BETA11: Tips for Better Speaking Online

Hey, welcome to The Beta Show. Once again, my name is Jeff Reed with Stadia Church Planning,

Director of Digital Church Planting, and I am excited about The Beta Show here. We're going to

bring in and talk about the topics here in a little bit. But remember, here at The Beta Show,

we answer online questions by people like you. So if you've got online questions, go ahead and text

them in to 484-324-8724, and we will cover them in a future episode of The Beta Show. We are doing a

deep dive here in The Beta Show in the coming weeks, diving into digital Easter, how to have an effective

Easter coming up. And so check for a lot of those episodes and more information coming here through

The Beta Show. Also, hey, Stadia, we're doing digital learning communities, helping churches like yours

learn to thrive, grow, and multiply digitally. We had a number of learning communities just open up here

in January. We've got more opportunities in February. So for more information on that, seriously,

like developing a digital strategy that complements what's happening in the physical space so that your

church achieves the goals, the missions that it's calling itself, that God's calling you to do.

Like, we want to help you do that digitally, physically and digitally. So check out

stadiachurchplanting.org slash digital for more information there. So once again, here for The

Beta Show, we're bringing in co-host Ray Diarmus, who's busy texting away on the phone. Thank you for

that. I'm retweeting this entire deal. I am sharing it right now. I know.

My heart goes out to that. Way to look down at the exact wrong time. That was beautiful.

Hey, and I'm excited about today's guest that we're bringing in. We're bringing in Patrick Holden,

lead pastor from Nuvo Church. Now, I am super excited about this church plant. It's part of the

stadia family. And this guy is on fire up in the Ohio area, has been doing phenomenal ministry in this

COVID season digitally, and now is moving digital. They just had their first pop-up service this past

weekend. And so maybe, Patrick, you're just maybe 10 seconds, 20 seconds. Tell us a little bit about

yourself, man.

Yeah. So my wife and I, along with 11 other people, including my two college roommates, we all moved to

Columbus this past June, planted a church, mostly by reaching out to people on Facebook and asking

them to be our friend. So that's how we did it. We built a launch team by doing that. And like you

said, we just started meeting in real life, in person, at a hotel ballroom this past week. It was

really great. So everything worked too. Most, most everything production-wise. So it was fun.

Patrick's no stranger to the church digital or to stadia, but through the church digital,

we've done a number of podcasts with him talking about like that, that engagement strategy,

utilizing Facebook messenger, number of, of other, I know we've had John for other topics. I can't

remember what the other one was. Oh, worship, how to have a more dynamic worship service. So we

definitely want to, you know, check out his stuff and what's happening over there. So, hey, Ray's having

some tech issues. We'll figure Ray out later. He'll come back around. But for today, the topic that we

wanted to hit with the beta show here is tips for better speaking online. And so even as a, one of the

things that I love about Patrick is this fresh approach that he takes towards things. And so it's not

necessarily repeating what was, uh, and maybe some of the physical practices, but really looking at it

from the digital first and carrying it over. And so there's a lot of this that we're really wanting

to get into here with the beta show today. So Patrick, and as we're bringing it back in, but Patrick,

maybe just get us started here. What, uh, what are you thinking?

Well, thanks so much for having me back. It's so much fun. I love what you guys are doing. We've,

our team has been learning from it a ton over the last year, I guess, year and a half now,

what kind of greatest we met. Um, and so, yeah, I'll tell you the way that some of this constant

came about, Jeff is, uh, I was driving around one day and I don't, I mean, I don't only speak for

every speaker that was speaking live before, but you know, in the middle of a pandemic and the way

that so many churches had to shift, uh, and shift so quickly in the ways that we did, um, it was

difficult. I don't know that I had recognized how difficult maybe it was for me, even just going

like, Hey, I'm going to be speaking in front of a camera or a lens or an iPhone. Or, uh, at one point

we were living in Michigan. You'll appreciate this. We, we had the backdrop for our first service.

And then we had this camera that somebody had given us, but the lens didn't zoom. So we could

set it outside of the window. So that's how we filmed our first message outside of the window,

kind of coming in church planet life. It's pretty great. Um, so I just, I just, I just started like

going, Oh, it's kind of, it's kind of difficult to grieve some of that. And then also trying to

process through, you know, what are some of the things that I want to make sure that I take

away, even as we start doing some live speaking now, and we're going to still be digital at the

same time. Now there's two different streams that are flowing in the way that I'm going to communicate

now. And as much as I wish that they were exactly the same, they were very different. And so, uh,

what I was going to do is kind of talk a little bit about some of that and, uh, and kind of get

after that. So I'll tell you that for me, at least the way that I've been processing this,

probably the biggest learning for me, uh, when it comes to kind of digital content development

and speaking online is really beginning the strategic process of writing a little bit

differently first. And so what I did is I put in my notes, I said this, one of the things that I had

to shift away from was just the amount of content that I was communicating at one time and getting

really comfortable, uh, getting to the main idea as quick and as concise as I possibly could. Now,

even a year and a half ago, you guys know this a year and a half ago, people were probably looking

at more content that they're probably even looking at now. There was this influx of content on Twitter

and YouTube and Facebook and every church started putting out stuff. Um, and then everybody,

you probably remember this, remember this phase where every pastor also started doing interviews

on Instagram. Do you remember this? And then that lasted for about two and a half months and they

kind of fizzled out, you know? And, um, and so there's just this influx of content. And now what

I, you guys are probably seeing this too. Now what we're seeing is like really concise,

specific main ideas, uh, in, in, in kind of like a thread-based format. Um, and I think I've been

trying to be a student of that approach a lot. There's a guy, uh, who's a writer named James Clear.

You may know this. A lot of people may know this. What he does is he'll tweet and a lot of people do this,

but I saw it through him. He'll tweet, but he'll tweet in a thread-like format where it'll be kind of

one main idea that hook you. And then all the way through, there'll be like 20 more. Um, and I, I think

for me, what I've been trying to work on is shifting as much as I can towards, uh, points or main ideas.

There are 280 characters long that I can thread throughout a message and kind of approach it in that way. Uh, and I think if,

if the main idea is really good, then all of a sudden now you have, uh, you kind of expound on it throughout

the thread. Now, what we used to do, and you guys probably did this too, is, uh, you were Andy Stanley's

communicating for a change. It's a phenomenal book. Like every pastor should read it. If you haven't read

it, it's great. Um, but the approach there was, I'm going to, I'm going to intro things and then I'm

going to give you a lot of tension. Then I'm going to solve it with scripture, give you some application.

And I think that really works great for a lot, but now in the age of so much content,

we don't get people's attention long enough to create the intro and attention like, like we used

to. Um, and so I think for me, what I've been kind of trying to work on is how do I get to the main

idea as quick and as concise as possible? And then if I have more content, how do I make that content

three or four or five or six or seven, uh, other kind of pieces of things that I can put out? I think

that's a new thing that started over the last year, um, with communicators and content creators

is you have these ideas now that you can have so much more to like with, uh, because you can create

so many more things with it. And so that's one of the things I've been kind of processing through is

how do you, how do you get to the main idea as quick and as concise as you possibly can? So yeah,

that's great. And it's very difficult to do Patrick. I mean, and you know, I've definitely seen that

in your teaching as I followed some of the stuff that Nuvo has done. And so I think that's amazing.

Um, now how in the world do you bring about funny into a lot of what you're doing? Like,

especially engaging with the screen. And I've talked about this with a lot of communicators.

They love the feedback off of the live audience, even with comedians. This is a hard time because

they enjoy, like I saw Kevin Hart do his special from his house because he was so desperate to have

some kind of audience in front of him to feed off of that he opened up his own home. So talk to you.

Well, I laughed too. Uh, so you said, Kevin Hart, I saw Nate Margazzi at a drive-in theater.

I don't know if you know Nate Margazzi. He's my favorite too. And so there's like hundreds of cars

and we, you sit outside and it was cold and we watched it. And I just thought he would make these

jokes that were really funny, but there's no crowd to start the laughter. And so nobody was really

like, it is a different kind of a kind of flex in the way you do it. Um, so what, what I'm telling

people now, everyone's talking to what I'm trying to tell people now is the, the more that you can

predetermine the funny moments of your messages or your talks or your content, the better off you're

going to be. And the reason that I would say it that way is because, um, I think it allows you to

know that I've got a few things that I'm pretty confident are going to be finding the message.

And then as I'm giving it, as I'm reading off of a prompter, as I'm, you know,

kind of given whatever message or talk that I'm going to give, that allows me to actually be more

present because I know that I've got a few points somewhere else in the message. You know, like it

feels a lot better to do that. Now, what you were saying, what a lot of speakers I think struggle

with, including me is I would rather be funny in the moment and play off of the audience. And it's

different when there's just a camera, but on the flip side of that, the comedians that you and I

both love so much, they've pre-planned these jokes and they work them out and they, they say them in

a timed fashion, kind of moving forward. Comedians get that you can pre-plan funny, right? It's harder

for a lot of us who are pastors who are speaking lives to do that. But I think there is a discipline

there. Uh, that's really important. The other thing that I would say too, is it's also important

to know that not all funny is the same kind of funny, right? Now, if you watch like an office episode,

I guess we weren't going to make it through this without me referencing the office, by the way,

like when you think about the office in particular, there's, there's multiple types of funny within

it. So I would say like the thing that most people talk about is like the laugh out loud,

you know, belly laugh kind of funny. And you need a few of those for sure. Um, but the thing that I'm

trying to do more often is how do I make somebody actually like chuckle, right? How do I, how do I get

like 10 or 12 chuckle laughs, uh, throughout the talk? And you can do that through, you know, memes.

You can do that through like the Bernie Sanders thing that just happened. I mean, come on,

there are so many chuckle laughs that are just floating around and I mean that they might have

already seen, but seeing it again is also going to give them kind of a chuckle. Um, I think that's

one of the things that if I can bake in as much of that and feel confident as that, and then now have

a laugh out loud funny as well. Um, the other part too is, and this is kind of hard to communicate

over, you know, like a digital talk, but we all know the guy who sits in the last row and he's sitting

like arms crossed in the back, kind of like this waiting for you to be funny enough for him to care.

Right. It's a little bit of like the honey badger approach. You know, there's a little bit of that

sort of thing going on. I make that reference. We just did. And so there's a little bit of that.

It's live. It's too late now. It's already, it's already out there. Honey badger. You're welcome.

You can't believe it. There you go. Yeah. I'm just kind of laughing. Like as a communicator,

that's who I'm preaching to. That's who I want to talk to. That's who I want to kind of bring.

Um, and that guy is still watching, hopefully, even though he might be sitting next to his wife

on the couch watching, and he's still probably doing this. There is humor that I think is not

even geared towards getting a laugh, but it's specific towards making that person lean in. Right.

And so I, I try to put in specific types of humor about the talk that that the end goal is just for

the person to uncross their arms and, and kind of do that. So I did that the other night. I did like

a new girl joke that I knew 20% of the room would like 80% of the room either wouldn't like or wouldn't

get, but I was really going after the person who was also probably not watching TV and the night

before, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm trying to kind of go after that a little bit.

What was the new girl joke? I am a Schmidt fan. Schmidt is my guy. So I need to know what

the new girl joke was. So I, okay. So I love, I love the new girl too. I love Schmidt. Winnie the

bitch though is still my favorite. What I did is there's that scene where he says, I love you,

where Nick says, I love you the first time. You remember this? Yeah.

And that's the limbo. And so he says it and he just stares. And then she just pulls up the finger

guns and they just drive away. And so I was talking about like, when Peter speaks up and says,

like, I'm going to go out on the water towards Jesus. And I'm like, as soon as you say that,

like, you just regret it immediately. Like, why would I say that? I don't know.

And so I played that. And then we ended with a frame of Nick's face right after he said it.

It was great. You know, like people got it enough. So, yeah, that's good. That's really good. And

like you said, it's niche. It pulls in a certain audience, which I think is tough.

Yeah. What, what's the balance when you're doing this? So like you love new girl,

uh, are you assuming the audience does? And so you're pulling like your type of humor and reflecting

it on how much of you are trying to identify like the one, the person in your audience you're

reaching. What's, what's that balance when you're coming up with this humor?

So I'll tell you, and I might, I think I might have said a version of this on the last time we talked

series. I, I, I am a 30 something white dude in Columbus, Ohio. I don't have any context for

African-American women in their fifties. I don't know how to make those. But I have a team of people

that I run stuff by including humor. So I'm mining for that throughout the week and asking people.

And I'll ask people that even in conversations seem to be funny in those different demographics.

So this sounds really embarrassing. There are times I have to study what the, what the, what the

reference is enough to be able to make the joke, even if I've never seen the thing, you know?

And so, so I'm trying to balance it. So I would say like the chuckle thing that I would say,

I'm not trying to get massive laughs throughout whatever I'm doing, but I would, I would say,

I'm trying to make enough to where there's enough people in those categories that would know it.

And I don't think there's a better way than just asking people, or are they watching what

they think is funny? The fact that Ray likes Schmidt, right? I can, I'd be like, okay, there, there,

me and Ray are very similar. Like we both know if I make a Schmidt reference versus a Winnie the

Bish reference, it's going to hit people differently. And I think you're probably into that. So yeah,

that's how I do it. But I'm, I'm more parks and rec. I literally watched an episode this morning.

I had it on the, in the TV. So like that, that's just more, more of my speed, I guess,

but well done here. My wife loves New Girl.

She loves New Girl. Awesome. Hey, Patrick, what else you got, man? This is great.

So I would say the other thing too, that's very unique about digital communication right now

is a lot of us have frameworks that we worked in when it comes to live speaking. I referenced Andy's

book, Communicating for Change, it's a phenomenal framework. And I think a lot of that still applies.

I mean, there's a lot of others, but right now, I think there is a framework that would

say, we're going to, I think there's an approach with YouTubers in particular, they give away a

little bit more information in the beginning to hook you. And then they kind of pull like the thread

out a lot longer. And then they solve it in the last five seconds. And so I saw this quote,

I wish I could remember exactly who said it, but it says, describe the video's value in the first five

seconds. What are you going to get out of this video in five seconds? And that could be a quick

statement. It could be a quick thing. Describe the video's value in the first five seconds,

and then ask a question that you don't fully and finally resolve until the last five seconds.

Now, this is most YouTube videos that are kind of going out there and that are massive in a talk,

right? This is kind of saying, Hey, if you're going to listen to me, if you're going to pull up the

screen and you're going to stay with me throughout this, I need to give you in the first five seconds,

something that's going to catch your attention. And then I'm going to keep you with me as long

as I can until the last five seconds. So in terms of that framework, I would say it's adjusting the

way that we think about tension and release and tension and resolve to approach it in a little bit

different way. So I said that I said, describe the video's value in the first five seconds,

create and then resolve smaller tensions throughout the talk, right? So, you know, when I was kind of

coming up through learning how to speak, you know, I would spend 10 minutes on just creating tension with

people and then resolve that tension and then give advocates. But I think in a digital world,

in a way that we format now, I think you're giving tension and release constantly. So it's a lot more

work and figuring out how do I, how do I get your attention, resolve it, but not fully resolve it to

keep you going with me. And I think that kind of framework, that kind of approach to it is actually

what's going to keep people kind of with you and staying with you throughout the duration of your content.

So that's the way that I'm trying to approach it now. But, and that's a lot more difficult in some ways.

Real quick within that, can you talk about content duration? Because that to me is one of the biggest

things for online, especially a lot of people, like I know that YouTube and Facebook are favorite

algorithms that want to keep you trapped in longer, but sometimes for a person that can be really

disengaging. Whereas a sermon could really just be split up into two and keep me engaged. Like if I'm

really that engaged, I'll watch part two right afterwards. Can you talk about how you format some of your content?

That's great. Absolutely. So I think for me, I agree there, there's content that's longer that you want to

see shorter. That's great. Part of it is coming to grips with how interesting are you in front of a camera?

Like at the end of the day, there's, you just have to be ruthlessly honest about saying I can hold people's

attention and your wife will probably tell you, right? That you need somebody that will actually tell you the answer to that question.

So I would say at least for us, we've experimented with a couple of different links. So we've done like

five minute segments to see how well those are. And you can actually track those. You guys know that you

can track, see how long people retain. We'll do the longer service. Typically, I'll do about a 20,

25 minute talk there, but that's a lot more graphic heavy than what we would do in five minutes.

And so we're kind of approaching those. Those are the two that I think we've probably experimented with the

most. But part of that, I think you just have to figure out how interesting are you. The other part too,

that you can help with is going, and when I watch a talk online, which is terrible to say out loud,

I rarely watch the whole talk. I will scan for the highlighted points. It's like you read a blog.

I'm watching a talk like I read a blog. I'm looking for the headlines. I'll scroll through an Andy

talk and just find the quotes on the big TV, you know, whatever that, you know, I want to say that.

And then I'll stop and listen if that point is interesting. So again, I think it gets back to

how well are you creating this concise statements and pull people in. That helps you. But knowing that

very few people are sitting down for 20, 25, 30, 40 minutes to watch you say words in front of a lens.

So I think. What do you think? Do you guys find that too?

For me, and this isn't even an ADD thing. A lot of people want to blame this on ADD or something along

those lines. But to me, shorter, punchy content, like you said, that gets directly to the point really

hits me a lot better than needing a lot of flower to speak to even get there. It's one of the things

that I've appreciated from communicators, like you mentioned, Andy, that he's giving you the tension

right up front. He's giving you the topic and he's even giving, he's even giving you like a piece of

the answer, but then he's giving you like a solid breakdown and leading you down a path to the

ultimate revelation of the full answer. That, that to me is a lot better in terms of keeping me engaged.

But even then, if I can get, if I can get there in five to 10 minutes, I'll prefer that over 25 to 30

minutes, even in a biblical lesson. It's one of the things I love the most about the Bible project,

if you think about it, the Bible project, they're, they're crafting these airtight videos. I mean,

they're airtight, giving you a lot of theology, but keeping you engaged the entire time. It's one

of the things that I come to appreciate. Going with that type of format, you know,

it's where it's a little shorter, some of this punchier stuff. It definitely gives more opportunity

to ask engaging questions, you know, almost back to like this master teacher format that was popular

a couple of decades ago. Hey, let me, let me communicate for, for three to five minutes with it.

Now break up and, and, and talk about it and starting to utilize that maybe within chat rooms,

maybe within, um, you know, other platforms that allow some of that breakup technology to

break up into separate groups, starting to move away from isolation, starting to get people to now

dialogue, not just sit and stare at a screen or sit and stare at a person, exude their spiritual

gifts, but own it by, by talking through it. So definitely love some of the, the conversation

that that's happening here. So, um, what's next? What, what do you have?

The other thing I would say about this, when it comes to specifically developing content,

and then I think this is, uh, this is something to really remember, especially the punchier that you

get and the more concise you get is how do you make it human, right? You've got to make the message

that you're giving as human as possible. It's very easy in the digital world to create something that

looks really great. It's easy to create things that are punchy and shareable, but it's very difficult to

actually engage the heart as you're doing that. Um, and so I, I put, I actually put this up,

this question up anytime I'm writing content nowadays, and I'm asking the question, how do I make

a human connection over the digital medium that I'm trying to engage with? How do I make it as human

as possible? Um, because we have to work to not just be blended in with the screen, right? It can be

very easy because you know that most people, a lot of people are multitasking as they watch you. What's

going to draw them into you as a human being and kind of pull them into that content is you being

vulnerable and you being open and honest and you, uh, being authentic and not just a personality on

screen. Right. Um, and so I, I put in my notes, I said that we have to work really hard to make the

two-dimensional feel like a three-dimensional human experience. And I'm kind of working across the

table, uh, from you as much as I can. Right. Uh, and so for me, I, I do that. There's a couple of kind of,

now these are a little bit cheesy, so not saying you should do this. This is what I do to help me

kind of keep in mind that there are other people on the side of the screen. Uh, there have been times

where I will take a picture of a person that I hope watches and put it right next to the lens. So I can

remember that I'm talking to another human on the other side of that lens. Um, oftentimes in my notes,

I've been doing this for a long time, but especially in this season, or if I'm reading from a prompter,

uh, at some point in the prompter in parentheses or in a different color, something like that,

I'll, I'll put a name or a set of names or people that I'm, I'm hoping to specifically

communicate this particular point too. Um, and so I'll, I'll actually do that quite a bit. Um,

and then for me and my prep and my prayer time is doing that as well. I pray specific names over

this content. Now, again, that might be overboard. You might be better at that than me. I mean,

I'm an Enneagram age. I have all the weird mess that comes with that, but I think for me,

well, how do I make sure, uh, that I'm, I'm not just a good communicator online,

but I'm genuinely making a human connection within schedule. So yeah.

Can we actually do a broadcast or have a conversation about church and not talk about

the Enneagram? Like, is it impossible? I was just, even earlier today, I was like,

this is like the, the, the, it's almost a borderline cult. How, how much the, the Enneagram idea

has come into play. My dog is jumping into the broadcast in real time.

Yeah. Audience, little Ray. Yes. She's, she's really sweet. This probably means that she needs

to go out and go to the bathroom. Oh, look how she's tackling me. Hey, as we're moving on,

I'm going to jump off screen for a little bit and try to figure out what's up with my dog.

Um, Ray and Patrick, you guys run with it and tell us what's next.

Sweet. We can finally talk more about new girl. Uh, no, all right, Patrick, um, talk us through the

filming process because our, our, how involved are you? Uh, because not every communicator wants

to be overly involved on the technical side. And then some want to tinker a little too much.

So how involved are you? And every creative director is like, please don't let them tinker too much.

Right? Like there's a little bit of that. Yeah. So you're an Enneagram eight, which means that

you like to tinker. You, you want to control. So tell me about that. Always, always. So I think

what I'm trying to, what I'm, what I would like to help every communicator and pastor think about

right now is how can you kind of function as both a director and an artist at the same time,

or, or you could say a director and a pastor at the same time. Like, how do you, how do you balance

those two things? What I think oftentimes will happen, especially in this world is there's this,

there's this strive to get back to in-person what I'm comfortable with. And, and so the digital thing

is kind of a passing moment that we're trying to get through and we don't necessarily put the effort

into thinking about how do we create, you know, craft or create something, um, that's kind of a full

package on the communication side. And so, you know, I'm, I'm always curious, like for pastors,

what are your creative meetings actually look like around your talk now? Like you might have

creative meetings around everything else around your talk, but what is the actual creative process

like within your talk? So I would say this, I think every person that's on the screen needs to think

like a director and speak like an artist. Now that doesn't mean you have to have every part of it down.

It doesn't mean that you necessarily need to be the director, but the more that you can pre-plan

and the better you communicate, the better your message is actually going to be. Right. And so for me,

I think about this, like if I'm going to reference a picture in a message, I want to know that that

picture is going to show up and I want to be able to point to it. Right. And that's an easy thing.

That's like a one percenter, but that actually helps drive engagement, but it takes pre-planning

on the front end. Right. I'll jot down the mood or emotion that I'm going to want to be creating or

live within. There are different parts of my talk and give that away to people. I want people to find that.

And so for me, sometimes I'll even go back and say, Hey, like, did we get it right? I want to see

that part or listen to that to see if the music actually matches in the way that we want. So I

would just say this, remember that you are the gatekeeper of quality content and the arc of the

emotion that doesn't go away just because you're in front of a lens. That's good. Real quick. How do you

drive to clarity for that? Because sometimes when you say speak like an artist, that doesn't translate

well, like, Hey, make it more awesome or make it more beautiful. That doesn't always translate so well. Whereas,

sometimes I prefer you to speak to me like a scientist, like, no, like time codes and clarity,

like as best as possible. How do you and your team resolve some of that tension?

So that's good. So when I, when I'm saying speak like an artist, what I'm saying is that there is

a blank page and you're painting on it and you're putting your message there. Um, and you're also

thinking enough about technical to communicate feelings. So I would say, and if I, if I'm hoping to

be viewed, you know, and those like, how am I viewed artists or scientists? Sure. I think you're having to,

like figure those things out, but specifically with communicating to your team, I, what I would say

is you're, you're used to doing the artist thing, crafting something. Now also think about it from

the seat of the person that's actually producing it. I think you've got to do that part really well,

but yeah, for sure. I think you don't always want to be an artist unless you're Erwin McManus

and you can get away with it. You know what I'm saying? Like, and we're not, there's one Erwin.

So I think you've got to figure it out. Yeah. You're saying, you're saying words like process

and pre-planning, like you're, you're putting a lot of effort up front into that, but you know,

let's, let's get real here. Like life's crazy. Ministry's crazy. Uh, it's 167 hours until the next

time you've got to speak. And so, you know, how, how do you kind of work through that and kind of

anticipate in, in, in a real life scenario? Like what, what are those tensions and how do you work through it?

Yeah. Well, I would also say we, I have ridiculous team that helps me do that and they can ask me

anything and push back and tell me, no, that's another big thing. You know, like that they're

very involved in that stuff. I would say for me though, I'm trying, I'm working on multiple talks

at a time. And I think that's been super helpful. If you're going to do this kind of thing at a high

level with the way that we're talking about doing it, um, you're not just working on one thing at a

time. And so, and it's not even that I'm like eight weeks planned. It's not even that,

like I don't have eight talks in the hopper right now, but I would say I have ideas and thoughts and

my notes app is kind of full of that. And then we, once it gets there, then it's in a system,

right? So right now we have a document that, that actually is gone all the way through Easter. And I

have bigger themes that I'm going to be communicating through, but the difference for me and from what I've

used to do is I also have a ton of notes around the field and look and approach that I want in those kind of

spaces that it's kind of, it's a different column, I guess, than just the content. I think as pastors,

especially trying to do this digital media thing, we got to have both of those. So yeah,

it's good. Yeah. Um, the other thing I was going to put around this too, when it comes to like

communicating in front of the camera is I think we have to create rhythms to be ready. Um, this is one

of the things, at least that I've talked to pastors that has kind of been the, the, one of the quickest

things to be lost, right? There used to be a rhythm to Sunday mornings where you get up, whatever you

do with your run through or somebody does a thing, you might go to the green room, you might go somewhere

else or with people, but you have a rhythm of getting ready to do this and everything has shifted. It's

been hard to refine that rhythm, uh, for a lot of people, uh, and live spaces I put in my notes and

say, you probably are somewhere at some point working on the last minute prep, but now you're walking into

a room with maybe three guys or four guys who are filming you and you don't really get that kind

of last minute sort of moment or you at least skip on it and maybe like your mind is in the right

space. Um, so what I would say to communicators all the time is when, when you're getting into this,

you need to figure out what that rhythm is and actually craft it and don't be afraid to hold to

it. Right. One of the biggest gifts that you can give any team to be filming you is that you are at

a right head space actually communicate whatever it is that you're trying to deliver. So you need to make

that playlist, right? You need to have that playlist that you listened to before with Bruno Mars playing.

I'm just kidding. Hillsong United playing before you go up and speak in front of a lens, right? Like

you need to have those things, uh, kind of, kind of ready and your, your head space and everything, or

if you're the guy setting up the camera and you're part of that, which I am like, I think that then I

need a little bit of time to pause and make sure that I get myself in the right space before I walk back

in the room. There's nothing wrong with that. I think that's one of the greatest gifts that you can give your

team because it allows you to be fully present at the moment. Love, love that. Hey, we had a

question come in from, from the outside here, a mysterious Facebook user. Are there resources you

recommend to build storyboards to help with that communication, maybe to help frame in the tone,

message, uh, visuals of, of that. So what do you recommend? Are there tools that you use?

Yeah, there are. That's great. That's a great question. So, uh, we utilize Canva a lot,

which is actually like, you can do some of it for free or you can pay like a very minimal amount.

Um, it's, it's hilarious how much you can do there. And we have Adobe suite, but we do a lot

with Canva. Um, so I would say in visual process, we're doing that. We're mocking things up there.

Um, when it comes to tone, I, you know, I use, I'm going to, again, I'm a geek, but I'll use,

I'll use the Apple pages a lot. And then we will create columns where I'll, we'll respond to each

part of it to put tone and notes and all that kind of stuff. Um, and then we use a lot with Google

docs. So everybody on our team has access to my message on Google docs as we're doing it. Um,

and then those chat threads and Google docs, I'm going to give you a lot of that. So, um,

I think that's how we're doing it. The other thing too, I tell people all the time, if you're,

if you're new to creative stuff or trying to figure out how to make it look good on a budget

Envato all day, you get Envato elements for like 30 bucks a month and most of the templates are still

there and they're just downloading it and just tweaking it or things like Sunday social. Those

are all great kind of avenues for that. So yeah, which is a great lead. And honestly,

the last thing I was going to say is really kind of making it visually appealing. Um, and so I would

say, um, I would say this is one of the things that it can, can be easily overlooked. Um, especially

depending on what your comfortability is with creativity or, you know, design or that sort

of thing. Um, but here's the thing that I wish I could just convince every lead pastor of no matter

how old you are, your age or that sort of thing is that the people that you're communicating to that

are younger are not accustomed to learning in front of a person, the lectern talking them for 30 minutes,

right? Now they might do that in school still, but when they actually want to learn something,

they're going to YouTube and the person teaching them on YouTube has thought about how to visually

engage them. Right. So I make this reference all the time. I'm going to give you two to think about.

And then, uh, and then you kind of process that. The first one is Salmanaj. I believe I talked

about this last time with Patriot acts. Now again, we have 4 million. I mean, some people that we don't

have $4 million budgets to put towards that. I get it. Um, but while watching how he does humor,

watching how he does visuals, watching how that works, that's where your 20 somethings are learning

about politics right now. So where they are, that that's kind of the level of engagement that they're

getting. Um, so another example of this on a completely different size is a guy named Bruxy,

who's a pastor, I believe in Canada. He's in Canada. I've come across some of his stuff.

Now he'll set up, this is what I want to tell him. He'll set up a camera. He'll, it'll be the three

minute, like theological question. They'll answer three minutes. But I laugh like, oh,

you don't need production. I'm like, yeah, but he's, he's got a phenomenal camera that the coloring

is right. The audio is really good. And then he has this title package that happens in the middle

and you've got the lower thirds that look good. But at the end of the day, it's a guy with a massive

beard in his early fifties. I assume Bruxy, if you're watching it, you're not, I'm sorry.

That is sitting there giving really great theological content, but it is produced. It's still thought

it through. And so you can go over here. So I tell people right now, the two big purchases that we

made that were really hard for me to make. Um, we, we got the, we got a nice camera, right? The black

magic 6k with the lens, which isn't crazy expensive. And then the biggest purchase that we got, which is

difficult for us, even as a church plant in this world, we got a lot donated, which helped us.

We also bought like an led wall and here's why. And it's kind of seems weird is I'm making the assumption

whether I can meet live in person or not.

We're going to do some version of a studio set up moving forward. I think that's where Ted,

there's a studio sets moving forward. And that led was actually a lot more affordable than I

just realized. And we did that early to say, no matter if we're digital or for live,

we can create really quality, visually engaging content and be out in the front

of communicating to people who are learning that way.

Anyway. So I think you have to make it visually appealing. And if you don't know how to do that,

lean into the people who do, you knew, and they were around you. So yeah, that's good.

Um, now it's great to be visually appealing. I love all that, but engaging with the camera and kind

of striking towards the heart. How do you do that in turn? And how are you leaning in that way?

Because a lot of pastors, I've seen, Hey, a lot of great churches that have the wall,

that have the cameras, but then they don't, they don't know how to kind of like what you alluded to

earlier. They don't know how to make it human. They don't know how to drive in that way in terms of,

Hey, let me grab your eyes here and let me be, let me grab your heart. Um, how do you do that?

How do you think towards that? Yeah. You know, again, I think,

I think everything that you use visually, every camera thing, every production, it's all a tool

to help you feel like you're one-on-one with a person. Uh, I think C3 at NYC is doing this right

now. They have the big wall, but he's like drawing on an iPad. So it looks like it's handwritten,

right. It's that kind of thing. Um, I think it's, it's a lot in studying body language. If you're a

pastor, you've never studied body language before it's, it's really important to do that, especially

now, especially when you're being filmed here. You know what I mean? Like there's this, you know,

this is important, uh, knowing how you're coming off approaching things is really important. Uh,

and then I know this is really, this is going to be like overly simplistic, but as you're communicating,

especially your most important points, if I give anybody a few seconds, I'd say you're just,

you gotta invite people in to it somehow. However you're doing that, you just, you're working to

kind of pull people in with you, invite them in and really work towards your body language and paying

attention to your vocal tone as you move throughout. All of that's going to play into whether the person's

leaning in. Uh, now having said all that, I wanted to kind of say one last thing on the heart side of it,

um, is a lot of us are really excited about moving back towards, uh, you know, in-person environments

and it's great. And I think what I wanted to say is most of us, including us, we're going to rush

back. We're excited about bigger rooms and we're going to do those things for sure. But the digital

thing that we've experienced over the last year, year and a half, that's not going away. That's here.

Most of us, I hope kind of lean into doing both of those things. We talk about digital, both of those

things really, really well, but knowing those two things are very different and we have to lean into it.

And so what I kind of wanted to do, if I could sit down every pastor in the country, which I'll never

be able to do, but all of them watch your podcast, Jeff. So maybe we'll get a chance to do it. I'm

going to say it awesome. I would say this is, is as you move back, don't assume no matter what age

you are, that somebody else is going to pick up that ball, right? You have a unique community of

people, uh, who, especially the people that are younger, who need you to lean into these spaces

and do this really, really well. And so don't just rush back to life. Acknowledge

the fact that there's going to be a lot of people who are now going to be your digital only people,

or they're going to come once every eight weeks and watch you online, which they would probably

do it anyway. And you need to lean into those environments to do that really well. Um, because

if you don't write someone else might, but they might not do it in your unique voice and your unique

way that your people need to hear. So I would just encourage it. Please lean into the digital side,

even if it means you're learning a new skill for the next year, two years, five years for most of us,

20 or 30 years. I try to figure that out well. So that's what I was going to say.

Wow, man, some excellent takeaways here. This was solid, solid stuff. Like, uh, and I'm not even

talking about proxy.com. I'm really like intrigued with this guy. Uh, never heard of him. I'll,

I'll be exploring it later. And, and the beard and the hair, it's epic. Very, very jealous. So if no

other reason than just the homepage landing page, uh, check out the website and dig into it. If he's

theologically inaccurate, don't blame me, 100% Patrick Holden. That was a blank, uh, endorsement

towards that. But so, you know, I got a sticky here. It's just things that I wrote down, uh,

describing the video in the first five seconds. And then, um, the next five seconds talking about a

question that's not resolved to the end, you know, just kind of baiting the hook on that is, is solid.

Body language is, is so important. And I, and I love your heart as, as you're talking about just even,

hey, you've, you've got this audience pastor, nobody's picking it up. Continue to own that,

that piece of it, even mid post COVID as we're coming out of this. So this, this was so good.

Ray, just as, as we're landing the plane here, man, any, any closing thoughts?

I love hearing Patrick's heart on that. And, and Patrick, thank you for giving us such a practical

breakdown here because you know what you and your team have created, even in terms of launching a

church. And we've made this reference before in the podcast and other stuff we've done,

but if you're not checking out what Nuvo Church is doing, you really need to go see it because

that's the only way that you're really going to fully experience some of the things that Patrick

is talking about right now, because it's one thing to talk about theory. This is a lot of

stuff that they've put into practice. He's given you the playbook here. And so I urge you to go see

the outcome of it because number one, it was always super impressive, impressive to me as a church

plant, because we've seen a lot of churches with resources that have already been around for years,

you know, make that pivot. But when he's launched this thing or, and he and his team have launched

this thing fully online, but number two, I think you'll be able to compare and contrast what he's

saying here and what is actually happening at Nuvo. And I think you're going to be able to take away

a lot of solid stuff. And so thank you, Patrick, for joining us and sharing this.

Yeah, this was golden. Yeah. Check out Nuvo Church. Definitely towards that. And just even to

endorse a little bit there. Not a lot of resources yet. The LED wall's crazy. Maybe you can,

can work out some other ways around that, but from a, Hey, just it's a digital approach,

kind of that mindset, even going in reaching that type of person. It's always love having these,

these conversations with Patrick. And of course you can check out Patrick. I'm sure it is the social

media, but Patrick, as we're landing the plane here in any closing thoughts on your side.

I don't think so. I would say, I think, you know, I say, yeah, I would say to every pastor,

where you're like, am I doing it? Am I doing it well? Am I doing it right? I would just say to you,

you're likely doing it a lot better than you feel right now. And you're likely making a bigger

impact than you feel right now. So don't be discouraged. Just continue to lean into it.

Awesome. Just even speaking from the heart there, once again, that, that was so good. Hey,

love this time. Lots of conversations happening in social media about it. So,

Hey, uh, and we're, we're going to wrap because I got a jet to go do something else. So, um,

great for, uh, for Ray, uh, for Patrick, this is Jeff at the church, digital and stated church

planning. Uh, thanks for jumping here on the beta show. Once again, we'll see you next time.

Y'all have a good day.