EP028: Seth Muse & Redefining Engagement

Hey, Jeff here with The Church Digital. I'm excited about episode 28. We're talking about a topic we

don't normally hit on in context with Church Online with the podcast here, but it's something

that's near and dear to my heart. It's really an underlying theme of all of these podcasts that

we've done along the way. And no, we're not going to talk about Spider-Man and his return back into

the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was hardly gone, and now he's back. I just wanted to take a moment

here publicly on the podcast. Thank Marvel, thank Disney, thank Sony for getting together,

for figuring out how to make this thing work, for signing the deal. Everybody's happy. Everybody's

making money, and we get Spider-Man one or two more movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,

and we'll have to see what other crossovers come down the road. But this is not a Marvel podcast.

Well, it kind of is on the side, but it's not normally a Marvel podcast. So let's talk

about Church Online. What I want to hit on today really centers around this idea of the word

engagement. And so, because honestly, I believe that engagement has really lost its meaning,

or it has so many meetings right now that people don't really understand what the core of engagement

is. And to that end, I want to bring in Seth Mews. Seth is a communications director, and long story short,

he had on his Instagram account, maybe a couple weeks ago, arguably the greatest single Instagram

post I've ever seen in my life. Okay, maybe that's a little overstating, but it was really good. And it

encapsulated a lot of what I've been wrestling with in the past couple years of how it highlighted the

two types of different, in his context, social media posts. But in my context, I'd say, in context of

Church Online, what we're communicating, even not even Church Online, but Church Overall, there's two

different types of communications. And to his point, post type number one are posts that where it's

communication that's centered around us as a church. And the second type of communication that he highlighted

is the types of communication that highlight the listener, the reader, the audience. It's designed

to engage the people where they are. You see, sometimes in church, we think by talking about a sermon

series or talking about inviting through a social media post to some event, we think that that's

engagement, when that's really not engagement. Engagement's when we listen to the people, not when

we try to cram information towards them and drive them onto our property, physical or virtual for

Church Online. And so this is what I want to do. I want to have a conversation where we dig in and try

to figure out what engagement really is, and how we as a church, we as Church Online can do better

at engaging online. So welcome, Seth Muse from Hope Fellowship to the conversation. Myself, Jeff Reed

from the Church Digital in a conversation on redefining engagements. Hey, everybody, here you go.

For me, I think the church is so... When social media really started, it was a promotional

deal. I mean, it was like, put yourself out there kind of thing. And there really wasn't any rhyme or

reason to what was going on. It was just chaos. And we saw it as like, hey, if I put things out

there, people will see it. But it's still not the case anymore. And you have to be more strategic now.

And it's just so much harder to be seen and noticed. And what people tend to stop scrolling on

is important. And they scroll on things. Sadly, we're sinners. Stuff that's kind of about them,

you know, that makes them feel good. So that's kind of where I was. I was literally writing some

things down for an audit I was doing for a couple of our channels. And I just wanted to see what kind

of content we were posting. And I had these columns that were like, I shouldn't have thrown that away.

Probably could use that today. But it had like, scripture posts, or like encouragement,

inspiration, advertisement. What else was it? Like a promotional deal, like come sign up for this

thing. Because some of our and it would be like, I could check some of those more than once for one

post, right? Because we covered a couple boxes. And when I was looking at it, I was like, I naturally

just divided it into these columns without realizing it and went, Oh my gosh, these are about us. And

these are about them. And I was like, that's clear. I'm gonna write that down on the board before I

forget it. So I started brainstorming. That's what I came up with. And I was like, somebody might want

to see that. So and here we are. Well, and even the word engagement, like it's been lost over over the

years, or it's been watered down and means so many different things that it's like, oh, yeah, I'm

engaging people by, and I'm overstating here to prove a point, but I'm engaging people by shoving my agenda

towards them, and getting them to process, you know, my new sermon series, or this event, and, and,

and just to step back and to realize that's, that's not really engagement when we're forcing our

agenda or our motives towards them. Engagement is, yes. And while that may work in a church building

with people that already bought in, like, we know that doesn't work with, with outsiders, with people

who are, who are cold to the idea of church or, or even to God. It was funny, like, we're,

this is just an off story. One of the things that I'm doing right now, I'm consulting with a church

that's getting ready to launch a multi-site in a, in a, in a, in a area that there's not a lot of

churches. There hasn't been a lot of successive churches here in Miami. And so I'm project managing,

I'm helping, you know, with some logistics and some things like that. And so we had an opportunity

to sit down and, and it's happening in a school. So the multi-site is going to be to set up and tear

down in a school. So a week or so ago, I sat down with, with the teachers of the classrooms that we

want to go into. And it was funny, like one of the, one of the teachers in the room was, was more anti us

being there than the others. Like she was, had maybe a little more concerns about it and, and was very

much pressing the, um, what are you doing for us? Kind of, kind of approach. And, and it was funny,

like, uh, you know, immediately some of the pastors were talking about, oh, well, you know, we've already

been out here to help paint and, and we built a butterfly thing. And, uh, and so we were, we were

doing, you know, just a lot of this stuff, uh, around here and, and the, the church had really

been doing a good job of, of, of serving the community, but it was, it was funny. Like her

immediate response was, oh, facility stuff. Okay. What do we, what do we get out of this?

Exactly. Like it was, it was, and it was this moment of clarity. I'll, I'll be like, okay,

they're saying the right answers. Oh, but that's not what she wanted to hear. Okay. And so like,

you know, 15 minutes later down the road, I'm like, Hey, you know what I want to hear? I want

to hear how we can serve you. We told you how we're serving, but it didn't connect with you. So

what do you need? And it was funny from that second on the relationship, the conversation went

completely different because she's now understanding I'm on her side as opposed to I'm shoving an agenda.

Yeah. And, and, and it was amazing that the clarity and the conversations and, and, um, you know,

in back of my mind, I'm like, I got to figure out how to do some of this stuff. I have no idea how to,

but dang it, what we're going to, we're going to give it a shot and figure out how to help this,

this teacher be more effective and enter school. Yeah. You're right. We just have to keep what's

in it for people in the front of our mind. And, and we always answer that question with, well,

Jesus is in it for people. And they're like, well, they've already decided they don't want that.

What if they've decided they don't want that at all? Yeah. Like then what? You still got to have

a church and a building. You still need them on your, on your side, you know? And like, and you still

got Christians that say that like, yeah, I'm a regular attender and show up once every six weeks

on average, you know? And so it's like, yeah, even our people are not like, man, we just can't

wait to get back to church. So, you know, we have to keep that in mind so that they're constantly

reminded of like, here's the benefit of this place. Here's what it does for you. Here's how it

enhances your life. And that sounds sleazy and sales pitchy, but I mean, that's what we've always

really done. It's just now the, the, the answer to that question is different, you know, because

they're not prioritizing the church as we're not prioritizing it as a community anymore. You know,

it's not the center and the hub of activity in the communities that the school is.

Educators would say, uh, scholars would say that we're in a post Christian society.

Yeah. And so how the church responds to us, to your point, one week out of four, one week

out of six attendance, you know, maybe a decade, two decades ago, like we were pushing more than

once a week, uh, and trying to get people to come back for like a midweek service and things

like that. But we've, the church has changed and, and attendance has changed. And when we're

seeing, um, we're seeing drop in physical attendance, we're seeing online attendance, uh, spike and

increase. And, and some churches handle that better than others. I've, I've had conversations

with churches where it's like, Hey, we're considering shutting down our online campus in hopes that

by shutting down the online option, people will go back to the physical building. Um, and I'm not even

like in that, that I, I think personally, that's a bad idea. Hey, hurt, stop the thing that's working

in hopes that it'll help the thing that that's not working anymore. So like culturally that,

that gives me a headache. Um, find is if they shut that thing down, it actually hurts their

attendance in physical places. So, so true there where online kind of can feed into that as a front

door, as that first level of, of like your lobby or guest services, even engaging on that.

But it's amazing what happens where, when you don't try to push the agenda or the strategy or the model,

but instead step back and listen to what people are looking for, what they need, um, how, you know,

you may be trying to meet them at this level when in fact people are, you know, they're not to your

point. The person who may already be turned off or against church, um, might be looking for another

engagement point, another relational point. That's not going to be solved by your most recent, uh,

sermon series. Uh, that's not going to be, that maybe there's a marriage thing they're struggling

with or something. And it's, and instead of pushing an agenda, it's listening to where the people are

in doing that. And that's the thing that I think online does so well is that you're able to turn the

corner and meet people where they are.

And they're not, they're not going to type in your sermon series title to Google. They're not,

they're not looking for that. They're not looking for like, you know, um, I don't know,

whatever series you got, I forget, like, uh, at the movies, they're not really looking for

that on Google. They're looking for, you know, fixing marriage or, you know, dealing with difficult

kids. And, you know, they're typing in keywords that are not going to bring your sermon series up

online. And that's where they're going for help. They're not thinking, let's call someone at the

church on the, on the telephone, uh, and talk to a real person who is a pastor, because that's not

what they see as the go-to for, for help. So they're going to go online and they're going to

search YouTube and they're going to search Google and which are the number, you know, not the right

order, but one in two search engines in the war on the world. And, uh, how to in Google is like the

number one hit phrase. It's how to do stuff. It's the university of YouTube, you know, so, um, they're

going to find it there and they're going to, they're not looking for us at the church. So it's like, we're

trying, we have to figure out as a church how to, instead of, cause they're not coming to us, how do

we get to them? And how do we think about them? And I think this is what Jesus always did. He always

went to them. He never sat around and just waited for people to show up. He was moving and they followed

him. You know, the, the intentionality of follow me is that the thing you're following is moving, you

know, and it's like, you've got to move with him to stay with him. And so things are always going to be

changing. Things are, methods are always going to be moving. The crowd is always going to be, uh, you know,

morphing into something and you have to constantly be moving with it or you stand still and you're left

behind. And that's what I think happens to a lot of churches. We find a model that makes us comfortable

and has some success, but then the model moves and the culture moves and we don't move with it.

And so we miss so many people. And I think that's the big deal with online that a lot of pastors,

you know, you know, are maybe missing if they're against it is that it's not a replacement of your

in-person stuff. It's a, it's an extension of it. It's an, it's an and thing and it brings people in.

It connects with them where they are. It makes a bridge, you know, and it goes to where they are.

So I feel like I have a lot of strong feelings about this, but you know, cause, cause I, I really

want to like, I really believe that, you know, the, the, the mandate for Christians is to go.

Yes.

It's not to, you know, plant and stay and put up like the bat signal with a cross in it and think

that somebody is going to show up and it just doesn't work like that, especially now.

I got to tell you, don't say the bat signal with a cross thing too loud. Somebody's actually

going to like run with that if they haven't, cause they're like, that's, oh my gosh, that's the

greatest thing I've ever heard. A bat signal with a cross and shine it up in the, well, I'm not

saying I haven't done it. I mean, it's one of those things that you just, you know, it's a great

idea. It's a great idea.

But there, you know, there, there, there's so much good there. Here's here, like today it, what,

what I heard you say, what I hear a lot of, of people struggle with is it's one more thing

for, for decades. We've been okay with just the service. Like we, we, we have this model,

this model works. I was actually on a podcast with, with Tom Pounder a couple of weeks ago

and we were talking about this and he equated it to like the, and it was this beautiful analogy.

It was like traditionalist with baseball of, well, no, you can't add that because Babe Ruth didn't

have to deal with that in 1920 when he won, you know, and, and all of a sudden you go to all the

historical context and all of this. And it's like, well, no, the, the game has like, the world has

changed around the game of, of baseball. And all of a sudden you need to do things to keep the game

to be relevant. It's not, the game doesn't change. I don't know that the rules necessarily change,

but how the game's presented should be. And, and church similarly, the goal, if the goal was your

Sunday service, then you had the wrong goal for years. Like the goal wasn't the service. The service

was the method for the end game, which was the gospel, which is, is, is that discipleship piece. And so

realizing that we're called to make disciples, go and make disciples, your reference Seth, you know,

we've got this, this great challenge to, to evolve because the world is evolving faster than ever

before. The church struggles to realize that. Yeah. Oh yeah. And then my favorites, the, oh, well,

let's, let's change our services. People are only coming once a month. You know, maybe, maybe if we're

lucky, we can get them to two. And it's, I'm just, I'm always like, turn the game on, on its, on its side.

Like do look at it from a completely different viewpoint, figure out how to make disciples 168

hours a week, engaging people when they, where they are, instead of trying to drag people into a

building that, that they don't want to go to anymore. Yeah. And that's how, that's how, like, I struggle

with this because I think I see social in a way that many leaders who are in pastoral positions don't.

And this is, this is, I think the disconnect in communications is looking at this post, you know,

it's like, we can, we can see it as us and them type posts, but for, for a pastor, I think they see

it as all inclusive. Like all of them are us and they're part of us. And there's, there's, there's a,

there's a misunderstanding that social is a thing that's meant to, to advertise and to, to get people

to, to move to some, I see social as a tool for ministry. Like it almost like it's, it's like a

small little slice of church that we can put out and have a conversation about every day or a couple

times a day. You know, it's like, if I put out a scripture, we can talk about it or they can at

least hear it. I mean, what's different than that, than a pastor standing on a stage and saying the

scripture, they don't respond. I mean, they're sitting there in this, in their seat, they're listening.

There's no engagement, you know, in a, in a worship service while the pastor's speaking, they're just

considering what he's saying. They're listening unless they're opening a peppermint and everybody's

watching that and listening to that. Cause that's the loudest thing in the world. But you know,

they're like, what are you really getting there that you don't get online? You know, when, when

someone passes some information along, if it's just information. And so there's this thing that's

like, there's so many similarities between how social can be a culture creating tool, a ministry

of discipleship tool. Um, maybe not an evangelism tool. That's kind of tough, but you know, like it

can be something that encourages people to live life like Jesus wants them to live. And isn't that good?

Like, why is that not good enough to do that there? We can only do that in person. You know, that makes

no sense to me because I see it happening. And it's like the culture has already accepted this as a mode

for learning, for growing, for inspiration. And we know this because there are so many people whose

theology is based on not scripture, but Instagram posts about scripture that are made out of context,

that are made by people that are explaining it in really crazy ways. And the church is not in that

space. You know, if you're concerned about theology, then put some there, you know, it's like, do that

there and make some posts about growing them. And all that happens is they read it and are inspired

and learn and grow, and they don't have to click anything or come to anything. Yeah. And that's a win.

I remember Dave, Dave, uh, Adamson, uh, you know, out of North point, he did this experiment and he put on

social media. It was the, um, uh, I think he was trying to search for, um, help me how to pray or tell

me how to pray, or I don't know how to pray. And so like he did a search for that in YouTube and, and

just, he started reporting on what was coming up and it was, I think out of the first 20, 30, 40,

there were no, no churches at all. It was, uh, you know, 11 year old girls, Jimbo, a Susie B just,

just random people. And, and first off, like, uh, congratulations to those people. Thank you for,

you know, creating content that, that triggered that. And I don't want to, I don't want to take,

um, you know, their online or their ministry and packed away, but there's a huge opportunity.

As a matter of fact, the first church person that popped up, um, was actually Joyce Meyer.

Uh, and so she came up, but it wasn't official Joyce Meyer ministry. Somebody just ripped a Joyce

Meyer video and put it on there. So even in the first, whatever it was, it was multiple pages worth

of results before you finally got down to the church, taking an opportunity to speak into that.

And, and, and when I, when I've told that story, when I tell that story to churches and it's like,

here's the opportunity you have to speak into it, the, their engagement towards the people of YouTube,

to the community of YouTube, to those online, it's yeah, you know what? Um, we're just, those aren't,

those aren't the people we're trying to reach. We're trying to reach the people within our,

within our block, within 20 miles of our church, within our city, you know, within the little town

that we live in. It's, it's geographically limited to, to that scope. Like churches don't look at

online as a mission field yet. I'm, I'm generalizing. There are churches that do, but yeah, it's not part

of the strategy. It's something extra. Like if the social media person, uh, the website person all

were fired, the church would be like, we're okay. We can outsource that. It's not like,

oh my gosh, we lost our youth pastor, you know? And that's kind of what it really is,

is that you've lost someone that connects you to a wide world that have a lot of people that will

find you there in your city that may not have known your existence because most searching Google

and on YouTube is localized. It's, if you're searching for how do I fix my marriage,

it's probably going to serve up something that you're either connected to already,

or if there's nothing there, it'll, it'll try to connect you to, I know definitely on Google,

it does this maybe not on YouTube, but it'll definitely connect you to stuff that is, is near

you because they want those meaningful relationships and connections to happen.

And so if we had just leverage that platform and use keywords that people are actually searching

for instead of our clever and creative titles as the keyword, then we'll actually be found

and people will connect with us. And it's like, that's the new mission field. That's the new

evangelism is his SEO and Google, you know, and, and, and being found on YouTube. Dave Adamson's a

friend and I love that guy. He actually said, um, he doesn't believe that church attendance is

decreasing. He believes it's decentralizing the community that you have, the culture of people

that you have in your church. They're counting attendance as watching online. They're counting

attendance as going and physically being there. They're counting church attendance as being in

their small group that week and doing nothing else. It's like, I'm going and investing in my

spiritual life with Christ somewhere. They're probably doing it once a week at the most, unless they have a

regular, like personal time or whatever, when they're going and connecting something, uh, they're counting

online as one of those attendance points and churches are not, we're not counting that. We're saying

that's a doorway to actual attendance. That's kind of how we phrase it and really not phrased that way,

but that's how we think about it. It's like we have online. That's great. But really what we care

about is butts in seats when that's not what they care about. They will come to church once every four

to six weeks in our counting, but in their counting, they watched online twice and showed up once they

came three times. You see what I'm saying? They're the, the culture's understanding of attendance is

different. And even our people's understanding of attendance is different than the pastoral leadership

in the churches who are theologically debating whether or not that counts. It's like they've

already decided it counts. And so we're not responding to that. And so they show up. And what

we hear sometimes from pastors is they actually downplay online attendance and they say, we want,

that's great, but we want you to have, you know, be here and yeah, you're going to miss community.

Yeah. You're going to miss things, but they have community. They have their small groups. You know,

they have their friend groups, they have their baseball team parent group or whatever,

and they don't understand how it's different. And so we're missing that connection. But for them,

it's always going to be like, Hey, I showed, I watched church online. I set aside time to sit

and watch something for 45 minutes to an hour and a half. That's me attending because I gave you my

attention. And that's what we don't understand. Attendance is not what people is what not valuable

anymore. Attention is valuable. And that's what they're basing. The price of doing something is

not how much of my attendance is going to be needed. It's like, no, I'm not even going to think about

that. How much of my attention are you going to get? And churches are not thinking in terms of

attention. They're thinking in terms of attendance still and physically being somewhere. And I mean,

I don't even have to be physically in a store to shop anymore. Why would I have to physically be in

your church? It's like, I know the theological differences. I know why that's, that's not the

same, but they don't, you know, and, and in our attempts to educate them, it just makes them feel

guilty for doing it. And then they don't want to come at all. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, and we're in the,

we're in this position, right? Where, where culture is, is shifting. Um, and the church often

struggles to, uh, to, uh, to adjust to it, to adapt to it. Right. How, how do we, how do we turn the

corner? Like what in your, in your mind with your advice, like Seth, how does somebody, you know,

maybe right now there, there's an online, uh, pastor, there's an online volunteer. There's

somebody that, that wants to turn the corner, either in social media, church online, digital

communication, something where it's, Hey, I need to, we need to engage more. Uh, we need to start

focusing more on that side of the coin, start to worry more about them and less about us, man. I

think it starts from the top. Your, your senior leadership has to understand that. And so if

they're not there yet, it's part of our job, you know, this guy, Clay Scrogg and stuff like leading

up, right. You have to, you have to educate, you have to investigate and bring things to them,

help them understand this is what's happening out here. That's kind of our job, right. And communications,

uh, or creativity and creative departments, whatever. Uh, if we're working the web world

or online world, it's, this is our, our job is to help those that really aren't in that. They

don't care. I mean, your pastor might be great at it, but he's not in it. Like we are right. Like

even some of the ones that are most involved. So it's our job to bring that to them and help them

see the value of the ministry that could take place. Cause I find that pastors don't really care

about stats. They care about stories. They care about people, life change. It's like, that's

what they got into this for. And so for us as, as, uh, you know, creative leaders or, you know,

maybe we're pastors, I'm not sure, but, um, you know, we have to bring that into the, into the story

for them to help them see like, this is not an, uh, an either or ministry. This is an and ministry.

And, um, the biggest hurdle to that is finances. And so I always, I always say that you can look at

your budget at a church and see what you really care about. And you can really tell like, what is

your priority as a ministry. And often the budget has tons of money going into the weekend service

and no money going into the week, you know, like the, and I'm not even talking online. I'm talking

about Bible studies and classes and, you know, home groups. There's no money resourcing staffing for

that or volunteer training for that. There's no money going into the creative space or social media

or ads or your website. It's like, let's just do what we have. Cause that stuff's kind of expensive.

Let's be honest. Our world is kind of expensive. So we, we, we're like, uh, we're putting a ton of

money, like hundreds of thousands of dollars into our sound system that will only affect those that show

up, but you know, a thousand dollars a year into social media ads that will, that affects so many

people every week for 52 weeks out of the year, you know, um, and not just 52 days out of the year,

you know, if you're just meeting on Sunday. So, um, that's a huge difference. And I think that if

you can't shift your budget around, then it's always going to be an uphill battle to start

including the online world as part of your ministry strategy. Cause I think that's the real goal

is getting everyone on board to see that when people are here or when people are connecting with us

elsewhere online, it's a person, they matter. And when we should care about them the same as if they

were standing right in front of us in real life. And how would we do ministry? If that were the case,

we thought about them that way. It's changing the picture that we have in our mind of what constitutes

ministry. I use air quotes when I say that what constitutes ministry is not just what we've known as

we do a service. It's excellent. It's so good. People can't help, but show up. And then they,

we send them on and we try to connect them to the small groups and Bible studies that actually meet

in person. It's like, there is a whole world of stuff of connection that matters to our communities

that we can invest in. And it's going to take investment. You need people and you need money

and they have to have time. And it's cause all of that, just like a real relationship,

it just takes time to cultivate, you know? And so I think there's, there's a couple of steps to it.

It's not easy. It's not simple. It's not even often clear on most of our, most of our churches.

But if we keep those goals in front of us, then we're, and we all understand the goal is the same.

I think that's where the big hangup for most churches are, is that the communication department

sees some needs and some goals that aren't shared by pastoral staff and pastoral staff see needs and

goals that aren't shared by the communication staff who are doing all these online

things. And so getting those people in the room to say, what is our church doing in ministry

and seeing communications as a ministry and not as a service department is a huge mind shift

that has to happen. And it has to happen on the, it's not just pastors too, it's communicators,

seeing ourselves that way, you know, and owning some of that space. I mean, when people respond

to me on Facebook to our church, that's me responding. I have, I'm the one social media guy

for our main channels. Then we have some others that help with some of our students and kids and

whatever, and volunteers. We have a, we've launched a massive Facebook group strategy and we've published

that. We're actually running some contests right now and have the campus pastors doing it, but without

their buy-in, all of that fails, you know, and they've just seen how good it can be because

we launched a campus with nobody that, uh, you know, didn't have a building, still doesn't have a

building. Yeah. And we, we started a Facebook group. It had 200 people in it. Actually, somebody else

started it. I just took it over and then we branded it up, made it good, gave it to our pastor. I ran him

through how to work it, you know, how to do content and like, just use your phone, just get in there and be

real with people. And it has over a thousand people in it now. That was six months ago.

You know, and the reason it did that is because they're excited about what's going on in their

community. We're coming there, but we were talking about them the whole time and that's what they're

pumped about. Yeah. And that's, I've, I've struggled with this over the years, um, with, and not,

and not about one church, multiple churches, you know, two things that you just kind of hit on there

is, is creative communication. Is it a ministry or is it a, uh, a service department? Uh, you know,

are, are we, are we ministering or are we executing the, the, the directives of, of the pastors and,

and ministers with that in, in like, I, I know, um, honestly in my lifespan, like I've landed on both

sides of the coin where I'm like, guys, we're a ministry. Like, you know, let's, let's, let's run that

way. And sometimes honestly, I've been like, Hey, like we're just following the lead of, of the pastors

with that. And let's set aside, um, you know, some of our own agenda and ideas for now, and let's just

focus on serving. And so there's, there's different sides of that, but the biggest tension that I feel,

and I've run into this, honestly, within the past week where I was talking with, uh, with, uh, with

an online pastor who had created a, a group for the, the church online. And so basically what the church

online was, it was Facebook group. It was, so they were doing the broadcast rather than doing

connection cards, like they funneled everybody into that group. Um, but in the group, then they

were engaging relationally, they were connecting, uh, they were trying to funnel into the next steps

class or the, or the, you know, small groups, whatever it was, but they were using that, that

private Facebook group for the church online to really, um, to do ministry, to do, uh, in,

to engage, to talk with people here where they are and then do ministry with them.

Yeah. And that was the group where that was going well. Um, and then, and like, this is a story from

the church, but essentially the, the creative communications department got wind that they

were doing this like separate thing. It was like, no, that can't be, you know, that can't be a ministry

thing. That's got to run through us because they're wanting to take the opportunity to, you know,

market a new sermon series or, you know, start to do more of the us type of communications than the,

them type of communications that the online campus is trying to do. And so then there became a,

you know, a battle might be a, um, overstatement, but tensions around how that group operates and

what's happening. And they're still trying to figure that out. Like how, how do you, yeah. And so like,

you see both sides of that, right. How, how do you handle like tensions like that?

Well, for us, first of all, you know, serving is ministry. So what we do as a department,

as we, if we're serving other departments and other members in the church, um, it is a ministry

to serve them, even serving staff. And so I think we have to, as a communicator, communicators and

communication departments, we have to see what we do as a service in some ways too. If you're a minister

and you're coming to someone and they've got a problem, your goal is to help them, right? It's not

to, you know, it's not just to say, here's the right things. Here's what you have to do. It's,

it's to help them get over whatever barriers they're, they're in the way before they can do

those things. Right. And so as a, in that particular situation, you know, we've had groups that started.

And so my, my response to them was, I go to them, Hey, I see that you started a group.

It's really cool. Um, I like what you're doing, or I love that you're doing this, but we do have a

policy, you know, that we're a part of it. Here's what I want to do. Can we, can I need, I need to be

an admin so we can officially represent the church because we want to actually make this thing blow

up for you. It's like, we're for you. Like we're for you doing ministry. You found something we didn't

see. Awesome. Let us help you make it great. Not let us take it over, but let us assist you. Let us

give you our expertise and our expertise. If sometimes isn't wanted because it's not ministry

minded, it's service minded. And we come in with that mindset of, we're going to make this excellent.

We're going to change all the colors. We're going to make, we're going to control the content. We're

going to, we're going to be able to post. I don't post anything in our Facebook groups unless I talk

with our campus pastors. I let them have the group. It's their ministry. I'm helping them do it. I'm

giving them content ideas. I gave them scheduling ideas of how to keep up with that. I gave them

examples. I'll even go film it for them, but I'm not going to be on camera. I'm not going to post

graphics in there. I'm not going to do that kind of stuff because that's for them. I want them to see

that as part of their ministry. And as a, as a communication department, we have to kind of think about

our ministry is through people. And so sometimes that's not going to come out on the other side.

Like we kind of envision it. So we have to be okay with that. But in those situations, it's,

we have to remember that we're here to serve. Like we're not a service department only, but we are here

to serve. That's the mindset of a, of a, of a minister, of a pastor is that we have to understand

that we're here to help people move from one step to the next. And if our pastors are the face that

can do that, then we need to help that face get in front of their face. And if we can't do that,

then it's really because it's, we're selfish. It's about us. Ted Vaughn, that church conference

recently shared this great spectrum for communicators to understand. He said, when we, we go through

this and this is a tension to manage for us, this is not going to be, you know, we figured this out,

we set some policies and we don't have a problem with it anymore. Communicators are always having to

manage this tension because there's always stuff that's moving. And he gave us a spectrum, like,

which side are you on? Are you skewing towards anger and you want to control things and it makes you

angry being, you know, something like that? Oh man, I can't believe they started that group. How dare

they do that without our permission? And then you become like the, the, the branding cop, you know,

the, the excellence cop or whatever, and nobody likes you. And then you're not helping anybody.

You're just the guy they have to get around to get done what they feel like God is calling them to do.

And that's not a good position. And then you skew all the way to the other side of apathy

or where it's like, I can't get anything done. I give up, you know, whatever you want to do. And

it's just chaos. And yeah, start a group. I don't care. And it doesn't look like the rest of the

groups and you're not in it. Something crazy happens. And you're like, I don't know, you know,

and it's like, whatever you want to do, then you got branding issues all over the place. We can't go

that far either. So we're constantly managing this tension in the middle of like, Hey, we want to help you

do this. We want it. There's some things that are non-negotiable, but those are not too many things,

you know, nothing that really affects you doing ministry because we really want to empower you to

do ministry. And when I started putting it that way to our campuses, they suddenly got real excited

about social media where previously they were really adverse to it. They hated it. And then they

started to see it as like, Oh, I get to do this. This is my ministry. This is like, I kind of flavor

it how I want to. And it was like the campus pastors were saying, like, we feel like we don't,

you know, they don't teach our main, our lead pastor teaches a lot and he's on video. So we pipe it into

other campuses. So they speak three, four times a year. And, you know, some of them are good at it.

Some of them are not as good at it, but they all want to be in front of the people that they pastor

so that people can know who they are and they can make these connections because they're doing the

day-to-day work. Right. And so I'm like, Hey, here's an answer to that question. You can be in

front of your people every day. If you want to just pull out your phone, get in your group. Hey guys,

it's your pastor. Love you. Here's a devotional thought. Here's something going, you know, and make

it about what they're dealing with minister to them where they are and you can be in front of them. So

communication departments have to like, look at some of these issues and go, how can we help solve some of

the problems that our ministers are having? And that's when you become the hero. That's when you

become a major help. And people like to see you come into their office and go, cause you know,

they're going, you're going to go, I got an idea that I think can help you out. What do you think

about this? And they're going to be like, I'm glad to see you coming instead of, Oh man, I did

something wrong. What's he coming for? What's he coming in here for? You know, you don't want that.

Or you don't want a guy that's sitting over in the office going, you know, I have to make him do,

I needed a Facebook group and I haven't seen it yet, you know, whatever. So I think

to turn that corner, you know, you really, the communication departments just have to understand

that we are servants that have ministry in mind. There are things that we have to be assertive

about. Um, but if we have that relationship that they know we're for them, uh, for the rest of the

church knows we're for them, then those things we have to be assertive about are not really a problem.

Yeah. Well, I tell you what, that is that not like the exact same posture that the church should

have. Um, we, we are, we are servants, um, serving the world. Uh, but we have a posture of love and

respect knowing that we, the church are for them. Um, and, and, and it's amazing when we,

when we engage, if we engage, like you were saying in your example, if the creative, if the communications

department engages the church at that level with that service attitude, um, the response among the

church and I've seen it in, in my own communications departments that I've led and worked with, like

it's, it's phenomenal that response when they serve with that level of respect and, and coming back to

the us versus them mentality as we communicate publicly, you know, church, if we have that posture

of, um, of understanding them, understanding the people engaging, uh, with that level, letting people

know that we are for them, um, and the understanding that what Christ can do with that, a lot of the,

the people that are not interested in you will become interested because you care for them as an

individual, as opposed to a, um, analytical, but in seat, uh, to quote Seth. And I've, I've,

I've used that phrase a lot. I said, no worries, but that's awesome. Every time I hear on a podcast,

I'm like, but in seat, Hey, that that's great. Um, because it's, it's, we're, they're more than that.

Um, and the people, uh, people in the world today are looking for something. Um, stats tell us lifeway

2016 that what they're looking for, they don't want to find in a building. Um, they're not interested

in your church to the same level that you're probably not interested in going to a mosque.

You've already made spiritual decisions are comfortable where, where you are. Um, but people

are interested in talking to others about their faith. They are interested in talking to their

friends about faith. So, uh, the more that we can disciple and lead people, the more that we can

engage our Christ followers to get them to become digital disciples that are out there utilizing social

media to, um, to get public, to go out there and, and to utilize the mission field that that's a win.

Um, but that often doesn't happen in a brick and mortar building on a Sunday.

In fact, we did a communication survey a year ago. We just wanted to find,

like how our channels are hitting the people. Like where are we actually, where do they care?

You know, where are they looking? And so do you, where do you normally find out about events?

You know, that kind of thing. And one of the questions we ask is, um, how are you most likely

to invite someone? Is it phone call? Is it text message? Is it with a card that we give you to

hand out? Is it a social media post that you can share? And, and that, and, or word of mouth,

word of mouth was number one by far, but number two was a social media invite that they shared

and the rest were like nothing. It was crazy because our church is up is like, it's a younger,

you know, families and a lot of mobile friendly people. And, you know, our giving is 90, I think

almost 90% online. Um, you know, so we're, we're like in that phase of things. So I know that we're

kind of skewed to one side, but even still, that's, that's a staggering, that's a staggering,

uh, stat for us to go, wow, social media invite. They here's, and here's what to take away from

that. They count sharing your post as a church, as an invite to everyone on their list. That's huge,

but we don't, we want them to, we want them to call. We want them to text. We want them to give

them, we want to give them a card and they have to hand it out. They're not going to really do that.

They may not even make it to the car. You know, they want to, but you give them a social media

post that they care about. And here's what they're kind of posts that we're talking about. Let's just,

you know, we didn't really do this yet, but the, the them kind of posts that they'll actually share

questions, like what kind of stuff do you like on your burger? That's stupid, but that's what

friends talk about. Right. And so if your church is asking that, we're trying to be friends with you.

And so they're like, yeah, isn't this funny in my church? That's, you know, whatever. And they share

that, uh, polls, votes, you know, like what's, you know, it could be like, who's your favorite Bible

character to like, who's your favorite office character, you know, and it could be any of that.

And they'll share that kind of stuff. Tasks, like, uh, give them something like, Hey, tell us to tell

five people they matter today. Or I did a post recently, which was, um, a countdown post. I got

this idea from Brady Shearer and it was a one minute countdown. You can see it just ticking away.

And all it was, was a drone shot of our city. Uh, or actually it wasn't even our city. I got it

from story tape and it was just a city, a drone shot of a city. It was like, take 60 seconds to

pray for a neighbor. And it just counts down with some nice music. So behind the scenes shots of

what's going on at your church, people love to find out who you really are. That's super important.

Operational posts and devotionals are, are huge. They'll say, Oh, that's great. They want to be

represented. They feel like, Oh, that's what I think. That's what I believe. Yeah. Let's share

that. They'll share it with them. And they count that as an invite or a, um, a touch point with their

friends, scripture quotes, things that you, you know, they find interesting and they want to share

that counts as an invite for them. And things that are like for us are announcements, ministry promos,

ads, invites to the service even are about us getting our people to invite people, which they may share

that, uh, series promos. That's about us. It's what we're doing. And most people, unless it's a really

clever or controversial sounding series, they're probably not going to share that. They don't really care

because that changes so much. So it's not like, I mean, you're, you're, you're at the movie series

is cool, but you know, and you know, probably infringing on a lot of copyright laws, but it's

still, that's a cool series that people will want to show like a church is showing movies.

It's still though, not as popular as a video of somebody doing on his phone going, Hey, I love you

guys. We're starting now. I'd love to see you guys at my church. That works better. It just works

better. And I can't explain why it just feels more authentic. And those are the posts that are

really more about, let's just be real. Let's just be friends because that feels like you care about

them. But a big produced video or a nicely designed graphic is like a business. Yeah. You know,

it's professional. And so kind of more about us. Look how cool we are. You know, that's not a question

they have. They're like, we know you can do cool stuff. Cool. I don't care. I don't care about your

events. I don't care about your series. What are you gonna do for me? Yeah. And it's, it's ironic

that that actually plays well to the smaller and medium sized churches that don't have the huge

budgets that don't have the creative resources. You know, several times in just talking with churches,

I'll have a pastor tell me, Oh, I'm wanting to get the quality up before I do some, do a video

before I get into social media. And, and like my, my head explodes because honestly, the lesser quality

makes you more engaging and endearing. And it's going to get people to, to buy into you over

something that's overproduced and, uh, and, and over edited and overs, uh, sensationalized.

And let me just quote, let me just quote a foul mouth genius, Gary Vaynerchuk and say version

version one is better than version none. Oh, that's yeah. Do it. Oh man. I I'm amazed at how

much, how many connections, relationships, and ministry opportunities we're willing to let just

go by and do nothing because we didn't want, we couldn't do it a hundred percent perfect

or because we couldn't do it excellently. They don't care about that. Just do something. Oh,

that blows my mind too. That's a soapbox for me right now. That's crazy. Drives me crazy. I'm like,

you're not here to make great stuff. You're here to, to, to reach people with the gospel

like that. If you can make great stuff and good, awesome. But if you can't, that does not disqualify

you from, disqualify you from ministry, you're called to do that still and doing nothing because

you can't do it. Great. It's disobedient, man. I'm sorry. It's disobedient to, to our, our mandate

as a Christian. It really, I feel very strong. Sorry. You get letters about that. Uh, well,

we'll get emails about it. You won't get letters. Nobody knows who that is. Yeah. So it's Seth

muse at Instagram S E T H M U S E. Not, not to me. I don't want it. I'll take it. It's fine.

Um, but no, it's, it's, it's, you know, once again, it's trusting God to do something with it,

offering whatever the resources you have, whatever that offering is, giving it to him and allowing him

to use it for his kingdom and glory. And I don't want to over spiritualize something like

producing a video, but, um, no work goes unrewarded or unfulfilled. And so by doing that,

get it out there and let God, let the Holy spirit do something with it. It's the widow's might.

It's the widow's might story. It's social media is, is you're the widow dropping little two copper

coins in the box and giving everything you got. You know, it's like, what do you got? If you don't

have a 4k camera, so what you have an iPhone, you have a Samsung, whatever, you've got a decent phone

and a video device that can be a studio in a box, do something, you know, because, because that's

where your people are. It's like, Jesus didn't sit around and go, well, I'm going to wait until they

build like microphone systems to show up on the earth. You know, he didn't wait for like social

media to be a thing. Cause he could have reached so many more people. Had he come in this time with

social media. He could have, but he chose to come in the time he did because, and then, and dealt with

that. And it's like, he did the best with what he had. He just went, he went for it. Like in, in people

wrote about it, you know, it was like, that's do what you can do right now. And he can do anything.

No, but still. Any thoughts as we're landing the plane? No, I mean, just realize if you're in the

communication space, you're working with social media, a lot of us are part-time, you know, we're

volunteer. There's a lot of people in churches that, you know, the structure isn't necessarily

clear or healthy or whatever, you know, you may hear all this go, yeah, I'm with you. I get it. I can't

do jack about it. Take the little steps, you know, take the lead where you can and, you know, always

try to explain. And, and, and it's kind of like the old, the scripture, you're like never tire of doing

what's good. It's like never tire of trying to bring people along with you. Like never tire of like

trying to, to show how this can be an enhancement to what the church does in your area. And it is a

tireless, thankless task a lot of times, but you just celebrate those little wins that you get and

find a community of people that get it, that will say, good job. That was awesome. Because without

that, I'd be dead. I mean, my, my whole, I mean, I have a good setup here. I really do. But, but it's

not devoid of things like this, where I disagree with leadership on how we should view these types of

things or whatever. And we have those conversations and I don't win them. You know, there's some I don't

win. That's fine. You know, cause I'm here to serve. So I do what I can with this. And there's

things that I hold that I'm like, huh, I think I'm wrong about that. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I need to

expand my thought on social media or maybe I'm, cause there was a time where I was like, I'm not

promoting anything. And it was, it was like to a point I had a conversation with my boss at the time

and he was like, I think you're missing some stuff. And I was like, yeah, cause you do need those us

posts. I hope we understand that. Like you can't not post that stuff, you know, but you can find a way

to post it and talk about it. That's not just a big ask all the time. You know, you can find a way

to talk about it. Like instead of saying, come to our student party thing that we're having this

Wednesday, get some students to talk about how much they love that thing. And then just put the details

in the, in the caption or a link in the caption. So you're still focused on what they would care

about, but you're actually being getting them to talk about it. You're actually advertising too.

You know, that's what I was doing my audit. Some of them were like, it was a them and us post at the

same time, you know, and if you're creative enough or you think about it hard enough, you can figure

out ways to do the us posts in a them way. And I think that is a, and I think that's the magic,

right. That's the magic that you can, if you can find that way to do it, it takes more time,

it takes more effort. It's a little harder. You have to think a little further ahead,

but I mean, come on though, that's our job. So, you know, we can do that. So that's what I would,

that's my parting shot is that you need to, we can't think in that dichotomy. I think it's a false

dichotomy, but it is one that we live in, but we have to see how can we bridge that gap? Because let me

tell you, that's what pastors get excited about. You're helping me put butts in seats and we're

reaching people online. That's the, that's the goal is to do these together and find a way to really

help them do ministry even more and more while infusing the online world to it and showing that

there's value there. Awesome. Well said. It's a mixture, right? You get the, the us content,

but presented in a, in a them way so they can process it. That was excellent. Well, hey, Seth,

where, where can people find you online? You can connect with me at SethMuse.com. And from there,

you can find my Facebook group and follow me on Instagram. And, you know, I'd love you to subscribe

to my podcast, The Seminary of Hard Knocks. We talk about church communications. It's a content

marketing. It's kind of, I like to say it's a, it's a common ground marketing kind of a podcast. So

I'd love to, for you to subscribe and give that a listen. Awesome. Well, hey, Seth, thanks for,

for jumping into our world here and appreciate you coming on. Listening audience, it's been a great

podcast again, and we'll hear you next time here at the Church Digital Podcast. Y'all have a good day.