EP057: Heredes Ribeiro - Easter Services Church Online Only

All right, you got episode 57 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planting.

Yeah, this is the third podcast we're rolling out this week, on top of probably 10 to 12 blog posts that are rolling out this week.

There's just so much content.

There's so many things that we want to say in this coronavirus season.

So forgive the content overload.

I hope you're able to keep up with it all or at least find things that are beneficial for you in this coronavirus season.

We've got a great episode here today, and it's something that I think is relevant to where we are as a church, and that is centered around Easter.

Well, I got to tell you, like, Easter is our Super Bowl.

Like, this is the thing that we put all our Easter eggs in the basket, pun intended there entirely, to prepare for this massive Easter experience.

As production director, as producer for a multi-site church, I can tell you I've spent 96, 98, 100-plus hours over one week just in preparation to make sure that all the campuses and all of the venues were prepared for the Easter service.

And now we're in the midst of this coronavirus season.

We're mere a couple weeks away from Easter happening on April 12th, and there's this realization of it doesn't look like we're actually going to have Easter in a physical building.

That may be a little scary to some out there.

It's actually probably scary to a lot because, like, church online wasn't even, like, theologically acceptable two to three weeks ago.

And now the Super Bowl, the biggest Sunday of the year, Easter, is looking like it's going to be online only.

So out there, pastors, people who are preparing content, lead pastors, how do you pivot?

How do you change?

Worship, what does it look like for Easter online?

Creative, how do we communicate these things?

What are creative elements that we can do within the context of it?

What does it look like to produce an overly produced, sensationalized service?

And then you've got Jimmy Fallon, who's doing a broadcast in his living room with an iPhone with his kid climbing all over him.

What are these tensions that we deal with when we're talking about Easter?

How do we hype Easter in this coronavirus season?

That's really the question we dive into.

So we're bringing in Miami favorite and a longtime fan here of the podcast, Eridus.

Eridus is a producer over at Grace Family Church, now up in Tampa, Florida.

And Eridus is a guy that I've known and respected.

We'll get to it in the podcast for a couple decades now.

I knew him even when he was in high school and I was like a college kid.

And it's been awesome seeing him grow in ministry and influence just in churches across the country and helping people wrestle with creative elements like this.

How do you do Easter in coronavirus season exclusively on Church Online?

What does that even look like?

So to that end, I'm bringing Eridus into the conversation as well as Ray DeArmis, co-host once again with the Church Digital, as well as the Christ Fellowship Miami, and myself, Jeff, at the Church Digital, in a conversation that I'm calling Easter Service Church Online Only.

Hey, everybody.

Here you go.

Grace Family Church.

Actually, we've made Tampa our home for the past year and a half.

It's going to be two years and loving life up here.

It's a great and growing city and part of a great, great team, great church.

And I'm excited to get to do all things creative.

So I have a hand in all things from video production, worship, communications to all things digital and how that translates, especially in a season like this.

It's been a lot of fun.

I have a passion for it.

I love leveraging all things digital, early adopter on everything to try to get the good news out.

So it's been fun to do that and spearhead that here in Tampa with Grace Family Church.

So honored to be here, man.

Excited to talk to you guys.

Hang out.

Miss y'all.

It's been a while.

Yeah.

So Grace Family is, by Eridus, we go way back.

We don't want to die on this in the podcast, but we have spent a lot of time together in Miami.

It's been awesome.

We were just talking off air about how Eridus owes me a large sum of money due to a mishap that he did when he was in high school.

So I want to say something like that.

This sounds very mock-it.

I don't like what this story is telling.

Yeah.

You can't say Miami owes me a lot of money and just leave it pending in the air.

That's going to get flat somewhere, man.

No, no, no.

It'll be fine.

It'll be great.

It's nothing to do with any illegal substances.

We apologize, FBI, for listening in.

Sorry about that.

Yes.

Yeah, you've got better things to do today.

Make millions.

Awesome.

But what we really wanted to get into with this conversation is Easter.

And so we're in the midst of this coronavirus season.

We see, at the time of this recording, Easter is a mere three weeks away, and it's getting sooner and sooner, literally by the day here, quite literally by the day.

And the great thing about Easter, especially when you're a church with a creative department and you're ahead of the game, the second Christmas is over, you start having conversations about Easter.

You flip the switch and you start talking about, okay, what's the theme, what are we going for, what's our voice, create the graphics, create the video.

And you've got usually that three- or four-month period between, you know, January 6th to, you know, in their situation this year, April, tomorrow.

So you've got that four months to really create this awesome, spectacular experience, this environment for Easter.

Well, coronavirus kind of threw a wrench in all of that.

There is no building, and a lot of the assets may or might not have changed, and culture is shifting.

We're literally moving the target here because coronavirus is really just running amok in our society and culture today.

Majority of churches at this point, if they're doing anything, they're digital-only expressions, which is funny.

Even just a mere couple months ago, a lot of churches would have said, this is crazy, and they're theologically against these things.

And now, all of a sudden, they're in the foray kind of jumping in.

But that's a side conversation we'll get to later.

When it comes to this Easter thing, man, like, there's this opportunity to pivot, to change, to go from a physical to virtual.

And Eridus, you know, I know with you, with Grace Family, and Ray, with Christ Fellowship Miami, and, like, we're all feeling this tension of how do we pivot, and what does pivoting even look like?

So, you know, Eridus, one of the things I'd ask you is, like, early on in this conversation, at what point did Grace Family, did you guys actually start to have a coronavirus Easter conversation?

When did this hit your radar?

Yeah, no doubt. Obviously, we were listening to authorities, to governor, to president, following along daily.

And just closely, as a matter of fact, even at the time of this recording, it's limbo if it's full lockdown or not lockdown, and all of that.

And while we feel like people, there is that pent-up kind of idea of wanting to get out of the house and connect, I don't think it's going to be as fast or as quick as many may think, where, oh, free to go, let's go, let's re-engage quickly.

There will be some hesitations and precautions and some things we saw.

So, a month out, a month from Easter, we decided to lock in the theme.

Okay, online or physical, we're locking in the theme.

This is what we want to wear.

We're actually sticking with the It Is Well theme.

It's a throwback.

It is well.

So, playing up, even helping folks, hey, you hear panic, you hear worry, you hear, hey, it is well.

And obviously, they want to talk about It Is Well in our city, It Is Well, but it's ultimately, right, It Is Well in our soul and kind of throwing it back to really one of my favorite hymns.

And so, we're locked in on that theme.

From a programming perspective, we decided, okay, let's think this stuff through, the basics, which I'm sure a lot of folks by now have figured out.

What does interaction look like?

You can't fill out a physical card.

What does giving look like?

It's different.

What is all of that stuff?

What is the basic fellowship, communion, all of that?

Are we doing communion?

Are we not?

If we are, how are we doing that?

So, some of those foundational level things, we started talking, a possibility.

We made the call to go three weeks out of Easter.

We decided to say, hey, we're going online, even if it reopened.

We felt that because of the change in staff culture already, because of the change in work flow for all of our teams.

We got a staff about 250 to try to coordinate all that, to come back together and panic and put a service at six locations.

We felt, let's build the best online service we can in the next three weeks.

And that's what we're doing.

That's what we're doing now.

And then now we're discussing what was a feature song and this big presentation with cello, strings, and a dancer, the typical stuff that churches love to pull out at Easter.

How does that look like online?

What makes it different?

What makes it special?

What makes it – so we're having those conversations now in preparation for Easter.

I hope that helps answer a little bit.

I want to applaud you for your boldness in making that call early on, Aaron, whereas I'm sure there's a lot of churches that are still out there still hoping and praying that they'll be able to throw something together last minute.

I mean, what would you advise for them as they most do some of those calls?

Yeah, you know, and every case is different.

You know, I don't want to sit here and say that, oh, you should do this and this is the way.

I understand different sizes, different spaces, different demographics.

We're trying – this is the wisest for us in our situation.

And ultimately, we're trying to think, how can we reach the most – we're in the Tampa Bay area.

So, Tampa, St. Petersburg.

Our goal is to reach the Tampa Bay area.

So, how can we rise above the noise?

How can we get the good news out to the Tampa Bay area, the best, the most effect?

So, we feel like we can reach more people, actually.

So, again, and this is a glimpse, right?

We're obviously in the right podcast for this.

This is not only a glimpse of the now.

It's the future.

And, you know, Jeff's been prophetic about this, we all know, right, calling it and claiming it.

And you guys understand the digital space.

So, we're excited because this has shifted attention.

And we know Church Online is going to come back stronger even when we start gathering physical spaces.

It's become – they understand.

It's introduced a whole set of folks to Church Online.

So, we made a call.

There's a risk, no doubt.

I think we've just – the ability to not waver.

We just decided to let's just focus in on this.

Let's give it the best.

We felt good about attendance and engagement so far that it's given us the confidence to say, let's go big or go home.

Yeah.

I'm just curious.

Let's dive in a little bit in context of Easter.

How have your normal – like you're, what, two or three weeks in?

At what point did you shut down the physical services?

And how has engagement online for you specifically been in this season?

Yeah.

So, it's – what's interesting is, you know, we're the big church on the block, okay?

So, we're the largest physical church in town.

So, all eyes on us.

We were the ones setting the trend.

Churches were calling.

Well, if they shut down, we shut down.

If we don't – so, there's a lot of pressure on that end.

We were in touch.

We were one of the first ones calling governor and calling the mayor, say, hey, we want to be side-by-side with you on this.

We don't want to contradict.

So, that was key, the community engagement there with, you know, with our politicians, with our leaders.

And we did.

We knew – we knew a day before the mayor was going to make an announcement about some of the closing down of the schools.

The minute the schools went and it impacted parents, impacted job flow, we understood, okay, this is a community shift.

So, we made that call.

We were that same week, the week that they announced school shutting down, we announced, hey, we're going online, online only.

So, it's been – it's two full weeks of that.

We're going into our third week of church online only and committing, committing to Easter and as long as we need.

That's good.

Erdis, I've always felt that you've had a good grasp of social media and how that ties in with the church experience.

What are some ways that Grace has taken this situation and stayed plugged in with folks via social media channels?

No, that's good.

That's good.

You know, we use – I've shared this before in other podcasts or places.

And it's funny because when we talked about this earlier, it was the idea of hype, right, how to build hype.

And hype sometimes gets – has a bad reputation.

It has a bad vibe because it's like, ah, it's just hype.

It's all noise.

It's blood.

We leverage it.

For us, it's an acronym.

And anything we do, whether it's an event, whether it's a church service online, whether it's a product you're selling, whether it's – whatever it may be, we ask these questions.

So, and it's – I'll give it to you here, hype, right?

It's H is, how am I helping others?

It's always asking that question.

How is this service?

How is this product?

How – now, the foundational – we know, right?

We're in the business of helping people, of the gospel, of getting the eternal, you know, that eternal good news out.

We know that.

But at the surface level, people don't know that.

They're going through struggles.

Right now, financial struggles.

Right now, they're afraid to get out.

They're afraid of their neighbor.

So, how am I helping?

With our services, with our church, how am I helping?

That's the H, right?

The Y for us, it's then your solution, right?

So, what's your solution?

What's your solution?

So, immediately ask, hey, how can we help?

And now, here.

Here's a solution we feel.

Here's an answer we can give you.

Here's why you should attend.

Here's why.

And again, and these are all marketing skills, which, again, sometimes churches are afraid to use.

And I'm like, why not?

Like, we have the greatest story in the world to share.

We have the good news, the eternal, life-changing.

Let's use everything we got.

So, that's your solution.

Then, obviously, it's the people, right?

So, the P-Hype, H-Y-P, people.

It's about people.

We know it started with people.

It ends up, so who are you engaging, right?

That's when you get into the influencers.

Who are the folks that you want engaged to get the word out?

How do you promote this and that angle?

And I will say this.

A lot of that happens.

A lot of the successful campaigns and things we have, it's this.

You want them to promote on social, but we'll pick up the phone and say, hey, Susie.

Hey, Johnny.

Hey, we're doing this, man.

Can you do me a favor?

Can you go ahead and promote, share?

Cool.

If you just tag and send posts, the ROI on that is up and down, it depends.

But when you actually engage and jump in.

So, we engage people and the ones we want, like literally old school, or we'll go look

staff members in the eye and say, hey, Johnny, I need you to post this here.

Do this now.

Not this loose staff email to a bunch.

No, no, no.

I think that's how you get the commitment and that's how you get the specific ask.

So, we do that.

And then finally, it's the engagement.

You know, type the ends with engagement.

So, comment, like, share, repost, answer questions, crowdsource, ask questions back.

So, we follow, we try to follow all that.

We've been doing that throughout the coronavirus.

We've been asking questions.

We've been, hey, here's how we can help you.

We're actually, our church is offering, you know, picking up groceries and delivering them

to some of the elderly.

Here's how we can help.

You know, here's our solution.

So, we offer that.

We've engaged our staff and our people.

We had our different campuses this weekend split up during services, engaging on church

online.

So, this campus took the 430 hour.

They're in there, man.

Boom.

So, it's like campuses, make this hour your hour.

This is your hour.

Let's show up.

So, then, you know, you create an internal competition and have some fun with it, et cetera.

So, it's been fun.

It's been new.

We're discovering as we go ideas.

I mean, we're watching.

I'm watching Jimmy Fallon do a show from his kitchen with his phone.

I mean, we're learning as we go, too, just like they are.

And we're adapting.

We're doing stuff.

We did a fortress challenge with our kids at home.

We know everybody's at home.

What do they do?

They build fortresses.

So, hashtag ZoneSuiteHome, which is the name of our kids' ministry, Zone.

ZoneSuiteHome, build a fortress.

Dude, it's been great.

People are sharing.

It creates a fun engagement and ultimately leads them to the resources, to our teaching.

So, it's been fun.

We're learning.

We've got different demographics.

We've got a young and old.

Like, it's a hybrid, man.

We've got a thriving, growing, but older demographic, 25-year-old church.

So, it's been fun to adapt to all the social, you know, available to us.

You mentioned Jimmy Fallon.

And it's funny.

Just, you know, a couple hours before this recording, I was in a meeting talking about

Easter service with a church.

And the tension we had talked about is creating the over-the-top production that we normally

see in context of Easter and doing that in a broadcast environment.

And then we also talked about, dude, Jimmy Fallon's producing a service, like producing

a show on an iPhone with his kid climbing all over him.

And at some level, we've moved away from hyper-production and are almost getting bare bones, authentic, real

with people as we're all just collectively stuck in our homes.

Like, coming from a guy who's lived both sides of the coin here, Arius, like, how do you balance

the hyper-production behind the realism of, like, the, I'm stuck in my office doing this

thing with my kids in the other room?

Like, what's that tension look like?

No, keyword tension, right?

I think in the mighty words of Andy Stanley, right, it's a tension you have to manage.

Like, here's my take on it.

We've been talking about the same thing.

For example, if Jimmy Fallon thought it was better to just do it from home and never go

back to the studio and have the roots and have a staff, he'd probably do it.

He knows it's not.

He knows that this, for the right now, is incredible, it's ideal, there's the authenticity, there's

a fun, it's different.

So, but I do think the other is preferred, and he'll go back to it the minute he can.

I'm also thinking of this.

We've had, you know, 400% increase on our viewers online.

A lot of those people have never come to Grace Family Church.

They don't know.

They've never been here.

So, you're also exposing them to who you are for the long run.

So, there's that piece of, okay, they, I think it's a very evangelistic outreach tool that

they may come back and say, you know what, this church was there online when I needed it.

I got a glimpse of who they are.

I got a taste of what they do.

They're a little more comfortable coming to your physical campuses when the time comes

around.

At the same time, authenticity is key.

It's one of our values here.

The be real aspect, if it's flashy for the sake and cool for the sake of cool, I think we've

missed it.

There's enough of that.

I think that, so I think if you can try to figure out the excellence factor with the

authenticity piece and have some humor, that's why sometimes humor works.

Don't take yourself too seriously.

You know, just have fun, lay back, you know, that helps break some of that.

But it's attention.

And we don't have it figured out.

We're navigating to.

So I'll say this, our students have nailed that.

Our kids have nailed the shooting stuff on their iPhone.

They get away with murder or doing a bunch.

Like, it's okay.

Like, now's the time to do that.

Get your student pastors on IG live answering questions, talking to your students.

Let your parents see that you're talking to their student pastor.

Now's the time to milk all of that, for sure.

For sure.

That's good.

What do you say to senior pastors who are afraid of living in that tension of, man, I want

to be me, but I don't think people are going to accept me for the real me because they want

stage me.

And so how do I now infiltrate this world of digital?

But I'm afraid to, because once it all goes back to the norm, I can't take any of that

back.

Wow.

Good question.

That's a good question.

We'll be right back after this break.

All right.

Sponsored by you.

We are not sponsored.

Get back in there, bro.

Stick it to him.

Yeah.

Listen, you know, it's a leadership.

Again, Andy Stanley, I love the dude.

I read this stuff.

What leadership is influence.

We know that, right?

So, so the folks who say to leave influence on the table and to not use or to not.

So again, from that question, the question to me came across twofold, that and the authenticity

piece, but leverage social media.

Okay.

Our church is not on TikTok because, oh, it's cool.

It's because it's a voice and it's not going to connect with everybody, but there's a demographic

that at some point we need to be the light in that dark little TikTok space.

And so, so it's leveraging that and being present and be early adopter with it, jump in, don't

be afraid, be present.

I mean, I, I tell people this all the time and I preach this to our team.

You know, the porn industry has no hesitation in putting all their efforts in getting crap

out.

Right.

And, you know, Europe, I don't know if you saw that they released, you know, one of the

thriving porn sites gave away free accounts to all of Europe during the quarantine.

That's horrible.

Like that.

Wait, really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

That's horrible.

I'm sorry.

Wrong word.

It's amazing that they would give that away economically, but what a horrible thing.

I'm bringing it back.

And cut.

And cut.

Yeah, I know.

It's crazy.

But again, just to go to show, like if the porn industry is giving up financially to get

people in, to sell them to their, why we should do the same.

I mean, there's no reason we should leave influence.

And listen, I think most of it, my dad's an example of this.

My dad's a six-year-old pastor, man, pastor of the Church of Miami, does a great job, shepherd's

heart.

He's laid in the game with a lot of this.

He navigates.

He's got his iPhone.

He knows how to go live here.

He does this.

He struggles through it.

He'll shoot it this way.

It's quirky.

Quirky is better than nothing.

Okay.

So go with quirky.

Two is also ask your grandson, ask your son, ask the neighbor.

Somebody there knows they're going to help you.

And what a way to engage somebody else.

Figure it out.

Ask them over the phone.

You don't have to go over lockdown.

Call them.

Figure.

There's a way.

I think don't let that.

The authenticity, I think, man, the deeper question with that, I would challenge anybody.

There shouldn't be the platform persona and then the, you know, me at dinner with my kids

persona.

It should be the same.

You should be able to put a camera at the dinner table with your family and you should

be okay to broadcast that to the world and pass it.

I mean, again, that should be the case.

We're not perfect.

I'm not perfect.

I know.

But that should be a good, you know, barometer for us to try to figure out, man, there shouldn't

be the difference.

And I think people want to see your dog, your backyard that you maybe even cuss a little.

I don't know.

There's a sensor button for that.

Beep.

I know Jeff cusses, but that's another episode.

That's true.

That's true.

Especially when it gets shoved in the mud while holding a camera by a high school brat

like 20 years ago.

There may have been some cussing at that exact moment.

We're going to talk about that.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I brought it back.

That's another podcast.

That's a different one.

Did that answer?

Ray, did that answer the question?

Kind of?

I know I'm preaching.

Yeah, I'm preaching a little bit, but yeah.

No, 100%.

Because here's the thing.

Like, as we've entered this era, some pastors are feeling more and more comfortable with taking

their stuff online, which is fantastic.

We'd like to see that.

We want to hear that.

But a lot of them are scared because they're not some of the personalities that we're mentioning.

They're not a Craig Rochelle.

They're not a Stephen Furtick, who at this point are more than comfortable to just flip

it on the camera and going.

That's a great irony.

It's like they've got this platform, but they're not afraid to risk it for the sense of being authentic

versus pastors who have a smaller platform that are like, well, it's almost like we're dealing

with a parable of the talent situation.

I've got this one talent, and yeah, that guy's got five, but I'm afraid to risk this one,

so I'm going to bury it.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good.

One of the things that I've loved.

Go ahead, Eris.

You talk.

No, no, no.

Just one last point.

And it's a good opportunity, too.

It's like they say you're just so not comfortable and you don't want to.

Maybe you set somebody up.

Maybe it's senior pastor and you're not comfortable at all.

Bring your student guy.

Bring somebody next to you.

Is it time to pass the baton digitally and let them own and carry the vision of the church?

And I'm not saying give up your senior pastor.

Don't get crazy now, student pastors.

But collaborate.

Figure out.

Do a panel.

Do Q&A.

Bring your wife on board or bring your kids.

I think there's different ways to even Q&A.

Get questions from your congregation.

Don't feel like, oh, I can't preach a sermon to an empty room.

You can figure it out.

I think that we always kind of have to get over ourselves and kind of figure that out because I think you leave a lot on the table.

I think there's a lot of other influencers out there not preaching the good news, not doing good for humanity that are very aggressive about figuring it out.

So I think we need to figure it out.

Sorry.

Go ahead, John.

No, and that actually leads in exactly what I was going to say is I can tell you several churches in this season that the pastor is preaching an abbreviated message on Sunday.

He's trying to get in there the 20-minute, 25-minute for the message.

But then what's happening as a result of that with some of his spare time is he's in the process of going through another complete sermon series almost, five-minute video sermonettes during the week, Monday through Friday at night, putting it on Facebook Live or something like that, even starting to see, hey, let's loop in student guide.

Let's loop in campus pastor who doesn't preach.

Let's start to loop in other people to kind of speak into this.

This is a great opportunity, I think, for the church at all to grow entirely, not for one man to exude his spiritual gifts on one platform, but allow others the opportunity to grow and to do ministry in this.

You know, and in some situations, it's not like there's a lot of other things that are going on.

Allow other people to prep and speak into it.

What do you think, Eridus?

Yeah, no, I agree.

And that's a good point.

In our Easter conversation, and to go back to the first question, we've been very intentional.

It's still this, you know, people gave us an hour on Sunday.

Now, no doubt, they're bored at home now.

They're trying to figure out between Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, and whatever is available.

So they may give us more hours now, but I would still plan for the good hour.

What's the hour as far as content?

We're planning our Easter to try to include element for kids, representation of our student pastors in that hour, so that if it's almost a family service, if you sit down with your family to watch this service, you kind of get a taste from those people, the personalities.

So we're navigating that because I still feel like it's wishful thinking to think that they're going to watch an hour service, attend a group online, then watch resources for kids, and boom.

I mean, it can navigate that way if the content, that's when content does matter, and the more gripping it is, especially with kids, they're used to.

They're used to the colors and the sound of Disney, and it's hard to compete with that, but it's possible, and there's a lot of great free resources out there.

Jeff's got a billion recommended for you, but I think it's figuring out, do well with that hour.

Less is more, but then figure that hour out and point them to that hour to try to engage, and then figure out the rest, the calls, the FaceTime, the Zoom calls, the Google Hangouts, the whatever you're doing, the Facebook groups to keep them engaged, talking, opening up, and praying together.

So anyway, that's all.

That's good.

You know, some of the things that we're trying to figure through, and we're learning from Disney Channel, is how to help create that kind of interesting excitement going into Easter, where we're even talking about, hey, so we're going to give you printouts for watch parties, kind of like what they do.

And it's like, hey, High School Musical 2 is coming out.

Post your own deal.

And obviously, people can get together, but we're even like, all right, so how do we get this kid space?

You guys are looking to leverage, which I've not heard from any church, that one hour for the whole spectrum.

That's what we're trying to do.

Yeah, and I'll tell you this, there's two things.

There's also a parallel conversation going on.

A lot of churches tried this, I think, this past weekend, but the whole drive-in, the whole drive-in church scenario, I'm sure that's a whole other paradigm, a whole other thing that's happening.

We saw four or five churches did it this weekend, and I think, is it more buzzworthy?

Is it more just so the news station can cover it?

Sure, and I'm all about that.

I'm all about the press release and the headline and getting, you know, there's strategies for that.

That I love exploring, because I said, I want to be on the headline news.

Yes, I do, you know, because I think that helps get the gospel out.

But two is, we're trying to figure out, we had a series, and I'll tell you kind of something that we had to can and trash.

The kids had a series leading up to Easter called Tag, You're It, okay?

We had a little invite card with a little hand, you know, like the little foam hands, the foam hands, number one.

We had a little invite card that had tag.

It was great, because people, they would write the name of the person they're inviting, and they would give it to their friend.

Tag, You're It, right?

Campaign.

Now, we had to can that, as far as physically, because there's no tagging going around.

There's no, you know, but now we're reworking.

This is weak.

Do we do hashtag You're It, right?

Is there a place to do hashtag You're It?

Or find, we're trying to figure that out of how to do, now the kid demographic is different.

Do we engage the parents then?

That's why that came.

We got to engage the parents to engage the kids, because the kids are not necessarily searching through Instagram.

It depends what age, but the audience we're looking for.

So we're trying to figure, leading up to Easter, how does the invite look, and get, and if you could put all your eggs on one basket, it's like, let's push into that hour.

Let's make that hour the best, as all-inclusive as we can, and then the aftermath of that is like, yeah, you want more of this?

Yeah, we got zone, which is kids.

You want students?

We got this.

We've got, you want couples and marriage?

Then there's the aftermath of we're here for you.

Like I said earlier, we're here to help.

You know, here's how to help, and here's our solution, right?

Here's how we can help you.

So we're still navigating all that.

We don't have all the answers, but by the time you hear this, pull us up, gfcflorida.com.

You'll see what we did.

That's good.

One of the things that you talked about with us earlier is how you guys were able to engage folks on the giving front in this time.

And speaking from experience, a lot of churches, this is something that every church has a big old question mark on their head.

They're like, man, we can't pass the bucket this past weekend.

You know, some of our people, they're engaging for the first time with online giving.

How else can we engage our people?

No, it's a good, relevant, and important question for sure.

No doubt, I think when people are, just look at the lines at the gun stores, right?

There's a fear.

There's a hoarding.

There's like, the zombies are coming.

So there's a weird, so there's a natural bunker down, stock up, and God calls us still to spirit of generosity, right?

So there's, so how do you, so for us, it's two things we've looked at.

We don't want to come across like a telethon coming across and right now call this number and you do this and you do that.

There's that tension because it could be, remember, people are watching us for the first time.

There's still that, and that's important because this is a witnessing and evangelistic tool.

The other part of it is, how do you leverage the existing core?

So we've, our team's been working on the following.

We've looked at the list.

Who are folks who have given for the first time in the last three months?

For the first time.

Okay, there's an email and a text message drafted strategically to them and saying, hey, we just want to say thank you.

Your $20 gift has allowed us to do A, B, and C.

And then now's the time to give again.

We're not meeting physically, but blah, blah, blah.

And I can just, and it gives you, here's where you can click.

And again, these are obviously personalized emails with their names and all the tools that are available out there.

So that's one.

Then there's the ones, the folks who are reoccurring givers.

Okay, and how do you communicate to them saying thank you?

Sometimes the best ask is saying thank you, right?

And specific thank you.

Hey, we just want to let you know that because of you, A, B, C, and D.

I'll tell you this.

This is one thing we're leveraging.

I'm just spewing now.

We were able to help four churches this past weekend do church online.

Okay, as Grace Family Church, we helped four churches.

We're letting our congregation know that, right?

That's Kingdom Vision.

That's us.

Hey, it's not even just about us.

It's about getting this word out.

It's about helping our friends and those – and that helps the folks who's reoccurring givers say, hey, here's what you're doing.

It's because of you.

We can keep the internet going and strong.

It's because of you that we got the staff that can – so that's – it's very targeted.

It's very targeted.

On the surface level, we say, hey, if you've never given, this is how you can do it.

Spell it out.

We did the video explaining exactly how to do it.

That can come across sometimes a little, like, you know, left turn.

It's necessary.

I think those are conversations you have with CFOs and with senior pastors saying, hey, the tact and who we're trying to reach and who – because some of it's like, listen, if we're worried about 20 people and they're the donors and they're the ones, guess what?

We can still pick up the phone and we can call them.

Like, seriously, there's still that.

We can still make phone calls.

You know, that's still not – so we've been leveraging a little bit of a blanket of all and really thinking long-term.

There's the now, playing this now game of how do we partner with people, but the long-term game of, like, we're introducing people to the church.

People need Jesus.

Well, are we scaring them away from our buildings with everything we're doing?

Or are we saying, hey, these guys are actually pretty normal, they talk like real people, they look somewhat normal, maybe they'll come after.

So that's just our initial thoughts.

Oh, but that's solid.

That's solid.

And that's probably a lot more than what a lot of churches are doing in the sense of engaging their people because there's – I don't even want to call it an inherent guilt, but really there's a fear of engaging givers in this kind of way because of what you're talking about with the telethon thing.

And, hey, we want people to be generous, but we're afraid to ask, and that's why we only talk about giving, like, once a year.

But at the same time, we're afraid that if we don't talk about it, our church doors are going to close by the time that the virus thing is up and left us.

Right.

No, and there's tons – obviously, there's tons of studies to be done on this that have been done.

The age of the giver matters how you talk to them.

There's all of that, right?

And then also, if they're watching the news and people are losing their jobs, guess what?

We need to talk about benevolence too.

We're the church.

How are we doing that?

Okay, so it's not just boop, boop, boop.

I think we need to come in and say, hey, we're here for you.

You know, we're doing that too.

We're serving the elderly doing this.

Hey, if you have a benevolence request, text this and do this.

Those offers of benevolence, reverse psychology, are also helping – you know what, man?

I need to give something.

These people are helping that.

I can't go myself, but if I give 20 or if I stick to my tithe.

So I think there's just – it's a sincere – we can't make you do anything.

But if you're church, if that's the heart of your church and what you're doing, find those things to serve.

That hasn't changed.

We've got to find ways to serve our community.

We've got to find ways to serve our people.

We have our staff on the phones, man.

We broke down the list of everybody.

We're calling our folks, checking in.

If you need anything.

I'm just here to pray.

Can I pray for you?

And then we get back and we're praying on Google Hangouts.

We're praying over the phone.

I think we've just got to find different ways to serve as a result.

And then, obviously, then you trust God, right?

God's not surprised by all this.

He's not freaking out.

He's not.

You trust God in all of this and that that he's going to provide and that his people.

The money's always been there, and he owns it all.

That's good.

Let me ask you a question, and let's shift gears back to the actual service because I'm just curious.

Are you guys aiming for, like, your Easter service?

Are you aiming for a typical 70 minutes, 60, 40, 30?

Like, what do you guys think when you're looking at that Easter service?

What is the actual flow and feel of it?

What are you aiming for?

Okay, so based on analytics from the past two years and then the analytics from the past two weeks, okay,

we are looking at drop-off rates, engagement plays.

Where are they watching?

Where are they dropping?

Where do they care?

Where do they fast-forward to?

So, everywhere we can get those analytics, we're studying them.

As of right now, that's gotten us to a 45-minute service, okay?

That's where we are right now.

So, it's not your traditional six songs on the front end, and one, because the environment's different.

It's not conducive to this extended.

One, because we're aware that we're trying to be very evangelistic to the new folks as well, okay?

Easter is a gospel presentation.

It's what happened on the cross and why it matters.

So, we know that.

It always is.

Now, it's even more.

So, therefore, we think less is more.

And even those 45 minutes, we're trying to make it engaging, different locations, fast-moving.

The breaks are intentional, so they're not commercials, but they're also conducive transitions.

That's where we are now.

It's going to take some work.

You know, we're actually in the middle of that right now, shooting some stuff tomorrow, next week, talking.

Oh, and the other thing, how do we engage all the campus?

Every campus pastor wants, should be a part of it, should they, should they not, all the stuff.

So, we're finding creative ways.

Do they make a cameo?

Is there a funny video here that we could do that includes them?

Check.

And it's important.

People want to see their leaders.

They want to see their pastor.

They want to see their – so, we're trying to find creative ways to do that.

But we feel like after – this is for us, and I say, you know, different audiences, different places.

For us, 45 minutes of a great – it's easier to watch because even that's long, okay,

because we're in a YouTube under 10-minute generation situation, right?

I think even that's long.

But 45 for an Easter experience celebration, and then it's easy to share, too,

because I think it's easy for them to – how do you make it where it's very easy for them to, like,

hey, pass this on, get this, too.

But that's where we are right now.

Like, yeah, you just gave some creative director a heart attack.

They're already planning 90 minutes, you know, an extended Easter service.

And you just cut that crap in half.

Listen, the past two weeks, we already – I know, we freaked our team out.

But, again, it's work and it's quality, too, right?

We went from six – we typically do six songs, five to six on a week, and we went to three already.

I mean, off the bat, we knew that three is the new normal for us.

But then how do we – how is it mixed?

How does it look?

How are the lyric interactions?

Like, are we doing something – we did something – we tried something different with lyrics,

where it filled the screen, but with video, and we're still messing with that.

But I think to just reproduce the normal is easier, for sure.

It is.

Okay?

But really think of the family sitting in the living room or sitting in their bed and really speaking to them.

And really, like, really – because that's how they're watching it.

I mean, I think we lie to ourselves that they gather and they dress up.

And that's cool.

If that's how – the motto you pushed, awesome.

Like, I think in general terms, I think that's how people are watching.

In their pajamas.

Some of their cooking while they're watching.

So it's being real about, for now, that experience and then how that grows

and evolves into something different and something, you know, more improved.

So if somebody's getting started trying to figure out how to do church online, maybe they're –

you know, a lot of what we're dealing with with the Church Digital is a lot of small, medium-sized churches.

They're now just really going to ask questions as a result of coronavirus.

And they're wrestling with –

What?

Easter?

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no.

Call Jeff.

Full number right here and call Jeff.

Yeah, that's what I would do.

I got enough of those people.

So there's a lot of people who are starting out in this world, man.

I mean, God bless them for trying to figure it out.

What's a good place to start?

Like, don't do the Jeff thing.

What's a good place to start?

Hey, I was joking.

You've been great, man.

You've been resourceful.

I've sent some people your way.

I still send – you know, you've been very generous with the information, with the links.

There's so much out there that you've done the research, the writing on, and spent the time.

You've been at it for decades and decades and decades.

I'm kidding.

I make you sound like they're older.

Since the time of the –

It was either Al Gore invented the internet.

I'm not sure which one.

We constantly fight about that in a regular basis.

You're right there, bro.

He's doing more culture.

You see how he's avoiding the question?

He is literally avoiding the question at this point.

I'm really avoiding it.

Yeah.

No, that's a great – listen.

I think this – it goes back a little bit.

If I sincerely – like, I helped my dad this week into church online for the first time.

It's one spectrum and I've helped some folks that have smaller churches.

I think it's – don't expect to be the expert now and don't like, oh my God, I've got to research and try.

No.

But this is the leadership principle.

Fine.

Go lock arms with somebody, with somebody younger typically because they got a smarter phone than you.

That's why.

The only reason they're smarter is because their phones may be a little better.

And find somebody who's got a phone.

You can do this on a phone.

On a phone.

And not even – you don't even stand for it.

Lean it up against something.

I mean, there are really simple ways.

But I think even to put the pressure on yourself, I think it's break out of that.

It's no.

Find someone.

Find somebody younger.

Develop that.

And then guess what?

There's ministry happening there.

Oh, but I can't get out of the house.

We can figure something out.

Listen, I'll give you an example.

My dad is shooting a video on his phone by himself.

From Miami.

Okay?

He is WhatsApp-ing it to me.

I told him, dad, you got to preach under 10 minutes because WhatsApp only takes 10-minute videos.

He's WhatsApp-ing it over to me.

Okay?

I'm going to overlay some little graphic and a song that's boom.

I use Videorama and iMovie on my phone.

All phone.

Videorama and iMovie on my phone.

Send it back to him.

Or probably – I think we talked about him giving you the credentials to his Facebook.

Log in.

Post.

Good.

I mean, so he's leaning in.

I'm leaning in to other folks.

I don't – I'm on TikTok, but I don't care less, and I don't know.

I'm leaning in.

I'm going to, hey, do something with this.

We need to get – give it – I think give it away.

Give ministry away, I think, in return from a tech.

And then call Jeff when you don't know anything else.

The Easter service is a key component, but what happens a lot of times, and Meredith, you touched on it briefly with the follow-up and the accountability of working with staffs.

And so, like, I just wanted to talk about, maybe as we're walking into this Easter service, what does follow-up look like?

What is – how do we engage with first-time guests, visitors?

How do we even figure out who these people are?

How do we discover who people are that are watching the broadcast?

And, you know, Ray, at Christ Fellowship Miami, you guys have done a lot of interesting things along those lines as well.

And so, I'd love to maybe just hear from both you guys what that discovery process looks like, what follow-up can look like, how to get them connected into next steps.

Like, Easter is only as good as what happens the next week, and the ability for us to funnel people into, you know, a discipleship process is key.

So, you know, what could that look like centered here around some of these Easter services?

I'll let you go first, Ray.

Yeah, you know, for us, it's been – and we talked about this before, and maybe some of you checked out the article that I wrote about this on Jeff's – on the site.

We have a singular digital connection card that we try to funnel them through that's available – that we put in the broadcast maybe about three times, like I preach about this connection card in the broadcast.

We do an intro, a mid-tro, and an outro, which a lot of you probably – especially if you've been doing an online service, you probably do.

You probably do, like, a small 20-second spill to kick off the service, something in between, and then something to close.

And in each of those things, I am pushing our URL, which is cfmiami.org slash online, and I'm telling them to fill out a connection card there at the website for any kind of next step, whether it's a prayer request, whether it's, you know, hey, I want to get connected to a group, I want to take our one-on-one class, whatever.

This way, if they're watching it on YouTube, if they're watching it on our website, if they're watching it on Church Online platform, if they're checking it out on Facebook Live, they're all getting the same message that after the broadcast that they need to go fill out that connection card.

We offer a free gift, which is a download of, like, one of our worship team's songs.

This way, we can kind of be similar to what we do in our regular in-person services where we offer a gift.

So I can't – especially with finances the way that they are, we have people that are watching us around the world sometimes.

I can't ship a mug to the opposite side of the planet just because that would probably, like, kill, like, a lot of my budget.

But what I can do is I can give them instantly a free download in that moment.

And one of the things – you know, it doesn't have to be a song.

So your worship team – you know, you may not have a worship team that's recorded original music.

Cool.

Have your pastor write, like, here are three spiritual ways, you know, that you can engage God.

Turn it into a PDF and offer that as a download.

You know, when we were kids and I would listen to, you know, a pastor on the radio, they would say things like, hey, if we send $5 here, John MacArthur will send you a book.

Great.

Create a digital form of that, offer it for free, and give it away.

That, honestly, to me, it's a great way to connect with people.

The same strategy that you use for your in-person services, use online.

That's worked out great for us.

That's good stuff.

You know, and something our team's working on along the same lines, Ray, I'm hoping we can execute by then, is really trying to reach.

And I'm in that demographic now because I've got four young kids under age, four boys under age.

So my wife's my hero, crazy town.

So if you could resource myself, my wife and I, with stuff to talk about, color, draw, boom, I mean, you name it, a schedule.

So we're talking about how do you resource the cabin fever, like how do you resource the games.

But all, again, with purpose, right, because it serves as we're providing the tool, it's Bible lessons, it's color.

So they're navigating some of that to provide as a download.

Hey, parents, click here to download A, B, C, and D, a schedule for this week, a game ideas, blank, you know, Wednesdays, you know, family fun night on Fridays, all this stuff that.

So I'm hoping it comes out because I need it.

So another thing is this, sometimes we forget that in social media, that email and text are a huge still part of social media, like huge, huge.

Sometimes we just think it's, yeah, we think it's just, oh, it's just, you know, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

But, man, so I think we've been leveraging tons and our older demographic with text and email.

They're still, and we're looking at how do we write better emails.

It's a great time to figure out how to write better emails.

That's right.

What matters.

You know, Donald Miller talks, you know, if you've never done his marketing course, it's the subject, it's the first line, and it's the PS.

Those are the three things.

Like, so for us, it's like, okay, how do we write these emails so they actually get read, so they actually get clicked on, so they actually get, because, you know, you can tell through analytics and all that if they're doing that.

So we're really spending some time on engaging there, and the text message ratio of how to get people, you know, asking questions.

Boom, we're trying to open a concierge service.

So instead of calling the front line, how do they text in, I need prayer this, I need that.

Is there service?

So there's a 24-7 receptionist.

That's good.

Helping them answer questions and do what they do.

So we're trying to figure all that out to keep the engagement going and keep people connected.

Yeah.

You know, a lot of churches, I should say a lot, some churches are moving towards that concierge service kind of embedded on there.

Like, it's intercom.io is a service.

I don't know.

Is that what you guys are using, Eridus?

Do you know?

I don't.

I've heard of them.

I don't think we are, but that's a great service I heard.

Yeah, so intercom.io, two Ms on com, is an example of that.

We'll include it in the show notes.

That's a great line on the Donner Miller, the subject, the first line, and the PS, the postscript down at the bottom.

Yeah.

Very, very cool.

Well, hey, man, this has been a great podcast.

I feel like we are landing the plane here, wrapping up on Easter.

Happy Easter, right?

Yeah, happy Easter.

You know, I've been seeing, like, people throwing around, like, virtual egg hunt, like, things and types of things for the kids.

Do you want to – was that what you were going to talk about, Eridus?

Yeah, I was just – as I'm talking about it, I'm like, yeah, there should be a virtual egg hunt somewhere.

Maybe we should launch it and do something.

We can find eggs on your site.

My kids – that's funny.

My kids' Taekwondo, my son's Taekwondo thing is actually doing it.

And it's not a church, but what they do every year is they put, like, discounts and coupons.

And the Easter eggs.

And so everybody wants to do the Easter eggs because they're getting 50% off some clothing or 25% off a private lesson or something like that.

And so, like, the Easter egg hunt is, like, a big deal for them all the time.

What they just announced is that you can drive by and pick up the Easter eggs wherever.

And then, basically, at whatever the time is, everybody's going to jump on Zoom and you – your kids hunt for the eggs.

So you hide the eggs.

And then at the prescribed time, everybody goes on Zoom and everybody can see, like, everybody hunting for the eggs in the yard.

And it was just this really kind of – all right.

So, like, we can't actually do an egg hunt in an area with, like, 25 or even 100 kids because of – or even three kids, for that matter, because of, you know, the whole social distancing thing.

But we can create some energy around that.

Play that video on social media to allow for different interaction or do some things creatively within that space.

So maybe consider doing some things like that even as a lead-in to it.

I'm going to borrow that.

I'm going to borrow that idea.

That's a good one.

I like that.

Awesome.

Integrity martial arts.

You can totally give them credit.

It's awesome.

By the way, if you're here in Miami, it's just a cheap plug.

Like, they are incredible.

And they've done great things with my kids.

That's awesome.

Come on down.

Call this number right here.

Come on.

Anybody else?

Come on down.

1-800-call-Jeff.

1-800-call-Jeff.

Hey, one thing I just had – whether this is on the podcast or not, I mean, we did one time at the staff at Church of Miami.

We wanted to drive traffic to our app.

We introduced a new app.

Nobody was downloading it.

We're like, ah.

So it lined up with Easter a few years ago, actually.

We did an Easter egg hunt inside the app, meaning that we literally buried little icons in different pages of the app.

We said, there are 40 eggs in the app.

And then we figured out a way that the minute somebody landed on that page, we knew we took it out.

Right?

So we had a guy working in the back end.

And literally – so it drove, man.

It was hundreds of people downloading the app to just do that, and then we gave prizes.

It was just a way to drive – the goal was driving people to the app, right, to do then Church Online.

But there's ways to be, you know, creative and figure out – bury – what you can do is on your Instagram page, go comment on a post from a year ago, drop a little egg on a comment.

Let people find it.

So it's a way to drive traffic to your account.

You know what I'm saying?

You can give credit to Taekwondo.com slash Jeff.

Yeah.

Get – you have to like all seven.

And yeah, there's some interesting things there.

There's a – yeah, some fun.

And people are at home, man.

They're at home looking for stuff to do.

Let them do it on your page.

That's true.

Exactly.

Very cool.

All right.

Hey, Ray, as we're landing in the plane, any closing thoughts?

Yeah.

As many of you are thinking about planning your Easter services online, just continue to think through how you're engaging people socially on the week-to-week, especially in terms of clear communication.

One of the things that we discussed at the beginning of this podcast is that Grace Family has already made the decision that they are going fully online for Easter Sunday, whether or not we can reopen.

Having that kind of clear communication right now will prevent people from showing up on Easter Sunday and then getting that disappointment of getting turned away.

But number two, it will help them invite somebody else to watch with them.

So make sure, if you can, get in room with your leadership, pray it through, make the decision, and then clearly communicate that decision this week as soon as possible.

Good.

Yeah.

I mean, it's very difficult at this point to juggle multiple scenarios, and you spend so much energy trying to keep that backup scenario that you know isn't going to work out.

Even if the buildings do open back up, the throng of people are not going to want to go out, and especially be in a large room in situations like that.

So, you know, as much as I can from the outside, call it, shut it down.

Just be aware, be sensitive to what's going on.

And what you'll find is that clarity of vision is going to help your staff, your teams, your volunteers execute most more clearly on the vision at hand.

And so, of course, I'm not involved in any of your church leaderships, and therefore have nothing to gain from this other than the guy who's just stirring the pot.

But go ahead and call it.

Let's just land the plane and kind of move off of that.

That's cool.

Aridus, man, as we're wrapping up, any last thoughts on your end?

No.

Hey, thanks for the opportunity to hang out, to learn.

I've learned as much as I've been able to share.

So thanks for sharing.

Like I said, these are things we're navigating.

We don't have it all figured out, but we're always asking.

We like to really adopt, take risks.

I think it's a good time to take risks.

And then pastors listening, oh, we shall not forsake the gathering.

You're not.

You're not.

Still gathering.

It looks different.

It feels different.

And everything you've been taught is maybe kind of, but it's not.

You're not.

I think there's more connection.

And everything, the entire industry, from the dating industry to everything, to retail, shows you that the connection to counseling happening via text, people are still gathering.

Now, and we can get into the whole, but don't.

Don't think you're doing that by shutting it down or by canceling it or by pushing it all online and digital.

So, because God, God's going to use it.

He has in the past and he'll continue to do that.

So, that's great.

Awesome.

Well, hey, man, this has been a great podcast.

I've, once again, I've always loved hanging out with you.

Loved having you here on the podcast.

By the way, if you want to keep in touch with Airdis, Instagram's the best way.

Airdis is spelled H-E-R-E-D-E-S.

And you can go ahead and message him on Instagram and tell him that he owes me $650 plus interest from $2,000.

So, what are we?

We're almost 20 years.

$600 interest.

There's got to be something substantial happening right there financially.

That felt like a lot more money then than it does now, especially how much phones cost.

I mean, that felt like a lot more money.

It did, right?

No, yeah.

Dude, that was it.

I ruined camp because basically, I mean, basically, and listen, for those listening right now, we were at camp.

Was it 20 years ago now?

Dude, it was the year.

It was 2000, 2001.

It was somewhere around there, bro.

Crazy.

He was, Jeff was hanging out by the, he was, you know, by the, was it the mud puddle?

It was a mud pit or something.

A mud pit at a youth camp.

He's hanging out, standing around.

He's running tech production, producing this whole thing, you know?

And, you know, we're little punk teenagers.

We see him standing there just kind of, you know, being Jeff.

They were like, hey, so we gang up on him, and we toss him into the mud pit.

Oh, my word.

It was horrible.

Boy, it took a few of us.

We got him in there, and then he walks out full of mud with the camera, pulls it out from his pocket, just drained, trashed.

So we were super guilty, and that night, I think you did him in memoriam, right, for the camera.

Never forget, man.

Yeah, for the camera.

It was awesome.

You were a good sport.

You were a good sport.

It was heartfelt.

Oh, no, I was a great sport until the camp was over.

Then I was like, who the garbage is going to be paying for my camera?

Because this came out of, like, my money here.

Okay.

I don't think anybody actually ever paid for that, but we're good.

I need to know before the podcast wraps up, did you all huddle around the campfire crying, tossing the same branch in over repentance over this camera?

Is that what happened?

100%, bro.

I could sing of your love forever, bro, like on repeat.

We're just throwing that.

There it is.

There it is.

That's what I wanted to know.

Oh, my gosh.

See, this is why we need to do this more often.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Easter, but this has been very therapeutic.

It is now well with my soul.

Thank you.

Boom.

Thank you so much.

Let's bring it full circle, and we're going to land the plane right there.

For Eridus, for Ray, this is Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast.

Thanks for joining us again, and we'll see you again next time here on the podcast.

Y'all have a good day.