EP096: Churches That Want to be the Next Christian Netflix

Hey, episode 96 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planting. Once again,

Jeff here. So in the conversations that I've had with churches in this COVID season,

a lot of them are trying to figure out, hey, they got their weekend service.

Okay, we're doing it digitally. We got to figure out how to do it physically. We got to figure out

how to do it at the same time. We're challenging them. Hey, look at engagement. Don't just do reach,

look at engagement, try to figure out how to create community. And in that community,

try to connect people to Christ. Like we're having those types of conversations, disciple making,

discipleship, really rich level conversations to help churches figure out how to do church,

not just in physical space, but we're going to be fidgetal here, do it in digital space,

and then figure out how the two work together. But what's interesting is there's a subsector

that's really has come out of this COVID season. Maybe there were a couple around, maybe there was

an idea pre-COVID, but it's really caught fire. Your church may be one of these. I can't tell you

how many times in this COVID season I've heard a church tell me, hey, Jeff, yeah, we want to be

the next Christian Netflix. Now, it's not like an organization or a company that's wanting to create

this content. It's legitimately a church that wants to create content to reach people externally,

outside of the week in service and to the point of being the next Christian Netflix. Now, there's

right now media and there's some of those that are doing that. Set those aside. Because while those

are speakers who are creating content, for the most part aimed at the 99, what's interesting with

these churches is they're creating content, not necessarily aimed at the 99, but they're aimed at

ones. And all of a sudden now we've got churches that are creating content to connect with ones.

And if it's coupled with getting those people connected into an engagement pathway and it's

a discipleship process, all of a sudden now you've got a disciple making machine that's happening.

And part of the hook, the lead in, that shareable content becomes the exclusive, this original content

that's been created by churches. And all of a sudden this crazy idea, hey, this church wants to become

the next Christian Netflix if it's coupled with a disciple making process. Man, we got a legitimate idea

here that's going to help us. It's going to help our church thrive, grow, and even multiply here in this

COVID season. And so I reached out to one of these churches that's starting in this process that wants

to be the next Christian Netflix. I just wanted to see how it's going. What are they learning? What are

they striving for? What's the goal? What's the process? How are they connecting? And I connected

with Bay Hope Church here in Florida. I'm in Florida. Bay Hope Church in the Tampa area. Andy Mage is

a longtime friend. He's been on the podcast for a while now. Great guy, online pastor, digital pastor

there out of Bay Hope Church and started talking with him on this idea of some of this original

content. And he's like, oh, we got to grab Andres Aquino, who is one of the worship leader, actually

he's one of the video guys on staff at Bay Hope Church. And it was like, we got to bring these guys

together and have this conversation. And what came out of this was this really rich idea of what a church

that is not just creating weekend content, but creating shareable content, engaging content that's

meant and that's reaching ones. How effective is it to connect with those people? And then how effective

is it to get them into a discipleship process? Phenomenal conversation. Do not sleep at the end

of this where we get to this idea of racial reconciliation. And some of the stuff that they've been creating

as a church, there's plenty of links in the show notes, but they've been creating aggressively,

bringing together the blacks and the whites, coming together, trying to figure out the racial

reconciliation piece of this. As content, we have an opportunity not just to create and talk,

but through the content, listen and engage in some of that. So phenomenal, phenomenal stuff.

So like I said, we're bringing in Andy Mage, digital pastor, Bay Hope Church, as well as

Andres Aquino, who is one of the videographers with Bay Hope Church, and myself, Jeff with the

Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning, in a conversation that I'm calling Churches that

want to be the next Christian Netflix. Okay, everybody, here you go.

So on that note, actually, in all of this, as Bay Hope TV has been jenning and coming about,

we saw our average attendance were 3,000 to 4,000 size church. So we're not super small,

we're not super big, we're kind of right there in the larger churches.

That's pre-COVID, I'm assuming?

Pre-COVID numbers, yep, pre-COVID total numbers, yeah. That's the whole thing. But we doubled

in size, obviously, like every single church in the world, it seems like doubled in size. And that was

a conservative estimate. I started, I'm a little bit of a pessimist by nature. And my wife will tell

you that's not good. But when it comes to metrics and data and stuff like that, you know, I tend to

take a very conservative approach. And so we doubled conservatively, which was great, but the numbers

didn't mean anything. And so that's when we really started having the platform discussions of how can

we utilize the platform to do exactly what Andre was just saying, to reach people for the kingdom

that should be leading in this time. And so we, we started, you know, doing, we were able to do

really creative things in, you know, just from interactive worship sessions. So we would go live

every day at 12 o'clock with a worship set. And sometimes it was a full band. Sometimes it was just

two people. Sometimes, you know, we were able to get creative, obviously, with just the cinematography

aspects, cameras and lighting and sound and all that. But we were also able to get creative with the

actual interactive engagement responses that were happening from wherever we were. And that part was cool.

So all of this was kind of this little pebble, snowball that was rolling downhill. Because as it

started gaining speed, we started thinking, okay, wait, if those people are going to talk to us during

then, what if we can talk to them during this? And then what if we can grab them in this? And what if

we can grab them in this? And so we hit Easter, we started kind of rolling that ball downhill a little

bit. And that's really when Bay Hope TV discussions started advancing. Because the one main reason,

so Andre said that Pastor Matthew, who is our lead pastor, he was completely on board with what was

happening with the vision that we were casting in terms of this platform that was going to be running

24-7 all the time with Bay Hope TV content, or with Bay Hope content, with other content that was

going to help guide and provide for people. And he basically walked into his executive director team

and said, hey, we need to build an actual television studio. I need a whole bunch of money to build an

actual television studio. Now, mind you, this is in like May of 2020. And I don't know if you guys

remember May of 2020. It seems like it was both three months ago and 30 years ago. But there was a lot of

like financial strain at that time. And for him to go and ask for a large outflow of cash was a big

deal. And there was, you know, a lot of hand wringing, a lot of teeth grinding and stuff. Obviously, he's

the lead pastor. So it got done. And we have this big, beautiful, brand new television, literally a

television studio that we now work out of. But he saw the merit of it. So to be valued and heard by your

lead pastor is great. Out of that studio, we were able to do amazing things. We ended up on just a

couple of little samples. We ended up running a virtual VBS for 500 kids. Again, conservative

estimate for 500 kids this, what was that? July, end of June, beginning of July. We ran a live

interactive worship night right then and there. Did it from the platform, kind of did, you know,

just a whole bunch of kind of creative things with worship and teaching and all that. We've been,

we've slowly started rolling out the Bay Hope TV network of things, meaning we're rolling podcasts

and we're rolling all sorts of, you know, in the Tampa Bay area where we are as of, what is it,

September or whatever of 2020, beginning of September, 2020. Schools are opening slowly.

Churches are opening slowly. Student ministries are opening slowly. And so we're still rolling virtual

student ministries out of our Bay Hope TV studios. We're rolling our virtual, we have a college campus

called the Harbor on the University of South Florida campus. University of South Florida is not open,

barring a couple of little things. We are doing virtual interactive times with the Harbor as well,

all based around this idea that we can provide the content for groups of people to get together

in smaller locations, kind of the age old microsite approach, except we're now taking it into

smaller ministry fields. Instead of just, hey, big church, hey, we're, now we're doing it in every

little ministry. And the coolest thing is that people are connecting all over the place. The

stories and emails and testimonies that we get from people that are connecting in houses and in

small groups and just even the little anecdotes we hear from the ministry leaders, as they say,

wow, I never knew this could actually work. I mean, that's both a shot in my gut because I want to go,

guys, I've been telling you this for like a year, even pre-COVID. But then, you know,

it's also a shot to the heart of like, hey, this is a good thing. This is what we're doing well.

It's good. So when you guys talk about this as a platform, are you sending people just to your

website, to an app? Like how is a lot of this getting to the actual people? Is this a YouTube

channel? What are we talking here as far as-

So it's an all approach right now, simply because we are in the process of creating something from

scratch. We are creating an app built around algorithmic, I don't know, we'd have to get our

executive director, Zach, on here to get the nerd talk in there. I just give the guys the vision and

they kind of go do the thing and then it comes back and then it works. So the app we're building is

based around almost a quasi-social media with a algorithm-driven video approach. Then we are

marrying that into a web portal. So everything is tied into the same database, but it just has

different flavors. Whether you're on desktop or mobile, whether you're on an iPad, whether you're

on Android, whatever you're on, we are going to have those different expressions for people to

actually get involved with Bay Hope TV. And then we're actually putting hooks into it to drive people

back into the app. So that's the quasi-social media of interactive prayer, interactive journaling,

interactive times of communication with pastors and with leaders and with directors so that people

understand that they're actually, you know, the biggest thing that drives people back to the

Facebook app is that little red number at the upper right-hand corner of the icon because they know

that somebody liked their post or did anything. And one of the most infuriating things is when you click

on that Facebook ad or that Facebook app and you go to your notifications and it's literally just,

hey, it's so-and-so's birthday. Cool. But Facebook did what it wanted you to do. It got you to open

the app to look at the thing. That's what we want. We're not going to be sending, you know,

junk notifications like that, but we want people to know that there are other people in the church

that they can connect with through this lens of the Bay Hope TV content. So the content is

just sort of the vehicle, you know, we're just kind of providing something and then letting the actual

connection and discipleship happen through that. What kind of programming and content are you guys

picturing for this? Maybe right now, like, so you said virtual VBS and student ministry online.

That's pretty cool. Cause when I hear Bay Hope TV, I automatically go to, oh man, they're going to

make like their own version of Charles in charge or something like that. So, yeah. Well, it's funny.

It's funny you say that. And this is, this, I don't think there's any, any, well, whatever. If you guys ever,

ever, ever seen, um, like drunk history on, uh, and I know we're not supposed to talk about drunk

history, but like the drunk history stuff, we're actually genning up some stuff to shoot for

Christmas. Um, almost like kid drunk history. So we're not going to get kids drunk. So anybody

listening, but we're going to do, you know, retellings of that. And then we're going to do like,

so this is just Christmas 2020. Um, I think Andre had a really good idea of like doing a shot for

shot remake of the home alone dance party. Um, and you know, doing just fun, interactive things that are

going to draw people in, into the platform and into that. Um, so yes, there is a little bit of,

um, us generating content that is sitcom-y in nature and acting and, you know, fictional in nature,

but then there's also, you know, real life and teaching and, and the things that are, you know,

driven by, uh, are driven for church members.

That's, that's fascinating. So tell me how, like, just be, be practical. By the way,

I can probably tell you a half a dozen churches right now that I've had conversations with

that are thinking the same thing. Like they, they want to be, um, the, the Christian version

of Netflix has been a phrase that I've, I've heard a lot. And so there, there are churches

that are wrestling with this. And, and so like, I'm hearing this kind of more, more aggressive

stance. Um, and then, then I'm hearing questions like, okay, so you want to create the, you

want to recreate the dance party from home alone. How is that going to help people grow closer

to God? How is that going to create a disciple maker? How's that work into our discipleship

pathway? Like kind of walk me through a little here, maybe on the practical side, like how

some of this really fits into the overall plan of what the church is wanting to do.

Yeah. For us, it's the, those hooks, the fun hooks like that are, are, I say hooks, but it's

the, it's the age old tactic of let's make people smile. Let's make people laugh and let's

get them using the app. Let's get them using the platform. Let's get them actually plugged

into what, um, the behind or not even what, what the next layer looks like, which is teaching,

which is practical, um, engagement things like groups, small groups, alpha groups, things

like that. Things that are actually going to provide value to people. Um, and that, that's

our, that's our hope. And that's our kind of drive with that. Um, plus we just like to

exercise our creative legs every once in a while. Andre likes to just run with something

every once in a while. Um, which is what he's been doing with Common Ground. I mean, that's

been, uh, that was, that's been an Andre led, Andre driven thing from the start. And, you

know, we're trying to be, you're right, Jeff, there are, you know, a hundred churches

out there that want to do the quote unquote Netflix style. And we don't think we're unique

in that. We do think we're unique, however, in our all in one, all encompassing approach.

Um, and you know, if we can help a church get better at what they're doing in terms of

that, if we can all learn from one another, again, looping back to what Andre said, we're

all in it for the kingdom. So let's do it, man. Let's all take a piece of it and get better

at it and then help each other learn about it.

Yeah. The thing, the thing that intrigues me is, yeah, I can give you a lot of churches

that are interested in that in the middle of COVID pre COVID, like not a lot of people.

I don't, I can't tell you another church that was really tracking this way. You guys were

like this, this was part of your plan. We were talking off air even before COVID. So

like, where's that vision? Where's that kind of forward thinking mindset come for your church?

I mean, that honestly, Pastor Matthew, uh, our lead pastor, probably five or six years. So

Bay Hope has been streaming live for 10 years. Um, they were one of the first in the Tampa Bay

area to be streaming live services, hiring people like Andre. So Andre got there a while, a year

and a half before me, maybe two years before me. I've been, I've been at Bay Hope just over,

well, a year and a couple months now. Um, uh, almost a year and a half, my goodness. Uh,

and you know, with Pastor Matthew and kind of his visions looking into the future and saying, Hey,

Gen Z is not coming to a building. Uh, millennials are stopping coming to buildings. So how can we

reach them? Well, we go to where they're at. We're, we're doing the Matthew 28 thing. And so his

forward thinking, he planted seeds 10 years ago and then started hiring around that and then gave it to

a couple of people here and then at the church. And then they started running with it. And then

eventually they end up hiring, you know, people like Andre and people like our, um, our creative

director, uh, David Alonzo and people like the people on our worship team that are forward thinking

like that. Then they hire Andre and Andre is forward thinking like that. And so then they hired this

bald guy here. Uh, and you know, and, and just to kind of start tying up a little bit of the loose

ends and then COVID hits. And then we have a team that is just able to, in a day, build a studio and pivot

to, okay, we're going to start, we're a television studio now. Um, it's funny. I heard on a podcast

right at the beginning. Um, my brother, Mike Mage actually hosts a podcast called the healthy jerk,

healthy, uh, healthy church leadership podcast. Excuse me. I stumbled over that, uh, healthy church

growth. And he had on there, um, I can't even remember his name. He was an incredible individual.

And I'll have to, I'll have to, um, look that up and get that to you later. But the guy basically

said, uh, Hey, uh, churches in COVID need to start thinking like television studios.

We need to start broadcasting. Like we're television studios, keeping people plugged into the church

24 seven, as much as possible to let them know that we're still here and we're still doing good

for the world. And that's, that's where we are. That's, that was the vision that kind of happened

before me and that I've just been grabbing it and taking that ball, you know, 10 yards down the field.

How does it move, uh, at least, and how have you guys kind of tested how it moves from just content

to community? Cause obviously it's a lot of content creation, a lot of good stuff, but some people have

like growing a fan base. Cool. But with church, you're actually trying to move people in a specific

direction. So how's that been for you? Uh, so, so far so good. I mean, we've been, um, running

Andre, I cut you off, dude. Sorry. Um, uh, we've been, that's been my job

is to really take people from just the video content, um, um, consuming consumption side

and into more of the engagement side. And that's been going well. I mean, we have, uh, now granted

it's not, doesn't seem like a whole not a whole lot of number. We have 54 people plugged into

our groups as of, uh, last month. Um, now again, doesn't seem like a whole lot, but when you

consider that we're running a thing called alpha, alpha is amazing. Um, if shout out to Nikki

Gumbel and what they did at the very beginning of COVID their online alpha stuff was not, not

bad, but it was not good. And all of a sudden they turned on a dime and just started offering

everything. And we've been running alpha groups. And so far we've run 150, almost 200 people

through alpha and through our small groups and things like that. Um, because of this dumping

into people.

When it comes to maybe like practical ministry and, and I want to like feed this into the common

ground, some of that, but what are some other examples of, of like content that you're creating

that's engaging? Virtual VBS, cool. Kids student ministry, cool. What do you got for the, for the

43 year old bald guy with a goatee? Like what's, what, what other types of, of things are you,

programs are you creating, content are you creating that's feeding into your, your disciple

making process? Yeah. So, uh, there's one thing, I don't know if we can share this yet, but I'm just

going to say it anyways, it might be putting my foot in my mouth. But this morning we had a quick

meeting, just like off the cuff with, uh, uh, executive director, Zach. And we used to do this

conference where we would, uh, it was called the real ideas where we'll bring in local churches

and we'll invite them directly into the church and we'll train them on different things on sound,

on tech, on ministry, you know, all that stuff. I was unfortunately never able to be a part of

that, but, uh, he brought it up today and he, uh, said we should, the guy that's kind of like put in

his heart and then his head to like bring that up, but bring it up digitally and expand it more and

make it better, uh, for creatives. So for someone like you, Jeff, right, the guy who may not be tech

savvy, maybe, you know, or, or doesn't know how to get it up running. We have these certain points

and how to, uh, like for example, for me, uh, one of the things that, one of the workshops that I'm

planning on doing is how to shoot a talking head, right? A lot of churches, it's so easy. You can,

a talking head is your pastor's message, right? A video announcement, you know, anything. It can be

an email that you can communicate, you know, you don't, you want to clearly communicate the message

without any distractions. So setting up something simple with like three-point lighting, you know,

we start from, uh, location and then from lighting, from lighting to post-production and from post-production

to delivering, right? Whether that looks to be a YouTube video, you know, what codec to export when

you need to post things on Instagram, how to post things on Instagram, how to post long videos on

Instagram, how to post story videos on Instagram. So like these are tools and resources that are going

to be available for free for any church or any business, anybody that can get their hands on.

And I feel like that's something that it's just gonna, it just kind of like reinforces what,

you know, again, like what our leadership is all about. And that starts with Pastor Matthew,

obviously, and it's like impacting our community and our church. And that's a capital C, you know?

Yeah. So we've got, we've got that, that creative conference coming up, which is good for churches

everywhere, uh, partners in with, like I said, our hope network and kind of what we've been doing

to, to help other churches come alongside them in this time. Um, we've got a suite of podcasts. Uh,

we've got, we're rolling and we're rolling out more and more, uh, all the time. We've got, um,

every, and everybody and their mother has a podcast. So, uh, we are stand out a little bit in that

it's, uh, we're hitting, it's true. I mean, you know, um, my mom, if she was,

that's what we're doing here, man. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Exactly.

Listen, I'm all about promoting the mom on the podcast or getting the mom to promote the podcast.

Go for it. Go for that. That's gold right there.

Let's hit every demo we can. Um, but you know, we have, we have, we have, we have podcasts that are,

um, just, you know, average guys like myself and my brother, we just get together and talk.

It's called the weekday. Um, we've got a, uh, something that one of our pastors came to,

um, her name's Pastor Julie. She does like a five minute guided meditation every morning

and she's got the perfect like voice and we put some ambient pads behind it. And it's,

it's great, man. It's like that, that first thing in the morning, you know, we release it every day

at 5am and she, it's just, Hey, it's Pastor Julie. I'm here to like, uh, I'm here to pray with you.

Let's talk to God, that type of thing. And just go. Um, we have, uh, we have one,

we have a podcast called figuring it out with a couple of our young adult dudes that are helping.

Um, and actually one of the ones that we're rolling out ties in with Common Ground and it's

actually going to be led by, um, my sister, Melissa, who is our, um, she's one of our producers

here. She leads a, um, a young adult ministry, but she is going to be leading. She's part of Common Ground.

She was one of the voices in Common Ground. Um, but she's going to be leading a further deep dive into

the racial tension and racial reconciliation for lack of a better term. Uh, in, it's almost like a,

um, I like to think of it as like those podcasts that you always hear from HBO or from, uh, television

or television networks that dive into the series after the series. That's what she, that's what

she's doing. And the reason, I mean, she's bringing in professors, um, she's bringing in a videographer,

she's bringing in all sorts of people and she's just going and doing it and just said, Hey, I want

to know more. I, now that I have watched Common Ground, now that I have been through this experience,

now that I have had these conversations about race with people that are not of the same color that

did not grow up like me, I have forever been changed and I need other people to forever be

changed like I have. So let's take this journey together. So we're trying to kind of span the

gamut a little bit from, you know, uh, cradle to grave type thing and everything that we're doing

at Bay Hope TV. I love that. Before we dig into that piece, cause that, that piece definitely

intrigues me. I mean, so many, I I'm sure that you guys have done this too. Countless shows that I've

gone back and listened to the podcast, like Watchmen comes to mind, like where I've gone and listened,

deep dive into the podcast, post the show, because I was like, man, I need to find out like

what those creators were doing. And then even in terms of the race

conversations, much like many people, that was my first learning of the Tulsa wall street situation.

So like my eyes were open to so many things that I was like, man, I need to hear from the creators.

And so I definitely want to get into that, but let's talk about common ground. Cause this is very

intriguing for me on so many levels, because like many churches, even my church, we did like a

conversation on race and first and foremost, like I was like, this is needed. This is important,

but I'm freaked out that we're going to step on some toes unintentionally. All sorts of fears and

stuff pop into mind. So why don't you tell folks exactly what you did for common ground and how that

conversation started? Was it pre-George Floyd? Was it post-George Floyd? Like how did all this kind

of come into play?

It's something that was in my heart and my wife's heart. And then when all this stuff with George

Floyd happened, um, you know, I was just really, really upset. Um, I was, uh, I was, I was

disappointed. Um, and how some, uh, some churches weren't doing things about it or talking about

it. Um, and I could see why, you know, um, and, uh, it's, it's a really, uh, touchy subject.

And, um, I was like, well, we need to talk about this. Um, like we, we are the church. We are

literally the representation of God's love. Like, so one day I'm thinking, I'm like, why is there

such thing as like, call like, you know, the black church or a white church or a Spanish church? Why,

why is that like that? You know, isn't the church supposed to be a representation of, you know,

what the kingdom of God is going to look like. And I understand demographics and all that stuff,

you know, where you live in the area, but that's not an excuse for you, anyone to diversify their

church. Right. Um, you know, and, and talk about these topics that are pretty, pretty hard to talk,

talk about. So, um, I was talking one day to one of my good friends who was actually part of the

common grounds. Name is John Wilds. Um, good friend of mine. I've known him for like 15 plus years

and I was just venting to him, you know? Um, and he said, listen, like, I hear you. Um, he's all,

he's African American. And, uh, he, he said, uh, you know, take all this frustration that you have

and turn it into something good. You know, you have these resources, uh, available to you. You have

this great, uh, leadership team that's supportive. You have, you know, the capability and the resources

to do something. Um, so do something. And, uh, he kind of shut me up, you know? Uh, and, uh, I started

praying about it. And, uh, you know, with a couple of more conversations with him, we, uh, kind of landed,

it was funny cause I told him the idea, you know, I kind of want to get different, uh, originally was

just like, I want worship leaders to come together, different ethnicities and backgrounds, black, white,

Spanish, Asian, whatever. And I want them to worship together. And then I want them to talk about their

experiences from being a black worship leader, from being a white worship leader and et cetera. Right.

I want to see how their perspective is. What can they offer during these tough times of, of racial

injustice and, you know, these wrongdoings and, you know, everything that's going on today in society.

Um, there's a big magnifying glass on it right now. And the solution, in my opinion, is God,

you know, it's God's love and the church that's literally the church's mission is to show that and

spread that. And I feel like, um, common ground was, uh, what's, was, was something that can only be done

with God, right. Through seeking God and praying about it. And the coolest thing, and I had no idea,

like it would turn into this, is that it's a great tool. Let's say if someone like Jeff, right. Or even

Andy, who is white and wants to talk about, even mentioned yourself, these things are awkward,

you know, you got to be careful what you say and stuff like that. Like this is a great tool and

resource to get your leadership around or your team around your church team, or you even, you're even

personal team, you know, in your, in your business and sit down and hear this conversation. Let the ball

roll. Listen to these guys talking, you know, John and Jay, Ethan and Melissa and Mike, and see how

they're personally affected and how God, how they seen God's love and grace through these tough times.

And from that moment, you open up the room, you know, let them like, it's so funny. Cause I would

watch and like, I would see Mike, uh, Andy's brother. He was, he was pretty much hosting the

questions and like, he would feel like, so like uncomfortable in the beginning. And you can kind

of see it like in the videos, like the later the videos get, the more loose you see Mike getting

because it is hard to start it off, but it's okay to talk about this stuff, man. Like it's not

something to shy away from, right? Um, it's something to be spearheaded. And if, if people

would just, uh, you know, understand that, um, because it is like super sensitive to talk about,

right? But if you are able to use this, you know, common ground as, as a resource or as a tool

to start that conversation, I completely believe that this will bless your ministry, your personal

life, your spiritual life. And it's just going to do all that because everybody that's on

there, you know, they are, they've been leading worship for years. They've been seeking God

and looking for God and God has given them wisdom and discernment. These questions that

were tough. I don't know if you got a chance to listen to the first one, but man, like I,

I would have hated to be up there. Even just, I felt like weird filming it behind the camera.

I was like, Oh man, I was starting to sweating. I'm like, I feel sorry for Mike, man. But like

the stuff that God, you know, allowed to be said, um, in that moment. And you can see,

you can see it. It's not just hearing it. You can see it, you know, you can see it in their

face. How, how you, you know, maybe someone felt uncomfortable about that. But now as you,

as the video gets longer or, or, or towards the end, you see them being, uh, understanding

and loving and caring and saying, you know what? It is okay to talk about this stuff.

And God wants me to take care of this problem. And I want God to be the one that guides me

through this, you know? And it's, that's kind of like kind of where it came from and like

what it is turning into besides, you know, awesome worship leaders singing and all that good

stuff, you know? And, uh, but like, besides, you know, that, uh, just spiritually and, and,

and, and feeding your heart, I think this, this is a great resource to get people talking

in the church.

Yeah. Love, love that. Love you. I mean, you're creating content outside of the weekend service.

You're bringing people together to dialogue. You're, you're featuring a song as well as,

you know, an, an open mic moment. It sounds like, and we'll, we'll include links to several

of these in the show notes. We'll grab some of them and pass them along just to allow others

listening to the podcast to experience this. But it's, all this is really done outside of

the weekend service and you're using it as a way to engage and connect with, with people,

uh, digitally. So like, this is, this is phenomenal. You've got the platform, you've got the voice,

you're doing it outside of the service. You're allowing others to speak, you know, so often it's,

and especially in this, in this racial time, it's, Hey church, let's, let's listen.

Let's, let's learn. You, we don't, we don't have the answers. And even the way that you postured

this, where it's, it's a learning experience where others are coming in and are given an opportunity

to speak their voice. And through that, we're discovering the common ground. Like this is,

this is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Like, tell me how, tell me some stories. Tell me some,

some practical, like how did this affect your church? What, how did this kind of move some even

racial reconciliation among your church over at Bay Hope?

So I was, I was producing, which is just a fancy term for just making sure that nobody runs away

and making sure that everybody was on time. Hey, whatever. And the coolest thing for me was that

I got to, as the producer, I got to take the 30,000 foot view and watch and kind of guide

conversations and guide hosting and guide, not really shots. That was Andre's thing. But

my sister, one of the reasons that she's starting her podcast was the same reason that I started this

by saying I'm the resident white guy because we, and my brother says it in one of the, one of the

questions. So the way it was shot was we asked questions upfront and there was about four or five

hours. It was, yeah, it was about, well, about three and a half, four hours of just dialogue. And we came up

with a bunch of questions and just started firing them off. And then we took a break for lunch and

then we started to worship. They started to worship together. And you could tell in the worship set

that everyone was really close, but it was because of the fact that, uh, like we were saying, I, as a

middle-class white American growing up in suburbia, I never had a lot of those, uh, things that, uh,

Jay, one of the African-American worship leaders or John, one of the African-American worship leaders

or Ethan, who is a white guy, but grew up with a bunch of African-American worship leaders and just

never really knew the difference. Uh, I didn't have any of those experiences. And so listening to just

these, these three guys just start talking, you could watch as myself and my brother and my sister,

we all just kind of went, wait, what, like what's going on here? And the, the amount of barrier that

broke in just us was fantastic. But the amount of barrier that has broke in the conversation that

has happened around it in, uh, you know, even on YouTube and in Instagram and even just

in our like chat hosting platforms when we're live somewhere has been phenomenal. And we've only put

one, well, we've got another one coming out next week. We've only put maybe a fifth of the conversation

out. We've only really, we've only scratched the surface. Um, and I think one of the guiding factors

for all of it was we want to make sure that we're not just putting content out to put content out

because anyone could make a cool video and put some good music out. Um, Andre really helped spearhead

the fact that at the end of this, we were going to ask people, how can you do something about this?

And the very last question is, what can we do? And that's kind of, we need to get to that zenith.

Like we're on the way there. Like we're taking this journey with our congregation. But at the end of

it, we want people to be asking and answering that question themselves. What can I do personally where

I'm at? How much of this is scripted in that sense? Uh, and I don't mean this to make it seem like any

of it's inauthentic and I'm glad that you threw up the big burger, but even like in terms of the

action steps, like how much do you guys know ahead of time? All right, this is the direction we're

headed. And this is exactly what we're going to give them at the end to move them in a specific

direction. Or was there none of that at all? That was a lot of planning. Yeah. Uh, so prior to the

shoot, you know, uh, we met, uh, one time with John, uh, and Andy and our, uh, our executive

team and our creative director, um, to kind of just talk about the idea, you know, and through

that conversation, there was a lot of questions, a lot of questions like, who's this for? How's

it going to impact people? How's this, this and that? So like, we like just went in, like the cool

thing about, about working here is that there's a lot of different perspectives. You're like, oh man,

I didn't think about that. Like, what is, what really is this for? Like, or like what, you know,

like there's like these, not processes, but there's just like these, these elements that just

up the value of what your idea, you think it is, oh, I have this great idea. And then this team

takes it and just explodes it. It makes it to something better. So we had that initial idea,

kind of pitch, uh, uh, the idea and, uh, show what it's kind of, what's going to be about,

get the blessings, you know, all that good stuff. And then we had another meeting with

all the worship leaders that were going to be involved. And, uh, we kind of were on the same

page. Hey, this is what's going to be about. We're going to ask a couple of questions.

Um, we hadn't come up with the questions yet at that time. We sent them later in another email.

Um, and, uh, we kind of said, okay, we're going to do a worship moment. Uh, we kind of just laid

out the schedule, got everybody's timeline. Um, but besides that, it was literally, we came in that

morning, we had some coffee, you know, everybody got to introduce each other and say hi. And then we

said, okay, guys, we're rolling in 10 and everybody just sat down in a chair and then Mike just started

asking questions. And I'm telling you, man, uh, when you guys see this thing, you could see

Mike in the first episode, the long, the long format one, the question one. And he is just like,

uh, uh, like, like deer in the headlights. Like I'm, he was like, he, nothing was scripted. It was

just like, we're doing this. Just we're, we're trusting in God. We've prayed about it. We had our

prayer team pray about it. We had our leadership and our pastors pray over it and God just showed up

how he always does, man. And that was the biggest thing, you know, is at least for me, uh, was having

faith, um, in God that he was going to provide. Uh, and, and he did. It's funny, you know, as humans,

we get to this mode where we think we control everything and then everything goes wrong.

And then you hit these walls, you hit these walls and you, I'm going to run through this wall. I'm

going to run through this wall. I can run through it. But that when you're at that wall,

that's when you need to stop and ask God for help and ask and pray for God as, as you know,

pray and, and ask for discernment and wisdom and have faith, man. God, I'm telling you a hundred

percent of the time when stuff like that has happened in my life, God has come through.

What's been, what's been the engagement, maybe outside the physical circle of influence? Like,

have you seen, uh, engagement traction, uh, other cities, maybe even other churches outside

of hope with within kind of like, so tell me about the reach here.

So right now, uh, we have, uh, the Instagram videos have been like popping off, uh, like on

our, on our Bay hope, uh, Instagram. Um, I think, I think it's close to at least a thousand

views. Maybe Andy, I'm not sure. Um, but I know the YouTube channel, the worship portion,

um, has about 3000 plus views. And we just got a comment today from Venezuela, uh, saying how this

video has blessed their life or how the worship has impacted their life. And it's just so, so amazing.

Like, I mean, Andy could speak more into that, uh, uh, uh, maybe not towards common ground,

but we have people from all over the world watching Bay hope, um, on a weekly basis, every weekend,

someone from outside the state or, um, sorry, outside our country is watching and viewing and engaging

with us and we directly impact their lives. Um, that's something that we kind of tell our video

team here, uh, our volunteers. It's like, Hey, you, you're, you're point, you're doing more

than just pointing a camera, you know, someone's salvation is in your hands, you know, in that

focus, uh, gear, you know, uh, in that zoom gear, you know, in your composition, nailing

the shot and making sure that there's no distractions, uh, when Matthew's preaching or when there's a

worship moment, you know? Um, and it's amazing. Uh, I'm hoping that the, obviously the goal

was, you know, everybody loves this video and it gets millions of views and everybody impacts

their lives. But like, I just want it to be, uh, seen in as many places as it can be, whether

that be on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube, I want it to be a tool. Like I go back to that,

you know, like where, like my, where I thought like, Oh, this is such a grandiose idea, but

there was so little on, on, for what God really has for it, you know, like, like I'm, I'm telling

you this, this is going to be something that is a tool to spark that conversation.

So Dre, um, I'm really intrigued about that. Like how, how many more chapters of this are

there going to be? Because this is obviously an ongoing conversation as uncomfortable as

it makes people as political as people are making it out to be, which really it shouldn't

be. Um, but it's a, it's an ongoing conversation, isn't it? And so what are you guys thinking as

far as what's the next step?

Yeah. So we have, um, a total of five episodes, right? Long format. So we, the way we did it

is we split it up because the videos are very long and people's retention span, you

know, it's not that good nowadays. So we hit them with two different videos. So there's

a set of 10 deliverables, right? So 10 total deliverables, five being the long form, like

20 minute, 15 minute conversations, uncut, raw of them talking about the question, each

question. So there's five questions. And then the second set of deliverables, which is

another five is the worship aspect. So we start with the worship and then we go into a little

small portion of the person who led that song. So for example, the first one is Jay. He leads

Graves into Gardens. Um, and then immediately right after that, it fades in, into, uh, Melissa

hosting it saying, Hey, you're about to hear Jay, a small portion about what he thinks about,

you know, uh, how to mourn in the church during these times. Right. That was the first question.

And so we go into a segment of Jay. He has about two, four or five minutes talking about

that. And then we faded out and then we bring it back in and to Melissa again, sharing, uh,

um, doing a call to action to hit the link on the bottom of the YouTube channel to go watch

the full conversation. So the goal is, is to bring them in with this candy, this shiny toys.

Hey, look at these cool worship leaders, you know, around the area. Look how cool this video

looks. But like, this is like the sprinkles, right? The real good stuff is that long for

my conversation. That's what we want them to go see and engage with. Um, because I've, you

know, although I'm not trying to sell it short, but cause they do talk about, uh, great things

in the worship sessions, but it's not long. Um, we cut it short. Um, we did it for one person

for whoever's leading that specific song, but like each question, it's, it is like amazing. Like

everybody answers the question. Everybody has their turn of answering the question and everybody

kind of groups and everybody starts talking about it. And there's so many things on there. If

whether you're white, you're black, Spanish, it doesn't matter. Like, I'm trying to tell you,

like, there's so many like hard points that you're like, I don't know how to talk to my team about

this. I feel like I need to, but I don't know how to put on that video and let, and seriously,

it's going to happen. Like there's no way you're not going to feel like you have that grace

because that's what it is. You know, like one of the things that John was telling me about,

like as Christians is that we need to have grace. When we talk about this, when we see other people,

if a white pastor is talking about racial injustice and he says something out of term,

maybe that he didn't mean I'm not supposed to go and bash him about that. You know, I got to see that

through grace. You know, I have to, you know, I have to, I have to show grace with that because then

where's my heart, you know, like what, what does that lead me to, you know? So, um, that's something

that, uh, it's really, um, you know, awesome about this project is, is, is that, and I keep going back

to it. I'm sorry if I do, but it's just, it's just, it's just, uh, I just think that's where

God is going to move. Um, you know, besides the worship stuff and the worship moments, which

it's literally, there was, these guys were just like, go, there's all they had was a click and you,

you know, the song, if you want to extend it, you want to make it longer, you want to go into a worship

moment, you go into a worship moment. We're not holding anything back. This is a beautiful time for us

to do whatever God has in this room. And, um, when we were in Andy, you know, he's speaking to this

more as well. When we were in that moment worshiping, there was times where I was just like, man, I feel

like strongholds are being broken right now. You know, like it was just such a movement of God and

the Holy spirit and just God's love. It was, it was all there, man. It was a crazy, crazy day,

very exhausting, but you know, what we got from that and how God is moving through these,

you know, this project, it's going to be amazing.

Well, and not only that, there's a, there's a continuation aspect to it too, where we want

to loop back after we get all this stuff out there, we want to loop back maybe six months from now

with everybody and add on and continue to ask because, you know, even in the time that we've

only published one of these, cause it, you know, it's a mountain of work to try to publish something

that's very large. Anybody who listened to this probably knows that. Um, but even in that, like

we've had Jacob Blake and then we've had all of the Kenosha, Wisconsin stuff. And then we've had all

of the Rochester stuff, you know, every, all of these, um, topics on race keep popping up that we need

to talk about because as the church, we, we, we are the ones that are called to heal and we're not

going to heal if we continually have this, um, uh, my sister calls it an accent. We all have this

accent, um, as, as white America, we have an accent in our church and we were born into that with this

accent and that's the accent we speak. And we just expect everybody else to understand it.

And when people don't understand it, we call them weird. And that's unfortunately what's

happening. And so common ground is designed to, uh, you know, yes, it's not the Waco,

the Waco coffee house. It is us trying, really trying to, uh, bring common ground into the kingdom.

And I think that's, that's great for your community, for your specific community too,

to hear them, to, to see their pastors, to see their church staff engaging in this kind of way,

because then it kind of takes down the walls of the politics, the celebrities, everybody else just

kind of get into it because now, you know, the people who are engaging in these conversations. Now

it becomes really, really different when it's like, Oh, wait a minute. I know this person by name

and this is how they feel, or this is how it's causing them to feel, you know, the, the hurt and

the pain that they've gone through in their life, et cetera. It kind of takes all that apart versus,

and I'm seeing this through a newscaster's eyes versus I'm seeing this in terms of people I know.

And I think that's just really helpful. Um, before we kind of conclude, I also kind of wanted to hit

on, you guys talked about a deep dive into like post, you talked about like a deep dive podcast, post,

all of that, um, kind of go into it a little bit more in terms of who's being invited to talking to

this thing. I have professors and that kind of intrigues me in some kind of way. Like who else is being

invited into this thing? Or is it just Christians, non-Christians? Well, it's allowed.

Yeah. So the professor, she is, as far as we know, the one that my sister has talked to. So

I keep talking to my sister. My sister is Melissa Miner. Um, she's the experience director here.

She's one of our producers here. Um, she's amazing. Yeah. And she was, she's, um, one of the

people in the actual common ground video. And she's, uh, she's actually, I think in the second one,

but she, like I said, she was changed, like shook to the core by everything that was happening

because she, like me, grew up in the same household as me and didn't have any of these

experiences. And so she wanted to further that. And her deep dive is her literally seeking out

people of a different, not even necessarily color, although color has a different, a very large part

of it, but a different background than her. And she is literally knocking on doors, writing email.

I mean, not in COVID times, but sending emails and DMs and Facebook messages and things,

trying to get people that are not believers. And that may be believers,

but really to further the conversation, she's kind of just, if you know anything about my sister,

you would know that she is a one woman army, uh, who can wreck face, uh, and will not stop until

this thing has succeeded until she has figured out how the church can actually help. And in what

context the church can actually help. Um, and she's doing that in through the lens of,

Hey, we did this common ground thing. Um, she, that's how she's really opening up the door to

these conversations with people. She's sending them a link saying, Hey, just want to want to get your

advice on this. If I hear back from you, great. If I don't hear for back from you, great. The people

she has heard back from, she's all in, um, I do know. So like I said, professors, she's talking to,

she's going to bring on all of the other worship leaders again, just as like a recap, kind of a,

Hey, how's the last three or four months been for you? Um, I do know that she's reaching out to

churches. So she was in a band, um, a band called Bellarive that toured all around the country,

all around the world really. But, um, so she made a lot of contacts around the country in the music

world. And, um, as part of that, she's reaching out through those contacts. And so she's reaching

out all through the country to people throughout the music world and the music industry, trying to

just draw people in because the, the, the core of all of this, like Andre said, this is a tool for

people to really start to bring healing. Um, and that's, that's exactly what Bay Hope TV is trying

to do is just be resources for people. Yeah. I love this idea of, of, of creating these resources,

of facilitating these conversations, of taking the posture of a learner, of, of listening in this

season to, um, the, the despair of the situation that, that is, is race here in America. It's sad to

say, I don't, I don't think this is going to be over in any time soon. And so continuing that

conversation, revisit it, changing, uh, an individual, a person at a time is a phenomenal

challenge. And so thankful for you guys, uh, through Bay Hope and now through this platform,

Bay Hope TV, uh, even just taking those steps, uh, towards, towards doing that. It's, that's an

awesome, awesome thing. And so one of the questions that I get from, from churches that are, are

interested in doing this whole, like become the Christian Netflix type of thing is how do I

staff this? How do I grow this? How do I test this to see if I even like the idea and then expand?

I mean, I would love maybe some feedback, maybe it's Dre, maybe it's both of you, but just like,

how did you start? What did like the first couple rounds of it look like? And then how are you growing

it? Maybe where are you expecting to go? Staff, org chart, creative team, types of videos, like just

kind of tell me that Genesis story here a little bit of, of, uh, Bay Hope TV.

Yeah, I think, uh, you know, I can touch on it a little bit, but I think Andy has a better grip on

this subject. I can probably be a pretty good example. Uh, when I first started working here,

it was just pretty much me, um, me and Zach, uh, Zach at the time was a creative director and, uh, we

really kind of, we kind of had a comms teams and communication teams and a creative team, but it

really wasn't, um, as cohesive and, uh, and a world door machine as it is today. But, uh, you know,

I think something that, uh, you have to be, is persistent. Um, I am very persistent, um, when it

comes to, uh, doing things good for God. Um, and, and that's talking to leadership, uh, planting seeds.

And I think the most important thing is just prayer, seeking God for that. Um, you know, that's kind of

like a 40,000 foot view. And since then God has blessed us tremendously. Um, we were able to bring

in, uh, Andy who has been a tremendous, like blessing for us, uh, keeps us on top of things. You know,

he comes up with great ideas and, uh, and he's just a great pastor. So, um, anyways, since then we've

kind of restructured, um, kind of how we work and as a unit, you know, kind of the whole orb chart

thing. Um, the cool thing is that we kind of don't focus on that too much here. Um, titles and

positions and all that stuff that, that, that stuff you, you can get in the weeds with that stuff,

you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, your pride gets in the way or, or, or, uh, you know,

people become ill will towards certain individuals. We don't see that we're a team. Um, and our goal

is to, you know, expand the kingdom of God. You know, our pastor's vision and mission is 30 by 30,

you know, 30,000 disciples by 2030. That is a huge, like, ass. And that's what God has given him. And

that's with faith and, and, and, and, and determination, you know, hopefully we're able

to reach that goal and honor God in that way. Um, so I guess basically that's kind of where I stand on

that subject or in that time. Andy can definitely speak more into other things about that. So.

Yeah. The, uh, the, in terms of just orb chart and things like that, I mean, you obviously need,

like I understood support from your leadership, but really you need to have producer. And I never

really, I never really realized the necessity of a good producer until I kind of stepped,

stepped into that role. Um, just to keep the trains running on time. Uh, you obviously going to need

videographer at least one, if not two, um, just to handle the editing load. Uh, the thing that they

don't tell you is that you can shoot until the cows come home, but if you can't do the hard work of

editing and actually getting it, you know, get your pipeline greased, you're out of it. And so again,

that's where your producer comes in. So my role ends up being as, even as digital pastor, I've turned

more into digital producer whereby I'm literally just kind of opening the pipeline. So letting Andre,

I'm, you know, I'm cutting and doing some editing, light editing and light cutting. Um,

but letting Andre and kind of our, our, uh, our other videographer take care of the actual heavy

lifting of editing. I'm simply the guy that's just getting stuff out the door, getting it in because

you know, it's not easy to get it onto YouTube and into your other platforms, somebody doing the SEO

work you need it. So that's my job. So get your producer, get kind of your creative lead as well. Uh,

and then you can filter in with two to three other, either videographers or communications people,

something along those lines that will really, really help. It would almost behoove any church that's trying

to do this to have some, somebody that is at least mostly skilled in, um, social media. Uh, and by social

media, I mean, not just posting on Facebook, but how the nitty gritty of all of it works. Um, just to, just so you're not

spinning your wheels. We kind of find we were spinning our wheels a little bit until we retasked, like Andre

said, we're kind of a well-oiled machine. Now we retasked basically our creative director with, Hey,

you're the, you're now our social media guy.

That's awesome. Love that for Andy, uh, for Dre, for Ray. Hey, let that, that rhymes. That's cute.

This is Jeff with the church digital, otherwise known as grumpy white guy, evidently through the podcast.

Thanks for being here on the show.

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

Y'all have a good day.