EP043: Kyle Schultz & Deconstructing Kids Church Online

episode 43 with the church digital podcast and this is going to be an interesting podcast because

i i'm not even going to be the host here it looks like i'm going to be the guest that's going to be

interviewed on my own podcast this is going to be fun see a couple maybe a month or so ago at this

point kyle schultz who is the associate online pastor over at northwoods community church up in

illinois they um were they're interested in maybe possibly doing some church online for kids stuff

and so kyle got on facebook and posted that he was looking for for somebody to you know give them

some insight uh towards church online for kids and uh and so christ fellowship miami the church that i

was at when i was online pastor did church online for kids for for a season and and i tagged on on

the threads like yeah i'd love to you know talk with an expert too on church line for kids or somebody

else who's done it and done it successfully and um and slowly we discovered that nobody else really

was uh interested or had done church online for kids and so it actually started a series of

conversations like who else has done church online for kids surely somebody has done a targeted motion

towards a movement towards a movement towards creating a online environment aimed at children

and lo and behold i don't think that there are many people that have and so instead of interviewing

myself which would be weird on a podcast i've asked kyle schultz to come on and be the interviewer

to walk through some questions and together let's just dialogue through what it means to do church

online for kids what are the strengths and what are the weaknesses and what are the issues and

and just with a full disclaimer we we didn't do church online for kids that long

um there were some issues that we as an organization couldn't get past and so

it did run for it for a period of time and then we stopped it and they're they're not doing it now

to say that it can't be done i would disagree with to say that uh it should not be done i i think we

should as churches be utilizing online environments to to reach kids i do think it looks differently and

that's a lot of what this podcast is because i think the rules of church online for kids has to be

different than church online so we're going to unpack a lot of this right here in this podcast you've got

kyle schultz uh associate online pastor with northwoods community church you've got ray the

armis who's currently online pastor at christ fellowship miami and once again co-host here with

the church digital podcast and myself jeff reed with the church digital podcast in a episode that i'm

calling deconstructing kids church online okay everybody here you go i just want to hear about

your guys's experience with doing kids ministry online like that let's start there what's your

experience been and why did you start we looked at what we were doing across all of our campuses

kids students adult services um where we were a what were we raised six seven campus multi-site church

yeah we were we were hovering around eight we were getting ready to go ahead miami beach like there was

and we were and we also had like a lot of micro sighting going on like within campuses like we had campuses

doing specialized services like we had brickle going on at the time that's true um we had kind of a brickle

yeah there was uh and and there were like experimental things that we were doing at the time to reach more people we were hovering around like ten thousand in terms of attendance yeah um

and so for us and that's not even including online this is just counting some of the physical numbers

at the time and so there was there was a season of hey since we're already scaling this stuff to go

multi-site what would it look if we just scaled it a little more to take it online yeah um and and so

kind of the challenge that that i brought in in a to the on to the kids ministry team is all right so

we're doing skits we're doing games we're doing honestly it was video worship at that point we never

did live band worship so so much of this stuff is already video based um what would it take to just

do a little more work uh to make it not just video based for a multi-site venue but video based

entirely for online right so the the big thing like for us there there was already the um the stories

like that would be told kind of like the forgive me i don't know kids ministry terms given terms but

like the parable the story that would connect to the kids that was already video based we were already

recording that uh because it was too difficult to reproduce actors across six eight campuses so hey let's just

let's just video that uh worship was already video at that point uh and we were taking stuff off of open

network and um but way back then i think new spring wasn't attached to new open network new spring was

doing their own thing they were remember like we took a lot of stuff back then from new spring as well

but i also got to say this jeff we wrote a lot of content like we had staffed writers for cf kids at the

time which made sharing the content a lot easier you know and for those of you who are working with 252

or some of the other stuff you know that they've got all the rights they've got all that stuff and so

right now that's not something whether it's gospel project you know if you're on the southern baptist

end or whether you're you know if you're working with 252 and orange um we weren't doing that at the

time which enabled us to then create a lot of content that we could share um now there was a lot of

upfront cost to that as you can imagine but at the time we were also doing a line teaching on the

weekend with kids as we were with adults we were just packaging it for kids um which you know created

a great vibe it's something that we had going on for a long time even before this era but um but it

enabled us to do this kind of thing and to do it well so the the biggest challenge i think that we

really pulled from doing the uh the orange and we'll get to this at a later point so they ended

up going to orange which is really what kind of dive bomb the online piece you know you may maybe you

don't necessarily feel this but being in miami as multicultural as we are um it was a bunch of white

people on videos like it was not kind of and i'm not speaking negative of new spring or any church

because kind of like if if that's who your church is made up of i totally recognize hey you know just

go with that but in a church like christ fellowship where it was like i mean i'm just gonna make up

numbers here but ray 40 50 hispanic 25 for 30 white 20 black yeah i mean we had almost at this point

because races don't even mean anything anymore down here like seeing a bunch of white people act out

something on a video like it's awkward enough that you have to question it like people in their room

be like why are there a bunch of white people up there what are they politically trying to say

and so like it's it's that that tension of you want to create your own stuff right but that costs money

but then if you don't uh then you're kind of stuck with what you know not offending life church but

life church in the middle of you know oklahoma they have a different um demographic

uh of people who are showing up and they may not represent as well right anyway and not at the time

there weren't a lot of people creating video content either in this kind of area that we could take and

we could say we could actually fit and work into this i remember this because i was part of a group

that went to go review different types of curriculums that lifeway had to offer that orange had to offer

and this is before we made the jump and a lot of it was text-based it was like hey here are pdfs that

your folks can download but once again that took a lot of it and it put a lot of emphasis on having

a quality volunteer which is great if you can reproduce that over and over and over again across

multiple locations across multiple services we could not especially going week to week with the material

and trying to get it at the time to match up and to sink in with alignment in terms of what was going

on on the weekend it just wasn't something that that would have worked out for us but you know that being

said the content that we were able to create was actually very compelling for kids it was very good

um and it was something that you know even my own kids enjoyed you know preface it like hey this is

our stuff i we just threw it out there and it was a lot of fun that's awesome the biggest part when we

really looked at what we were doing at the multi-site level so content that we were already creating for the

multi-site what were we missing to put it online and the biggest part that we were missing was the was the

hosted segments so normally like the campus you know the campus children's director or a volunteer

you know would stand up in front of the kids be the hype man get them excited you know set up uh

introduce the video set up maybe tell them something to to set the stage and then show the video um and so

we were missing kind of that that hype person for for online um which is where roxy fit in so well

because roxy just exudes uh hype and so like you know she just she really has that that high level

energy and connects so well with kids and you put her in front of the camera and it doesn't matter that

there's no kids in front of her she is still hyping that that that that crowd up uh in in real ways

and the good thing with her was we actually we tried we tried two or three different people in the role

um two i think that were staffed um one was uh someone who was a volunteer in kids men uh and had a

background in television so she was more comfortable on the television side uh but she wasn't like as

tightly intertwined she was a volunteer so she kind of knew what was going on uh she really struggled in

the role and honestly she went on after she left she went on to do incredible things like so this isn't

a negative towards her at all uh because honestly she's working for a far better organization at this

point than any of us was but where she struggled with it was kids ministry and this may be just

indicative of christ fellowship but there's so many day-to-day changes and so much like fluidity

in kind of what's happening that her as a volunteer on the outside really struggled to keep up with it

and so things would change you know oftentimes between monday and wednesday and and like by the

time she came in to film something on wednesday it had changed two or three times she didn't know

about it and we had to go back and reshoot and the communication really wasn't that good because

she was kind of an outsider trying to come in and that that was one of the big reasons why we went

with the roxie model where hey let's get somebody that already speaks the language that already

understands what's going on let's just get a little more out of her i think roxy was was part-time i

don't think she was full-time at that point and it was something like you know move her 25 to 30 hours

or something something like that just give her a little more uh where where she can help create this

content and and kind of help us get to that that next level at least at the intro absolutely so what

would you guys say was there a felt need in your mind for a kids ministry online as you guys were

assessing your online presence and your community was there a need there that you guys were like we

have to do this or is it just something that you guys just jumped into because you're like well we're

at the multi-site we're already doing it let's just try it yeah that's that's a great question here

here's what i would say i don't think we realized the felt need and then the felt need became the biggest

challenge yeah the reason we got into it was um and and and i'll i'll own this like i i live and i've

lived my life even with the church digital i don't think there's a limitation to what church online can

be and so the biggest challenge when i talk about church online when i talk about micro sighting

one of the questions i'll get out of top five questions people ask one of them is always what do you do with

the kids and so rather than kind of running with that or or hiding from that uh i'm just kind of a

jerk that way i'm like we are freaking gonna do kids ministry let's figure out how to do it i can't

believe i just said freaking on a podcast but we're gonna we're gonna figure out how to do uh explicit

rated this podcast this way yeah we're gonna put up nc 17 on the thing anyway so we're gonna figure

out how to how to do this and so it was you know let's throw stuff in a blender let's see if it

sticks let's be experimental with it um you know and see how how it goes now the the challenge of with

me when when i look at church online i wasn't necessarily targeting the people i definitely was

not targeting the people in my front door or side door i'm not targeting people who attended christ

fellowship miami campuses i was trying to target people outside the city outside the state outside

the country around the world and really and and i i can't speak to the stats now but when i left

50 of the traffic of christ fellowship miami online of their online church was outside of the state of

florida so there was a much larger reach part of that is actually there were many reasons why

why that was happening but here's the problem that that i experienced i i can market an adult service

i could never figure out how to market a kid service like i can't you can't market to kids

like you can't put create ads for kids they're not on the social media the only the only thing we could

do was to market to the parents and kind of draw it down to the kid level yeah and so that really

became the the the problem the biggest hurdle of church online was the the adult services were very

outside external oriented evangelism reach out get them connected to god type of thing

the church online really evolved into my kids are sick my kids aren't at church this week i want to keep

them connected so they can watch the service now it happens like it was funny i might my kids were

i'm gonna do bad math here my kids were probably four and six when we were doing this both of them had

ipads yeah i'm the dad that gives their kids ipads at four and six we you can email me later um

but i bookmarked the cf online for on that and they would instead of watching freaking um handy manny

50 times over and over and over and over again they were watching cf online and and i and i i personally

i love that but it wasn't the the vision of the church was more external and reaching out as opposed

to giving people an alternative to handy manny and so that was a lot of where the tension was go ahead

no i was gonna say you know jeff the irony of that is i think you know to your question kyle the answer

is yes and yes like there's the felt need and there's also the understanding that hey there is an

audience here like that's the way that i'm looking at it now where i'm hoping that one day we can bring

it back either in partnership with one of our content creators or something else we're even working on

we're knocking on orange's door like hey look can we get rights to this can we do something

and here's why because i agree with jeff there's the sense of hey we work so hard on creating

compelling content that it can't just exist for the weekend yeah like that's that's just bad

stewardship right you're gonna tell me we're gonna invest all this time and all this effort and it's

just gonna exist on saturday and sunday and the same thing has to apply to kids as it does in terms

of our adult service so we're gonna invest all this time and effort into this kind of ministry and

the content's just gonna get relayed once to them you know that that my view just doesn't make sense

and especially in an era where kids are used to the whole digital kind of mindset digital and physical

places just kind of providing them the same content that they have access to and so i'm convinced that

my kids if they'll go to church on sunday still and they'll want to replay that service if it was great

and compelling during the week they'll still want to go back and watch that great content if it's

presented in a package that they're going to love absolutely they're going to come back and watch it or

they're going to show it to their friends hey look at what look at what i'm watching and and and this is

the key jeff i think this was our missed opportunity at the time and i think we're discovering this more

now youtube is like the great place for this to live youtube is like the grand spot for this to live

on youtube kids specifically and youtube right now is being very very careful with kids stuff that

you've got like a special check mark some of you are youtube content creators you know this you've seen

this already that if you were creating stuff for kids you have to market specifically for kids and they

won't allow it on the youtube kids app and they shouldn't unless it go unless this is checked off

so that they can review it and so that they can put it out there so now more than ever there is a hunger

there's a desire there's an audience and the kids have the capability of getting to it and you can create

great content that's made for them i mean you know let's kind of go back and let's think through about

how mr rogers you know would pour into so much effort to make his available for families

that churches we should do the same thing we should pour the same kind of efforts and so reggie joiner if

you're listening to me out there all right i'm telling you man please make orange available so that

churches can take this stuff online because man there's an audience here people need to see that

that's a great point on the youtube kids i just want to put a disclaimer on that we shut down we

switched to orange um in the next week youtube announced youtube kids that's fact um and it was

on honest because i remember going back in and trying actually hey we got a shot here let's let's

and it was too late like it was already it was already moved over and yeah reggie orange man there's a lot

of humility in that right it's like let me create content and have it not just for my under my brand

but let me create content orange let me create content for others yeah we can show them at the

church property but but show it online as well like i would imagine there would be a lot more exposure

and i'm just hypothesizing here but if if there was a video that was shown on 252

um and then that'll get some traction but if you show that video on maybe a couple hundred church

onlines um there's going to be a lot more exposure towards that maybe you're more maybe you're more

selective about who you're bringing in but i i think you know once again it's a lot better what other

people say about you than what you say about yourself and churches you know being able to

provide some of that content being able to own it to that point like i think that's a huge opportunity

yeah and there have been two or three conversations i've had anytime i i see a um underworked video

person honest to god underworked christian video person i cast this vision to them what if you created

video content for churches in the kids area um and that's nothing against any of the players that

are out there but i just think there's this huge need and there's not a lot of options

out there yeah you got the got the lifeway stuff yeah orange you know there's it's funny everywhere

i and i'm i'm in the church world everywhere i look it's orange stuff and it's like man and it's it's

good stuff i don't want to criticize it but love to have some other options out there that would maybe

challenge uh and get some innovation in the area what would you guys say is the biggest challenge

that you faced when you first started doing kids ministry online finding the audience

because we really were limited um

the adults that would watch online it wasn't a clean fit i'm gonna answer this into finding the

audience is is one the adults wouldn't stream wouldn't connect it immediately down to the kids

and so like that was a hard kind of push to get it there and when we did really kind of figure out

that we were regulated regulated is not the word we were kind of restricted our audience really was

the kids who were just stick or who were traveling and stuff like that um and so that was a challenge

probably the the other challenge was when we tried to do it at the at the microsite level we tried to do

house church uh there's a lot of um legal issues around kids ministry at house churches yeah um and

and even really challenges even seeing how when we were doing micro locations in 2014 2015

house churches watching church online um you know watch parties is a common term now uh right when we were

doing that back then it wasn't was not a common term back then uh even how like how we're handling the

kids you know you're putting it on the website and all these people are coming to some house they

don't know like even that philosophy is kind of shifted a little bit like i can remember um we had

a house church up in uh a network that was kind of starting up in the new york city area and uh the guy

would literally let his 13 year old daughter um lead like the the bible study or with the kids

and they'd watch the video they go through the curriculum like and it was it ended up being when

every time they did it on friday nights it was like one kid would take a turn teaching all the other

kids so he would like rotate through and have different kids do different things which was kind of a cool

spin on it that i wasn't expecting but it was instead of like the adults teaching it was the was the kids

um but even that it's like you know there's a lawyer somewhere who's just banging his head against the

wall because there's there's so much um tension around the idea of children in homes that may or may

not be fully supervised um you know and so that there there's some difficulty there that needs to get fixed

yeah the community aspect has to be the most challenging you know when you talk about church

online the whole thing shouldn't be just the content creation but the community that you're

trying to create around it and in terms of speaking as a parent yeah i'd be really uncomfortable with my

six-year-old like hey so i want to go into a chat room with a volunteer with a volunteer you know to

lead my small group yeah even that for me even as a church person even as a pastor yeah that for me

just sets off all sorts of red flags like that and so creating the community around the content

is got to be the most difficult part because yes you know that people are watching but how you get

them to interact with one another or how you get them to take next steps that's that's the most

challenging aspect of it well and then you know part of you raise your points great what about next

steps try to figure out how to take the next steps what's the end game yeah like what what is the

finish line what are you trying to do with your children online um and so even and that's not

that's not something any of us on this podcast can answer that's like a philosophical question that

church needs to wrestle with right um because in one thing you know if you're listening to the podcast

is we're more than just the one hour on sunday and just like you know to use christ fellowship's

example christ fellowship my example from a couple years ago um we needed to be more than just

broadcasting that one service what what's the goal okay so the goal is you know to empower parents

with more resources to help disciple their kids cool so that's more than just video by the way that's

a larger need than just um for church online that's the entire church so there's there's ways i think

with kids ministry to maybe align things uh where physical i mean you used the word digital ray i love

that it's the combining of the physical campuses and the digital and the online campus it's it's not two

different experiences it's not two different goals it's one goal that's just interwoven um to work

together yeah and to point back real quick to 252 so this is where parent queue has come in so big like

they provide they provide a lot of great resources for parents do that in the sense that whether or not

parents use them that's on their own dime or that's on their own you know whatever they're going to do

but providing an app providing all sorts of tools you know that kind of coincide with those lessons

that's a big deal because then that furthers you know the home game in terms of me as a parent

empowering me to disciple my kids which should be the goal of every church ministry church kids

ministry to partner with the parents so that it's not like when i did youth group back in the day it's

like oh we're dropping off our kid for you to fix him no no no no no that's not how it works we're

supposed to partner together on this you know so that your child has a cohesive team i'm going to

back you up as a parent and you're going to back me up as a student person and we're going to plan

together how to help raise this human into a fully functional and adult that loves jesus and that's

going to serve him with the rest of his life and that's how this is going to work together in kids

ministry there's got to be that kind of relationship where that happens and so maybe the community aspect is

parents uh kids ministers together kind of working together and to help provide resources and provide

tools that they can build community around you know if i am a parent who is only online and i've got my

kids um and you don't have your own content that you're creating yourself as a church so what resources

are there available you know or curriculums that can be used uh to help successfully implement you know

a kid's online ministry and help foster that with them i guess is where i that seems like the next

logical question to ask here because that's one of the things we're wrestling with at northwoods is we

don't we don't do our own content like video based content so what content do you use do you know

uh i don't right now um i think it's all they're not a part of 252 um i know that they

they're creating their own but it's none of it is digitally based right now okay okay well if you

are writing your own content that at least saves you the trouble of uh having to jump through those

loopholes which is great um however if you're not creating any kind of digital resources with that i

can understand how that could be a little bit all right so how do we take that next step like i

mentioned earlier if if you're looking for you know gospel project or any of those deals right now

they're not licensing that for churches to take it to the digital area we're all hoping and praying that

that somehow some way if it's it's a larger license we got to pay for if it's something along those

lines that that gets opened up to churches but we're not there just yet do you know do you know

what what the uh and i'm out of my league here um what's the logistical hold up on them licensing

like do you know what the reason is no not just yet we've talked to the folks at orange uh on a number

of fronts and the only reason i keep referencing them is because that that's who our church is using

currently we're not using gospel project right now you know we're still trying to work it out with

them i think it's i think there's a lot of different areas uh both in terms of music um you know music

licensing can be such a challenging for all of you who are doing church online you know what i'm talking

about especially if you're trying to take it on social media uh you've been flagged by facebook or

even flagged by youtube hey content copyright whatever i mean that's that's for sure a thing

you know to worry about to think through uh the next thing is is cultural references if they're

looking at hey we want to you know leverage a clip or something you know if they're doing some form of

and they're not doing at the movies but if they're doing some form of that then you know that's another

issue that kind of comes into play um as far as the content and the licensing is concerned

and then i think the third thing is i think they're trying to figure that out as well

you know how to sell our content but also how to enable churches to distribute it digitally

i think they're trying to figure that out as well um you know not every church can create

content leveraging their scripts some can some can't right like our church we do have the capability of

doing that we would have to staff more in order to help you know provide video editors and and

videographers and things like that to make it happen but you know we see we see the vision

we see the understanding of it i think we would go for it but um but it would be a challenge for

churches in general to do that because of some of the upfront costs that are involved at least to do

it well it'd be really interesting if a church kind of caught vision of this and it's like hey we're

gonna do this and let's partner with bleeding edge is always expensive it is and that that's just kind

of like the the thought and and part of part of the reason why i i love working with vendors so much

is because i i believe that innovation right now isn't going to come out of the church overall it's

going to come out of vendors that are going to provide the resources that then now vendors have paid

that bleeding edge tax and now the churches can kind of uh come on easier uh without paying all that

the the the upfront cost and the vendor can spread it out over a bunch uh but it would and and you know

maybe there's a reason why this is working or not working and like i said i don't i don't understand

how the sausage is made on this necessarily to really appreciate the licensing and the legal issues

there but if it could be interesting if like five churches ten churches got together and said hey we're

gonna we're gonna align and we're gonna create kids content and and this is going to be the end game

we're we're we're going to be culturally relevant we're going to be uh demographically appropriate

we're going to be theologically sound and we're going to have distribution of all of this so that

it works within our i don't know if that's a i don't know if that's a network thing i don't know if

that's a um a denomination thing but there's an opportunity i think for churches to work together

towards it and spread out all this cost among multiple churches like i even think how i mean

just it's completely off topic from kids ministry but look at how rock rms started you know i was a

couple of churches coming together and then everybody open sources and and adds on to it there's there's

a model there that if that if some churches would get together and just you know i don't want to be

like learn to work together but figure out how to work together uh i i think there's an opportunity

for for a big win to connect with kids in a new way absolutely especially since you know considering

i mean this this is my kids man this is gen z this is just kids you know uh this is this is what happens

this is our opportunity to reach them and this is the medium that they're going to most often

you know they're going to digital resources you can cry about it you can hate on it you can shake

a stick at them and say get off my lawn and get out in the street and ride a bike or whatever else

but you got to deal with the fact that they love the digital resources that are provided to them

schools are figuring this out for the love of god my kids are doing my kids are doing homework on their

computers they're encountering the same material you know through digital mediums and then they're

having to go do their physical homework like in a pad and paper and notebook they're having to do both

so somewhere in the church world there is a place for this and essentially yes we do need to throw

out the challenge we should be leading the way in this but instead we are lagging way behind in terms

of trying to break some barriers and make this kind of thing happen yeah one i mean my first my first

grader everything he does at school is online he rarely has paper-based homework so yeah it makes sense

so what type of strategies and systems um did you guys put into place when you first started

i don't know that's not the answer you wanted um none none none at all we want we wanted to make sure

i mean i can from the from we wanted to get it off the ground to see if it would work that was kind

of let me let me let me let me answer the question and i'm gonna answer your question i'm gonna turn the

corner um it was throw and go we i don't i don't even i can't even remember how long we did it i want to

say maybe six months i don't think it was a full year man it didn't feel that long it felt a lot

shorter than that yeah like it was it was it was give it a shot and then kind of budgets and some

other things kind of fell into play where they didn't want to invest all that bleeding tax money

uh bleeding edge tax money into this and so they they went with the orange solution um but there

ultimately we were we were we were stuck on creating content yeah and it was okay let's figure out the

easiest and the cheapest way to create this model of uh the weekend service online and that's where i

made my mistake like i'll just i'll own this right now i shouldn't have been so focused on recreating

that one hour on sunday yeah and instead i should have been focused on how can i create resources that can help

people like me disciple my kids and that's where that's where the focus got got onto i'll own this this was one of my

biggest mistakes um in my stretch there doing church online was i i was so focused on on the content piece

and exclusivity of online because i got to create this content for an online audience instead i should

have been how can i create content that will help parents help parents disciple kids whether they're

in the same city whether i attend a physical campus or whether they're in another country like the idea was

it's where this fidgetal comes into play yeah i should have been creating content that would help

disciple and resource and help parents be better to reach kids instead of trying to figure out oh how

to get that skit background mc thing to look good in a video frame yeah i was misguided this kind of

centers around kyle around the entire thing that we told you at the beginning of the of the podcast

where we were doing a lot of things at the time um and the truth is we were doing a lot of things and

reaching a lot of people but there wasn't an overarching strategy in terms of what we were doing

and so that was some of the frustration that we that we were leading with at the time if there is an

underlying dna behind what it is that you're doing and if there's an underlying strategy and

infrastructure then reaching out beyond some of these things and pushing some bleeding edge doesn't

feel so stressful in the organization because it feels like you're taking what you're doing and you're

taking it into a digital area it's the same thing you know that jeff and i have discussed a lot

over and over again with people with discipleship stuff like you can't have like oh church online does

discipleship this way and then the rest of the church does it this way it's like no it should be unified

in all areas and so you know figuring out strategically what it was we were going to do

if the goal like what jeff is saying if the goal was to help parents disciple their kids

man i think that's something that we could have succeeded at and it would have been better in the

sense of hey we could have done it at a pace that worked out great we went about we wouldn't have

been about concerned about creating an hour worth of content maybe as much as hey here's 15 minutes

here and there but heading in a specific direction you know what i'm saying of great content that's

compelling for kids it's super professional it's very well done and um you know but you live and

you learn and that doesn't mean that that's not something we could revisit or somebody else can

hey pick up this blueprint we're talking about now and run with it go for it yeah

and and really i mean that's where that's where experimenting comes into play and we so often we

talk with churches and and they're like oh it failed we're gonna and it's it's the honestly it's it's

it's one of my regrets i'm i'm not saying the thing was a failure it was so bleeding edge it was it

was informational but what i regret is that we never got to turn the corner and try it again

it was that um you know budget was too tight we're not interested in going in this direction we're just

gonna cut ties on this the entire church is going to orange which is great but orange doesn't have

distribution so you're you know sol um and so like that's the that's the unfortunate of this i would

have loved to okay now i understand this better let's figure out how to create resources in a different

in a different topic in a different range under a different guidance uh and and unfortunately we

just didn't get the chance that being out and said man church is out there experiment with stuff like

this and when you learn those lessons don't be afraid to try it again uh experiment in a different

way revamp give it another shot yeah you know what i would love to see uh what i think would be great

and then maybe somebody's going to pick this run with it and then become a millionaire and if you

are man go ahead uh somebody go out there get your pencils ready hold on yeah go get ready get ready

this is the idea just create one of those unboxing channel videos for kids and have a spiritual lesson

that's bible based right at the end like man my kids will probably watch that for hours give you like

10 000 views you know what i'm saying 10 million views other kids will watch it you know what i'm

saying because it's taking something that kids are already watching like that i'm sure other parents you

don't get it i don't get it kids watching up other you know watching other kids unbox toys and play with

them but they do it you know like hey here's the newest frozen doll man let me tell you what i learned

from frozen this is how god you know how god works and boom create like a devotional around that and

there it is there it is because kids will watch it they will engage with it and leverage it for the

glory of god i mean if we're able to create christian radio stations for the glory of god based on the

same pop music that we listen to you can do this so go for it i'm definitely with you on that i mean

because my boys they're on youtube kids they watch ryan's world and other things like that and i'm

like how can we create content that's more based around what they should be learning instead of about

a toy you know and so yeah i definitely that resonates a lot with me a lot and let's let's shift because

this is this is this is interesting this is not what we want to talk about with online but let's really

dig into the content here right the the problem is is that at least i would throw out as option number

one the problem is is that we're so focused on on throwing an agenda or a series or a topic or pushing

this stuff on that we're not really engaging and listening and and and the problem if we could if

we could figure out how to and i don't know how do you engage and listen to little kids which is

another thing which is why i'm so focused on parenting instead of the kids and that might be

a crutch in itself maybe there is a way to to to listen to the kids to get down to that to that level

but it seems to me like if all we're doing is is and this is what i was guilty of let's figure out

how to create this this new dynamic sermon series for for kids or this new you know whatever it was

message series or topic series or story series whatever the language was um and and it's like that just

became the overarching vehicle of everything that we did with kids ministry online and there is i'll just

speak in my language there's hollowness to that like that that's that's not something that you can build

uh an effective church and effective ministry a kid's ministry on there has to be more to that there

has to be and i don't want to use the word physical connection but there has to be something richer than

than just the story if i'm watching and i'm using a dated reference of handy manny because my kids were

addicted to handy manny if all i'm doing is watching handy manny i'm not discipling my kids

by watching handy with them watching handy manny there's another level that we got to get to with

the kids and it's figuring out how to create that content coupled with another piece of okay what's

the physical interaction or the person-to-person interaction to help them take maybe this head

knowledge down to a heart go ahead that's where the parent has to come into play and that's

something that i appreciate you know once again going back to orange that they provide questions

for during the week for the parents and the kids to interact you know what i'm saying so if you can

do something based off of that model where you're providing content that's for the kid but at the same

time the parent has a spot hey parents click here we've got you know a spot for you to add here's

discussion questions between you and your kid here's you know an activity that you guys can do together

here's this um that to me the parent's a lot more compelling you know what i'm saying in that it's giving me an

activity or it's giving me a way to relate to my kid through spiritual content that i become the

small group leader than in my household i become the small group leader leading zoe and lexi my two

little girls through that content um and that's where i think that relationship can be as opposed to

hey some unknown guy some volunteer at a church or somebody who's not really going to stick and walk with

them for the long haul um now obviously that's you know in a digital world that's putting a lot on the

parent supposedly you know but it's what we're called to do as parents anyways it's just giving us more

handles on how to do so so most people would agree that i mean parents they're gonna have the most

spiritual influence over their kids than anybody in their life so i mean if you really think about that

so yeah i love them i need i need help i as a i'm just i need help discipling my kids i do it on me too

god almighty that's that's all of us yeah and so like church out there listening realize you know

the hero in in my children's spiritual life does not need to be the children's pastor you know we've

talked about a lot of things you know with this but when it comes to creating buy-in you know not only

at the leadership executive leadership level with a kids ministry but even with the own kids ministry

and their staff what's some advice that you you would give around that you know because we haven't

explained we haven't experienced that because the question hasn't been asked yet but yeah i'm sure at

at least at northwoods i mean that's going to be something that we may have an issue with but we

may not i mean i don't know so yeah any advice there that you would give let me let me throw two

things um i remember the first conversation that we had about kids ministry online and half with the

with the staff with the people who would be involved in executing this on a regular basis half were

excited at the opportunity half of them looked at it like this is just more work and i'm already giving

you as much as i can i cannot give you that extra um and so but i we started selling task we didn't

necessarily sell it on on vision on on discipleship because at the time church wise we were very task

oriented and not necessarily you know um person oriented and so i think i think part of the challenge

is to speak to the level of of the of the vision first and that's where getting it to align

uh with the church overall uh which actually gets me in the number two figure out how it's a win for

physical as well as online because and especially i mean you can look at your cms check-in i'm willing

to bet if you're like any other church in america one week out of three the kids are there so two weeks

out of three the kids are gone your adult stats may be worse than that but you at least know through

kids check-in you know what what that is and so realize that's another opportunity for you to engage with

kids so that's another opportunity for you to engage with parents uh with added value for them to maybe

understand something at a spiritual level um during the week you know i think there's a lot of effort

in church overall not just kids ministry towards that one hour on sunday and if we just put a fraction

of that towards the other 167 hours a week so that people can be christian so that they can understand

their spiritual calling outside of the physical church building on sunday i think the church would

be in a better place and so it's leading with a lot of that vision and understanding assuming your

church is on board with that that'll really help you get to that sometimes you're gonna have to sell

this vision up man uh because if you're excited listen i'll just tell you for me if it was it was hard going

up um that was eventually bought into and then scrutinize learn from it and and make adjustments

you know as as as you're doing it there's not a lot that are doing it but that doesn't mean it shouldn't

be done this is to me like i said earlier uh kids ministry deaf uh these these are two things

that that i think the church is is grossly missing an opportunity by not uh capitalizing and building

on this in in the digital scope that's good there are steps to this i don't think it has to be an

all-in um to thing you know to tell your leadership hey we want to just dedicate a bunch of resource

to starting an online kids ministry i think there are steps that you can take that can help lead to

that which when you provide enough wins over time enough momentum in a specific direction that's

compelling enough for leadership to to create buy-in with them which i think they would see the value

in it i think the first person you know on board is actually your kids director um because they're

going to be not just creating the content but you got to be completely aligned you know you don't want

two different churches existing like your kids online ministry and then your your kids in person

ministry and you don't want them to think that you're trying to compete with them either

um which is where a lot of people start with online spaces right like oh online competes with the

weekend no it doesn't it enhances the weekend but it doesn't compete with the weekend allows the

same content that you're creating to live on for a long time and to be leveraged for a lot of people

why not go ahead and kind of like we were talking about create a few resources that your parents can

use and put them on digital platforms and promote them and talk about them leverage them off and refer

back to them and point to them over and over again uh you will create a bible story for kids a bible

study for kids put that on digital platforms leverage them often talk about them often you know refer back to

them and and then use those steps this way you can come back to your leadership and you can say look

this thing got like 300 views in the first couple weeks that it was up people are out there watching

it and they're sharing it this is what's happening with this imagine if we did just a little bit

more and don't cast like the whole thing in front of them but just start walking them slowly

through this process because to just point this is very bleeding edge on a lot of fronts and so that you

don't have to jump all the way in the river there are steps that we can take to get there um so before

we go off you know start starting a bunch of different you know side projects competing with

all the different content creators that are out there for kids materials let's see if we can take some

steps in the right direction to help provide resources for both kids and parents to grow in their

relationship with jesus that's really good and and let your and i love the idea ray of your like start

you know bring the the children's director bring the kids director in early i would even say let them

define it let them create the why of it you know you you've heard you've heard ray and i ramble on

about kids ministry and we're we're not the experts in this you have a staff expert and so letting them

um define it is going to give them the ownership down the road when there's tension when things are being

called into play when there's questions when there's evaluating for how to make it better if they own

it at the beginning they're going to own it in that season absolutely that's great to switch gears just

a little bit um you know obviously there's a lot of talk about micro churches and in the online space

what does a successful kids ministry look like and you guys alluded to some challenges that come with

that earlier but well let me ask let me ask this cal before you do that just to give give me context

what is a micro location because the micro location looks like 50 different things

sure you guys what does micro locations look like uh where you're at yeah we've got a couple right now

that are meeting outside of the peoria area that would not be able to travel to get here um we've got one

one of the quad cities which is about an hour and a half to two hours away from us uh we've got a group

of 15 people that meet at a house and they kind of rotate between each of the couple's houses each week

and uh you know one of the questions that they're asking is you know how do we minister to our kids

in that setting you know and what does that look like as it continues to grow and one of the approaches

that we're as a church moving to is we're really going to use our micro churches as a way to plant

churches because we're moving from a multi-site approach to a church planning approach okay um and so

that's just one of the things that we're kind of wrestling with because and that's been asked of

our micro locations of like we're having a hard time figuring out what to do with our kids when we're

meeting so so what's what's the average size of of a micro location right now our biggest one uh they

have 15 people that are there and there's a couple of them that have kids it's not a huge demographic

of children but there are some kids that are represented there so this is the challenge in

terms of liability because i remember jeff we talked about this with danny hicks i believe too

at elevation in terms of their wash parties and and how this has kind of become you know a bit of an

issue and and you know it's a problem that'll eventually get solved but there's a lot of issues in terms

of liability um if we if if you say hey we've got kids ministry at these locations that that's

problematic in the sense of well that comes with a lot of expectations should a kid get hurt even if

the kids are just hey playing outside in the backyard jumping on a trampoline and all of a sudden one

kid falls breaks their arm okay what happens now is the person hosting you know the watch party or the

micro location liable and the answer unfortunately is yes to a degree and then the church also becomes

liable if it falls underneath that umbrella of hey we're an expression of the church wherever

we're at and so that's where you want to be very very careful of how you express hey kids are welcome

here etc or hey we want to do kids ministry at these micro locations for right now uh that that may be an

unwise thing because there's not a great solution on that front for kids yeah i don't know ray um a lot

of the same this i've literally had this conversation the same liability you have with with kids at a

micro location it's the same liability you have with kids at a small group at somebody's house like

you're already your church is already taking some of this risk on by doing things at houses and so

there is an inherent risk with that um maybe it was interesting yeah i mean but it is right it's it's

yes and no and this is where this is where and i remember having these discussions with our higher

ups on this according to the insurance writers and stuff and this is where you got to be careful about

what a micro location is and how it's defined in terms of you know hey this is a mini location

because you know there's having a we don't describe small groups as like a pop-up store

you know what i'm saying uh or a pop-up location but these micro locations are described in that kind

of light so in the same way yeah if there's a difference between like a pop-up store best buy

in a mall or something along those lines that's carrying the brand a lot heavier than something

else and so that's where small groups get a little bit different treatment versus a micro location

you know what i'm saying that's that's where in terms of the branding and you know this is where

legal jargon comes into play look i've got family that are that study the law and their lawyers and

stuff but this is where they tend to win or where they tend to go after folks hey wait you guys have

defined this as church property now that right there is kind of what places you in the realm of liability

that's what that's where i would say you got to be careful with it you know and yeah even if they don't

win the case jeff it's the fact that they're going to go after you and the fact that it's going to cost

you a lot in legal fees and they're going to go after the church it's going to cost you a lot in

legal fees with it yeah kyle this isn't necessarily a conversation that you wanted to have but this

actually gets back ray to um jay crandall when with his his movement of micro his movement of micro

micro is is less of hey i'm going to gather 50 people in phoenix arizona together because i've

got 50 viewers and i'm trying to gather these people together his expression of micro of what

he's working at now is i've got one person in phoenix that knows 10 people that don't know jesus and

i'm going to disciple her to the point that she can go out and start to gather these 10 people in

their church and so that approach is far more um engaging is a better word healthy is a better word

uh i'm trying to think of the good word i'm sorry uh is is a lot safer i mean you're you're if you're

bringing in 10 of your friends into your house and four of them have kids that's that's a lot safer

opportunity which is actually why it's probably small groups is a little safer of an environment

because you don't have random strangers walking in which honestly having done the microsite model

that was hey let's try to cluster these people together it is kind of weird when you're like hey

i want to post your website your name on our your address home address on our website and people are

just going to randomly show up like that's that's that's weird and so there's chances are your organization

as northwoods already has some sort of solution for that at at the micro level uh but a lot of that is

if if it's if it's a safer environment uh you don't necessarily have some of those worries or you're less

worried about that yeah the other part of this isn't and i hate to even like play this card but it's worth

doing um nowhere in the bible does it say you have to do kids ministry like um that even kids ministry

itself i i think was i think and um kyle you may have been there but jason morris is actually talking

about this at the church it network i think he said it was like late 800s when the church is trying to

kind of figure it out oh we got to separate the kids into something so they farmed them out into

like the school classrooms or something i don't know but at the end at the end of the day um

you know i i would even challenge a little bit of at the micro level let's not figure out how to

shuffle the kids off into uh daycare because if the best that you can generate on your own is daycare

then yeah let's let's figure out how to make it inclusive and make them make them a part of it

um and so it's it's a hard question it causes people to question some of the values that may already

have within their church organization but like a micro location to the end of planting churches

should not die that movement should not stop to exist because we don't know what to do with our

eight-year-old right and you know jeff and and you're 100 right this is kind of a struggle in terms

of the model if you're looking for a micro location to be an exact microcosm of what you create on sunday

morning that that that are right there is already going to be flawed so if you want to check in kids

and kind of shuffle them off to a bedroom or a playroom or something along those lines that's

going to be flawed in the same way that i wouldn't want greeters at my micro location you know i'm not

going to have people out in front of my house like hey welcome welcome to christ fellowship and come on

in and raise sofas right there and the fridge is there and yeah with the street signs and the whole nine

and branded t-shirts and and all that stuff so you know i mean if that's the model you're going for

then then that's that's a model to go for but that's going to be something that's difficult to

replicate over and over and over again which is kind of where it comes into play whereas something

to jeff's point that looks a lot more like small groups i mean i tell every couple that comes in

with kids in my small groups hey if the kids run in because they got to go to the bathroom

it's okay i don't want you to freak out you know if we got to stop the bible study because

somebody got a boo-boo it's okay they're free to run in there and play and play with the toys and

have fun with the kids and all that stuff and then for those of you without kids that are here in the

small group i just want you to understand that that's what this is i want you guys to get used to

it i want you to treat them like your nieces and nephews and just totally be okay with them

running around and being all right with that are you guys good with that yep if you're not that's okay

we'll help get you matched to another group there's other churches there's other places

for people to connect if they're not connecting because kids are running in and out of the house

and having a good time well man that that just may not be for them and i know i sound mean by saying

it but man there's way too many free expressions of church out there for you to try go lead one

if it's not good enough for you yeah well gentlemen that's all i've got as far as questions so

far for today so awesome hey was this was this helpful it was it was super helpful

yeah especially around the micro church that i hadn't even thought about the the legal side of

it so that's that's super helpful just to know but yeah i i truly appreciate your guys's

your time and your wisdom you know not kyle we appreciate you bringing up the conversation man

it's something that we talk about quite often still to this day because you know in our heart

and and jeff's jeff's in a new church and and i'm still here at cf in our heart there's still very

much is a place for this nobody's figured it out yet but there's a place for this and so yeah you know we're

hoping that somebody picks it up and it may be you we hope we hope you pick up the rubik's cube and run

with it man yeah yeah i'm really excited just i mean as we've been talking about two different sides

of it like how can we you know in in equip parents you know like i definitely think i lean more to

that side of that with regard to this whole kids online thing so yeah that's exciting so i'm excited