EP097: Craig Dockery & Crossroads Creative Church Services Online

Episode 97 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered once again by Stadia Church Planning.

Jeff here, 97.

Episode 100 is just around the corner, and it's going to be a doozy.

I'm not even going to tell you about all the stuff we've got coming up in episode 100.

I'm just going to tell you, you want to stay tuned.

It's going to be an incredible episode.

We got enough excitement to talk about today.

We don't even need to get into what episode 100 is going to look like coming very soon.

Because here's where we are with episode 97.

We say, hey, you know what? I don't even get into episode 97 yet.

There's something really cool before we even get there.

The Church Digital here.

With this podcast, the Church Digital Podcast, we do a lot of deep, heady interviews, ask a lot of questions, talk a lot about future stuff, philosophical.

Yeah, I mean, that's just kind of my groove.

That's where I like to ride.

And so we do a lot of that here on the podcast.

But I hear you listening audience.

Hey, Jeff, can any of this be practical?

Hey, Jeff, like, I love where you're going, but that's not where we are today.

Can you help me where we are today?

And so we're doing something new.

We're beta-ing something new.

We're trying something out.

We're firing that BB before a bullet, before we get to the cannonball, because we want to see what it looks like for us to do something a little more practical here at the Church Digital.

So we are launching a new show, and it's going to be called Beta, because why not?

We're experimenting with something, and we want to help churches like you learn how to experiment, learn how to iterate.

We want to answer the questions that you're asking right now in this season today and give you practical steps, practical guidance, practical solutions to help your church not get stuck in this COVID season.

We'll talk philosophical in the podcast, but in this new show, Beta, we want to answer your questions.

And I mean that quite literally.

Like, I want you to tell me your questions.

So here's what we're doing.

Go to, and you know what?

It's not even a website.

That's funny.

I just automatically went into that.

I want you to text me.

Here's what I've got.

The number is 484-324-8724.

Now, if you speak phone alphabet, that's literally number four, the church.

Yes, my phone number is number four, the church.

Thank God for Google Voice, because I have no idea how I got that number.

Google Voice helped me get it.

Number four, the church.

484-324-8724.

Text me your questions.

Where are you stuck as a church?

What are you wrestling with?

What are the questions leadership's asking of you that you don't know the answer?

What are the questions you're asking leadership and leadership's giving you just the blank stare trying to figure out where you are?

What questions, what struggles, what issues, what challenges are you, the church, facing in this mid, maybe post-COVID season that we're in?

Where are you at?

I want to help you.

And so we're doing a weekly show.

It's going to roll out on Wednesday nights at thechurch.digital.

We're going to roll it out on social media.

Podcast is going to launch on Thursday with it called thechurch.digital beta.

More information on it soon.

Check social media on that.

But we're going to launch this thing literally on Wednesday.

So just in a mere couple days from when this episode launches, you will see beta happening in real time on Thursday, October 1st, and Wednesday, September 31st on social media.

So check it out there, thechurch.digital beta.

I told you I'm excited.

That was a long talk about beta.

But let's move on here to episode 97.

So we're going back to the buildings.

We're starting to get back into this groove.

We're now wrestling with, oh, my gosh, how do we be physical and digital?

How do we be super creative in executing the physical environment when we've been pouring all those physical resources into the digital to make it excellent?

But now the resources are going back to physical.

How do I still do excellence digitally?

Why should I even do excellence digitally?

Is there a reason behind me doing a digital exclusive, a digital service, or should we focus that online?

Is there a way that the two can work together?

These are really the questions that we wrestled with here at the Church Digital Podcast here in episode 97, having a conversation with Craig Dockery.

Now, Craig is like the weekend experience guy for the church.

He's the lead creative responsible for the physical as well as the digital types of environments there for Crossroads.

Crossroads, by the way, we'll put a link in the show notes.

If you've not watched their online services, arguably at this point, I would say it's one of the most, if not the most, creative service that's executed here online.

Like, I'm not saying I talk about this in the podcast and it still blows my mind, this example.

I'm literally watching their lead pastor, Brian Tome, preach a sermon while wakeboarding behind the boat.

Like, the camera's following him.

You can see the boom mic on the boat trying to get the audio.

It's just crazy some of the creative aspects they're putting in.

But more than just some of these crazy aspects, man, they're really rethinking the liturgy, the flow, the execution of this.

Do we need to have a 30-minute sermon or is it better to have four seven-minute sermons?

Let's ask that question and figure it out.

And so, like, you're really starting to see Crossroads start to pull the thread on some really interesting conversations about what a creative service looks like.

So, let's listen to this.

Let's dive in.

Churches, like, first and foremost, like, Crossroads has a ton of resources.

And it's very easy to listen to this conversation and get church lust to think, oh, my gosh, I wish I had that.

Oh, my gosh, I wish I had this time.

Those resources, that finance, that budget, that red camera, whatever it is.

Like, don't get lost in that world, church.

Get lost in this idea of intentionality and rethinking what digital looks like and how what we're doing digitally cannot just exist in the digital space, but how it can coexist in physical.

And how the digital service can maybe make our physical service better.

That's the wind of this conversation.

And so, I'm bringing in, once again, Craig Dockery from Crossroads.

I'm bringing in Ray DeArmas, digital pastor from Christ Fellowship Miami, co-host, once again, myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning in a conversation that I'm calling Crossroads Creative Online Services.

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Well, hey, you know, even just to kind of open it up here a little bit, tell us your ministry story, how you ended up at Crossroads, how you ended up in the role that you're in.

You know, what does that path look like for you?

Well, I'll try and give you the short version, but it started with me being in elementary school, being the kid who could draw and play piano.

Played in bands and also did graphic design for the first part of my career and worked at different design agencies and kind of business consulting kind of groups and in between doing little tours with bands and all that.

And my 20s were pretty dead spiritually, and I found my way to Crossroads and just sat in the back because I was frustrated and everything with just the church and kind of healed there for a couple of years.

And then started volunteering on the weekends, playing music, and then I started to meet these friends who were super talented and kind and love Jesus.

And I was like, I didn't even know these people existed, you know?

And then one thing led to another.

I keep meeting folks, and I would go on, like, mission trips and volunteer at events and do things like that.

And the next thing you know, my buddy Matt, my friend now Matt, said, would you ever want to work at Crossroads?

And I was like, no.

You know, and then, like, six months later, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I said, yeah, okay, I'll do it.

And so, that was almost 10 years ago.

And I started off more on, like, the design communication side of things, and I've slowly kind of flowed over to the experience side of what we do.

Awesome.

And so, like, just specifically, tell me about your role.

What are you currently doing in context of Crossroads?

So, I currently lead kind of our centralized creative team, which consists of a video team, a music and worship team, or two teams, and then creative directors and producers.

So, we have a team of those that will work hand-in-hand to lead every project.

And then we still interface a ton.

We work a lot with the sites and the folks that support that, and our marketing team, and the folks who do the branding and series brands and all that kind of thing.

So, it's a lot of weekend service-related content.

Yeah, yeah.

Stuff even beyond that?

Like, what specifics?

Like, some practical?

What are the things that you're doing?

The kinds of work that we would do, that the folks on my team would do, are basically all of the online weekend stuff.

Oversee whatever a series brand or creative direction for any of that would be.

Under the music team, we have all of our Crossroads music, which is just, you know, Spotify artists or whatever, you know, that we're promoting, doing a ton of songwriting and putting, you know, building up that whole thing.

And then we'll help out on all different kinds of things.

Like, that will spread out to sites whenever there's, you know, services at sites.

And we do some ministry support.

But as we've grown, most of the ministry support would come through a weekend experience where it's like, oh, you guys have a thing coming up.

We'll make an ad for it and put it in here and do it in there.

But basically, the vast majority of our work is making the weekend happen.

Yeah, I've been so impressed with Crossroads in the season watching.

And I don't, not on a regular basis, not on a weekly basis, but, you know, one of those churches, I'll just kind of flip around and be like, hey, let me check out the service.

Let me see what's happening.

And the creative resources that are getting put into these services, the unique approach that you guys are doing in creating these services are really phenomenal.

Like, just the different spin, the approach to not looking, you know, the average church service in this COVID season, forgive me, churches that are out there, it's the physical church model that's done online.

Yeah, maybe some of the churches are literally recording like the worship and the teaching on stage.

And if you're doing that, that's great.

Or you're kind of taking that model and you're doing things in a living room or a different thing, but you're still kind of like following that same template, that same mold of what church is.

And it feels like with you guys, man, you've really kind of flipped the script here and have taken a much different approach to how your online services go.

Like maybe speak a little bit to that, like what has that process been for you in discovery of how to do a unique approach to a digital service?

It's been a really long process, I would say.

So this started all the way back in 2014 with us saying, what if we did like video teaching for the first, for Easter, you know, and 2014, that was great.

And we went to Brian, our senior pastor, he taught in a barn and a junkyard and a room full of lanterns or something like that, you know.

And I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting.

It's a different take on things.

And then in 2015, we went over and we did Easter in Israel.

And so we spent a whole week filming there, filming a band on location and all that.

And it just grew and grew and grew until in 2018, we said, we're going to try and do 20 weekends that are screened first.

Because we are seeing the same trend of people are consuming, people are consuming church in a different way.

You know, for the kind of church, the big attractional kind of ginormo church that we are, you know, it used to be trying to get people to come and sit in the back row.

Well, the new back row is the website or the screen or the Apple TV app or whatever it is, you know.

So thinking about if we're trying to reach new people, the place they get introduced to us is digitally.

And so let's start there.

And, you know, it kind of came down to the insight of people don't just like to watch cooking shows anymore.

They watch Chef's Table, you know, that it just, the chef is in this amazing immersive environment.

Or even you go back to the 90s and people consume Jerry Seinfeld, not just on a stage, but through his show that just, you know, embraces the medium that where people are, you know.

And so that's what we started doing.

And so we've had a bunch of wins and some failures and all this.

But, you know, like we've learned a lot along the way to the point that when we went digital first, this, or digital only, you know, online only in, I guess it was like early March this year, we'd done 30 of these already, you know.

So we already had some reps and we're like, well, okay, now how do we do it?

What if we had to do this every week?

You know, and so we quickly made some pivots, but we had enough in our back pocket in ways that we had, you know, we'd learned some stuff already.

So it was great.

It's good.

And so, you know, obviously COVID hits, everybody makes a shift.

Early on, I mean, a lot of us paid the dumb tax and some different stuff.

What were some things that you saw when you made that transition?

Even though you had already kind of dabbled in this stuff, what were some things that you saw early on were going to be some challenges, I guess you could say?

Because most churches aren't even close to where you guys even were back then.

I think it had as much to do with how do we make a cohesive experience.

So, you know, a lot of times when you're filming, you're filming a piece at a time, you know, and then you glue it all together.

And one of the things that we had learned pretty early on was we need to add these host segments that, like, connect people from the beginning to the end and then figure out, well, where do you put, does worship go up front or at the end?

Or is there offering, you know, like, how does all that go?

And so we started having to go back and we do more reshoots, you know, to try and figure out how do we make this thing flow from beginning to end.

And then we even have figured out, you know, with all these different locations, like we might shoot worship here and teaching here and the host segment here.

And then there's another little ad that we make for a thing coming up.

How do we visually tie that all together?

And so we've had a lot of bouncing back and forth and that's just the beginning of it, let alone how to make teaching compelling, you know, so.

That element there on the teaching, like, what were some things that you found there to make it that much more compelling for an online environment?

Well, we're still learning how to do it, you know, because we're continuing to do this every week.

And, you know, one of the hallmarks of our culture, I think, is that we're never like, we never put it on autopilot.

We just, I don't know, it's just a bunch of people that are wired not to do that, you know.

And so we're always pushing, like, what can we do to make it better?

How can we make it different?

And it's funny, some of this stuff just comes down to process as well as what's the great big creative idea.

So, you know, we just finished, we just filmed yesterday and the teaching for the first week in October and our senior pastor, Brian, had been feeling a lot of frustration about, like, we started off, like, filming in scenes.

Like, we would do three or four chunks of things.

And for a teacher to try and get continuity with that, it's just hard.

So we always have a director and a content person to be, like, just more brains to make sure that this point's getting made or, man, you were shouting the whole time, you know, like, because they don't get that natural rise and fall of what a teaching is.

And so with this last one, what we did yesterday, we did way more, like, a single take and we adjusted the way that we approached the creative for that and, like, went back and he's telling a story about being in a hospital waiting room.

And we filmed it in a place that looks almost like a hospital waiting room because actually getting in one to film is impossible right now.

But, you know, we would still creatively, like, fill his narrative with some slow-mo B-roll of him kind of reenacting, like, listening to music as he's worshiping, as he's waiting for, you know, the diagnosis or whatever.

So still finding creative ways to tell it, but trying to get to, like, you know, it's kind of like teaching, it's like for an actor, this is the whole switch from, like, plays to film, right?

And so an actor, a stage actor, has to act a totally different way.

It's like the whole body acts, right?

And then on film, it's just, like, the face that acts, you know?

And so you have to learn all these new things and you learn versus, like, how do you do the whole play versus how do you get this scene exactly right?

And there's a lot of trust that has to happen from the director or whoever that has the big picture, you know?

So anyway, we're dancing with all that stuff and trying to figure that out.

And we have four teachers each that will teach the weekends to different varying degrees.

And some teach really great in the chopped up ones.

And Brian is like, you just got to let me, like, I got to burn for something and you got to let me get moving on it.

And so we're constantly tweaking how to do all that stuff.

But I think it's kind of the analog of from the stage to the screen back, which we did, like, the turn of last century, you know?

People have done this before.

And it's hard.

It's difficult.

Some people are better at one than the other, you know?

Yeah, I was recently talking with a church that was wrestling with some of this digital first mentality.

And the thing, like, even the video producer with this church was wrestling with, no, like, and he was the guy who was actually quoting, like, the liturgy and the way that the church services is done, doing it digitally, like, represented on the stage.

And not really seeing the opportunity to think outside of it.

And really, the illustration that kind of got him to shift was actually, like, back in the day in the early 20s, like, how they were making films 100 years ago.

Yeah.

They were filming these stage performances.

Totally.

And as it shifted, it moved away from filming a stage performance instead of, and then it went to, hey, let's film a film, get the shots that are necessary for that, and edit it together.

And it was funny, like, even just watching his brain start to shift away from an old way of thinking to a new way of thinking.

And over the course of, like, an hour-long conversation, he's like, that's it.

Yeah, I'm sold.

This is it.

And it makes total sense because it's just a natural progression of how we're moving away from just a stage expression.

To this more creative, more engaging conversation.

And it's engaging, by the way.

Like, I was watching one of your services, and I'm watching your lead pastor, Brian, preach while he's on a wakeboard.

Like, he's in a bathing suit, wearing a lifejack on a boat.

And I'm like, hey, this is kind of cool.

This is setting the stage well.

And he goes over and picks up the wakeboard.

And I'm like, hey, what?

He's still preaching.

Why has he got that wakeboard?

Is that, like, a prop later on?

A couple minutes later, he's literally getting drugged behind a boat.

I'm seeing a boom mic kind of in the shot as you're trying to get the audio.

But I'm watching him preach.

Like, I keep looking down at his feet.

I'm wondering if his script's at his feet or if he's just trying to get comfortable on the wakeboard.

But he's preaching the sermon while getting drugged behind a boat at X number of miles per hour.

I mean, that's crazy.

And it's engaging to a digital audience.

Sometimes it starts really strategically.

Like, this is the topic we need to hit.

And therefore, what's the thing that's actually going to do it?

And then other times, it's like, well, we're talking about adventure.

What sounds awesome?

You know?

And then, and Brian, you know, that's Brian's boat and his wakeboard and all that kind of stuff.

So, I mean, he's just, that's one of the things that he's into.

He's like, oh, I could totally preach doing that.

And we're like, heck, yeah, you could.

That'd be awesome.

Then we wrap the whole thing around it.

If you watch the whole thing, though, what's interesting is it's a series on adventure,

which is we believe that faith is the adventurous life.

And that doesn't mean the easy life or you're always just aiming for the mountaintops.

But an adventure is like saying yes to the hard thing that's in front of you.

And so we use the wake surfing as, at first we started, it was like, that'll be sweet.

But where do we fit it in?

Because then you have to have the watch out of, but there's a bunch of people that are like,

well, yeah, that's the stereotypical adventure, but that's not what we're talking about.

And so we had to set it up as, this is what people think of it as adventure.

But then if you watch to the very end, then it's really like the real adventure that you

have is at this dinner table with your spouse, having a conversation about how you're going

to keep your marriage together or how you're going to get out of debt or what you really

believe about God or all those kinds of things.

And so it's, I don't know, it's funny, like the stuff just keeps flowing.

You know, early on we said, what happens if we run out of ideas?

And I'm like, listen, guys, the Holy Spirit's the best creative director out there.

And I got to trust that he wants us to come up with more stuff, you know?

So we just got to take one idea at a time and all that.

And it's just, the ideas come from all over the place.

I'd say the, if there's one contributing factor besides the Holy Spirit being a great creative

director is we have a great team and we do everything in team.

That's why I wanted to have my colleague Paula on there, but she's on a shoot.

There's this 1975 Volkswagen minibus that we're filming for the next thing and it died and

she's at AutoZone trying to figure out if, if it's the battery or something more sinister,

you know?

So she couldn't be here, but every, like everything we do, it's never, there's never a lone wolf

or the single mad genius.

It's like everything gets run through this whole team of really, really talented people

that are really trusting of each other too.

So even more than the talent is the trust, I think is the key.

Yeah, I'm just curious, even setting the stage here, describe like that team, staff, volunteers,

you know, we've got varying churches, big churches, small churches, but having that creative team

as opposed to one person kind of driving vision down, but having that team approach, I'm just

curious, like describe that team, who's got a seat at the table?

And we have a pretty, so it's a decently sized team.

So what I would say is don't listen to the sheer headcount, but think about the roles that

are involved, right?

So there's the teacher and we have a whole content team that kind of lays out, assists

the teachers and saying, these are the topics.

And there's a handful of folks on this team that kind of say, what do we think God's saying

to our church?

What do we want to do?

So there's always a content, just on a shoot, there's a content rep who's saying, these are

the points you got to hit.

They're walking along.

We've kind of graduated to using teleprompters way more often.

So they're managing that and managing the script to say like, these are the bullet points or

whatever.

And then there's the director and there's the, and so there's like two or three people that

can be a content person.

And then there's about four of us that can be directors.

And so we're making sure from a, you know, it, it, it looks right.

The whole story kind of pulls together, you know, um, a lot of times a director would kind

of be content and directing, you know, in a regular film or whatever, but just because

of the teaching and cause it's like every week and there's a new, there's always a new idea.

You know, it's great to have a brain just focused on that.

So it's, you know, tying together the emotional, like the performance, so to speak of the teacher,

like, how are you emotively, you know, teaching and expressing yourself here?

Um, and then we have a whole production crew that will typically be one or two camera guys.

And then if there's two camera guys, then there'll be a director of photography that's

making sure everything is working.

And they also kind of work with lighting and all that.

So there'll be rigging up lights and doing all kinds of stuff.

Then there's an audio guy doing there.

And usually there's like a, and those are all, everyone there so far is typically staff.

Occasionally we have some like really talented creatives that will step in and direct, um,

you know, on a high powered volunteer thing, or we might contract them occasionally.

And then we, um, usually have a grip or two that's just lugging around stuff.

Like one of the big things is you just don't have time.

So on a video shoot, you know, time is of the essence.

It's like, it's like a game, right?

It's like a football game.

And so there's only so much time to get it done.

So you do all the prep before you can do all the debriefs after, but the more hands you

have, the better.

So there'll be a couple of grips there.

And, uh, in the best, in the best cases we have a makeup person, just, we always forget

it.

Cause it's just a bunch of like scraggly looking guys making this thing.

And then, and then Brian, our teacher, you know, main teacher is like, how do I look?

And I'm like, fine.

And he's like, you need, we need another set of, you know, you look like yourself, whatever.

So, um, we have that.

So that's usually kind of the bare bones crew.

And then there will be a day of producer for the video team who was just making sure that

like everything runs according to schedule.

Like all the stuff, all the props are on the set, all, you know, we're getting fed, all

of that kind of thing.

And so that's kind of the core crew.

And then ahead of that, the creative director or the director and the content person and

the teacher and the overall experience producer for the whole series will work together and

kind of come up with a plan, work through that with the video team.

Then we have to shoot.

And then there's a team of editors.

Usually there's like one editor that pulls it together with the help of a couple others

because it's the weekend teaching.

And then we also have the worship stuff and we're kind of running that parallel concurrently.

So that's a whole different setup.

That's, it's actually a lot more people because we have more cameras at once that we're filming

with.

How far out are you guys?

Just because, I mean, all this storyboarding and just kind of thinking through the visuals

and connecting visuals and all that stuff.

I can only imagine it's a lot.

And I'd heard you mentioned earlier that you guys already filmed October, which, you know,

for those of you listening, like we're kind of two weeks out from that.

So at the time of this recording, so what are you thinking in terms of, hey, I, not just

ideally, but on the norm, we're normally right here.

For a creative, there's nothing like a deadline to actually get work done, you know?

So the real deadline that we had when we went into lockdown in March was we started putting

stuff on TV and that all had an episode or a service.

We just call them episodes because that's really, they're more like, they can be spiritual

episodes, right?

So, um, an episode had to be done by the Wednesday before it was shown on that Sunday.

And so we were in a bunch of different local markets where I've actually switched our TV

strategy a little bit.

We're going to be on TBN for, um, uh, ongoing or whatever, but, uh, for a long, and it's a

whole, that's a whole other way of thinking.

But if we had to be done with everything the Wednesday before, then that meant our first

review of the video was the Wednesday, like two Wednesdays before, which meant we needed

another week to edit it from shooting.

And so it really, what it came down to is it took, it took, takes about a month of time

to put the whole thing together.

So we're thinking you're concepting four weeks out, filming three weeks out, editing two weeks

out and then finishing and posting the week of, and it was, it was hard to get to that place.

And we're, but we're finally in a rhythm where it's still tough because it's just a huge amount

of work.

But, um, but we have the expectations set, you know, now of all the creative ideas that

kind of you, you generated at this point, four weeks out, like if, if you're executing at

that, like you don't have a lot of buffer or variance for, well, that's not going to work.

You know, let's come up with, let's iterate and do another thing.

So there's a lot of pressure, TBN television broadcasts as well.

It's getting more and more complex for you.

How do you know if an idea is going to work?

You never do.

You never know if it's going to work.

I mean, cause it's so many things coming together.

It's just one, it's the idea that just, just talking about the medium video is the most

collaborative art form.

So you got to get the right performance.

You got to get the camera done well.

If it's trying, if you're trying to be funny, it actually has to be funny.

You know, the timing has to be right.

And the whole thing has to come together and yeah, you just never know.

But I, it's that, that old adage, like the harder you work, the luckier you get.

So the more, the more reps you get on something, the more likely you are to, to hit it every

now and again, you know?

So, I mean, yeah, you never know if it's going to work.

And a lot of times that I think one of the hardest things for us is we get an idea for

something like, Oh, that'd be cool.

Like two, two locations that we really struggled with three, three.

One was we're talking about God as judge.

Well, what's the sweetest place to do that?

In a courtroom.

Great.

Oh, it's COVID.

They're all closed.

And then like the day before the shoot, you know, I mean, you just start praying and it's

funny.

God, I think God cares about video locations and a place opened up.

You know, we were just trying to do the waiting room and we barely got into that, you know,

just in time.

We just filmed, we film all of our music sets for an entire series at one time.

And we were in this giant airplane hangar that we were able to get a hold of where the guy

was like, well, if it rains, I don't have to move the planes in.

And we're like, that's where we're going to be.

And so it was just all sketchy.

It was like, I hope it doesn't rain Tuesday and Wednesday because we're loading in and doing

all this stuff.

And so it really, I don't know.

I think that it's kind of like, there's no atheist in a foxhole.

There's no, no atheist on a video shoot, you know, just because there's so many factors

that you just don't have control over, you know?

What's been the craziest idea you guys have come up with that's like, no, that's too crazy.

What's like the, I mean, you had somebody preaching, Brian's preaching while he's wakeboarding.

That to me, it's crazy.

Tell me the thing that you're like, no, we're going to bank that one.

We'll do that one.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, I think some of it comes down to, it's not crazy if everybody's excited about

it, you know?

So it's really less about how aggressive is it.

And it's more like, is everybody kind of, can we get everybody pumped about this?

Cause you know, the video guys have, they work a ton of time and there's, and they're

super creative, but also super technical.

And like, we're going to, how are we going to rig the lighting up to make this whole thing

work?

Or how are we going to make it?

So you can actually hear the guy or whatever.

But if they're, if they're pumped about the concept as much as you are, and if the teacher

is, then they'll do anything.

One thing we tried to do that didn't work.

Well, we pitched it, we were trying to get Chuck, one of our other teachers to teach

like upside down for like five minutes and like have the camera upside down.

And then it, it's like, you turn the camera and you're like, oh, he's been upside down

the whole time.

It's this like old Penn and Teller SNL skit from the eighties.

That's really great.

And like, it took us like four days, like he wouldn't email us back.

And then he's finally like, I don't want to do that.

You know, so, I mean, you just got to keep pushing, you know, and whatever works, works,

you know.

So like what, what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing, and by the way, you said this earlier, but

there's all sorts of links in the show notes, the services, and some of the things that they're

doing as a team.

So if you're listening on, on audio, on podcasts, you need to go like click over and kind of check

the way that this church operates in their services.

They're thinking outside of the box.

How'd you, how'd you get there?

Like even the idea of, okay, yeah, the guy said no to hanging upside down like a bat.

Okay.

That, that's pretty radical.

I've seen a lot of radical things that have been accepted.

So like, what's the DNA journey, the path?

You've been involved with the church for a while, it seems.

So how did you, how did this environment come in place?

You know, you don't see this in a lot of churches.

Well, I think, you know, some of it is a bunch of people that are just really wired to push

themselves, right?

Like I was saying, and get bored with doing the same thing over and over again.

And, and it's a dynamic, like our leadership is the same kind of thing where they're, they're

more aggressive than, than we are in a lot of cases.

Like, I don't know, a lot of times I've presented an idea to a group of the, like that, the leadership

or the board at our church.

And they're like, cool, here's four times that now go make it better.

And, and, and, and like get four times the return, you know?

So, uh, we really have a culture of entrepreneurship and new, you know, trying new things.

And it's just an awareness of like, it's not just because of, I don't know, cause it sounds

fun or that would be, that would be neat.

It's because the general church is in decline and church work is like, it's just harder

than, I mean, I I've worked outside, you know, like in agencies and all that kind of thing,

you know, for half of my career.

And it's just harder inside because the church is in decline, less and less people are just

even open to it.

And so if you really believe that this is, um, this is what we're called to do.

And that this is, um, this is, you know, people are separated from God and they need to know

God, then wouldn't you do everything you possibly could to do it?

And so that's, that's the kind of mindset that we have, you know, where it's, um, yeah,

it's just the video shoot, but man, someone could meet Jesus this weekend because of that.

And, and it's a little harder every week just because culture is shifting the exact other

way or, um, political sentiment or any of that kind of stuff, you know, it's just,

so we're, we're, we're like salmon swimming against the tide, you know?

Um, and so anyway, there there's, so there's already that recognize that you already recognize

that, right.

But then it's still a huge process.

I mean, you've talked with Matt Welty and him talking about all the digital products and

the stuff we make, I'm sure talking about the app and all that kind of thing.

And I mean, that's been a five, six year journey as well, you know?

So it starts with like little nuggets and, and I appreciate the pushback that leadership

has initially because it's like, they have a lot at stake.

They have a lot of people they're caring for.

And as well as like limited resources to do, like everything that we're doing looks kind

of like a big deal, but we're always just trying to squeeze the most we can out of it.

If we have a $10,000 budget, let's make it look like it's a $30,000 budget.

Right.

So we're always pushing, always trying to do that and, you know, scarce resources, no

matter where you are.

And I appreciate them pushing back.

So it's just been taking time to like build trust and get little wins.

Like, that's why I said, like, it's like our 35th episode that we jumped into when at the

beginning of COVID, cause we had some reps and it wasn't like, guys, what if we did this

crazy thing?

It's like, Hey, remember the thing we've been doing?

What if we just kept doing that?

You know?

So everything is an incremental step, you know?

Like the version of the app that Matt is working on is like version 50 of it.

I don't know, you know?

And so it just keeps getting better and better.

There's no such thing as the overnight success.

I remember seeing some artists win a Grammy of the year or like best new artist for a best

new artist Grammy for her seventh album or something like that.

And that's just kind of how it works.

You know, you just got to keep, keep plugging away.

So kind of take us into the nuggets that you're kind of thinking through as far as like

what's next.

And you don't have to give us like the full painted future, but there's obviously some

things in the hopper that you're like, all right, this is where we're going next based

off of what we've seen in this season, because reopening will happen, all sorts of things.

And so I can only imagine just kind of what's baking in there coming up.

Yeah.

Well, a couple of the things on our minds, um, well, reopening is definitely one.

So October 4th, we are going to go back to a limited reopening with some of our sites.

And so there's big implications with that.

You know, we've been pulling site resources to do the extra work that we've been doing.

And so it's, it's not all just like what creatively what's going to happen, but it's more like

logistically what, what can happen, you know?

And so, you know, we're thinking now about still creating the online experience that we do.

And rather than going the, you know, what we used to do is we were a physical church that

had an online presence.

And now it's really thinking more like we make online experiences and then also have live

expressions of that.

So, you know, we make the online one first because of the timeline for it, you know?

And so thinking about when we come back, we're going to obviously the same content online and

live, but really splitting the teams, uh, more and splitting the, the kinds of experiences,

even though you would hopefully get the same biblical truth out of it, maybe even sing

one of the same songs or something, but it's gotta be an experience that's made for that

environment, which actually is really great.

It's more work, but it's freeing, you know?

I mean, I was looking, you know, some of the questions you guys were asking up front, like,

how do you even get started with this?

And I think the key is, it's so simple.

It's stupid simple.

It's, the key is always like, who's your audience and what's your objective?

And the more specific you can get with both of those, the more chance you have of succeeding,

right?

So if you, and, and, and then when you have, but when you have two audiences and two objectives,

then suddenly you're trying to make this like, I don't know, like some amphibious car, that's

just a crappy boat and a crappy car, you know?

And so, uh, the, getting the clarity right now that we have, like, we are making a digital

thing and we are making a live thing.

And they're both, they both have a really strong suits in these areas and let's hit those versus

trying to make something that works for everybody.

Yeah.

You just said something I was, I wasn't aware of.

So let's, let's back up and we'll, we'll, we'll get back to that.

You guys were kind of clear.

You're one of the front runners, um, back in, I don't know, June, July, August, North

Point announced, Hey, we're done for 2020.

Pick it up in 2021.

See how it's at.

You guys kind of like the next week, as I recall, Hey, we're done for 2020 as well.

And so now, you know, I don't want to say you're backtracking because it's 2020.

You're allowed to experiment.

Yeah.

I can't tell you how many churches have said something and then had to take it back.

Yeah.

Like walk me through some of the mentality.

Cause a lot of churches were like, ah, they're not, they're not doing anything, but you guys

are starting to meet.

So like, what's the, what's the framework, the mental mindset with where you guys are?

I think the mental mindset is our main goal is to minister to people.

And there are more and more people that are just hurting for their church.

Uh, and I know that a weekend service is not the full expression of church, but that's a

cadence in a year that has lost all cadence that they miss.

And so thinking about how can we help, um, help, help them, you know, how can we, I, you know,

one of the things we talk about is when Sunday comes, we get to be water to people.

They're dry their whole week.

It just sucks.

The guys, uh, the random guy is marriage is in trouble.

His kids hate him.

He doesn't like his job.

Like he's just gotten the crap beat out of them all week.

We get to like be this guide to the Holy spirit and to Jesus.

And like God, the father of like that, he's not going to get anywhere else.

That's amazing.

That's wonderful.

So getting to be water, um, the more, more water we can be, the better, you know?

And I mean, even to that point you were talking about, um, or while we were, I was talking

about cadence, you know, uh, that's one of the tough things about the digital thing is

that there's, it's, I don't know, today is just day.

I don't know what day even is it, you know?

So we've, we've struggled to like push, uh, like promote the weekends and do all that

because I think people's rhythms have started to fall off a little bit.

And so just like I said, like church work is always hard.

It's just like, it's always, everything's falling away.

Like, and you got to put extra effort to, to help maintain it, you know?

And so that's one of the things we've had to do is like figure out new ways to promote

it, whether it's on our social or whatever, just remind people, like stay in the cadence,

you know, this is, this is good.

This is, um, this is a great thing.

But anyway, that's, that's ministering to people.

That's mainly the reason.

So you, you've got this, this wrestle of thinking, uh, screen first, digital first is some of

the language we've used on the podcast, continuing that.

And now you're feeling, or you will be feeling the pain point of, oh man, I got to do a live

as well as, as, as, as a, as a digital where if, if you're like the typical church right

now in America that is meeting 30% of the, the people are coming back to the building seems

to be the average 70% are, are not engaging physically.

They're still digital for whatever reason, if they're still engaged, or maybe we as the

church, we've lost them.

It's, it's, it's hard to tell statistically speaking right now, but I'm, I'm just curious,

like, you know, I'm, I'm watching a service, uh, right now, kind of in the screen going on

on the side.

I'm watching Brian, uh, lead pastor walking around what it seems to be like a high school

football locker room.

And, and he's doing that expression.

He's actually doing communion right now.

That's in a very, um, old kind of chapel church.

There's stained glass in there.

And so you've created these beautiful digital expressions.

Now, how much of those digital expressions are going to be seen in the physical location?

Like what's, what's the balance?

Is it entirely live?

And you're creating two completely separate experiences.

Is there any bleed over kind of what's the relationship between the live and the physical,

at least where you think you're going to be here in October?

Well, we, we talked about that and kind of came up with four options.

There's the two extremes that are play the video in the room.

Great.

It's fine.

Uh, or have the guy teach live or the woman teach live.

Uh, and then there's a couple of different hybrids.

There's one that could be play the video, but have the, the, the site pastor, the campus pastor

introduce it or add their tag on the end or personalize it in some way.

So there's still a live only in this room kind of thing that you get.

And then, uh, another one would be have, have the teacher teach live, but use any portion

that you're like, oh man, you're not going to get that on a stage, you know, and show

that like, for example, the, the wake surfing, right?

So like maybe show that as the intro.

You could even put that in a different spot in the service as like a teaser into the rest

of the teaching.

So we, you know, we debated all this stuff and like, you know, we got these options.

Let's try it a different way each week and play with it.

And so that's really where we're, um, where we're going, uh, is, is just continuing to

experiment with it and see, see what works and how people respond to it, you know?

So speaking of the fact that I'm watching a service in real time, I wanted to ask this

and, and I've, I've been, I've seen it before, but why do you put the capo guitar patterns

on the screen?

Is, is the goal during worship is the goal for people to like play along at home?

And so you incorporating kind of a physical as well as video worship experience?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think, I don't think we've, we've a hundred percent cracked the code on what is

online worship music look like.

I think we're doing as well as anybody is out there.

It's not so much that we're not doing everything that we can.

It's just, I think it as much has to do with the fact that culture never sings.

You know, you might sing at a concert, you might sing at church, but historically humanity

sings together.

You go to a bar and you sing or the pub or whatever, or you sing before battle.

And we just don't have that.

So people aren't conditioned to sit in front of the TV and watch it.

So trying to do everything that we can to engage people and, you know, give them, give

them a reason to pick up their guitar.

Cause that can be a whole, you know, that could be, I know me personally being a musician,

I can act musically in a whole different way if I have a, you know, a piano or a guitar

or something with me.

And so I think it also takes a little bit more out of performance-y mode, which can be the

downfall of a lot of modern worship stuff.

Even if it's well-intentioned, people just look at it and they're like, oh, those guys

look like rock stars or whatever.

So the more, the more we can indicate, like this is meant to be a communal thing.

Like let's all do this together, the better.

Yeah, I love that.

I've never, never thought of it, but even as you're doing microlocation,

as house church and you're trying to incorporate live environments along with, with the digital

and create, we use the term digital a lot here on the podcast, physical plus digital combining

of it.

Like, you know, creating that, that, that expression, that environment is, is beautiful.

Have you guys toyed with creatively, you know, I mean, biblical, biblically worship is just,

musical worship is just one method of, of worship.

Have you toyed with, do you kind of pull the thread and explore, you know, some of, some

of the others, maybe what is that other methods of creative worship, quote unquote, what does

that look like for, for Crossroads?

You mean like, like sacrificing a goat or whatever, or what exactly, what exactly are you thinking

about?

Spoken word testimonies, prayer moments.

I mean, sure.

If you've got a good goat story, I'm willing, but there's, there's plenty of other references

other than the goat.

There might be some blowback for that.

You know, so one of the things that we're constantly adjusting with the, the service mix or the

service, the liturgy, you might say, is what are the elements that we put into it?

And the, the big limit that we had early on was that we were first making it for TV because

that was the hardest constraint.

So we had 28 minutes and 30 seconds to get in and get out.

And so that we had to cut stuff.

And then we had a, like a longer online version, but now that we've kind of flipped it and we

say our online version, the thing on crossroads.net, the thing on all our Apple TV app, all the,

like are on the phone app or any of that stuff is the first is what we have.

Now we have about 45 minutes.

And so that gives us more space.

And you'll, so you'll start to see trickling in over the next month or so back to the stuff

that we've done before, like stories or like a performance song or more like a, you know,

like a immersive prayer moment that we might do.

And, you know, we, we, like I said, we haven't fully figured out the medium, but we're just

taking continual steps in that way.

And, you know, one of the things we did like imaginative prayer, I don't know if you guys

have ever done any of that kind of thing.

You know, you like, you imagine that God's in the room or you're talking to Jesus and

do all that.

We did that during one of the weeks of the series way back, like in April.

And so we've incorporated some of that stuff, but we've been kind of bare bones worship and

teaching with that time constraint.

And so now we're starting to expand it a little bit more, but definitely more stories, more.

And, you know, another thing I'd say about worship is it's, you know, it can be expressed

by, I think if there's a defining thing about Crossroads, even more than just kind of creativity

about, you know, within the orthodoxy of this is a Jesus believing church, what's the unique

thing about it is our ability to mobilize, you know?

And so when we do these recap videos of this group of people that made 3000 masks in a day or, you

know, us going and serving the hospital staff, you know, in the midst of the very beginning

of lockdown or, you know, us serving cops and protesters in the midst of some of the things

going on around here, that's as much worship as anything, you know, and that stuff's really

beautiful and it's like boots on the ground worship, you know?

So we always like that being a component of what we, you know, what we present a Crossroads

weekend to look like.

One of the things that I love all of that, by the way, it was beautiful and not a goat

story to be heard.

So we're heading in the right direction.

Not yet, but maybe you asked what's too crazy of a story.

Check back with me.

Yeah.

There's something baking there.

We'll have to come back to it.

I'll email you when I come up with something.

We'll, we'll experiment with, with you.

Hey, um, like one of the things that, that the services that I've seen, they seem to be

very focused on, and, and I hesitate to use the word call to action because I don't want

to make this a marketing thing, but there, they seem to be focused towards driving people

to a, to a place.

Like I've seen, you know, vision videos kind of at the beginning of the service, your, your

positioning teaching for the most part, it seems to be teachings.

More up at the front, worship on the backside.

And, and even with the teaching, there seems to be like a focused towards a teaching that

follows with a connect to the guides to get connected into the discipleship.

There, there is intentionality with how you are crafting the services where all the things

seem to drive towards that call to action where you're trying to get people to take next

steps.

Yeah.

Does that, is that come intentional?

Does that, is it intentional where like, that's the beginning of the conversation or is the

service crafted and kind of the call to action is the, is the last step?

Okay.

What can we kind of squeeze in here?

Maybe talk about that level of crafting leading towards the call to action.

Yeah.

It depends on the week and it depends on the time of year.

We, we've put a rough schedule together for the whole year to say, we know that in January

or February, and then once again, in September and October, those are our group seasons and

understanding that, you know, getting in community is a first step towards true discipleship, you

know, and in a big church where it's really easy just to sit and watch the stream or sit

in the back row or whatever, what's the next step?

And so that's where a lot of that stuff starts to come in.

And occasionally there might be something like a challenge for giving or, you know, like we

have a 90 day tithe testing that we do, um, that's, you know, 90 days of God blessing your

life or your money back kind of thing.

And it's, it's actually worked out really well as we teach the principle of tithing, you know?

And so sometimes it's, that's the, we need to make sure that we're getting people to like

sign up for a group or sign up for the journey or sign up for a guide.

And most of the time that stuff is purely for their benefit, you know, purely for the sake

of their growth.

Um, well, I guess it always should be, you know, occasionally there's like, well, we're

trying to hit a strategic thing or whatever, you know, but, um, but it's always to, you

know, to help people.

And a lot of times with like additional burden to us, the more they do like the, the guide

thing, you know, you, you mentioned the whole spiritual outfitter idea.

Um, we recently went through this whole rebrand exercise where we just thought like, well, how

can we reframe the crossroads is what we are, what we do.

And that's where the spiritual outfitter came through, came from.

And one of the, one of the big components about that is the concept of guides, which is, it's

not necessarily like a full on discipling relationship, but it's just the idea that at a big church,

it's easy to be like, where do I even begin?

You know, and so we thought the easiest way is just to connect people with actual humans

who can be like, how are you doing?

Let's check in every month.

And I have a general idea of what's going on here.

So I can show you kind of, these are the tools that we have in our tool belt for you to grow

closer to God.

And so, um, that's the kind of thing.

It's like the more people who do guides, the more work it is for us, you know, but it's

good.

But so when we're not doing those, I just think, like I said, mobilization, we have a bent

towards like, cool, nice service.

What does it mean on Tuesday for you?

You know, like get people to actually put their faith into action.

And so some of that's just in the DNA of always having, have trying to have some call to action

no matter what it is to put your faith into action or test it.

I love that.

And we're going to be kind of scratching the surface.

The guides that, that you guys, I've, I've heard, um, Greg Ackerman, uh, in separate

conversations, gone into great detail.

Uh, Greg's been on the podcast here as well.

Uh, recent, I don't know how recently, maybe within the past, in the COVID season, it was

on talking about some things.

And, uh, we're actually going to have, uh, Joey Santos, who's up in your area, our Christ

church over in Mason, Ohio, um, is, is going to be there doing some interesting things on

the guides.

And so a similar concept to what you guys are doing with the guides.

So we'll, we'll dig more into that in, in, in a, in a future podcast, but I'm curious

with this, even just as we're, we're, we're landing the plane here, um, tips, um, tricks.

Hey, like there are advice, feedback, consulting there, there are churches out there that are

thinking, Hey, we need to be more creative.

Um, senior leadership's not feeling this senior leadership's not seeing this, uh, our, our pastor,

there is no way he's going to get on a wakeboard and preach a sermon while the boats go in 20

miles an hour.

Like, how, how, how do I get started?

What, what are some, some basic steps?

How do I kind of break the mold, uh, while still working with leadership and, and, and

feeling, you know, by, while respecting them and, and their, their approach.

So give some advices for somebody that kind of wants to take some, some next steps.

How can they get started, um, on this?

Yeah.

I, I mean, all mine are, are pretty, they're pretty vague.

It's not like you need to buy this camera, you know?

Um, although, you know, we have, we have some nice cameras.

I think it really, it's all about the mindset, right?

Because if you have the right mindset, then you'll figure out the how, right?

So, you know, I think it starts, like I was saying with target and objective, like who's

your audience and what's your objective?

What are you trying to do?

And I think people just aren't honest enough about it.

I mean, a random church that's like, we're just here to minister to people and do that.

Okay, cool.

Now get more specific with it.

Challenge yourself.

What's the specific change and what type of person, you know?

So for us, it's like, you know, we call it like a, uh, uh, we have kind of a persona

named Wayne, who's a, uh, young starting his career seeker, which means he's open to spiritual

stuff.

He's not necessarily part of the church, um, or have, has church history, but more likely

than not, he does.

And this is all based on research that we did.

And so you don't always have to do that, but just get a clear idea of who?

Do it as you're going for and build some real empathy for them, you know?

And then suddenly you might get some insight on like, oh, you know what?

The thing I just did is super boring to the person I'm trying to reach or it's offensive

to them or whatever.

Like, I mean, I think it's really brutal honesty.

It's really worth, it's worth knowing that, that people aren't nearly as interested in what

you're making as you are, you know?

And if you start with that assumption, then you'll work harder to make what you're doing

really good because they don't care if you're a church or some other thing.

They're comparing you with whatever else is in their life, you know, and, and you have

to work as hard as you can and rely on God's grace and mercy to, to approach that in a way

that like your work isn't so bad, it's distracting.

So like having just that brutal honesty, I just having been around churches a lot, I would

say I've just seen way too many churches really proud of themselves versus saying, are we really

reaching people, you know, and it's, I think it's just, it's true humility is not caring,

not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less, you know, you're thinking

about that person that you're trying to reach.

And then I, and then it comes down to like, well, what do you uniquely have?

You know, you might, you know, are you're into collecting, I don't know, like old GI Joes

or something like that.

Well, maybe that's not wakeboarding, but that's what you honestly have.

And if you can honestly be yourself and be excited about it, then sure.

Somebody's going to find something interesting in that.

There's always a way to like, people are just interested in passionate people, you know?

And I don't know.

Anyway, I'd say like, find the unique thing.

Don't try and copycat another, another person that inspires you, but just because what they're

doing is they're finding their voice.

And how do you find your voice and also connect your voice to what that, that your target is,

is going after.

Everything else starts to fall into place, I think.

Did you say earlier, like the first, one of the first creative services that you guys

had did online was like an Easter service or a holiday, what was that?

It was Easter, yeah.

Like even just wrapping up, like what was, what did that first service look like?

What were some elements that you did that were digital only versus stage or kind of like that?

Well, it was, it was really, it wasn't even digital.

It was just video.

So it was still made for live experience, but it was using, incorporating video.

And then it kind of grew because we had a handful of sites at the time.

And so it was like, how can we scale the preaching?

So it's digital, but live, right?

And so it was, it was, it was an Easter service.

So rather than it just being like three songs and then announcements and then a message,

it was a whole experience that we tied together.

And so there was, you know, a song up front that was moody and had some, you know, LED background

kind of stuff or whatever.

And then Brian came up and taught from one of his kind of metaphor locations.

And then we'd, we'd move back and forth through it.

And so it was kind of like teaching five minutes, five minutes of teaching song, five minutes

teaching song.

And then, and then I think we did a whole, like this like long scripture reading of the

Easter story with, with all these kinds of rhythmic, like, like the horse, you know, the

horse, the, on Palm Sunday, the horse coming in and you can hear the stuff going, but it's

all like, it's more like stomp than like a, like a Warner brothers cartoon, you know, but

it's more like this rhythmic thing that all builds this beautiful, like song base and then

gets to like, were you there when they crucified my Lord?

And it's just this beautiful emotional retelling of it.

And then Brian comes back.

And so there are all these cool creative elements to it that, um, that were meant to be like,

okay, this is the person in the seat who we know is probably here for the one time this

year.

And how can we get them to like experience it when they just think Easter is like, it just

kind of goes right past them.

So, um, yeah, I don't know.

It was probably four teaching segments of five minutes each.

And then a whole bunch of songs and I don't know, probably communion at the end.

I don't know.

It was a long time ago.

But, you know, even something like, like taking one of those services and doing something creative

with it, just a, a small step even to do it, you know, on a weekend.

I, I, and another, one of my churches that I've worked with in my life, that was, we, we

did a similar thing where it was three, seven minute sermons.

Um, and we just, Hey, one Sunday, we're going to experiment.

Yeah.

It could be awesome.

It could be a flop, but we're going to give it a shot.

We're going to see what would happen.

I think that's right.

The super practical thing is even if you can't make your whole experience for this new digital

target kind of person that you're trying to reach, make one segment for them and, and then

test it and be really real with yourself and say, and, you know, seek feedback and say,

did it work?

And yeah, do little bits at a time.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm watching, you know, service number three that's rolled on my screen while this

is going in the background.

I'm now watching, uh, I just blanked on the last name, but you're the, the, the female

communicator, Allie.

Yeah.

Patterson.

So Patterson, she's, she's literally preaching in a graveyard.

Like tombstone markers in the background and I can guarantee you like that imagery carries

more power than, than Allie being, being on stage with that.

So this, this is, this is just beautiful.

I love, love the creativity of what you're doing, the thinking outside the box.

Churches, check out some of their services at Crossroads.

Not, it's never a comparison.

It's not copy, carbon copy, clone exactly what they're doing, but start to figure out the

parts that, that can work for you, uh, and, and, and experiment for all that's good in

the world.

Experiment because what we used to know, thank you COVID, we no longer know.

So we need to learn more to be more effective in the days to come.

And I guarantee no playbook written pre 2020 can, can be effective for where we are now.

And so with this experiment, with learning lessons from one another, this is where we

can start to be more effective in the days to come.

So, Hey, I want to thank you very much for the time.

This has been golden.

Hey Ray, just as we're landing the plane and any closing thoughts on your end?

Absolutely.

Craig, as I was digesting everything you were saying, cause there's just so many things to

unearth there.

So many things that I'm going to go back and like reevaluate some of the stuff that we're

doing and asking, are we really considering the person that's receiving this?

Like the one audience member, cause I think so much of it, you, what you were talking about

comes down to that in terms of what you're coming into play with.

And I wish even more churches and more pastors in particular, as they're preparing their messages,

thought about that one person before they opened up the creative stuff, before they thought

about some of the other things that we're going to do, because that right there might unearth

and unlock and maybe even unhinge us from some of our past traditions and have us start

thinking about, okay, but what's really going to reach this person and thinking through

how we can, how we can focus on that one person who's coming in for the first time, because

that's going to change so much of what we do.

And then on top of that, if we can educate our regular comers, Hey, look, we understand

that you're here, but the person that we're thinking about is that friend that you're bringing

with you who doesn't know Jesus this way.

Some of the creative elements don't offend them.

They encourage them.

And they're even more encouraged to bring their friend to come to know

know Jesus because of it.

Amen.

Love, love that.

You know, using this, this creativity to create that shareable resource that connect people

with their ones, definitely love kind of that, that path and that, that idea.

We talk a lot about that here.

Hey, Craig, as, as we're landing the plane, I mean, this has been awesome, but any closing

thoughts?

Here's what I would say to anybody that's listening to this.

My hope is that you, you take something away here that encourages you, maybe it challenges

you, but that ultimately you come away with more ideas and you don't come away with, I don't

know.

It's easy to, it's easy for us to compare.

I say that as a creative person who like artists are the most arrogant, insecure people that I've

ever met, you know?

And it's because we're always comparing ourselves.

Do I measure up?

So my, my, my hope and my prayer for everybody who's listening to this is that they feel that

there's some bit of inspiration that's coming out of this.

And, and I would say that that's God speaking to you because he's given you a unique voice

to speak to the unique people that he's given you to minister to.

And, and you got to run that down and find out what is your version of, of ministry.

And, and hopefully some of this is helpful and practical for people, but, um, we're all

assigned to reach somebody that nobody else is assigned to, you know what I mean?

And so it's, uh, we, we do our best and, uh, and, and God will be there and he'll fill

in all those gaps.

Cause at least that's what he's done with me so far.

You know, Andy Mage has been on the podcast, you know, I think last week, but, and he rewrote

a blog in the middle of COVID season for us over at the church digital comparison is the

thief of joy.

And so, so often as, as creatives, as, as people who exude our, our gifts spiritually, it's

very easy to get discouraged when you look at what somebody else is doing.

I mean, even as a pastor, it's, it's troublesome sometimes to, well, that church is bigger than

mine.

And so it's more successful.

And, and there are lessons that we all can learn a small church from a big church.

Probably a big church from a, to a small church.

There are lessons, uh, maybe there's opportunities to, to improve in some area, but it's, it's

never about the, the comparison of it.

There's lots of things that are exciting, even from the outside that I can see, um, from,

from crossroads.

Uh, but as, as good as your, your services are, honestly, I'm more excited about the lessons

to learn from the guides than even the creative aspects of it.

And so it's taking these lessons and, and, and applying it to our churches.

That can help us improve, not to try to keep up with the Joneses, but to be more effective

to reach the ones.

It's, these are all just tools to the end of that disciple making of that evangelism so

that we can be more effective at a church to create those disciple makers who can go

and, and reach others.

And so, uh, Craig, very much.

Thank you for jumping on this conversation on this podcast.

Absolutely.

This has been great.

Love, love, love the time.

And, uh, and we're going to wrap for Ray, for Craig.

This is Jeff with the church digital.

Thanks for, uh, joining us here today.

We'll see you next time here on the pod.

Y'all have a good day.