EP046: Matt Welty & Creating Community via Mobile App

episode 46 of the church digital podcast jeff here once again and i gotta tell you i'm excited

about this podcast i do say that a lot i think i say that about every episode i'm excited i'm happy

i'm something but this is a really cool episode where we dig into mobile apps and whether or not

it's effective and worthwhile in churches and for the conversation i'm bringing in matt welty who's

technology pastor is that not like the coolest title ever technology pastor for crossroads

church a large uh multi-site church in cincinnati ohio now kentucky area and they're doing some

great things not only within the church not only with their church online but with their mobile app

and arguably some of the best things that i've heard in a church mobile app towards creating community

that i've i've ever heard of is going to come up in this conversation so right off the bat um we're

going to put the link to the show notes to the mobile app you guys should take some time download

the mobile app we'll include the ios the google all that so grab that download the app look through it

while you're listening to this podcast because this is an incredible app they have some incredible

functionality in here that's really moving beyond just the the reach component but developing engagement

towards creating community which is far more effective in the mobile scope and we're going to have tons of

conversations through this love where we're going here uh we've got ray de armis once again co-host uh

online pastor with christ fellowship miami in the conversation matt welty tech pastor pastor of

technology for crossroads church up in cincinnati and myself jeff with the church digital in a

conversation that i'm calling community via mobile app hey everybody here you go did this is new i've not

seen these in you right what's what was the story when did you okay so um like i had lost my headphones

um a while back i had the bose ear you know earphones and stuff and they were great i like i still got my

cups but these were like my regular drivers on the regular and so i was like well maybe it's time for a

change let's take a look at my brother-in-law got the airpods pro so i was like well uh let me ask him if i

could borrow him because everybody i knew who had them was talking about the noise canceling was talking

about how much you know they enjoyed it in transparency mode and a whole bunch of stuff so

i was like well let me ask thomas if i could borrow them for a weekend try online stuff and see if they

work out well for me because 250 bucks still something i mean to me it's a ton of money to invest in

in the set of headphones it was a lot to splurge but i had a i had a i had a bunch of uh like christmas

money and stuff that i was like all right well if i wanted to i could so um i tried them out and

one day within one day i was convinced because i'm there at a starbucks and i'm doing church online

people are coming up to me from my from the campus to talk to me i turn on transparency mode in a full

pack starbucks and maybe i have a full-fledged conversation with them with the things in the ear

and uh and it was just next level technology i was like this is probably the most innovative

and jeff and i always talk about this all the time because we have a love hate relationship with

apple in terms of their lack of innovation lately but this right here is probably the most innovative

thing they've come out with since the phone i'm gonna go ahead and say that you really think so

thanks for ruining my airpods for me i'm sorry i love it i'm sorry yeah i mean i'm told and jeff

you'd be proud of me i'm totally nerding out i got a little silicon case for it and everything

oh my gosh yeah so matt are those are those version one or version two what are you floating

um i've got version ones version ones yes so i've got version ones i splurged for my wife and got her

the wireless charging ones and then the pros came out and i'm similar though ray everyone who has them

has said they're worth it and i've i've this is the most i've ever spent on headphones in my life

so i i'm not i'm not a music guy or an audiophile where i had all this stuff before but even hearing

more stuff like what you just said because man this is how we work now though okay matt you've got

version one awesome i had version one too yeah i lost version as well i lost version one i literally i

lost the airpods for like six weeks and the day version two arrived i found the version one airpods

fun story it's on facebook you can find it but at the end of the day i've got version two which is like

this much different than version one there's like no difference maybe a better battery life

and siri which i never really use on my earpods shut up siri siri is now like on my ipad

so i have this going on why why didn't they come out with the whole thing the the pros for version

two would have made so much more sense but not more money and that's the difference apple is screwing

you around because they just want people to buy their crap so they're gonna buy version one they're

gonna buy version two and then they're gonna upgrade to the to the pros and at the end of the

day man there's only so many checks i can write to apple yeah so yeah yeah i'm at the point now where

i just firmly believe that they slap early adopters you know what i'm saying like they come out with new

products and if you're an early adopter you know you may as well just kind of hang around because you

know the best version of it is literally like a year away right to say it like that i mean that's how i

thought about the watch you know i bought apple watch i bought version two i bought gen two and it was

just so bad you know like i was like this has none of the lte capability it wasn't even offered then i was

like this is it's so dependent on the phone itself that it didn't it didn't feel like it improved my

life it just made it worse it just all i did was bring more notifications in my life which i also had

a pebble which if you know if if you're a fan of wearables then you already knew about the pebble

which it was just a color version of that so it wasn't really like a big deal so now i'm just not even

an apple watch fan i'm just like no that's that's a terrible idea it's a terrible device and mind you

it's been the same thing with apple tv and and matt i'm actually a former like apple store employee so

like i was like in the religion i worked for the temple it was great it was awesome but there's so

much of that that you know even for those of us who work there we were like yeah man they slap early

adopters so hard it's really bad to an outsider it feels like it's changed so i'm curious what you

would say right as someone who was in it at the beginning i 10 years i mean i was a i was a mac

fanboy so i i lined up for the first iphone the second one the three the 3g that like i and i still

have them there's a box in my basement yeah oh it's awesome hold you that's like um at some point in the

last 10 years i think you're right the first versions the headliner pieces that they released

the early adopters went and got them but they were you're paying an early adapter tax but that wasn't

the case originally you were no you were on the edge using really useful products back in you know

probably a decade ago 100 yeah i couldn't agree more um that's that's kind of the something that

jeff and i have lamented on on the pod even um just kind of discussing it as far as where apple is and

where they've gone and it's tough because it's so easy to want to blame just the shift from steve to

tim to say it like that like it's just you know like that's the most visible change that you can

kind of latch on to but a perfect example of this is for instance the new apple tv streaming service

show by show it's the most expensive streaming service out there yeah you're only paying five

dollars a month but for eight shows total like that's it and yes you know eventually it's going

to get better and whether or not you know there's all sorts of rumors like hey they might make a play

for sony they might make a play for this company yeah you know one of those eventually down the line

is going to fall and they're going to go through on that and it's going to be a great streaming

service but in the meantime for everybody who's early adopting it stinks it is terrible and it's a

bad experience yeah um and so tim i know you're listening right now uh and i know that there are

different algorithms on this and so please don't crash my my old macbook air but um but it's just one

one of those things where it's a bad experience early on did you ever watch c that that that show

c um s ee arguably the worst television i've ever seen in my life you know i'm a i'm a radio tv film

major that actually produced television like in college and i'm used to like the college projects

like it was i i'm watching this i'm like this is the worst writing directing acting top to bottom

starring um your aquaman whatever that guy's name is momoa yeah momoa and and and alfre woodward like

there's a it was a this really rich cast and and i'm like they have no idea what they're doing

yeah somebody got fired on that though oh my gosh yeah it was horrible somebody lost too much at stake

for apple to to you know hone it in like they are here at this beginning level yes as a product guy i want

to empathize with people behind the scenes because you you know i would apple is still

if you want to go make a product like to be in that environment how incredible you have to imagine

like you were saying ray to blame it on you know the steve to tim transition is the most visible one

there's got to be crazy complex supply chain issues and regulatory like the

the last decade of change has probably made it harder to make hardware and software and streaming so

you know and yet you have amazon and alexa or amazon and google who i think are acting way more

competitively in that arena but they're they're avoiding it on devices so they can pivot and change

way quicker i think so with with all this being said the day that apple releases the ar augmented reality

glasses i'm 100 every innovative crack i've ever said i will be the bleeding edge tax guy

buying that and i will be completely happy like give us eat it apple give us eat it yes

yeah and oh and it's going to cost you a thousand dollars i'll probably write the check i'll find a way

um like i am i am a hundred percent in on that my family does not make but you don't wear glasses

glasses no you don't understand they're not what's happening here yes i i will wear glasses for that

uh yeah yeah i'm good that's right so apple come on man bring it home forget the car forget all this

this side crap like bring me the ar goggles google glass was ahead of its time you know right right that

wave and do it right this time awesome that was an incredible side track before we get started really

into that man just tell us a little bit about yourself who you are crossroads the the ministry of what

what you guys are doing give us the heart kind of uh of who you are yeah a little background so we i'm i'm

honored to be on here and just in among probably the hundreds and thousands of people are just

co-learners along the way because we're i think we're all standing on the edge or feel like we're

standing on the edge of something and figuring it out together so excited that any of the small

experiments or successes or failures of crossroads could be used and abused by other people is is a really

exciting thought to us i've been at crossroads for eight years crossroads has been around since 1996

though we are we're based in cincinnati ohio so we're right in the heart of of the midwest and

um brian tome our senior pastor he's a guy from pittsburgh he has been founding pastor still senior pastor

who are really for us the the heartbeat of leading us as a long time kind of pioneering adventurous

church so you know back at the very beginning the descriptions of you know we want to do church for

people who have given up on church but not on god we want to go after um seekers who you know are open to

the idea of god but don't know the language of church don't know the rules of church and and really

remove every barrier um in a way of someone hearing about jesus in a language they understand so you

know early on in the 90s that that was great music free coffee casual environment you could bring the

coffee into the auditorium you know those things are really common now yeah in cincinnati in the 90s

that was revolutionary that was on the edge and and you know the same way with you know brian's sermons

you know you would come in and you wouldn't feel you were learning about the bible you were hearing the gospel

but you weren't doing a bible study you were learning about how god applies to your nine to five

you know and so that too at the time just seemed edgy and different from what people were experiencing

and i think it created room for people to invite their friends so we've grown we're a multi-site church

we're an online church we um we've taken on a lot of different forms of church we have 14 different

campuses now physical locations in ohio and kentucky we just recently uh a few weeks ago launched in

columbus ohio so that was sort of a our last sort of city push um we've we have three campuses down in

lexington kentucky um we merged with a church that was also called crossroads down there a few years ago

that made the name that made the merge that aspect of the merge was very easy as a result nice um other

parts of it were really challenging but um at least branding was good branding yeah the church was still

called crossroads so um it's good and we in the last you know four or five years have really tried

to step into what does it look like to be culturally current in a digital way so that for sure includes

um the native app that we've developed and has taken many forms online church community building

starting to merge out on the edges what does movement look like what does church plan how does church

planning meet home church meet watch party you know so we're and we're trying to learn from as many

people as possible but um it's good yeah that's that's a bit of crossroads yeah so let me ask and a lot of what i want to dig

into with the podcast is a lot of the kind of the mobile strategy of what you do sure we do a lot of

church online here in the podcast and so it'll it'll kind of i'm sure bleed into this but um why did you

opt to go in-house development with with the mobile app there's there's lots of other developers that

are out there i'm just kind of curious your heart when digging in mobile why did you decide to go in-house

we'd love and at different points in our history partnered with almost all of those uh players

they're doing incredible things we when we decided to develop our own mobile app we wanted to have a

unique purpose driven by the mission and ministry of crossroads so you know it's it's um what what what is

the compelling reason to be natively on someone's phone and and not just re the gives us permission to

win in that space but most apps on people's phone don't get open so what what is inside of our app

that uniquely is worthwhile for someone to open a couple days a week you know which is a lot in the

mobile app space and so for us it had to have a very particular utility and a lot of the more

templated app services do a great job of making your weekend content your group content there's it's it's a

content management system wrapped up in a native app and it does that exceptionally well

that same content for us is available on mobile web and we do a great job of making it awesome on mobile

so we needed a reason beyond that a real utility um and and to create that and i can explain what that

is for us but to create that we had to go we had to go it on our own yeah so dig into it here what what

are some of these features because we hear we hear this we have this conversation all the time you know

and i've heard it church mobile app adoption is is less than 10 percent usage of the church actually

uses the mobile app that they're releasing um you know stats that i've seen in my role as digital

pastor and communication directors mirror that in real life where we get a lot of that traction on

sunday because people want to take sermon notes in it or they'll want to access the the sermon audio

or video on monday which you can also get on a podcast you can also get through church online or

the website like there's a lot of repetitive so it's it's not as it doesn't have as strong of a

strategy point what have you done with the mobile app there at crossroads to kind of start to work

through that monotonous stuff that they get other places and really get to the core of making the

yeah well our our starting point was for the mobile app to be an engagement platform so it wasn't meant

for reach it while you could share it with someone and that could be a way to introduce someone to

crossroads or jesus for us it was an engagement platform so for people who are already at crossroads

we zeroed in on this phrase of how do we help someone create a habit of connecting to god and other

people so we many of us who've grown up in churches or had people disciple us we we have maybe a rhythm

of a quiet time or morning scripture and prayer we've learned that and sometimes so long ago that we

forget how that was a habit that was established in us and most people in our churches today are not

reading their bible they they don't know some of what um some of us professional staff christians we

sort of can take for um um take for advantage and so we went let's let's create an app that is as habit

forming as some of the things that happen in social media and is as helpful as some of the things

happening in the fitness world and is as user centered as some of those same industries and let's do that

around bible reading prayer reflection and so our the core action inside of our app is just that so you can

um read a new chapter of the bible with the entire church together um each day you can journal on it

publicly or privately one of the key draws of that is that brian tome reads that same chapter as you

you you you get invited into his living room and at 6 a.m in the morning if you will as he spends time

with god he's going to journal and his journal is public and so you get to scan this chapter of scripture

imagine if you've never done this in the bible before you scan this chapter of scripture you read

the senior pastor's reflection and prayer based on that and suddenly the bar gets lowered for what

spending time with god looks like you you realize like oh that's what he noticed you go back up to

the chapter of scripture and you you're getting reps doing this kind of thing and you get we have

oh gosh 30 40 50 or so many experiences we call them some of them are gratitude or prayer

thankfulness or worship we're giving people these small reps in these spiritual disciplines and then

allowing them to pray for each other and either anonymously or very directly and so together those

three things we alternate them we build variety and streaks all kinds of things to very intentionally

help that become habit for me um because we that's that's what we want um we do have the weekend in

there there's group materials in another section there's there is content in the app that's helpful

to users but the core action is really about connecting them with god and other people that's

really good and it's something unique i'm looking at the app right now on on my device and first of all

the the user interface it's very simple so i applaud you guys for that because one of the hardest

things i think to do is to keep the menus and some of the different things happening simple especially

for somebody who's coming in fresh um but it it seems very outsider friendly which i think is awesome

from a church perspective because somebody coming in new to your church or even hey like my mom or my

friend sent me this app and told me to download it on my phone if the first thing i'm seeing is a bunch

of information or a bunch of stuff about why i should go to your church i'm probably automatically

rejecting it so talk through some of the strategy in that oh man well so we is it encouraging to hear

that it's seems easy easy to use if i showed you i mean we've come a long way we've been at this for

four or five years and so we've been learning along the way just functionally in our church for you

know we we feel this way about the weekend you know it's uh it's not our phrase but the you know you

don't you you can belong before you believe like we you're fully welcome here and can engage

before you fully grasp on to what it means to follow jesus and figure all this stuff out and apply it to

your life thankfully or i i would have been excluded um so that we want the app to function in the same

way we do realize that just most people don't have the the reps and the track record of following god

this way and so it's gotta it's gotta be a layup it can't be too simple it act because it it has to

meaning it has to believably i have to believe that it's going to meaningfully help me so if i open up

my nike club fitness app or my fitbit app or what it has to be simple enough that i can grasp it

and not so hard that i immediately believe that i'm probably i'm probably not disciplined enough to do

this and and so we want to help people build momentum um and we think there's a funnel i mean

even old school church had one you know you get invited by your friend that you probably get invited

by your friend again and again and again eventually you come and then you might get in a group and

you growth and giving and all those kinds of things well the all the things we're doing on digital now

and just expanded that and and changed it from being a straight line if it ever was one to a really

squiggly line but in the app i don't i don't need you to sign up for the 10 things right away

i need you to have one great moment with god that leads to the next one that becomes more

transformed and we early on we would use the phrase you know if you don't if you don't count if you

don't count it you can't grow it so in old school church metrics obviously and they're still critically

important because they're such a big part of the movement you know butts in seats and um you know

giving and groups those are key metrics and they are still i think really good indicators of the health

of the church but they're incomplete they're becoming more incomplete there's other ones to have in there

and so when we started down the digital route it's really uncomfortable but you start talking about

minutes of engagement or session lengths and they're usually shorter than an hour church service

and um or daily active users or monthly active users and so um retention rates all these things

are foreign to us but as we get to know them we would just always say if you don't count it you can't

grow it so if i don't count your very minimal first experience as being valuable to you then i can't grow

it into more deeper engagement so even if you just open the app and you just read scripture and then

you close the app and your quiet time so to speak was a minute and a half long today i want to count

it so that i can partner with you to grow it um and that's what we try to do inside the app and and make

it repetitive in that way you know uh there's a lot of questions right now because there was like

the app craze right like um apple releases in the app store google play becomes a thing and then every

every church has the capability of getting an app and getting on your phone now i kind of hear the

pendulum swinging the other direction uh one of my biggest concerns always is creating separate

databases how have you guys made sure that both the app and your church database have played in the

same ballpark oh man so we get to get a little technical well um it's challenging so we um

that becomes a challenge because most churches us included want to build and move fast and so when

you do that to deliver value to people like it's just it's not immaturity it's just we want to have

as most impact as quickly as possible so your database is usually diverge instead of coming together so

um we have done a little bit of that over the years we are actually just starting as a church where

uh there's a thing called master data management so we've just found ourselves like many churches

we've got our what happens in the app what happens in our church database we use hubspot for marketing

communications we've got you know there's maybe three or five other places where data can both be

created and stored and so there's a complex process to figure out where the source of truth is and how to

keep that data really clean we we're learning how to do that we have mostly kept the data from the app

and the church management system up to this point as separate and part of the why behind that is it's

been two different types of data so because we've limited what happens inside of the native app

that's mostly what's called click stream or behavior data the activity that someone is doing but it's not

collecting a whole lot of like form responses or demographic data things that would typically be

stored in the church management system signing up to serve joining a group and so we've been able to live

with the separation um but we've along the way whenever we want we can sync that data up because users have

unique identifiers and we we've we've set ourselves up so we're not too far behind when the time comes but

we're actually about to switch over shared authentication so that both systems are sharing the same um

authentication that'll help us connect the data in the background we're gonna get lots of value out of that

so really and the and the point is not so much to make that easy on us though that's great because we can use church

resources really efficiently it's so we can know you as a person no matter where you show up in the church

um it's good and honor you um yeah so i want to follow a rapid trail i don't want to go too deep here

what are you specifically using hubspot for i love hubspot and i'm trying i hear occasionally churches

using it and so i'm just curious practicalities what's what's hubspot look like yeah hubspot is our

predominantly it's our um email tool so all of our church email communication goes through hubspot

so that includes you know pink marketing emails but also just here's your here's your quarterly

statement all of that flows through hubspot um it is used a little bit for lead generation as well

so subscribe to the weekly digest the content digest um fill out this form for to download a resource or

something and so then we can put you on a um a drip campaign for lack of better and and so we've used

it for that we just recently did uh the 90 day tithe challenge test lots of this is lots of churches

have done this and it's it's really we we just did this as a church and so we used hubspot was a key

part of after someone signs up for the 90 day tithe test they were in an email campaign that helps

engage them with resources and encouragement and so it's it's a tool that helps us stay engaged with

people for sure it talks great with other systems too so we use a system called intercom for our what

we would call community care so if you go to our website and you want to chat you want to pray you

want to know something about crossroads or how to get connected the people using that system use intercom

that flows with hubspot like in the whole goal being how can we know and care for you better

and these are these are systems that they take time to set up but they help you do that especially at

scale when churches are trying to do this when they can't see everybody yeah and so that that intercom

that's intercom io it's the thing that's the little like help thing down at the bottom of the website

bottom right i i love that like i'm i'm curious towards this what this is so not mobile app but this

is just such a good conversation with like do who who responds on intercom io is it your staff is it

front desk like what's the interaction point yeah so some folks that used to be on what would have

been called the front desk team are now on the community care team and so staff respond and some

volunteers so we have some trained vetted volunteers and it's really when you think about online church or

distributed church when you can when you can train and trust volunteers no matter where they are what

time of day it is it's an incredible serving opportunity where they're they're meaningfully

they're needed and known and they're and they're they're doing some incredible work so it is staff and

volunteers but then sometimes the great thing about those systems is we'll we can help someone

best through a bot so we can predict i mean so we set this up every week tiara wade who runs this team is

brilliant so the announcements that happen on the weekend are built into that chat module on on web

and so when someone starts a chat we we can assume that a lot of those people are coming with questions

about baptisms because we just talked about it on sunday so instead of having to make someone engage

with someone which some people love to do but a lot of people don't we we meet them right there with uh

do you have a question about baptism oh yep i do and so we're very quickly getting people to the

information they need through those i mean you say it's different than mobile and it is but it's all

one user experience so i you can't silo them for the people who we're trying to serve because we

we're one crossroads to them so there's an expectation for all of this to kind of work seamlessly together

to the person in the seat that's good so let's let's dig into that because it all it is all one

experience but you want to what you want to i assume what you want to try to do is separate and so

some platforms have some responsibilities some platforms have the others and and yes you want

them to try to align towards the common goal and campaigns there's there's overlap towards that but

in context of of website in context of mobile app and uh and even in social media as you're looking

at some of the digital communication pieces there's different components and different parts towards

that how do you separate like what's what's a mobile app functionality versus you know mobile web

or website in general like how does that kind of intermix and play together yeah i don't i think

there's more than one right answer to this question but for us i i think about it is every platform or

tool has to have a primary purpose and then it can have secondary benefits so the primary purpose of

the app is to help someone create a habit of connecting with god the secondary benefits are they can also

catch the weekend and they can read an article and they can follow some people like there there are many

secondary benefits on the on the web the mobile web which is how most people are experiencing the web so

i guess that's why i qualify it to mobile web um it's it's it's great for setting things up so i so

i personally think about signing up to serve especially for the first time registering for a camp um

volunteering um there's all kinds of giving even and if i'm setting those things up web is great at

guiding people through those experiences um and managing myself in a sense happens really nicely in the web

but many of the secondary benefits overlap between platforms you for me you then start to look at

what what can uniquely happen in one platform better or worse than another and so for sure in a native app

you can create way more tightly controlled immersive experiences than on the web um it's it's a it is a

coded box where you control everything that happens in it on the web you're dealing with lots of moving

standards depending on the browser someone's in the phone they're on the font package they have whatever

it might be so you have to be really flexible and resilient on the web in the app i can build an

exceptionally tight morning quiet time with god experience that includes a song and then form

completion around thankfulness and um walk someone through the lord's prayer and teach them how to

pray in a in an immersive way but on the web you compromise you can do it there 100 but you you have

to make some compromises in the experience of it it's not different from why many of us

now build our auditoriums in large black boxes they're not they're not standard church um sanctuaries

anymore that are static and hard to change we want control over the whole experience when we switch

to the next weekend series people walk in and the entire thing might look different where there's

that moment in service that you want the music and the lights and the teaching and the whole thing

to come together that i i sort of equate that to there's something similar that you can do in a native

app but you can't do it just for fun you have to have a very expressed purpose for it just like in a

weekend service you got to be doing something on purpose to move someone forward and if you do then

then those platforms work really well for it yeah so having that level of of control probably in that

immersive experience uh that takes resourcing that takes content that takes buy-in from leadership

i mean you you just some of the things you mentioned having uh articles that that would be included in

that you was i understanding that your pastor literally journals in the app daily it makes it public so

people like so you have a lot of buy-in towards this what what is that what is that how did you get there

i can give you names of people who have been down this road and not have that success so dude what's

the secret oh man uh uh brian tome i mean so our our senior pastor brian like we we're just an

aggressive church like the it's it's in his dna and he's reproduced it in us and so whatever it looks

like to introduce people to jesus in a language they understand what it looked like 20 years ago was one

thing what it looks like today is you're in their pocket and you're with them in the moments where

they want to engage with you and he's incredibly permissioning so even before he got it and understood

it i think this is how he would explain it to you he was very trusting to a group of us to go okay

there's there's something here there's a way that we can get in front of people and not just talk at

them but actually engage them and so it for sure took time but over time as that even the app reviews

the app reviews read more like testimonials which is just to to how like i mean you can you can ready

the horse for battle and the victory belongs to the lord you can build that mobile app but you can't

make it change anybody's life and so there's a there's a there's a god factor here thank goodness where he

comes in and he uses it in the exact moments that people need it but we started seeing life change

and we started seeing deeper engagement and so that gets buy-in and it takes time and it often feels

like two steps forward one step back for all of us because you're in you're up on the edge like we

talked about and you're not always sure if what you're doing is the right thing to do um is it

especially because so many of us have just been so steeped in a particular way of engaging in church

and growing spiritually that trying some of these new things can feel like is this healthy for people

is this nutritious for people is this good for them i grew up so totally differently how would we do this

and so it takes trial and error but he does he's he's in there every morning and he it's also though

what an incredible opportunity if you could if you could help disciple thousands of people at once

if you i i had a guy who brought me in to his morning routine showed me how he read the bible

i got to do it with him for a while brian can't do that with 10 000 people but now he can and and so

there's the modeling that can happen that that we we want to lead to real relationship too but you're you're

you're leveling people into that experience to go like i feel like i belong at this church i'm i'm i'm

given a level of access and transparency to the senior pastor guy i like what he does on the weekend i'm

getting his morning routine these people i haven't even met yet are praying for me i get to pray for

them i've already contributed to the community maybe before i've ever joined a group or done a bible

study or given a dollar so i people can belong and increasingly because we count it we can grow it

and we can we can walk with them and guide them towards deeper levels of engagement in the church

that then that look like now i'm attending on the weekend i'm in a group i've started to tithe

all those kinds of things um but it begins we just recognize now it's not church specific it's everywhere in

our culture it begins in these very small micro moments where people are they're testing they're

trusting you they're can i trust you is this going to work for me i've tried things like this before

is this one different enough that i believe it might actually help me tell me about the content

creation side on that is your senior pastor legitimately is brian like every day writing

into the cms and it's direct out to the people is there like is he like a week ahead and then it's

like hey we're going back and i'm not trying to you know duck behind and like reveal the wizard

behind the curtain or anything like that it's just um it's really powerful it's really powerful

to see that somebody would share this much of their own personal relationship with the lord with

their congregation and you know honestly even if we were like because there's the i'm not even a

perfectionist but there's the part of me that's like man i'd rather be a week ahead so i could review

it you know take a look at like the grammar structure blah blah blah blah there there's that

part of me but then there's the other part of me of oh man but this is vulnerable and transparent

and authentic and powerful so yeah um i love that question the he brought so brian so if we play this

out brian is a user in the app like everyone else so i have that same ability to make my journal

public and every community pastor and every community member has that and so brian's not

going into a cms brian's going into the app the same way someone what you guys who just downloaded

it this today you could go do a public journal reflection now we have set it up so that brian

in particular and then our community pastors if they journal publicly they'll always sort to the top

because these are the shepherds and leaders of our community and so we want people to catch them

then first it's entirely unscripted and it's in the morning so what so brian was just on a bike trip

he was out west and he couldn't do it he didn't have cell service no problem he's gone for a week

which is also awesome because it's him authentically doing it it's it's it's not a content stream

it's the guy doing spending his time with god um and i think that's what makes it real and not um

it's it's not like a quote that comes across twitter it's it's actually him participating what

i think is powerfully in the same exact way that you would so you can actually you can you can model it

which is great it means though that the grammar is bad and words are spelled wrong and which is great

about that is is it's him like yeah it's and it's right for the it's right for the platform like you

you know so we he has an editor for his books but this isn't a book this is you know him spending time

with god some communications director somewhere is freaking out i'm sure but uh his name's ben

stapely and he's pulling the ripcord on the airplane right now this is where i go like okay so get some

of this buy-in go download crosswords anywhere read a screenshot a few of brian's journals because i

think it is it's a powerful example of a leader not being in a black box not being inaccessible

and we desperately need that when you think if you could just rewind in your minds what it was like

when you first met jesus and we're trying to figure this stuff out you need someone who's able to just

pull the curtain back and so often in our just the the way the system is kind of stacked against us

in terms of communities and people who are trying to lead lots of people there's so much expectation

for polish and there's so little room for mistake and i think we get into the spot where we we start

performing more than we start giving access and really helping people grow it's good the app again

is this it's not private by any means but it allows that kind of intimacy which is great one of the

coolest things that that i've ever heard in context of a church mobile app you guys are doing and and it

was it was this in context of close the loop thing where you were talking about the uh how you guys handle

prayer requests can you can you just detail for the podcast like how prayer requests work in context of

the app there at crossroads um again probably the best experience to jump in and try it but what we did

and it's happened in stages we created a way for people to share anonymous prayer requests

and then anyone well actually stage one was we created a digital pace list is what we call it brian

this interview taught us about pace lists a long time ago it's the post-it note of people you're praying

for that you put by your toothpaste mirror so when you brush your teeth you're praying for people

um which is great it's a day it's an easy way to daily pray for the things you want to see god move in

so we just took that same concept and we said let's give people the ability to create a prayer list

face list inside the app the next phase was let's let people send those prayer requests out to the

community they could do that anonymously we started to have people pray for each other and when you

would when your prayer was prayed for you would get a push notification that said someone just prayed

for your prayer request which is this incredibly simple on the surface but incredibly meaningful moment

to suddenly realize that you have access to thousands of people who could pray for your thing and even if

you don't know them it's a connective experience that can lead to belonging and real relationship so

then we we just up to the game from there and there so then you were able to share it publicly with your

name and face and you know your profile picture we we added the ability to friend and follow people so i have

prayer requests that are sent directly to people in my guys group they're private the things i'm asking

for god but i send them directly to those people i have prayer requests that i share to the whole

community because i want as many people as possible to pray for these things and sometimes i have prayer

requests that are anonymous they're not connected to my name or face but i want to take the risk of print of

praying for those things perhaps and those same push notifications were happening and we were seeing more

and more and more people pray but the the moment that we started hockey stick growth is an exaggeration

but we saw a jump in a number of people engaging in prayer was when jeff we closed the loop that was

just the name we gave to it we created another push notification so now i have the ability to mark a

prayer request as being answered when i do that every person who has ever prayed for that prayer request

whether it was a day ago or a year ago gets a push notification in that moment saying a prayer you

prayed for has been marked as answered closing that loop skyrocketed prayer requests and so there's

115 or so thousand prayers prayed each month now inside the app wow wait wait wait wait 115 000 how big is

is crossroads um we've we right now we're probably at 24 000 people physically inside of our buildings

another 7 000 online yeah so let's assume all of them on average three prayer requests per that's

still at a substantial and i know it's not everybody but that's awesome it's not everybody it it but that

even knowing that it's not everybody because it's true not everyone's active in the app it means for the

people who are active in the app prayer is one of the most used most connected and one of the most

the biggest reasons people come back in and continue to engage um and it it is it's you you then start

to hear stories of people getting that notification you you feel like god used you and you know that's true

when you pray and it's crazy to think that we would ever need validation from a push notification on your

phone but it is incredibly powerful to do that and um we get funds i mean incredible stories god stories

of them you know i send my prayer requests i'm sitting in the office of the doctors waiting for the

diagnosis and i start getting push notifications saying my prayer is being prayed for my prayer is

being prayed for my people are with you even though you might be in an entirely different state

or place um it is we found one of the main reasons when people download the app if they start doing

prayer they stay in the app and we're using really god is at work and you can see how we're mirroring

all the same reasons other apps bring people back in it's not for it's not just for content because i

can go back in the app whenever i want to see the content the content will always be there i go back

in the app because my friend jeff just sent a prayer request or because ray's like ray's prayer request

was marked as answered do i want to go back in and pray for more prayer requests you bet i do let's hold

hold on i'm going to jump back in so it's it's users people creating value for each other not just the

church pushing content out to people and people come back for people that's what i mean that's why the

church is the community um that's right and to have that happening inside of a digital platform even in

this very infant stage that it's in is really promising for how the church can continue to live in

to this technology future in a way that doesn't sacrifice but might actually enhance and make more

accessible so many of the great parts of being in the church yeah there's definitely i mean we use the

term high tech high touch the more technology that we use the more that we need to respond with a

tangible personal non-automated response this idea of the notifications can within prayer requests

driving continue to driving hey our prayers matter and they're being effective um whether it's you know

one to two weeks or a year or whatever down the road that's that's that's phenomenal one of the

things that i love and seriously i i think that's the coolest thing i've ever heard in context of a church

mobile app because it does continue that that engagement in an area where we don't you know

we can pray for a prayer request a year ago and not and and forget about it it's almost like out of

sight out of mind uh and to know that there's a conclusion to that story to to close the loop on

it yeah it's just just phenomenal well i just think as a community pastor of one of our sites where there's

thousands of people like when to your point with the best of intentions someone comes up to me with

a prayer request i would i'm not a community pastor but if i put myself on that spot i'm gonna pray for

him right in that moment because if i don't i'm gonna forget and even having done that which is

exceptionally caring and meaningful i'm likely to forget about that a week later or a month later

what what the app allows us to do is do that high tech high touch i can now grab that prayer request

put it on my pace list i can even ask that guy okay can i put this in here and then send it out

anonymously can we get some other people praying for you now as i get those push notifications the next

time i see that person in the atrium i get to walk up to them and my my memories jogged i haven't done

all i haven't spent all the calories trying to keep the top of mind the app has brought it back and

allowed me to very meaningfully and thoughtfully care for somebody in the moment and that's what

that's what we want the technology should reduce the friction to the people on people the real

connective part of part of the church yeah but what what's really interesting in this is you actually

told the story in context of going all the way back to your toothpaste lists and and how there's a

process of growth so somewhere out there someone in the audience right now is thinking because this

would totally be me if i was on church staff i want this this feature in my app as soon as possible

so i'm going to go now walk into my leadership and say hey we want to scratch xyz templated app

instead we're going to do this thing completely in-house we're going to hire developers and and

you know let's get this in place by easter because you know you have to have it in place by easter

absolutely yeah i mean you might as well wait you might as well wait until next year then you might

as well wait till next easter and there's like 52 weeks in between then there's because that and

then honestly like that that's who i am and and there's a reason why i don't work on church staffs

anymore it's related to that so but here's here's here's my thing how long was it from the toothpaste

list to today to when that rolled out like what what's the span of time because an idea grows it's it's not

like curled oh well and it has to if if we tried to build what we have today the first time we would

have built it wrong we we wouldn't have we would have solved the wrong problem so we taking it in

steps also greatly minimizes the risk of solving the wrong problem or not doing anything a user wants

anyway so starting with the pace list validated that people wanted to pray and there was friction in in

in the process of remembering to pray for people giving people the ability to send autumn an anonymous

prayer request validated the fact that people would would do that and so we we built on that so my team's

going to listen to this and probably correct me i it was probably at least two years

um and in part because that wasn't the only thing we were working on but also intentionally because

if you get ahead of your skis and spend money before you've really learned

what what what the user needs you're likely to spend a lot of money unnecessarily it would be unwise to go

try to build this before easter that's good that's real good and it's it's important too because you

know you guys have done such a good job in taking in you know when most of us think of an app we're

thinking just about content distribution that's this legitimately it we're thinking okay how can we get our

our sermons in people's pockets you guys have taken a step further i mean i want to say one step further

i mean you guys have charged down the field in terms of creating community uh with this app so much so

that i mean i'm looking at these prayers i mean it's just so compelling to see how people are being so

vulnerable and sharing their stuff and the fact that you can instantly get feedback that people are praying for

you that that's just powerful in a whole other way that i've not seen from any other church in terms

of what we're doing with church online that matt i'm challenged i'm challenged just looking at this

in a way of not that i need the system tomorrow but just all right what am i doing to to push the envelope

in terms of community building with my church and making sure that people are taking a step beyond

just engaging with the platform and engaging with each other big one i mean it's it's this humanistic

approach engagements that that two-way communication the app is the thing that facilitates the communication

and something as simple as praying for the prayer requests and allowing the person with the prayer

request to be ministered to but then turn around and minister to others once the prayer request is

completed or answered i mean that that is such a beautiful idea of of closing the loop of of making

both sides be ministered of engaging in this prayer request it's it's awesome we think about spiritual

growth especially for adults i'm no expert in either spiritual growth or adult learning so all i'm doing

is connecting dots and parroting what people way smarter than me have told me adults only grow

or learn something new when they need to use it so we don't do well as adults just learning facts for fact's sake

and we typically in the terms of betterment when we want to make ourselves better we we grow best and

fastest when we're actually contributing to someone else's growth so this is that old adage of like you

know the best way to learn something is to try to teach it the prayer in the app is a simplified example but

i'm i'm i'm contributing to someone else praying for them doing something that is maybe a simple act but

maybe it's the first one i've ever done it it's happening for me there you're learning something

along the way and the same this is the same thing is true in the in the bible portion very intentionally

you're able to contribute something and get something at the same time and so you're you're doing ideally

we're tapping into learning and growth at the moment the user wants it not the moment that is scheduled

by the church that's good or or determined by the church what the learning should be right the user has

some choice and these platforms are good for that and also we need some of the other church platforms

like a weekend service where the church is actually following through and it's biblical duties to teach

the whole canon of the bible and we want to you might not know you need this but we want to teach this to

you and we that's critically important to my development as well but having both together are two pieces

of the same puzzle and when they fit together you get the bigger picture i think yeah yeah that's that's

so important that the one hour on sunday is necessary i don't want to paint the picture i never want to

paint the picture that it's not it's a great opportunity to gather together in a physical community

uh and drive forward but when when that one hour is the only thing that that's where it becomes

problematic you're missing out on a lot yeah there i mean there's there's 168 hours a week and

great we took care of one uh bad news is that attendance is is going down and we're missing

some of these other tentpole opportunities to help disciple someone and get them to another level

and that rich level of discipleship is not happening in a in a larger you know experience like like

that's something that is one-way driven communication as opposed to a conversation or interaction even via

um a mobile app where you've got multiple people communicating you know back and forth with

each other so matt man this is this has been beautiful by the way i just totally want to

acknowledge that the whole apple uh podcast or the earbuds totally tied back in i didn't mean that

way at all but this idea of it took versions of it to get to it and the problem that we needed to get to

like it's all so you know tim if you're out there i apologize for yelling at you towards the airpod

i don't i don't i don't i don't i love my airpod pros good job tim and i'm gonna keep yelling at you if

it keeps making good things i apologize for nothing awesome so hey let's let's let's land the planet and

wrap up um ray just any any thoughts as we're landing here this is so powerful and matt i want to

applaud what you and what crossroads and what your leadership have done this is phenomenal

and really this is just even coming from somebody as simple as not just the pastor but as a member

of a small group so often in groups somebody gives a prayer request man and and i've been convicted of

this i've done a better job of this lately there's no follow-up you know what i'm saying there's no like

hey so how did that go or or was it answered what matt and crossroads church what they've done

is they've created this wonderful app where not only are people giving prayer requests not only people

are in community but they're getting followed up with in a practical way so that people can rejoice or

mourn together or and carry out all the commands of scriptures in the digital environment and this goes

beyond just creating content and it drives towards what church online is supposed to be about which is

about building the community not just building compelling content but building a community

that's you know that's enveloped in the gospel that's going out there and it's changing it's

practically changing people's lives and so so grateful to have seen this matt thanks for introducing

this into our lives and i hope much more more and more churches and even church app developers

continue to think towards this direction as we move forward awesome matt any thoughts on your end

i'm so thankful for you guys the way that you're helping all of us connect with each other

learn at the same time there's there's there's there's no way to do this on your own you can't you can't

be a lone wolf person now i'm a pioneer trying to create the future and so we we need each other

to do this and it's just exciting to be a part of it awesome hey man matt we're thank you for that

by the way but then uh it's been a really good podcast there are vendors out there that need to build

this this prayer functionality into their prayer into their mobile apps uh there are churches that need to

to start to request features and drive some stuff towards the the vendors just to get more um feature

sets and more engaging um features in place let's let's get beyond that one hour on sunday and realize

that the mobile app has far more features 168 hours uh a week you're the the thing that that nailed this

entire podcast for me was was your phrase matt of engagement versus reach and that with the mobile

app we we are we are pushing for engagement as opposed to reaching it's not the website let the

website reach and that's easy but with engagement with the mobile app getting people to interact

getting them to talk to getting them to um engagement such a bad word we're after a conversation not just

a one-way conversation with our people but a two-way conversation with them and and that's what you

guys have so you've done such a great job in creating is you have a way to not just talk at your people

but to receive stuff back from them and to interact with them in such a great way so job well done man

awesome guys so we're gonna wrap thank you for kind of setting the tone with that and and i i hope and

pray you guys continue to do so we're gonna have to bring you back down the road and hear what else

you guys are working on uh with that and crossroads is a great church so we're excited to see everything

that you guys are doing uh in the cincinnati ohio and now kentucky you slipped that one in too you're

now multi-state multi-site yeah church which is a whole other thing too but that's right for for

matt for ray this is jeff thanks for uh jumping here on the church digital podcast and we'll see

you next time y'all have a good day