. That's the sound, that's the audio that is being used. Could be like an original audio from the creator, or it could be like a sound or a trend or something like that. All of that is to you.

Nick Clason (05:15):
On the right hand side of the screen at the bottom, you have five menu options. You have your home button and the subcategories for that, like I said, up at the top of the following. And the four you, then you have the, now that's TikTok, s b real copycat. It's almost identical to what Be Real is doing. Uh, you got the plus button there, then very dead center, that's your create button, okay? Then next you have your little envelope, that's your inbox. And for there you get your notifications, dms, likes, follows, et cetera. That's all the things that you, uh, when people interact with your content or your videos. And then finally, the last thing on the very right hand bottom corner, uh, is your profile. That's where you have your videos. Um, once you click on that, you'll see, uh, another kind of menu across the top.

Nick Clason (06:02):
Uh, the left most option is your videos, everything that you've posted kind of on your grid. The next one are your private videos. The next one are your saved videos. Remember that bookmark icon. And personally, I like to use that as a way to save ideas. So if I'm going through TikTok and there's a sound or an idea that I think is fun or interesting that I can use later, I'll save it. That's then where I'll find it. And what I'll personally do is I'll save that on my personal account, and then I will share that video to my ministry account. Then I will switch accounts, log over into my ministry account, go into my dms, and get that video from myself, and then I'll use that, um, either that sound or that idea or that trend or whatever I need from that video, maybe a filter, whatever that I'll use to them post.

Nick Clason (06:46):
Um, moving on on that menu, you got your liked videos. And then finally, um, there at the top, you can edit your profile, your link, all the other necessary and pertinent information there. Okay. Now, how do you, that's just simply viewing a video and kind of navigating through your basic menu items. So how do you then create a video? So the way to create a video is on your home screen. You can tap that plus button, all right? And once you tap that plus button, you're given several options. All right? At the very, very top center, uh, there's the option to add sound. You can add a sound that way by clicking it and searching for a sound. Or like I said, when you see that record player on a video, you can click on that. Um, and once you're, once you click on that, there will be a, it'll pull up all the videos, uh, that have used that sound.

Nick Clason (07:37):
You can click use this sound option. That is personally, I think the easiest way to do that. That's why I like to save those videos and then share them so I don't have to go and try and find those sounds. Again, that's my way of kind of archiving and remembering where those sounds are. Now one thing worth noting, if you're on a personal account, you can use any sound you want. If you are a business account, those are much more limiting. There are ways around it, um, like recording the video and then in post-production in like Adobe Premier Pro or something like that, dubbing that sound over. Then when you post it, it's gonna be technically an original sound. It's not gonna come from the trend sound. Uh, there are pros and cons. Uh, I've talked about this in past podcast episodes. There are pros and cons to, um, personal and business accounts.

Nick Clason (08:23):
Uh, you just gotta choose what matters most to you. I think probably the biggest downside of not doing a business account is your link and bio isn't really a link. It's just typed out and people have to like, then go type it into a browser so they can't click and go to your stuff. That's a pretty big downside, and you don't get as many analytics. Um, you still can see views and likes and those types of things by going to each individual video, but you're not able to see trends. And so once things start getting going for you, you probably do wanna swap over to a business account. Just know that it's gonna limit the sounds that you are able to use as a business account on your TikTok platform. All right, so you've clicked to create video. At the bottom of your screen, you're gonna have this big red record button that is gonna probably feel very familiar to you.

Nick Clason (09:09):
It's gonna look like a camera phone or something like that. Right above that, that red button you have the, you have a thing that says 15 s. That's for 15 seconds to the left of that. If you slide 30, uh, or 60 s I'm sorry, and then slide again, you have three m three minutes, okay? Uh, you can shave the time down after you record. So if you don't know how long it's gonna be and you just want to go the three minutes, then if you don't take that full time, it's not gonna post the full three minutes like black at the end of your video, right? So, uh, just know that going into it, if you're using a sound, like if a sound, you click use sound and it's already loaded at the top of your video there. When you click 15 s or 60 s, um, you switch to that often right below it, it'll say, this sound will only allow you to record for a maximum of seven seconds or something like that.

Nick Clason (09:59):
All right? And so then, you know, oh, I can just stick with the 15 seconds and I don't need all the other stuff. Right? Okay. So, um, to the left of the record button are, is your effects menu. So there, that's where you're gonna get like your green screen, or right now there's a delay mirror effect that's kind of trending on TikTok that's there. Um, things that like rotate through on your head that my TikTok account personally, like I do this thing for football and all the NFL teams rotate through. I have so many views on those, it's ridiculous, but that's what's helping kind of grow my audience. Um, that's where you're gonna get those types of effects. To the right of that is your upload button, okay? That's where you would upload a previously recorded video or photo from your phone, from your camera roll that you already shot outside of the TikTok app, for example.

Nick Clason (10:46):
Um, and so then at the top right you have, uh, the flip button that's just simply to flip your camera forward facing, rear facing beneath that you have, uh, your speed. So you have different speeds, 0.3 x 0.5 x one x, two x, and three x, uh, for recording speeds. Uh, below that you have the retouch option, full disclosure, and never used that thing. It's kinda like a filter thing. Beneath it, you have another filter option. This one I think is more about image, less about the specifics of like a retouch sort of thing. Beneath that, you have your timer. That's where you can like set your phone down and give it like a three second head start, so you can walk away from it and do a dance or whatever the case might be. Um, you have a three second, ten second option. When you do that.

Nick Clason (11:29):
Beneath that you have your q and a option. That's where sometimes you'll see a person's comment on the screen and you can reply with video to the comment. All right? So once you're ready to record, those are all your menu options. Now that we're ready to record, tap that record button. When you wanna start, and when you wanna stop immediately to the right of the button, you have two menu options that are now available. After recording, you have delete, it looks like, kind of like a backspace button. If you want to delete what you recorded, start over, try again. You can do that. There. You also have a red check mark. Um, and that's where you then accept the video. And now you move on into the next sort of editing phase of the, the video. Now, your new menu, once you're into the editing phase, in the top middle of the section, you have your sound.

Nick Clason (12:15):
If you haven't added a sound yet, that's where you can add a sound. Um, if you've already recorded a sound, a video with the sound, that's where you could delete that sound if you no longer want that sound mm-hmm. on the right hand side of the screen, um, you have, you are at the very top. You have your text on screen option, that's where you click that and you can type that out, um, on your left. Then you now have three different menu options, um, from your, from your text editor, right? You have the square with the A around it. If you, if you select that, that will add a border to the text on the screen. So it might be easier to read if you select it. Again, that will put a full background on that. And if you select it, again, it'll add a background, but now it's transparent and if you select it again, it'll go back to your original without any of those effects on it.

Nick Clason (13:04):
Then to the right of that, you have your paragraph alignment, you have center, then left alignment, then right alignment. And then to the right of that, you have your person with a speech. That's where you often get that voiceover effect. That says, um, that, that's used as a hook. A lot of times on videos, uh, if you choose that, it will make that, um, text on screen. It will turn it into, uh, a voiceover. And there, once you select that, you'll be given, uh, different options, different types of sounds to play around with. Um, once you select that, the menus you have are recommended motion creative vocals. Those are categories for the types of sounds, and then sub options within those. Okay? To determine what your text, uh, looks like, um, you have the classic option. You have the typewriter option, the handwriting option, neon option, and the CIF option.

Nick Clason (13:57):
And those. So you got your, your a, your paragraph, your speech, and then to the right of that, that's where you get your text, um, looking options. Okay? And then from there you can select colors and they do swipe from right to left so that you can pick which color you want on, on, on screen there. All right. So when you're done, select, done, pretty self-explanatory. The last thing that you can do then is once that, uh, text is now on the screen, if you select it, it'll pop up three menu options. All right? So you can, uh, text to speech, you can add that feature, or if you already did it, that's where you can change, uh, the voice or whatever the case may be. You can set the duration. How long does that text remain on screen? That's where like if, uh, at a certain sound effect or element or whatever, something pops up, uh, you would drag, you would drag the text to start there or to stop there.

Nick Clason (14:49):
Okay? And then the last thing thing is to edit, to actually like rewrite or, you know, you had a typo to go in there and change that. All right, moving on down beyond the text, you have your sticker options. That's things like your mentions, hashtags, you can add polls, support nonprofit, add a location, ask a question, reply the date, the time, all kinds of things. If you're familiar with Instagram Stories editor, it's very similar to the sticker options that you see on Instagram Stories. I've actually never even seen that menu option until I went to prepare for this video and I was like, oh, I didn't know all this stuff was on here. Um, beneath that, you have effects, okay? And so across the top, once you click effects, you have your trending effects, then you got visual motion effects, transitions, and, uh, split options.

Nick Clason (15:31):
So you can kind of explore different effects, things to add to your video and what, whatever, and whatnot. Right there, beneath that, you have your filters. It's just gonna change the look, feel your video. Beneath that, you have studio, that's where you're actually editing, cutting your video, okay? So if you wanna do something to edit the video, click on the video. It's gonna give you a video bar and a sound bar. If, if you have, uh, like just the, the audio from the video that you recorded, they'll be together. If you have a audio, like a song, those are gonna be two kind of separate things, okay? So if you click on your, your top option, your video option, once you do that, a little menu option down beneath will, will pop up. So you have split, you can change the speed, you can adjust the volume, you can rotate it, and ultimately you can delete it.

Nick Clason (16:20):
Uh, split is a great way. If you have like one big, long thing, um, and you're trying to do a little cuts, you drag to the spot, you split it, and then you delete the rest of the video, then you may add in another video that, that same video, probably do another cut, split delete on the front, delete it on the backside. I hope that makes sense. Um, so then to the right of your video bar option, right? You can click full screen and then there's a plus button, and that's where you can then add that video. Like I was just talking about. If you select the audio, you got your video bar, your, your audio bar, if you select audio, you can add your audio option. Once it's added, you can either replace the sound, adjust the volume, or choose to delete it. You save at the top right and you cancel at the top left.

Nick Clason (17:05):
Moving back out to our editor, um, beneath that you have your captions option A recommend a caption for almost any talking head video on TikTok. That's how, uh, SEO and search is gonna find certain topics. Beneath that, you have your Noise reducer, then your audio effects, and then finally your privacy settings. So once you're done there at the bottom, you then have two options. Bottom of your, your screen on the left, you have the stories option. And then to the right of that, you'll have your next option. Next is where you go to kind of tap to get to your final step before you actually post it. Okay? And so, um, there is where you would type in your caption, different from your captions on screen, right? But your caption of your actual video, the one that kind of like floats up, and then the likes and stuff stuff, follow it.

Nick Clason (17:50):
Um, you would also include your hashtags there. And then to the right of your, uh, caption box is where you would select your cover. If you click on that, you can drag your finger to a certain part of the video. You can also add title and text on top of it. Um, the, the title and text, it should be noted that those don't show up when someone's swiping through and just finding your video, those are mostly seen when someone lands on your profile and you want them to know what the video is. Okay? So those, those could be helpful. Also, if you do have onscreen things different from your, your text option, your title, text options there, like I showed you, um, those will also show, um, if someone land on your profile, they'll just be in a different type of format than, than TikTok has to offer.

Nick Clason (18:36):
Um, if they're, uh, like I said, if they're scrolling past, so they won't display on that screen. Also, there you can tag people, you can add a location, you can add links, and here's what it's available on the links. You have books, minigame Alpha by Titan Breathwork, Buzzfeed Quizzes, Contra Profile, disco Loco, 3d, I R L List with Two Eyes, Quizlet, rotten Tomatoes, stat Muse, and Whisk. Um, never use any of those. So you can check those out. You can then choose, um, who can watch the video, allow comments, allow to, uh, allow, allow Stitch, allow high quality, upload more options, save to device. If you click on the more options, save to device, which I just finally turned off by the way, I couldn't figure out where to get that. That's where you get that. You can select your caption language, um, branded content and ads, and then there's an automatically shared to IG or text ig, ig stories, Snapchat.

Nick Clason (19:30):
And then the last thing is, um, you can either put it in drafts or you can post it. Last thing I'd recommend, if you are uploading this to other places, um, once you upload it, click uh, go back into your profile, click on the three ellipses option, um, click copy link, and then go to your browser on your phone or on your computer, and type in to Google save TikTok without video watermark or save TikTok video without watermark. If you copy and paste that link into there, it will then download you an option from TikTok without the TikTok watermark all over it. Then you can take that same video and you can post it to Instagram, Facebook, YouTube shorts. Um, one thing I've noticed personally, just very anecdotally, is that every time I would post a TikTok, um, and then Instagram with the watermark, Instagram would give me almost no views once I started removing that. Um, we, we've had videos go, you know, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 views because we removed the watermark. Um, I think that the two are kind of competing against each other. Instagram wants to use them, TikTok wants you to use them, so just confuse them and think that they're both being used even though you, you are using both of them. And, uh, they, they just aren't seeing that. Um, and that's just algorithm and kind of AI

Nick Clason (20:46):
Stuff. All right, so, hey, thank you so much for hanging out and getting that guide if, uh, or getting this guide on how to, how to post TikTok, um, on your account. Listen, if you found this helpful, like subscribe, share, rate, review, all the things, check us out, hybridministry.xyz and check out the description for, um, not only the, the social media checklist, but also the checklist on this, um, the written form of this video on how to post a TikTok, download that, put it on your desk, put it above your, your computer so that when you're posting, you have it as a reference. And until next time, we'll talk to you later.

SHOWNOTES
HUBSPOT ARTICLE REFERENCED:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/short-form-video-trends?utm_campaign=Marketing%252520Blog%252520-%252520Daily%252520Emails&utm_medium=email&utm_content=219842216&utm_source=hs_email

TIMECODES
00:00-02:26 Intro and Short Form Video Trends
02:26-03:56 Why Short Form is the most effective
03:56-07:16 What htis means for church services
07:16-11:08 How churches can use trendy content
11:08-14:04 Brand Challenges
14:04-17:46 Use of Influencers
17:46-24:06 Product Teasers
24:06-26:38 User Generated Content
26:38-29:57 Behind the Brand Videos
29:57-34:13 More Educational Videos
34:13-37:31 What plaforms should we use besides TikTOk and Reels?
37:31-38:29 Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
What is up everybody. Welcome to episode eight of the hybrid ministry podcast with me as always on these glorious mornings, Matt Johnson sipping his coffee. Matt, what type of coffee are you drinking this morning?

Matt Johnson (00:17):
Uh, I am drinking a local light roast from around here that supports, um, kid cancer whenever you buy it. So, wow,

Nick Clason (00:28):
Dude, you're such, you're such a good citizen of the world.

Matt Johnson (00:33):
Don't know about that, but you know, I love good cause

Nick Clason (00:36):
Is it, is it hot or ice this morning?

Matt Johnson (00:39):
It's hot this morning cuz I was in a rush. So I just, you know, grinded up my beans and threw it in the Keurig real quick.

Nick Clason (00:45):
Nice. Um, well I don't, I don't know if mine supports anything, but I roasted it yesterday in my garage. So there you go. There's that I guess

Matt Johnson (00:55):
Supports you.

Nick Clason (00:56):
Yeah, it does.

Matt Johnson (00:58):

Nick Clason (00:59):
And I, so I, we were at summer camp two weeks ago and I roasted a gigantic batch. Um, and I brought it to camp and I thought I was gonna be safe, but then all the leaders wanted to try my, my freshly roasted coffee, which is fine. I wanted to, you know, I wanted to share with the people, but that's the yesterday was the first time I'd roasted since camp, cuz I I'd just, you know, it was my birthday in between there. So I got a couple bags of coffee. So I've been been using that. So here we go. No one cares, but that's, that's the low down on my coffee situation.

Matt Johnson (01:30):
I love your coffee situation.

Nick Clason (01:32):
well today, uh, we wanted to talk about short form video trends because we haven't talked about short form video enough, right?

Matt Johnson (01:44):
Nope. Not even close.

Nick Clason (01:45):
No. Well, and even though we have it's, it is everything right now on social media and on the internet. And so we wanted to, um, we have, there's a, a HubSpot article that came out a couple of weeks or months ago and I wanted I'll link that in the show notes. So you guys can check that out hybrid ministry.xyz, but also, uh, I wanted to go through that and then kind of bring some of the, bring some of our like church ideas kind of into that. So mm-hmm so that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Um, so let's just dive into it. You ready?

Matt Johnson (02:24):
I'm ready.

Nick Clason (02:25):
Let's do it. So, uh, the first thing is that 85% of marketers say that short form video are the most effective format of video on social media. Well actually mm-hmm, not even video most

Matt Johnson (02:40):
Effective just general

Nick Clason (02:41):
Format on social media, 85%. That's crazy. Mm-hmm what are those other 15% even trying to say? Do you know

Matt Johnson (02:50):
Um, the other 15% aren't being seen I'll tell you that, um, I've even seen people that are doing static images as videos now. So that's kind, that's just kinda the world we're in.

Nick Clason (03:03):
So they literally post like a JPEG and turn it into a video.

Matt Johnson (03:08):
Yeah. So they'll like, you know, fade in the text or whatever. And you're like, this is literally just a static image with text that fades in

Nick Clason (03:15):
all all to be seen by short form video. Is that just because the algorithms have changed? Is that because of the popularity of TikTok? Is that like what what's behind that? Do you feel,

Matt Johnson (03:27):
Uh, it's a hundred percent TikTok. Um, you can see every big, uh, organization has been trying to mimic TikTok. You saw it with Instagram, with reels, YouTube was shorts, um, Facebook with their promotion of just video in general. So it immediately, once TikTok blew up the way it did. Cause it's been a long time since we've seen a social media channel grow as quickly as TikTok did. Yeah. Everyone had to get back on board with it.

Nick Clason (03:56):
Yeah. It says there's a quote in here that says the growth of social media is causing the human tension span to become shorter and shorter. So leveraging the power of short form video content will give you a leg up on the competition and help you engage your audience. And so mm-hmm, what, like, do you feel like that is a threat to, uh, the traditional in room church gathering 35 minute sermon model

Matt Johnson (04:27):
A hundred percent. Yeah. That's something that I don't think we're talking enough about as a church. Um, instead of actually, you know, trying to cater to this, you know, new generation, uh, millennial, gen Z gen alpha that are their short, their attention spans are shortening we've I've noticed church sermons are getting longer or um, oh, we'll just have more production into it, you know, more lights, more action. But um, if you're live experience, isn't on par with, uh, you know, like a big live concert almost at this point or short, you're not gonna be able to capitalize on it. So just an unfortunate world we are in right now. But uh, I think there's some creative solutions that we could figure out and that some of these tasks out there can help us figure out.

Nick Clason (05:13):
Yeah. How, how do like where's the line though? You know, like where's the line on, like we need to cater to them versus like, you know, preaching, biblical content is still meaningful and important and we should still do that as well. You know what I mean? Like when I feel like that probably just has to happen at every church's, uh, like value level, they just have to have that conversation and be like, well, this is what the world is seeing, but this is where like we're gonna stake our claim or whatever, you know? Cause I do think we can get into a slippery slope there and just be like, well, sermons are gone, you know? And I dunno that we're trying to, I dunno that we're trying to say that either. You know what I mean? I think that we should be, be cognizant of where that, where that line is.

Matt Johnson (05:59):
I think the big thing that people, and this is a way bigger tangent than what we had planned on, but

Nick Clason (06:05):
For sure, I didn't even know we were going this way.

Matt Johnson (06:08):
I think a big thing that we're at to figure out as, uh, as churches is just what, what is that next iteration of the sermon that we can figure out? So I don't think we need, you should at all straight away from biblical teaching and biblical truth. And if you're shying away from talking about Jesus at your church, I strongly feel like you're failing as a church. Like yeah, people wanna hear about Jesus when they're at church, they wanna hear about the Bible, it's the way you deliver it. So I just think we have to start kind of figuring out what, uh, your sermon 2.0 would be like, and I do not have a solution for that at all. Um, you know, someone will figure it out and they'll blow up and we'll all go and then everyone will copy them for the next 10 years. So

Nick Clason (06:55):
Yeah, but in the meantime, like there are solutions to the, the hybrid kind of side of it, right? The, what happens, what happens Monday through Saturday, the days you're not in the auditorium the days you're not at church and that's really where kind of this article comes in. So mm-hmm, uh, they say that this, this article also has another stat, says 63% of marketers say that trendy content related to cultural moments and news stories generate the most video engagement. So that's really what that's saying. If I'm understanding that statistic correctly is just that like things that are relevant tend to perform the most. Like if it copies a, if it copies a trend or if it copies a dance or if it copies a, a song that, or, you know, a sound that's going viral, like those are the ones that perform better on average

Matt Johnson (07:48):
Mm-hmm . Yep. Yep. Definitely. So that's something you gotta keep in mind too. So that is the majority still. It's not like the, um, it's not like 75% though. 63%. That's a still, that's a pretty good percentage of people that, of your content that should be probably more trendy relevant rather than just original stuff that you're trying to get relevant.

Nick Clason (08:11):
Yeah. And that's gonna require someone to kind of have their finger on the pulse of that. You're not just going to like pull open TikTok and like no trends.

Matt Johnson (08:21):
Uh, yeah. And that's, that's gonna be the biggest challenge. Yeah. Mm-hmm

Nick Clason (08:25):
Yeah. So who is that person? And there's probably, there's probably a young person in your church that, that does know that, you know, whoever you are listening to this, whether that's you or you're in leadership at your church, like that's a, that's a, there's a person out there that you can probably delegate that to, or at least tap into their knowledge. Cuz I actually, you know, this is the, here's a great case study for this. So I post on TikTok all the time, uh, at our church and I was posting and um, these students of mine were like, you should do this. And I was like, no, no. I was like, this is what's working on our TikTok. And I'd like, told them this thing. They're like, what? I can't remember. They basically like, no you're wrong. We just need to do this thing. And I was like, whatever, I didn't have, like, I didn't have a plan for like my next post anyway. So I was like, that's fine, whatever. We'll just do it. And so we did it and it was by that night it was the number one video on our TikTok channel

Matt Johnson (09:25):
and they

Nick Clason (09:27):
Were like freaking out about it. They're like sending me screenshots. I'd like, Nick, this is the number one video on our to channel. And I was like, yeah, I'm an idiot. You guys are smarter

Matt Johnson (09:37):
Than me. when it comes to having yeah. When it comes to having the finger on the pulse of trends, your students are gonna be the people that know what's going on.

Nick Clason (09:46):
Yeah. Which I posted something on our Twitter the other day and there's like, you know, TikTok ideas, like short form video ideas. And one of them basically is like, ask your youth group smiley face.

Matt Johnson (09:57):
Yep.

Nick Clason (09:58):
Just go to them, like stop putting some 35 year old in charge of, of TikTok. Like go ask the 15 year olds who are spending all hours of all days on it. They will bring you the trends. They'll bring you the ideas and

Matt Johnson (10:12):
Exactly

Nick Clason (10:12):
Crap, dude. They'll probably even like do it for you if you want 'em to like

Matt Johnson (10:16):
Yeah. Which is actually one topics we talk about. Yep.

Nick Clason (10:20):
And, and that's what man, we talk about that, or that's been talked about in like the growing young study by four youth Institute, Kara Powell, all those people, they talk about this idea of key chain leadership, like give, give the, the students who have, uh, some level of authority and responsibility within their church are more inclined to stick with their faith. Mm-hmm so if you give them some sort of ownership of it, you know, but oftentimes I think we just shy away from that because they could make us look bad or they could do something that we don't know or trust, but you know, that's a, it should, church should be a safe place for them to express that and, and try things and fail and, and all those things. So.

Matt Johnson (11:05):
Yep. Exactly.

Nick Clason (11:06):
Yeah. All right. So, um, let's look at these six ideas. Um, and we're gonna talk about, we're gonna talk about six short form video trends to look out for. Uh, the first one is brand challenges. So Matt talk about what a brand challenge is for just a second, so that us, uh, layman and idiots know what that even means.

Matt Johnson (11:32):
Yeah. So a brand challenge, um, is essentially taking the viral content idea. So if you, if you're li if you're listening to this and you have no idea how TikTok works TikTok, you can actually search stuff by like dances songs and sounds, um, which is what makes it stick out from a lot of the other social media platforms. So it's not like based off of hashtags or actually trying to search, or you can search things off of filters. Like that's like the world of TikTok. So you can search actually based off of the content. So as a brand, you could create like a brand challenge sound. So let's go back to, um, a couple years ago in the ice bucket challenge. Okay. And how big that got before the world of TikTok. Now think if your brand could actually mimic the success of the ice bucket challenge on TikTok and how big that could actually get.

Matt Johnson (12:32):
Uh, so it's really taking this idea of, Hey, we're challenging you to, uh, you do something, whatever that looks like. So a great way you could do this as a church is we wanna challenge you to, uh, talk to God five times this week. Um, or, Hey, we wanna challenge you to pray twice this week. Like you can come up with some spiritual challenges that people can do, or you can come up with some church challenge or like more outreachy challenges. So like, um, we wanna challenge you to, you know, see with Jesus' eyes five times this week and help somebody on the street. Um, so it's like starting to be more cognitive, uh, to help people be more cognitive of like their day to day. Uh, another good example of this is like Colgate for mother's day. They did like this huge make mom smile challenge, which was really a challenge to just post photos of your mom or a video of your mom on TikTok.

Matt Johnson (13:34):
And it was for mother's day in Colgate, you know, make mom smile, get white teeth. I don't know, but it was really just a way to get people to post their mom and everyone's gonna post their mom. So, or you could come up with a challenge like who you're praying for this week, post a photo of who you're praying for this week or a video of who you're praying for this week or a video of who you're bringing to youth ministry this week. I'm not gonna see these challenges are gonna go viral. Like, you know, um, the ice bucket challenge, but they could go viral in your church. And that's really the, all that you need right now.

Nick Clason (14:04):
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, wow. I got super echoy. I had to move cuz my kids came down the basement. Yeah,

Matt Johnson (14:13):
You got real echoy. Sorry.

Nick Clason (14:16):
Um, the next one it talks about, it talks about influencer ads. So mm-hmm, um, obviously we're a church. We're not trying to be influencers mm-hmm but what, like what would be something that we could do in the church with, with that idea?

Matt Johnson (14:36):
Yeah. So influencer marketing is always going to give you a higher ROI, always. Um, yeah. That's just because think about the people you trust and how you take, you know, what they say higher than others. So, good example of this in the church world is, you know, Lee Stroble is a massive influencer for the Christian community or Dave Ramsey. Um, so if you like got buy-in from them, you're probably more likely going to like purchase whatever, you know, these stro or Dave Ramsey's talking about. Um, now in your world, let's say we're at a church of, you know, let's say really small church just planted. I have 80 people at my church. You're probably not gonna be able to get a Lee Stroble to talk about your church. I mean, if you got Lee stro, talk about your church, that's a big deal.

Nick Clason (15:29):
Well, and I mean, what's that thing, that cameo thing you could do that

Matt Johnson (15:33):
You could do a cameo. Yeah. But uh, usually Lee Strobel, cuz you know, I've worked with him, his, uh, the asking price could be a little high for his ads and that's because he is Le Strobel. Yeah. Um, and he did a lot of stuff for favors for us though. Cause he is a really nice guy, but like we also like getting him just speaking, you know, it costs money. I mean he's worth it, whatever. Um, so how can you do influencer marketing in your church? Well, your pastor can be considered an influencer. Um, he, I mean, obviously he's probably the big influencer on your campus. Uh, so you start using him in a more strategic option to like promote stuff. You could also, if you really wanna get creative, find these people that you would call influencers in your church. So let's say this is gonna sound real bad, Nick, and you can push back all you want.

Matt Johnson (16:28):
Cause this is definitely like going to a weird space with your youth group. But as a youth leader, I, um, you could definitely find the popular kid yeah. And get the popular kid to, you know, start pushing stuff on like be your influencer for you. Um, yeah. Yeah. Now we don't wanna play favorites or anything like that obviously. But at the same time, if you know, like, Hey, if I got, let's say Abigail, for instance, to like get on board for this, I know she would get like 12 other people to get on board for this. That's a good use for influencer marketing. So think of influencer marketing on a small scale at your church that could grow into a bigger scale and just make that short term, uh, short form video. Like that's the key to all this. So

Nick Clason (17:13):
Yeah. I don't think like, like we've said, I don't think our goal is to become, get famous people or whatever. Right. But no, but you're right. If, if your senior pass, especially if your senior pastor is not a part of your social media channels too often, like when you post him, that's going to, that's gonna have that effect, you know? Yep. If you are the senior pastor you're listening to this and you are the primary person running things on digital and social, like then there is, you're not gonna have that same influencer or effect because you're the primary face on there. You know what I mean? Yep. So you gotta exactly. Who else are you gonna put out there? All right. The next thing we talk about is, uh, product teasers. So, um, this is talking about, you know, it says anywhere from six to 60 seconds, um, where you're teasing something that's coming. I think this one is one that works perfectly within the church. Mm-hmm you know what I mean? Yep.

Matt Johnson (18:03):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's like think of a traditional commercial is usually a product teaser, so

Nick Clason (18:10):
Yeah, exactly. And so one of the things we did, um, all gosh for probably like 5, 4, 4, 5 months, uh, on our TikTok was just the teaser, uh, round signing up for summer camp. So we did all kinds of stuff that was promoting the idea of summer camp, giving a sneak peek to summer camp. Um, you know, funny videos about summer camp, but it was all about some upcoming event. And that was obviously within the realm of our student ministry. Mm-hmm . And so if you're running this for a church, you have not only summer camp coming up, but you have vacation Bible school and you have the adult Bible study starting and you have financial peace university on its way, and you have the missions trip, uh, domestic and international and you, so you have a million things and that's, that's probably more, the challenge is trying to figure out what or how to promote everything, but product product teasing is something that can become very easy to do. You know what I mean? Uh, in the church world.

Matt Johnson (19:14):
So mm-hmm yep, absolutely.

Nick Clason (19:16):
So real quick, before we jump to the next one, uh, as someone who does marketing in the church, Matt, what is your like preferred model for knowing what to promote and how often, and do you have like a, do you have like a framework built? Do you have like a, a rule of thumb? That's good, good practice for that because you know, if you're in the seat, you're in the kids' ministry wants their announcement and the student ministry wants their announcement and the women's ministry wants their announcement and the seniors ministry wants their announcement who gets the announcement.

Matt Johnson (19:52):
Great question. So step one is making, um, the various ministries kind of work together and work backwards. So the rule of thumb on any given Sunday for us is three announcements. And that is just because we know three decisions is as many as people can do before they start feeling overwhelmed. So if I give you four decisions, that fourth decision is gonna take less precedent than the other three. So that's step one is get the ministries to like, not launch five things on the same weekend, which we all wanna do. I, we all wanna do it, but don't do it. It's just two the next week. It's fine. Um, secondly is, uh, yeah, we, we have built, uh, an SOP, a standard operating procedure to really define what takes precedent over everything. So, um, what gets on social media is gonna be different than what gets in our email for the week, which will be different than what's on stage, which will be different than what the pastor talks about.

Matt Johnson (20:56):
And this is all weighed depending on the, um, the outreach draw of it. So, um, social and email, we have decided that email is for internal. So if this is more of internal event, so rooted, rooted is not gonna be something that you invite friends to really that are not part of the church, cuz rooted is gonna make you go deep in small groups. That should just be our newsletter and um, probably our host spot. And why I say that for the host spot for that is because, uh, that's a great way to get people that are in the church that probably have not done rooted. And they're new to go, okay, go do this to take next step with Parkview. Um, uh, the set, the next thing. So then social like alpha is great for social media because that's an external thing. So I can run, you know, ads behind that and get people to come to that.

Matt Johnson (21:59):
And then, uh, like if it's something that's gonna really affect everyone and that's a big deal that goes to the pastor to talk about in his spot. So let's say we have like family weekend coming up our next gen weekend. That's something that should probably be talked about by the pastor when the most captive audience is there. If that's something that we have said as a church, like that's hu ways higher than everything else. So you really just gotta define who your target is for everything that you're trying to promote. And then you can kind of figure out where they fit in your puzzle piece of all the digital platforms you have. Um, what's

Nick Clason (22:36):
The, what's the biggest, like, can you think of a time, like the number one time that you had like multiple people vying for, for something like, and how did you filter through that?

Matt Johnson (22:47):
Oh, I mean, it happens all the time at where we're at now and it's because everyone thinks their stuff is super important urgent. And the big thing is just sitting down with everyone and explaining their target and actually getting their purpose. And once they start realizing, oh yeah, mine is internal. Mine's really only for preschoolers. It's like, okay, then we should target preschoolers. Like this should not be, you know, an all church thing, um, necessarily it could be depending on what the event is, but 99% of the time, it's not going to be, um, now at a smaller church and maybe you have less going on. That's okay to like talk about all this stuff with your congregation and be like, yeah, I do have a friend that has a preschooler and I've talked about God with them and they might be interested to come, but like, that's great. That's a great avenue for that. But when you have eight different type of group functionalities, plus five kids things, plus your student things, plus your, um, mission things on top of, uh, we have mass baptism weekend or whatever, like you gotta really start kinda weighing what is actually gonna get you the most bang for your, your most bang for your buck, quote, unquote,

Nick Clason (23:56):
Bang for your,

Matt Johnson (23:58):
I was saying quote with buck unquote quote.

Nick Clason (24:04):
All right, great. Those just like a quick deviation, but uh, okay. So the next thing here in this article is more user generated content. All right. So what's that. And how can churches use it?

Matt Johnson (24:18):
User generated content is literally just getting your users to create content for you. So, um,

Nick Clason (24:25):
That feels like churches could do pretty

Matt Johnson (24:28):
Easily, oh, a hundred percent. You should be doing it. And user generated content has actually been shown. I haven't seen the most recent studies, so don't quote me on this, but it was, uh, shown to be one of the highest ways for conversion rate. And that's because you're trusting someone that, you know, you so it's. So if you think about it in the hierarchy of like influencer marketing commercials and then user generated content user generated, content's gonna have the highest conversion because Nick, if you tell me about something, I'm gonna trust that more than if Lee Stroble tells me about something, which I trust Leero more than, uh, my I'm watching a Dodgers game and there's a commercial that comes on. So if you think about that

Nick Clason (25:10):
H baseball, right?

Matt Johnson (25:13):
Cause baseball is good. Nick, it's good for the heart, especially when you have a team that wins a lot. So if you think about that hierarchy, that like, okay. Yeah. It's building that trust user generated content is gonna weigh higher.

Nick Clason (25:28):
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, how, how, how, like, how could churches go about capturing user generated content?

Matt Johnson (25:38):
Um, great way is, do you have some kids you trust, well, have them run your Instagram or TikTok for the day? Um, yeah. You're at camp. Uh, have your students do be like, Hey, I want you guys to promote camp today, take the camera or the GoPro with you and you guys just go crazy. Like you have some options there there's a lot, like it CR this is where you can get whoever you want to be as creative as they possibly can within the context of whatever your, uh, your guidelines are at your church.

Nick Clason (26:09):
Yeah. Well, I'm thinking too, man, you could even do, uh, like what's it called? Like takeovers on Instagram stories. Mm-hmm, you know, um, little things like that. Give, give people like a kind of a glimpse a day in the life, all that type of stuff. Uh, I did that one year at camp where a different person took over Instagram for the day, you know, and they just, they got access to our student mystery account for the day. So, all right. Uh, sweet. The next one is more behind the brands videos. So this one's like a, this one's like a, I don't know, like kinda like a behind the scenes one, but it says mm-hmm, , uh, a sprout social study said that 70% of consumers say they feel more connected to brands who, uh, whose CEO is active on social media platform. So that goes to that senior pastor thing.

Nick Clason (27:02):
Um, but what are, what are some of the behind the scenes? Like, you know, we that's, that one feels like a super easy one for churches. Like people see what you want them to see on a Sunday morning or whatever, but where, but given them a glimpse into the office or the staff meeting or the prayer meeting, or a tour of like a, a place that normal people don't get to see those types of things, I feel like are super a, you know, have such a chance to blow up for people to just get excited about it.

Matt Johnson (27:36):
Yep. Yeah. And it's super easy. Like do walk around the office and say, Hey, here's Doreen. I want you to know about her and meet her and give your testimony or whatever. Or here's our meeting room or here's our staff meeting today, or here's our prayer time today, like build that stuff or take a photo of it and post it. And we have personally seen this be some of our, uh, highest, uh, converting slash liked and engaged stuff that we have done. And this is something we've recently just added to our world. So, um, getting, and it's so easy, Nick, it's so easy. Like you just walk up to someone with your phone and you film them for 30 seconds and then get couple hundreds on it.

Nick Clason (28:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Super easy. So, you know, you can even add that it's like a once a week, like a actually, uh, you've passed a friend of mine. He used to do this thing called, uh, what's behind that door. And it was just like a series that he would do. And he'd like explore different closets basically in the church, you know? And he had a little bumper with it and he would just do it. It was honestly, it was very TikTok esque before TikTok. He was just posting on his Instagram, like feed, but that was basically what he was doing. And then I remember one, he did like a super funny one. where he like went up into the attic and he planted this like baby doll. And so he like shown the flashlight and the attic on the baby doll. And then it just showed him like freaking out, like running away and then just standing there, like stunned at the end.

Nick Clason (29:01):
And that's how it ended like this, the perfect TikTok archetype, but he was doing it like before, before talk's time, even, you know? But I love that. Just little things like that that are just fun. What's behind that door, you know, what's that closet. Have you ever, have you ever wondered what this is? Like, there's, there's a million probably things in your church like that, and it's stupid stuff. Right? Like you hide it for the weekend, but people, people eat that stuff up, man. If they're like, this is our Christmas storage closet, for whatever reason, they're like, ah, it's amazing. Like I think because there's like a vulnerability there, they just feel like a greater sense of connection to your church. Yep. Because of that, like, oh yeah. I, I got to see where they have the Christmas trees, like who cares, but people do

Matt Johnson (29:47):
They do. And um, it's easy. like, that's all I could say. It's easy. Just do it.

Nick Clason (29:53):
Yeah. Yeah. There's really no reason not to. All right. The last one that this, uh, HubSpot article has here is more explainer or educational videos. And I feel like this is the one that the church can just go absolutely crazy on

Matt Johnson (30:06):
Mm-hmm

Nick Clason (30:07):
Mm-hmm so here's what I wanna do. I wanna do a little game. You ready? I didn't even tell you about this. Mm-hmm and it's coming to my brain right now for the very first time. Love it. So I want us to make a list and we're just gonna bounce back and forth. And the person who, uh, runs out of ideas first loses you ready?

Matt Johnson (30:25):
A list of

Nick Clason (30:26):
A list of educational or explainer videos. Okay. So like things that churches could do, um, great. And I'll start, then you go then back to me, then you, does that make sense? We're gonna ping pong it back and forth.

Matt Johnson (30:39):
Yep.

Nick Clason (30:40):
All right. So, um, you could do a, how to pray video,

Matt Johnson (30:47):
Man. That was on my mind. You could do a how to share your faith video.

Nick Clason (30:51):
Mm that's a good one. You could do how to read your Bible video.

Matt Johnson (30:55):
You could do how to share your testimony video.

Nick Clason (30:58):
that? I don't know. That seems very close to the first one. You said, uh, you

Matt Johnson (31:03):
Could do test. Well, I guess how do you share Jesus and how do you do your testimony? I guess

Nick Clason (31:10):
You could do, uh, you could explain like a deep theological truth, like the holy spirit or something like that.

Matt Johnson (31:19):
Oh yeah. That's good. Uh, one of my favorite types of videos is, uh, like dumbing down, complicated Bibles mm-hmm or, you know, so like, uh, talk about Leviticus that makes sense for people or numbers, you know?

Nick Clason (31:37):
Yeah. Yeah. That's like the Bible project. Yep. Um, you could do. Yeah. What was I gonna say? I had something, uh, uh, maybe I'm gonna lose here. Uh, you could do, uh, nah, I, I think I lost man. You win. Congratulations. Um, thanks. Yeah, but you see, like we could have gone a lot longer, but I'm an idiot. Oh,

Matt Johnson (32:01):
Definitely. Well, you had it. It's it's early, everybody.

Nick Clason (32:05):
That's so early. And this is my fourth room that I'm in now. Cuz I, my kids took the only room that didn't echo and now I'm sitting in a bedroom closet. That's just like the echoes of all the echoes. But I was thinking you could, yeah, you could do Bible content. Oh, this is what I was gonna say. You could do, like you could share, uh, unknown stories of the Bible you could share. I love that. Um, you know, like the weird, like the Balo and the Baylor story, or you could share like the, the name and diving in the, in the Jordan river, like you could just, you could pull some of the, the silly verses out, you know, and explain them. You could, there's just, there's a million different ways you could do overviews of, of new Testament, old Testament who wrote the book, why that's important, how to do hermeneutics, how do homo Lytics, like, there's just, there's things that at any given time, you, if you're a pastor, like, you know, is important, but you have to leave those things like on the chopping room floor yeah.

Nick Clason (33:06):
Of your sermon. And like you can pull some of those things out. You could even do like a deeper dive from your sermon of something that you did study in your research, but you chose not to include it for time sake or for whatever purpose, but you could just say, Hey, Hey, here's something that I, I researched last week in light of the sermon on acts chapter two and boom, you got a 62nd video explaining that. And those types of things I see on TikTok all day long. Not, not necessarily like spiritually though. I do see some of those, but I just mean like in general, those like quick hitter, 62nd, you know, explainer videos. And I think that this is what, this is what probably most churches probably are gonna lean towards. Um, at least naturally cuz that's we're in the content creation business, you know?

Matt Johnson (33:55):
Yep.

Nick Clason (33:56):
So there it is guys. Uh, like I said, I will, um, I will post a link to this article in the show notes, feel free to check it out hybrid ministry.xyz. Um, or however else you, uh, do it, Matt, I have a question for you

Matt Johnson (34:12):
Ask, go away.

Nick Clason (34:13):
It's talking about down here later on in this article, best platforms for short form video, it's got TikTok number one, Instagram reels, number two. YouTube shorts. Number three. Yeah. Do, are we messing with YouTube shorts these days?

Matt Johnson (34:28):
Um, uh, uh, depends on the day. You know, YouTube is actually out is weighing long form content higher again, so, okay. Um, if you can create some YouTube shorts, that's great. If someone gets stuck in the YouTube shorts, that's usually a good thing. The big thing about shorts is, uh, they need to create a shorts app. If they create a shorts app, I think you would probably have more success there. Um, right now it's hidden in the YouTube app. Um, I think it's only a matter of time before they do make a shorts app. Uh,

Nick Clason (35:05):
So maybe when they do that, it's time to time to make that matter a little more.

Matt Johnson (35:09):
Yeah. And I'm was gonna say, when it comes to Google, I really don't buy into their stuff quickly cuz the second it doesn't do what they want to do. They just kill it. So , I mean there's a whole website dedicated to like projects killed by Google. You can literally look it up. Um, and I'm telling you like it's literally called killed by google.com and you would just be mind blown by the amount of stuff they test before they kill it. So YouTube shorts is there for now, but I mean, YouTube go was a thing at one point and YouTube originals was a thing. Remember Google

Nick Clason (35:44):
Plus,

Matt Johnson (35:45):
Remember Google plus plus. Yeah like there's a lot there. So I would, if shorts does not become its own app, I, I would say it's probably gonna get killed sooner or later.

Nick Clason (35:55):
There's a lot of stuff on this website, bro.

Matt Johnson (35:57):
I told you, man. It, well,

Nick Clason (35:59):
We'll throw it in the notes too. Yeah. Um,

Matt Johnson (36:02):
It's just a fun website.

Nick Clason (36:04):
Yeah, it is fun. And then there's uh, there's some other apps that this HubSpot article is referencing like some trier hippo Magisto lately.ai and whiskey. Are any of those worth churches investing any their time in at this point, would you say

Matt Johnson (36:22):
It depends on your margin? So like trier is very song based, even more song based for, um, the TikTok. So if you have like a awesome worship band and you're not in trier, like maybe you should look into it. Um, and then the other stuff that's on you like hippo, Mao, um, lately a lot of this stuff is more of, uh, how to leverage short form content more rather than a platform that you would host short form content on. So like HIPAA video might be a good resource for you to look into if you wanna really maximize your like CTAs and your, um, auto like automation for video and conversion and stuff. So, um, but for hosting stuff like YouTube reels and TikTok, uh, TikTok are gonna be number one. And the, like I said, you look into it, but it's just like be real that's out right now. There's these, these smaller social platforms that are like captivating their audiences, but I nothing has blown up like TikTok since literally Instagram and Instagram took a long time to blow up. I don't think people remember that.

Nick Clason (37:30):
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Sweet. Well, I just saw those and I was like, Hey, these are like literally trier hippo Magista lately in w never even heard of any of those. So this is where

Matt Johnson (37:41):
This is. They're more of a tool podcast.

Nick Clason (37:43):
Tell us these things. So,

Matt Johnson (37:45):
Yep, absolutely.

Nick Clason (37:46):
All right, man. Well that is it for today. Appreciate, appreciate your talking. Appreciate you watching me go from room to room, room, room to room to find spot to record, uh, but excited to continue to be on this journey with y'all feel free to subscribe. Give us a rating. We'd love to hear from you at hybridministry.xyz and we'll talk soon.

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.

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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.