EP137: Resi & Analytics of Online Church Services

I received a text the other day from a digital pastor.

Jeff, I hear you.

Butts in seats is a horrible, horrible stat,

but I gotta have something.

There's gotta be something better.

Hey, this is Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast.

Once again, it's powered by Stadia Church,

planting Stadia even in this post-COVID season.

We are still pushing digital

and the importance of physical ministry

and digital ministry working together.

That's the goal of what we're trying to get

from all of our churches.

And that's the goal that we would encourage you.

Every church on the planet at some level

needs to have a digital strategy.

There needs to be a physical and a digital aspect for everyone.

And it's in that heart, Stadia is ramping up fall 2021,

another set of digital learning communities.

The purpose, the goal here is to get the church strategy to work together,

physical and digital, complementing each other,

not being threatened, but complementing each other

to help the overall church ministry thrive, grow,

and even get to the place of multiplication in physical and in digital space.

It's a beautiful thing.

And really, this is the heart of this conversation that we want to have.

We want to keep pulling the digital thread.

Analytics are hugely important in context of our church.

It helps us understand whether our strategy is being effective or not.

And sometimes in digital spaces, it doesn't always line up with physical.

It's very easy to get that button seat number digitally.

But what does that mean?

Excuse me.

It's very easy to get that number physically.

But how that aligns and matches up,

is it true apples to apples comparison in digital space?

All of a sudden, you're adding multipliers and length of view

and platforms they're watching on,

which may or may not have more people clued into it.

And so all of a sudden,

maybe it feels a little bit like you're just pulling numbers out of the air

and making up the story as you're going.

And is there any scientific fact in context of all these numbers and stories

that we're alluding to in digital space?

It's really the heart of the conversation we wanted to have here.

And so we're bringing in the team, the nice people over at Resi,

formerly Living as One.

Colin Jones has been one of the earliest supporters of the church digital.

I think Colin may have been one of the first people

we had actually told that we were doing the church digital.

And so even from those early days,

Colin has been a supporter walking with us,

encouraging us and praying for us along that way.

And so anytime I get to have a conversation with Colin,

let's just call it gold.

It's just an awesome time to be together with that.

And Resi is coming out with some new analytics 2.0 approach

and how they're handling analytics and how they're providing reports

and what they're digging into, what they're positioning around.

Whether you're using Resi, Living as One,

or even if you're in a different system,

I think this is a gold conversation for you to start to understand

what these analytics can mean.

Yes, no, maybe it's an apples to apples comparison,

but you're measuring a different thing towards a different goal.

And that's where we get to tell a different story in digital space with these analytics

than what we do at the butts in the seats number in the physical space.

So what better way to dig in to invite Colin Jones back to this podcast?

Longtime supporter to dig in.

Also, at the same time, we're inviting in Jennifer Miles.

Jen's been on the podcast as well.

Former previous involvement with Life.Church,

doing some of their marketing, digital marketing towards that.

Jen's been doing customer relations

and building out some of this,

the Analytics 2.0 reports

and how they're managing this stuff within.

So as we're really getting a deep dive

into what analytics looks like within Resi's new systems,

let's bring both of them in,

have a conversation, learn a thing or two.

So here's where we are.

We're bringing into the conversation,

Colin Jones, CEO, president of Resi.

Jen Miles,

essentially customer relations in context of Resi.

Resi, myself, Jeff with the Church Digital

and of course, Stadia Church Planting

in a conversation that I'm calling

analytics of our online church services.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

So Colin, what's the weirdest,

most out of the box request

that a church has asked for in this COVID season?

Yeah, Jen actually goes through all the requests.

So that's probably a better question for her.

But we've definitely gotten some very,

very strange ones that we say,

okay, that's a great idea.

Have you thought about doing it this way?

And they're like, oh yeah, yeah, that's great.

But Jen, if you want to go on that one,

I'm sure you have specific examples.

I don't know if this comes across as a weird request.

Like to me, it's a weird request,

but it probably makes a lot of sense

to the customer who's asking for it.

One of the biggest requests we had

when COVID started was the ability

to make everybody be live with the event

and require that everyone stay within like five seconds of live.

And on the surface,

that sounds like a really great idea to me.

But in reality,

like the way that I look at church online,

people might need to step away to deal with a kid.

People might need to pause to talk

to the person they might be sharing the service with.

And so like,

I love the concept of,

I want everyone within the same five seconds.

But from an engagement perspective,

I also love the concept of leaving that up to the viewer

to say,

do I want to pause and have interaction

with the people that are in the room sharing with me?

And then come back to the service and continue.

Like it's kind of this fine paradigm of

what is the culture of the church?

And what is the temperament you want to set

as far as what does your engagement look like?

And how do you want to do that with it?

Is it small groups?

Is it family?

Is it individuals?

And so that's always a weird request to me

and how I look at it.

That's actually one that we did

because we like eliminated the DVR window or whatever.

So it's funny because that was a request

that we actually did.

But yeah,

basically not giving people DVR.

Yeah.

Another one for me that's always been really interesting

that we get a lot of

and that we've accommodated for

is after an event is live,

I don't want it to be available on demand anymore.

And so again,

it's like,

again,

what's your culture of your church?

For me,

I want people to engage throughout the week with content.

And I know that not everyone attends live.

Like according to BarnaStats,

what,

half of people actually attend a service

in the last four weeks.

And so if I want people to come back

and engage with my content,

I want it to be available on demand.

So they watch in the appropriate times.

We especially saw with COVID,

what started with people attending live

transitioned to more and more people watching on demand.

And so I look at things as,

how do we get people to engage?

But every culture has,

every church has a little bit of a different culture,

a little bit of a different way to engage people.

So what I think is weird might be absolutely normal

in the context of that church's ministry.

But those are the two that I always felt were kind of weird.

That one's funny because that second one's normal to me.

That's what I recommend to churches

because then you get more attendants coming at the same time

rather than people saying,

oh,

I'll watch later.

And then later never happens.

So then a lot of churches that like just have their sermons up all the time,

you know,

are like,

watch on demand later on,

you know,

the whole service,

you know,

then it's like,

then why do I come at 10?

So I'll just come later.

And then I don't ever come.

Yeah.

Later never comes.

Yeah.

But isn't that funny?

Like even within this group.

Yeah.

Even within this group,

it's like,

oh,

we're on opposite ends of the paradigm is how does,

how do we approach it?

So that just shows how different churches are from a,

what is their engagement model?

And what is the audience that they're working with?

To hang up with the on demand.

And this is not where I want to go with the conversation,

but I find it interesting.

And it's funny,

like I've even seen Jay Cranda tweet about this.

And I seem to hear this conversation a lot where,

you know,

Christ Fellowship Miami,

a church that I'm close with here in Miami,

they've got four or five English services on a weekend.

They're broadcasting all four or five out actually through Resi.

And so like in the YouTube,

they've got four or five live streams that have analytics.

They have traffic on it.

And so,

and they're wrestling right now as an organization.

Do we delete three of the four streams and keep the one up that was the most

traffic it did,

but then you're throwing away like analytics and,

and comments and things like that because you don't want the multiple streams

or are you better off having the multiple streams?

Like how do you,

how do you recommend or do you guys have any thoughts on how to handle that,

that type of situation?

So,

um,

it honestly depends on the organization that we're working with.

One of the things for us,

like originally we would tell customers,

don't delete events,

like leave them there.

Um,

because you want that,

those analytics long-term and you want to be able to get access to those.

Now that we have analytics version 2.0,

I,

my answer is kind of changed a little bit because you can get rid of the three services

that aren't really the primary one.

Like a lot of churches will go through and say,

we have a 6 PM and 9 AM and 11 AM,

but the one we like the best is the 9 AM.

So that's the one we want to keep historically.

So now it's,

yeah,

you could get rid of the six and the 11 and just put the one out you really like,

but you have access to all of the analytics for every service you ran that weekend.

You're not going to lose them just by getting rid of the event itself.

So I get,

use the one that you like.

So your,

your source of truth on the analytics piece,

now that you've expanded,

we're going to get into a lot,

but the analytics,

the 2.0 out of Resi,

the source of truth,

isn't the traffic on YouTube.

The source of truth is some of the numbers that you're able to pull off of Resi

and,

and how that's hitting the YouTubes and the Facebooks and,

and everywhere else.

So that's interesting.

And I know that that probably greatly simplifies a lot of spreadsheets that churches are running,

trying to tabulate all the traffic of all the different areas that are happening in any one Sunday.

And I know within Resi,

you guys have spent the past season.

I mean,

obviously you accelerated very quickly,

like a lot of tech companies did at the beginning of COVID.

And so you've seen a lot of growth within the organization.

You've been working on some advancements,

developments specifically within analytics and other areas.

In this season,

like when,

when you're looking at churches and they're,

they're asking questions,

like,

I'm just curious,

like what are they wanting to measure?

What,

what particular stats are you getting?

Like a unique stats that maybe you weren't expecting.

I,

you know,

I know one of the questions that I was always asking is where are these people

viewing from?

Like what's the geographic area where I'm getting this,

this traffic?

So maybe what,

what are some of the,

the,

the front runners,

the things that,

that churches are really looking for coming out of their analytics of church online?

Yeah,

I think what's interesting is when we were talking to customers to determine what we were

going to include in analytics 2.0,

one of the things that I really liked is that we consistently heard the same things.

And so I think that COVID has really brought kind of a focus on what is valuable versus what is,

what we call a vanity metric.

What are the things that are actionable?

What are the things that equate to more like engagement on a physical campus?

And so things like how many viewers do I have?

Are they watching live?

Are they watching on demand?

Being able to track what kind of engagement you're getting with people,

where are they watching from?

Right?

So that's one that you just mentioned.

That's a really big one is what are my top 10 locations?

Because churches might then say,

you know,

we could have a pop-up in a location that we're seeing a lot of activity,

but doesn't actually have a physical campus within driving distance,

or that the physical campus isn't meeting.

And so those are two big ones that came up,

the viewers and the locations.

Other things that came up that I was really surprised on,

we do average watch time.

Like that feels like a normal thing.

I was really surprised the number of customers that also asked for median watch time.

That seems like an odd number to ask for.

But what I was finding was that especially customers who run advertising

to their church online services,

they have a big distortion in their average watch time number,

because when you run ads,

you have a lot more people who bounce after five seconds or 10 seconds.

And so being able to see like,

what is my median number over time,

allows me to really see what is the kind of,

what is the average attender watching?

And am I able to control that number up or down

based on order of service or based on how I'm engaging messages?

And so that's one that we've been really intentional about

is things that are actionable.

So another one is current concurrent viewers.

Again, that's kind of like a button seat number

that we have just introduced with analytics 2.0

is how many,

what's the max number of people that are,

we're watching at one given time.

So that kind of is our attendance number.

Other numbers that I was also really surprised with,

I guess I shouldn't be surprised,

just things that we hadn't been able to do before

is a minute by minute graph.

Like how many people are watching when worship starts

at the 10 minute mark,

how many people are watching partway through the message

at the 30 minute mark

and being able to actually see that

minute by minute information over time.

So those were big ones.

And I don't know that's surprising,

but it's nice that we are able to offer that now.

Something Jen,

that if you don't mind talking about

that I thought was really interesting

is all the work that you did

and like aggregating social.

And I know that we're about to release

that part of analytics 2.0,

including stream URLs and social media and all that.

But can you talk about like,

you know,

the question that Jeff probably would ask

if he knew what I did is like,

what decisions did you make

in terms of like multipliers?

Because we wanted to get one dashboard for pastors,

you know,

and we also wanted to give the detailed data

so that people could do their own multipliers

and their own kind of assumptions.

But like,

do you count someone that watched 15 seconds

on Facebook as a view?

Like,

what are all the decisions you made

in that kind of scenario

for,

you know,

churches to make the one dashboard,

you know,

accessible to give you a number

and give you all those numbers

that you're talking about?

Yeah.

So those are really good questions.

One of the most complicated things

when you talk about analytics

and trying to compare apples to apples

so that a pastor can say,

this is my information

is that every destination

actually measures different things.

And when they measure the same thing,

they measure that thing differently.

And so the way that we approached that

was that we actually created

five different views

into your destination data.

And so we were really intentional

about providing customers

one kind of all destination view

that gave where we could

an apples to apples look.

So like every platform

has a views number

and we can take that views

for anyone who watched

more than three seconds.

Like that is kind of like the baseline.

We know every platform

will give you views

for more than three seconds.

And so if a pastor

is trying to say all up,

this is what I did,

they can look at that one number.

Not all platforms

use average watch time.

I wish they did.

But so for all destinations,

it's really,

you can get your views.

That was the one thing

we could do apples to apples.

But because we knew

there were limitations there,

we actually created

different views

into if you have an embed code,

here's the things

we can give you

for an embed code.

We're able to track

much more detailed information.

And so one of the things

we did was every KPI,

if it's available

on that platform,

so if it's available

for your stream URLs,

if it's available

for your embed code,

if it's available

for Facebook or for YouTube,

we put that KPI

on the page.

If it's not available,

we left that KPI off.

But we didn't create

like one-off KPIs.

So like Facebook

has this really cool thing

where you can see

do people attend

three seconds,

10 seconds,

30 seconds.

It's the only platform

that does it.

So we left that off

because it really

kind of detracts

from what is actionable

and what is consistent

across my platforms.

And so trying to make

really intentional decisions

about we want to give

pastors and staff

the ability to say

across all my platforms,

this is my consistent

analytics data

and helping them figure out

what is apples for apples.

So getting that

consistent number,

the consistent fields

to help kind of

normalize all the variances,

all the weirdness,

all the uniqueness

out of the platforms

to help,

you know,

apples to apples across.

That's beautiful.

Colin,

you said a word

that you're right

coming into this

and I totally should

talk about it,

the multiplier.

Like,

are you taking

the multipliers

into consideration

or is there

a consistent multiplier

that you're seeing

across

when you're having

conversations with churches?

Like,

what's the state

of the multiplier,

I guess,

in church today?

What are you guys seeing?

Yeah,

I don't think anybody,

you know,

it's kind of funny

because churches

that actually do surveys on it

get like varying numbers.

Even like based

on the time

that they do it

and like,

like Church of the Resurrection

will get a certain number

and theirs might be,

you know,

three and then,

you know,

North Point will do it

and theirs will be 1.7,

you know.

And so,

I think the most common

is still,

you know,

the 1.5,

the 2.5

and,

you know,

somewhere in that range

and there's outliers

low and outliers high.

But,

yeah,

I don't think multipliers

have changed drastically,

but it is funny.

We decided,

I think,

I believe,

Jen,

you might need to update me

on this,

but to leave all that out,

but we did give the separate data

because people will assign

different multipliers

to Facebook

because it's probably

mostly individuals watching

than they will

to their embed code.

And so,

we just give you

how many views

you had

and you can assign,

you know,

whatever multiplier

you want

based on the different platforms.

Yeah,

the idea of,

you know,

even just calculating

the,

and counting the IP addresses,

the devices,

looking at it like that

and trying to force,

instead of trying to force

that apples to apples

consideration,

you know,

really thinking different

about digital

is a huge step

in that.

So,

I love what I'm hearing here

with some of the,

the analytics here.

You know,

I'll tell you for,

for me,

for every week

in this COVID season,

except for maybe

the half a dozen times

I've,

I've been in a control room

running a service.

Uh,

my family,

we're,

we're watching through,

uh,

through a TV app,

whether it's

Christ Journey,

Christ Fellowship Miami,

random churches

that,

that I'm,

I'm,

I'm checking out.

the majority of the time

seems to be,

you know,

an app that's downloaded

on my Apple TV

or,

or on a Roku.

And,

and pre-COVID,

I know there wasn't a lot

of,

of traction or demand

really centered,

centered around this.

I'm just curious,

coming through this COVID season,

is there more demand

within churches?

Is there more desire

to hit that TV

with the,

through the TV apps

or,

or are people watching it

on,

on,

on the iPhones

or iPads

or AirPlay?

Like,

what's,

what are you hearing

as some of the technical

implications that are happening

Sunday mornings

in,

at the actual homes

where,

where people are engaging

and watching these services?

I'm happy to answer

the first part of that.

And,

like with,

yeah,

I mean,

I think the multiplier

is definitely higher

with TV apps,

right?

Like,

of,

we have stream URLs,

which,

which is hard

because that,

you know,

and we'll,

we'll break it out

from what I understand

from,

you know,

different TV apps

and different mobile.

And this is why

analytics is complicated

because,

and oftentimes

it's why

leadership doesn't have

a clear,

you know,

goal or number.

And then also

why it doesn't sometimes

get as much resources,

right?

Is because they can't see

the butts in seats.

In a,

in a church service,

they can see the butts

in seats,

right?

And they know,

got 400 people here

happy with it.

When you're streaming

to a bunch of different

TV apps

and different sources,

you can't see

the butts in seats.

And so our analytics,

the vision behind it

is getting pastors

to see

the butts in seats

and be able to,

you know,

care more about online,

be more invested in it.

And therefore,

reach more people

digitally,

you know,

for Christ,

right?

And in terms of how

TV apps play into that,

you know,

I think you're right.

I think,

you know,

churches are doing

probably more in TV apps

than I've seen

now that the,

the kind of strategy

is flattening out.

They'll have multiple apps

for, you know,

different types of content

and,

you know,

which I think is a really

great strategy

because even you're,

you know,

even after COVID,

people's habits have changed.

And I think churches

are becoming

less controlling

in the way

that they need them

to be in person

and they're more okay

with them

just measuring

spiritual development

however it happens.

And so,

you know,

TV apps

for different types

of content,

you know,

are really great.

Like if you can stick

your kid in front

of a,

you know,

Christ Fellowship TV app,

you're much more likely

to do that,

you know,

and be happy about it

than sticking them

in front of,

you know,

whatever kids TV

or,

you know,

you have older kids,

Jeff,

so it's probably

different for you.

Yeah,

we just watched Loki

today.

Today,

it's just like

they got out of school,

summer's here

and so Loki episode one

came out.

So yeah,

they're out there

probably,

I have no idea

what they're watching

right now,

but we've got

the TV app locked down.

But are you,

so you're seeing

kind of more,

more traction

towards that.

That's great.

Jen,

were you going to add

something on that?

I can shift gears

to something else

if I need.

You know,

I was just going to say

that like,

I definitely,

when talking to customers

about their analytics,

again,

because right now

we're knee deep

and what does

analytics 2.0 do

and how are we

improving it

is customers

in general

are recognizing

that people

are using

not just apps,

so Roku,

Apple TV,

but they're doing

a lot more airplay,

a lot more Chromecast.

And so trying to be

really intentional

about what devices

are people watching on

because that behavior

is different

if you're watching

on a mobile device

or if you're watching

on a laptop

or if you're watching

on a television.

And so those questions

are being asked

more frequently now.

And we're seeing

more and more use cases

where people are on Roku

or on Apple TV

or on a TV in general.

Okay.

Yeah,

happy for you.

But the one thing

that churches have done

that I always try

to convince our customers

to do

is,

you know,

in this season

when we're going back

to in-person,

right,

a lot of the pastors

are really focused

on how do we get

digital conversion

to in-person,

right?

And of course,

the digital-only churches

that you do

don't care about that,

Jeff.

It'll still be a thing,

but it'll be,

you know,

conversion to a community

group or conversion

to whatever

or coming back next week.

But is anything

that you can do

to create leadership

buy-in,

you know,

for digital

is a good thing.

And so I would suggest

definitely if you're

the tech guy

in the organization

or the online pastor

to put,

you know,

Analytics 2.0

in your offices,

put it in your

green room live.

You know,

that's why we intended

to do it

so that it can get

leadership eyeballs

because,

you know,

a lot of our churches,

and our pastor

prays over everyone

watching online

before he goes out

into the service.

And,

you know,

there's a lot of churches

that do that

on stage displays

for their worship team

to see,

you know,

hey,

and it just keeps them

frame of mind

to say,

you know,

it's not just about

the in-person experience,

the people in the room,

there's,

you know,

little dots

all over the United States

that,

you know,

we're impacting right now.

And,

you know,

that helps change

and makes

the tech director vision

come to life

or the,

you know,

the Jeff Reed vision,

right?

If we want to focus

on digital discipleship

and all those things,

if,

you know,

if your pastor's

watching it happen

as he's preaching,

you know,

and he's also seeing

a little dots,

he's going to be

much more likely

to put resources

into digital discipleship,

et cetera.

Definitely.

And I love the fact,

so you actually have

like a skinned UI,

1920,

1080 TV type view

for a green room.

I've had so many people

ask for that

over the years

where they want

that engagement.

They want to know,

hey,

there's another 400

set of eyes

on the other,

on the other side

of these TV camera lenses.

Like that would be

a beautiful idea

just to make it

even more applicable

and more accessible

for the people

even when they're on stage.

Yeah.

And what's funny

is we've had this forever.

You literally just,

you know,

you log in,

you go to analytics 2.0.

Yeah,

but you know,

and then,

or you click on the event

analytics

and then you scroll down

and there's a map

and you go full screen

and it's a map

and you can zoom it

to the world,

the United States.

You know,

most churches probably don't have,

Christ Fellowship

probably has a cool worldview,

but most churches

aren't large enough

to have a cool worldview.

So we do the United States

and then,

you know,

and you just see

it updates every minute

of people watching.

So it's live.

And so if you have it

in your green room,

it literally shows,

you know,

the dots go in and out

and the pastor

can be just as mad

about a dot going out

as he can

if someone leaves the room.

Stuff like that.

Oh, crap.

What did I say?

I'm chasing all my dots away.

They're all leaving.

What's going on?

That's awesome.

I love that.

And you already,

you had it in there.

I'm behind times,

I guess.

Yeah, no,

I think there's a lack

of awareness around it

because, you know,

just because people are busy,

but like if you can,

you know,

because they're doing stuff,

but you can literally

just have that in there

and let them click full screen.

Let me ask this,

you know,

energy focus here.

I mean,

we're doing this recording

June 2021.

You know,

energy focus is going back

to the building.

Social distancing

is phasing out.

I ordered a Starbucks

this morning

in Starbucks

without wearing a mask.

First time I've been able

to be in Starbucks

without a mask

here in Miami,

at least,

in 18,

15,

16,

whatever months

it's been.

Is seeing,

are you seeing churches

like ramp up

in digital?

Are they keeping

a focus on digital?

Are they losing the focus

going back to physical?

Are you seeing,

like,

what are you just seeing

engagement wise?

What are you seeing

attention

in the church space?

Maybe what are some stories,

what are some churches

doing that your guys

are tracking with?

Happy to start that one

and then Jen,

you can go

because you'll have

your own answer as well.

That's valuable.

Yeah,

from what I'm seeing

is that,

you know,

not very many churches

are canceling

like and going

and not stopping streaming,

you know,

because the vast majority

of their attendance

is still online.

Even,

you know,

that was before COVID too,

right?

And so like,

even before COVID,

like most people's

attendance online was,

you know,

at least 20 to 50%

of their in-person

attendance,

right?

And I think after COVID,

what's happened is that,

you know,

the majority,

when you account

for the multiplier,

attendance will remain online

and it probably won't

ever go back,

right?

If you're doing online well.

I think where people

are losing focus

is the intentionality

from online

and they're just

thinking about online

as how do we transfer

people back into the building

and that's what

their focus is doing.

So they're doing

a lot of programs

and focus on,

you know,

let's make it exciting

and fun

and,

you know,

whatever for people

to come back

in the building.

and I think getting

and I think getting

volunteers back

has been hard,

all of that

kind of thing,

you know,

and just schools

are still like closed

in a lot of the,

you know,

states,

but they're opening up.

I think what I would

love to see

from more churches

is more intentionally

around how do we

continue to grow

online

and how do we

keep retention

online,

right?

How do we keep

people coming back

every week?

How do we,

you know,

not only do we want

to get the person

back in the building,

but the people that

aren't going to be

coming in the building,

we want them

to keep watching online.

We want to grow,

you know,

everybody that we

want to reach

is online,

right?

So how do we also

remain intentional

about digital

and not lose

the focus

that we've been

able to have

on digital

last year?

And,

you know,

I think what

for the vast

majority of churches,

what Corona

convinced people

is that they've

got to be

invested in digital.

They've got to

put more resources

there.

You know,

one of our

elder board

kind of strategic

team always uses

this as an

analogy of,

hey,

if I came,

you know,

to you guys,

you know,

whatever,

many years ago,

five years ago,

and said,

you know,

hey,

or even a year

ago before COVID,

hey,

I've got,

you know,

a million dollars.

I want to build

a campus with it

and we'll have

500 people within,

you know,

three years.

You would say,

amazing.

Okay,

let's do that,

right?

That's a great

decision.

Let's do it.

Let's hire a

campus pastor.

Let's do that.

If I came to you,

you know,

the same time period

and said,

hey,

I've got a million

dollars.

I want to build

an online campus,

spend a bunch of

money on online

advertising,

and I'll have

500,000 people,

you know,

watching this thing,

engaged,

coming to Christ.

You would have

looked at me like

I'm crazy,

right?

You know,

a million dollars

isn't worth it

to spend 500,000

reviews or,

you know,

whatever it is,

right?

And now it's like,

okay,

go do it.

And so I think,

I think there just

needs to be some

more leadership

around online and

pastors have a hard

time understanding

the face-to-face,

it's not going,

and so I would love

to see,

you know,

more intentionality

around that.

The good online

campus pastors

are doing it,

but there's still

not as much

senior pastor

attention,

and I think that's

just because it's

hard,

right?

It's hard shifting

what you've been

doing in the last

20 years and how

you've thought

about church,

and that'll take,

you know,

I think another

five to ten years.

But I think,

I think this is

what made sure

the pastor's minds

have to do it,

right?

Like,

you can't just

go back.

Yeah,

and I'll just,

I'll echo

because Colin did

a really good job

from what we're

seeing in conversations

with customers

because I'm very

data-driven when I

look at what our

customers are doing.

I continue to see

we have customers

who are signing up

who are really

wanting to be

engaged in digital

and are asking

these really tough

questions about

how do I continue

doing that because

I'm not seeing

everyone come back

and I know that

I'm going to need

to engage people

online.

The other part

of that is

we're continuing

to see the

organizations that

we do have

do more events.

Like,

we're consistently

seeing our pattern

of how many events

do we do every

weekend as an

organization go up.

So it's not

disappearing.

What we're doing

is we're thinking

about what is the

way we do it

on a physical

campus,

what is the way

we do it

digitally,

and how do we

keep that moving

forward because we

know not everyone's

going to return

right away.

And we might not

see them return,

right?

If you look at

the numbers,

we're seeing

our younger

generations,

they're not as

engaged in physical

church.

So we have to

figure out how

do we engage

them digitally

and what are we

doing to

intentionally engage

them in our

community?

And I think

digital is always

going to be an

answer to that.

Yeah,

and we stay

out of the,

you know,

there's the whole

debate on whether,

you know,

digital church is

the purpose of,

even an in-person

church,

because Jeff is

doing a lot of

cool online only

thing,

which we do

have churches

using,

it's a really

cool thing.

But for an in-person

church,

there's,

you know,

the age-old

kind of thing,

this was 20

years ago too,

do you have

an online

campus to

primarily bring

people in

person and

use it as

the top of

funnel activity,

or do you

have an online

campus to have

its own

campus with

discipleship

funnels and,

you know,

community groups

and all of

that,

right?

And I would

love to know

your side,

Jeff,

on this.

Did,

you know,

did Corona

change more

people into

online,

you know,

to where they're

okay with the

full funnel of

church being

online?

Did it not?

I would love to

know that.

Yeah,

I would love to

know that too.

I'm kidding.

But I think

there's a group

that wants to go

back to the

building.

There's a group

that has

over-romanticized

what February

2020 was.

There's a group

of people that

that's the only

thing they know.

And the reality

is a lot of

the people that

are leading

these organizations

have been on

this planet

six decades.

And so the

reality of

trying to get

a 60-year-old

lead pastor

to learn

something different,

I mean,

Colin,

you're right,

it may take

five or ten

years to

really see

the culture

change.

I think

what COVID

did was

prove to

many people

that it

can work.

What's

interesting

is at

the same

time,

and I want

to say that

the physical

digital relationship

is part of

this,

not the

exclusionary

whole of

it.

You're seeing

a lot of

people walk

away from

staff right

now.

Church

staff jobs.

A,

it's incredibly

hard being on

a church

staff right

now.

The three

of us

all work

complementary

to churches.

We're not

in the middle

of it,

where we're

not having

to deal

with the

mask wars

and somebody's

leaving the

church to

go somewhere

else because

of political

opinions or

because the

church won't

take a stance

or because the

church is

wanting to

do more

racial,

inclusionary

type things.

It's a very

controversial age

for the church

and my fear

is the next

four years,

it's going

to get

even worse.

I think it's

going to get

worse far

before it

gets better,

if it gets

better.

But what's

coming out

of this,

I think there

are churches

that don't

want anything

to do with

digital because

they never

did.

I think there

are churches

where it's

pivoting.

I had a

lead pastor

tell me the

other day,

hey Jeff,

I didn't

understand this

stuff 24

hours ago.

You've

successfully

normalized the

weird.

All this

stuff you

were doing

in digital

space,

I thought

it was

weird.

Now I

understand it.

Now I

not only do

I understand

it, I

want to be

a part of

it.

I have to

see this

happen.

And so

there are

stories like

this of

churches,

of leaders

that are

pivoting and

that are

learning things

in this

season.

honestly a

little bit

for me,

and I've

said this

a couple

times publicly,

I'm actually

glad we're

going back

to the

building.

The building

model will

work in

some context.

I don't

want to say

that the

buildings don't,

the buildings

do.

Now I

think there's

a termination

date, I

think there's

an expiration

date on

that where

the buildings

will continue

to lose

influence and

so I think

we need to

be looking

at other

models.

But really

for the

season,

man,

let's help

those that

want to

be helped.

Let's go

with the

goers.

Let's run

alongside those

that want to

run.

And so for

me, that's

more of it.

I'd rather

champion the

people that

are thinking

different,

encourage

others to

follow suit

than to try

to convince

the guy

that went

through a

global pandemic

not thinking

digital ministry

was effective.

I don't need

to convince

that guy

today.

If I

couldn't

convince

that guy

April,

May,

2020,

if I

can't

convince

him

May,

June,

2021,

I'm

probably

not going

to convince

him.

I got to

go convince

somebody else.

So it's

just been,

let me,

at this point,

instead of

trying to

solve the

problem for

everybody,

it's been a

lot more

fun.

Let me

just go

with the

people that

want to

run.

Let's

set them

up to be

the shining

example that

hopefully will

inspire others

along the way.

You and I

have had a lot

of conversations,

Jeff,

about this in

the past.

I think

that the

three of

us are

all in

very unique

positions.

We enable

the church

to fulfill

the mission

they have

today,

but we are

all very

much thinking

about where

is the church

going to be

in five,

ten years and

making sure

that we

are helping

to structure

that and

to support

it.

We're in a

really unique

position to

hear all

these different

viewpoints and

talk through

why are they

important,

what context

do they work

in.

In some

places,

physical is

going to be

the thing

that works.

In other

places,

it's going

to be

digital.

We're

really

unique in

that we

see that

whole

spectrum in

our

conversations

every day

and are

seeing what's

coming in

five to

ten years.

Our job

as software

developers and

product

problem

solvers for

churches,

for them to

solve problems

that they're

having with

the workflow

and create

opportunities to

grow and

monetize and

engage their

audience online.

That's our

vision statement.

It's not our

job to set

the culture

or the

vision of

the church,

but a lot

of people

listening to

this podcast,

it is their

job.

They are

having to

lead up.

Jeff,

you get

to do

that right

now to

a lot of

different

pastors and

you've had

a long

history having

to lead

up.

I don't

know if

people know

the Christ

Fellowship

story,

but they

weren't

necessarily

the most

digitally

focused

church like

every church

in that age.

Jeff was

having to

lead the

vision for

that and

try to

convince

people to

do that.

I would

love to

hear.

I know

you've

talked

about this

from a

different

lens in

the podcast,

but how

can people

use software

tools to

help lead

up?

I would

love to

with other

types of

software that

puts it in

front of

leaders or

tries to