EP027: CITN & the Community and Camaraderie of Ministry

the church digital podcast is, it's going to be a little different than what you're used to. We're

not bringing in one guy to have a conversation with. We're not bringing in two. We're actually

bringing in three different people to have a conversation. And on top of that, they're IT

guys. Like, I don't know if you spend much time hanging out with IT guys, but I'll just tell you

up front, they're a little weird. You get jokes like this. Why is beef stew a horrible password?

Why is beef stew a horrible password? Because it's not strong enough. Yeah. Weird. How does a

computer get drunk? Don't think about that one. It takes screenshots, a computer screenshots. You

start to see how bad it is. Why do we not call an iPhone charger Apple juice? Okay. Now, I actually

think that's legitimate, but these are IT guy humor jokes. And if you hang around IT guys long enough,

you start to discover, at least I do in my life, they're a little weird. Okay. They're really,

really weird. So we got three IT guys coming into this conversation today at the church digital.

Jason Powell, who has a very awesome title that he will share with you from Granger church. Another

IT guy coming in, Matt Pugh from McLean Bible church, a huge church over on the East coast. And then

also Jason Lee, who's with Northwoods up in center. And these guys have been doing ministry for a long

time. These guys have been doing church IT and church technology for a long time. Bringing these

guys together, I got to tell you, I wanted to have a conversation about camaraderie and community.

But honestly, the thing that I learned the most about was relationships and the value and the necessity

of relationships. So while you might not be the IT guy, and you may, like me, think that IT guys are a

little weird because they are. There's a lot that you can learn from three IT guys talking about

camaraderie and community in context of ministry. Hey everybody, here you go. Hey, Jason Powell,

because we got a couple of Jasons in the conversation here. Man, just take a minute. Tell me a little bit

about yourself and kind of how you got wrapped up in this church thing. Sure. My name is Jason Powell.

I'm the tech ops director at Granger community church. This is my 16th year at this position.

Prior to that, I was the IT director for a large school system in Northern Indiana. And prior to that,

I was a high school accelerated and advanced placement teacher. So quite an interesting journey to get into

the church world. The short story is my best friend in college became the youth pastor at Granger

community church. And out of the blue one day called me up and said, Hey, we've got an opening for an IT

guy and I think you should be it. And, uh, and the next thing I know we're praying and God is doing amazing God

things. And we're moving from Wisconsin to Indiana and you know, 16 years later, like it's still kind of

amazing to go. Yeah, this, this is where we're at. And you know, yeah, just really, really fun.

And, and then we got Matt, uh, jump, jumping on as well. Now, Matt, you've not been 16 years,

right? Is Jason the veteran here? Oh, he's definitely, he's definitely got us, uh, probably outnumbered by

several, several years. Um, but you know, I've been, I've been doing, doing IT in the church world for

probably coming on 10 years now, uh, in just different capacities, uh, from just managing,

uh, CHMS for our church here to working at fellowship one for four and a half years to coming

back as the IT director here at McLean Bible church, um, just outside Washington, DC.

What's the greatest story you can share quickly outside of working at, at McLean? Uh, so F1

fellowship one, give me something there. Uh, greatest story. Oh, good grief. Um, there, there's,

there's lots of, uh, of stories of that. I wouldn't say are necessarily IT related or, or job

related of, um, being on site with different churches. Uh, uh, a friend of a coworker of mine

and I were at doing a, uh, an implementation at a church, uh, in Atlanta. And we happened

to drive down to where they were filming the walking dead. And we were, uh, walking around

the town and you could see the wall was like, was, uh, the wall was up. And so they were

filming that day and you can see the lights on the other side of the wall and everything.

But since we're completely out of town people, no one knows who we are. So we walk into this

restaurant and you could tell everybody in the room was kind of staring at us, wondering

if we were actors, uh, uh, zombies. We're just out of, uh, out of makeup or something. And

because we're both bald headed guys tall, like it was, uh, it was pretty funny because we got

a lot of strange looks while we were in there just trying to get some dinner. So that's probably

one of the funniest, uh, funniest experiences, uh, that I've had just, you know, traveled around

doing church consulting. That's, that's awesome. I was, I was hoping to hear you say you were

going to be like an episode four of season six or something like that, but, but no such

luck. There were other random zombie looking people, but not, not you, you, you didn't make

that cut. No, definitely. Yeah. Love to talk to your casting agent for that. And then thirdly,

um, we've got Jason, uh, Lee on and so Jason, you know, no zombie stories, I'm sure for you,

but, uh, give us a little bit of your background. Yeah. So, um, I'm, uh, the online campus pastor

and IT director at Northwoods church in Peoria, Illinois. Uh, been here just over 13 years, but,

uh, doing church IT since 02. So I might've squeaked in there just a little bit longer than, uh,

pal or Matt, but, uh, um, my story is a little unique in that, uh, early on in our time as church

IT network, I was one of the few guys who wore the hat as a pastoral role in addition to be a

technologist. And so, uh, um, you know, from the very beginning of my time in ministry, I knew that

I had been called to do ministry, but I knew I did not want to do, um, let's say student ministry

or, uh, things like that where all the, you know, all of my colleagues went, uh, to do, uh,

use ministry internships out of, out of college. And then I, you know, that was not my thing.

And so, um, just knew that God had kind of gifted me a little more in the sense of a mind to use

technology and to help the church and have a vision and a passion for, you know, the church using tech

to achieve the vision and the goals of what our leadership wanted to achieve. And, uh, really that's

just, um, uh, been a common, common camaraderie among the three of us. And, uh, especially those

that are, are in the church IT network. It's just a kind of a, a common place where people have found

likeness, uh, like-mindedness, um, uh, just kind of, um, you know, a place where it feels like home

where you're understood. Um, but, you know, I, I, I love to see the church, uh, harnessing technology

to solve problems. Uh, and that's kind of been, you know, what has kept me going over the years,

uh, of working in the church and just the, um, just the journey that we're on, um, you know,

and really have been part of, um, this community, the church IT network since about 06, uh, and just

seeing it grow from just, uh, you know, a small handful of people to now hundreds of people who are,

um, in our, in our sphere of influence that are contributing and adding their thoughts and

perspective to the community. It's just, uh, it's been a cool journey. Part of what I wanted to talk

about it and Jason kind of eloquently set it up right there. It's just this idea of, of camaraderie,

um, in that, um, I'll, I'll be honest, like I'm sitting in the room here and virtual room here and,

and Matt, you were 10 years, right? Um, Jason, uh, Powell was 16. Jason Lee, you were, I don't

remember if you said, but you're somewhere around 10 where, where you are at your church, right?

I've been here 13. Yeah. 13. Yeah. So, so 10, 10's the youngest. I haven't had a ministry job longer

than four years in my life. Like, and I just, I openly confess that. Okay. Um, and, and at this

point I've actually stepped outside of, of a full-time ministry job, staff, church staff job. Uh, I am

actually consulting very deeply with several churches, um, and helping at a high level, but

for me, and this is, maybe this is a Jeff Reed issue. Uh, I've always, when I've been in,

in church staffs, I've always been the weird guy, not like the, the techie guy that just wants to talk

about Marvel cinematic universe all day. Although Spider-Man leaving the MCU is catastrophic. And

I've already talked about that in other podcasts. I don't need to go there now, but it's, it's been

the, I think different than everybody else in the entire church. Um, I've oftentimes I've had

conversations with, with, um, there was a spiritual development pastor at a church that I worked at

and, and, and the pastor, he asked me, so it's like, do you consider yourself a pastor?

And I said, I don't know, how do you define a pastor? And he said, well, I define the pastor

as the biblical, you know, and started reading it to me. And I was like, yeah, I consider myself a

pastor if, if that's the thing. And then, then he's like, well, why do you do so much with the tech?

And I was like, because I can be pastoral and techie at the same time, can't I? But that's,

that's this, this weird balance where a lot of times in church, you, you've got the, this,

the pastors and the, and the, and the, the techie people that, that aren't considered pastors in

that, in that part. I've spent years alone. I've spent years frustrated. I feel like this is

confession hour. I'm going to start bawling. I got Kleenexes over here. Um, but I've just,

there have been years that I felt alone. Yeah. Thank you. Jason's got some for me. Um,

where I've spent years alone. I've said this four times now,

because there weren't people like me, uh, the church that I was at, didn't have a lot of budget

for conferences. I just, I didn't know how to connect with people who were thinking like me.

And there were questions that I needed answered that I didn't have the answers to.

And just to be completely honest, I didn't know who to talk to, to get those answers.

And then it was, was funny. Like, this is just pure testimony for me. A couple of years ago,

I went to a church conference, um, a church tech conference and my brain exploded because I was

surrounded by people who thought the same things I was thinking, who struggled with the same questions

that I was struggling with and, and who were wanting to have conversations with it. And all of a sudden

I found myself surrounded with this idea of, Hey, there's camaraderie. There, there are people

like this out there. I'm not alone and not being alone really validated who I, who I was, at least

to me, it gave me confidence to say, Hey, I don't have the answer to this question, but neither do 25

other churches. And at least 24 of them are trying to come up with answers. So, so we should, you know,

as, as well. And that's why I love, and all you guys with, with the CITN, I, and what I really

want to park on is what, what does camaraderie look like? And what are some stories either from

yourself or others? Because as, as a, as churches out there and as listeners are out there, yeah,

there are podcasts, there are ways to, that we can resource in different ways, but even through

conferences and through the network that you're doing, you're, you're helping churches come up with

answers to questions and you're encouraging these people that, that need encouragement. So, you know,

from a practical standpoint, CITN, what, what are you guys actually doing to help solve these problems?

Well, I think one of the things that our community has brought to each other is this is like you've

talked about this, that longevity and survivability. There's only for so long that you can go into a

ministry and go off of your experience and go off of what you've done in the past. And that starts to

run out a few years into it. And I think the big piece of what we do as a community is people are

coming in our Slack channel or in our forum and saying, Hey, this came back from this meeting. I've

been tasked with this. I'm supposed to solve this problem and I need to do it in the next 24 hours.

And then suddenly there's a community of people who are offering solutions and probably, you know, all sorts

of solutions to the problems that some of them are duct tape and bailing wire type solutions. But it's the

collaboration of, like you said, we're like-minded and like thinking people who many live, eat and breathe

technology, but also have a passion for the church moving forward. And so trying to solve those problems

using technology. And I think that that's one of the things for me, I don't think I could have

been in the role that I've been in for the last, you know, 10, 13 years without the community around

me to just say, Oh my gosh, I have no idea how to go about solving that problem. Or I can't believe

somebody just asked me to come back with this solution in that short of a time period. And yet the

community rallies around one another and says, Hey, I've solved that problem before this way. Or have you

thought of, you know, doing it differently, or it is that kind of camaraderie and partnership. And,

you know, honestly, the leadership team of Church IT Network has become some of my closest compadres

in ministry. And, you know, we bounce things off of each other in a smaller segment of our community

of just, how would you solve this problem? Or, you know, man, can you believe this person said this?

Or, you know, whatever it might be. And there's honest conversations of, yes, I can believe they said

that because they were right and you're wrong. Or no, I can't believe they said that because that's

totally crazy, right? There's that honest give and take. And I think, you know, it's no different than

the church being the church to one another. I mean, in any aspect of what we do, it's all about we want

people in community, right? And so this is community for technologists in the church.

And Jeff, I think you hit it on the head. Kind of the thing that's been in my mind and my heart

that since kind of getting into Church IT, well, initially, like, I didn't know anybody else in

Church IT. So I felt like I was all alone. I was the, you know, only hire here. And, you know,

it felt like, you know, a prompting from God kept saying, you know, what, what might God do

if a bunch of like-minded individuals got together and talked, you know, just about what's going on,

you know, what questions do you have? What, what failures have you experienced so that I don't run

into them again? And that's really what started the Church IT Network was that that's the idea.

If we could get a bunch of like-minded individuals in the same room, man, what would God do with that?

You know, a lot of it is just sharing successes and failures, you know, hey, we're getting ready to do

a project on voice integration, you know, well, good grief, don't do it this way, because we tried this,

and we, you know, spent so much time and energy and resources, and it was a complete fail,

or even just connecting into partners of the Church IT Network that provide, you know, not only

hardware and software services, but just their expertise. So it's really cool that the Church IT Network is

we have staff and volunteers, and we've got some amazing partners that have come alongside us and

understand like the mission, vision, and values of the Church IT Network, and they help foster that and

promote it. So, well, you know, let's, you know, thank you for that, but let's, let's make it a little

practical here. So like, what, I'm a, I'm an IT guy, I'm a new Church Online guy, I'm a social media person,

I deal with technology all day long, maybe I'm, I'm starting to come into some production AV stuff,

and it's, or it's a mixed role. How can Church IT Network, how can you guys help me?

Um, oh, I think, I think it's, it comes down to just the, the, the extent of the resources that of,

of the individuals that are involved, uh, and the, the sharing of those little golden nuggets of

information. Uh, a lot of times, I don't know how many times I've been in a room where someone in the

room is just casually talking about something and says like that one little thing that they just assumed

everybody else knew. And everybody else in the room goes, wait, wait, what did you just say? Like,

rewind that. Let's, what? And, and it's like this, like, it just reveals so much to the people that

are in, that are just in communication and just in, in, in the room together to, that really furthers

their church. Cause now they've learned this one little thing that was insanely valuable that they

didn't even know they, that they needed to know. And it's, it's, it's, it's those, those conversations

and those interactions that really, um, that really drive this community. Uh, it's the things

that you have no idea that are going to happen are the things that create the biggest impact.

churches, small churches, who, who really gets involved with you guys? Everyone. I mean, it's,

it's a, it's a, it's wide array of, uh, different size churches from the, the one, the one guy IT shop

to the churches that have IT departments of five, six, seven, eight, 10 people. Um, yeah, I mean,

everyone, we, I mean, we even got some nonprofits that, uh, that send people every once in a while.

Um, and then we've, I mean, we got, you know, the partners as well. There's a lot of partner

involvement, not just from a standpoint of, Hey, let me be, um, kind of a sponsor of your national

or regional events, but let me just be a part of this community because they learn just as much

information as they are able to share into the network. So, um, it's, it's beneficial to kind of

everyone that's involved. I think that's one of the things for our community is that it's an

expectation that everybody's a contributor and everybody's a learner. Somebody has something to

give that somebody can learn from. And they, there's always people that you can learn from.

And we always tell people, if you come to our conference or our one day regional events,

or you're part of the community and you're not getting your questions answered, well, shame on you.

Um, but the same size side of it is, is when you, when you participate, you're teaching and offering

something at the same way. We laugh that oftentimes, you know, some of the larger, uh, mega churches

will have a solution or have a problem. And if some of the churches that are much smaller, that will

have these amazing solutions that are so incredibly cost-effective because that's out of necessity,

they've had to figure out how to solve some of these problems. And so we laugh at some of these,

what appear to be bailing wire and duct tape type solutions, but they're genius and they cost

nothing. And then everyone in the community steals the idea because it, you know, it's virtually free

versus, you know, uh, someone might be looking at a multi-thousand dollar type solution. And then,

you know, somebody hops up and said, well, have you ever thought of this? Have you seen such and such a

website? Have you, and it's like, Oh, I didn't even know that free thing existed. Um, and so that's where I think

it doesn't matter the size of your church or the years of experience that you've had in the church

space. You've got something to offer as somebody who, um, is a technologist to our community. And

that's what's so exciting is some of the solutions that come up. It's like, I would have never thought

of that on my own. And may I, you know, and the expectation is I'm, I'm to steal it, make it better

and then bring it back. Uh, you know, and that is just something we communicate all the time is,

and that's what I love about what, you know, how Jason has started this as a collaboration of

community of collaboration in that, you know, your, your responsibility is to take this idea,

take it home, make it 10 times better, and then bring it back and let someone else then learn from

it and glean from it. And that's just the expectation of thou shalt steal ideas, only ideas. Uh, but you

know, within our community. Yeah, absolutely. And so quick fun story at the very first event,

we had churches ranging from attendance of 200 up to over 20,000. Um, and it was amazing

that, uh, Terry Chapman, who was the IT director at fellowship Bible, you know, Ed Young's church,

like one of the smaller churches, um, he mentioned something about script logic and printing and they

just couldn't figure it out. And one of the smaller churches had a solution for him and it blew his

mind because I distinctly remember him saying, uh, you know, he, you know, basically I came here not

expecting much and I'm going to go home with a solution that I don't know that we would have ever

figured out. And so it was just affirmation that man, everybody's a learner and everybody can

present. And, you know, so peer learning community inspiration have been like the, the three pillars that

we've landed on and, uh, built on over the years. And it's, it's just part of who we are. So it doesn't

matter if, you know, your new spring, new spring brings a bunch of guys to the conference and gals,

or if you're a one man IT shop, or maybe you're just a volunteer in your church and, uh, you've got

a way to, you know, get to Kansas city this fall, man, we, we would love to have you. And I guarantee

no matter where you're at on the learning spectrum, uh, there is something for you, not only, um,

locationally, but also spiritually. And we're going to feed you a whole bunch of food and you're going

to, you're going to, your belly is going to be full. So we'll fill your heart, soul, and mind.

So yeah, great setup on, on, on the conference, heart, soul, and mind. That's, those are three

high standards, man. Um, belly would be, you know, maybe the asterisk for four, but well done.

So what areas does, cause IIT and church tech, like those are very broad, uh, scoping areas.

What do you guys look into a track?

If you grew up playing the game, Oregon trail, then you should come.

All right. So that's an inside joke. Even I don't get, so I'm, I'm a little worried.

You have to come to the conference to understand.

Well, we got everything. We've got leadership, uh, workshops. We've got online ministry workshops.

We've got, you know, uh, some SQL workshops. So if you're kind of a, uh, more of a developer

type person, um, obviously we've got, you know, lots of different I.T. type tracks for say like

office 365 or Hey, what's new in the world of wifi. Um, we put panels together with, um, not only

partner experts, but church experts. So, you know, we'll have a panel with somebody that's on staff

at a church and maybe a partner and they can present together on a particular solution or whatever.

Um, last year, uh, new spring did a great couple of workshops on how they're, you know, utilizing

Meraki, um, from, you know, the highest level of networking down to, you know, their, their

switches and, you know, they've gone all Google. And so it's just a place for, you know, there's

about something for everyone. Um, we've even got the church management solution providers

there. And so, you know, maybe you're, you know, you wear multiple hats, you know, I have

to keep track of the database. I've got to make sure that wifi works. I've got to figure out

what the heck is Dante and how does that interact with, you know, the, the world of it and everything's

got an IP address for the, you know, the audio video team. And maybe I'm also trying to figure

out how do I lead up to my boss and, and I'm in charge of the online church and I got to

figure out how to stream and help people, uh, you know, find Jesus through an online medium.

Yeah, that's a lot. The tech help, the camaraderie, the, Hey, I need help finding the solution.

That's, that's one thing. And all that's, that's awesome. The thing that you just told me that

I'm like, every person who works in tech and church in America needs is that phrase of leading

up is, uh, you know, how to, so I have this vision. This will help the church. This will

help reach people. I have to sell it to like leadership who has no idea any of the language

or the acronyms or the, the talk that I'm saying. Um, you know, the lead pastor still has

an AOL email address like that, that, that, that type of thing. So, Hey, you know what? Cause,

cause I'm, I'm serious. Like the listening audience, you know, this listening audience is

there. Um, drop, drop me a nugget. Give me, give me one thing. Help, help me here. My lead pastor

still has an AOL email address and I need to convince to him that I need some sort of, of,

of a tech upgrade thing. What's how do I get started on that road?

You buy a ticket to church it network conference for 85 bucks and you have a full belly and then

everybody there will brainstorm ideas on how to solve that problem.

Come on, not one freebie. You're good. You're going to hold out for the conference.

That's, that's fine. They're, they're all shaking their head. No, it's all relationship, man. It's,

you know, that's the thing about what we do is it's so easy to think that technology solves every

problem. And it's all about the relationships with your colleagues, with your senior leadership.

It's investing in them relationally in order to have the conversation of bro. Let me just tell

you, honestly, having an AOL address, it's not giving you any credibility. It's not helping you out.

Uh, what can we do to give you something that has some, some respectability, you know, and an AOL

email address. Um, maybe in 1980, that was cool, but maybe not now. And I said, but you'll, we only

can have that conversation when you've invested in that relationship. And so it's all about building

those relationships so that you can have those conversations. Just this last week had a conversation

with our senior leadership and just talking about where we're going with online ministry and around

the table. There were very differing perspectives that we didn't agree to disagree, but we all heard

each other out and appreciated what each person brought to the table. And that only happens

because of the relationship and the investment that you have in those people that are around

that table that are outside of the four walls of their offices. It's not because I came and fixed

your computer. You're not going to believe me when I say this is a trend or this is something

that's going on or something that, and maybe we're missing. Um, you can only have those type

of conversations because of the investment relationally. Uh, and I think that, you know,

I'm better at that because I've seen my colleagues in the community do that.

And I'm, uh, you know, so it's really the give and take of how we as a community have learned.

It's not a matter of sitting down and saying, just because I have the title of IT director,

and I've been doing this for 13 years that you have to listen to me. That's not it at all.

It's how have I invested in our leadership and built, uh, um, a legacy is probably the wrong

word, but how have I invested in over time and built credibility among what we do? I think that's

where we have to rely on that is that you can't even start to have those conversations about don't

do it that way until you've invested and have the credibility and the relationship that supports it

in order to be able to speak into it and say, okay, let's have an honest, transparent conversation.

Well, and another thing that's been super huge for me is I bring my boss. My boss is the, uh, CFO,

if you will, the finance director. And so it's been really helpful for him to come to the conferences

for the past three years, I believe one because it, you know, relationally we get to spend time, uh, you know,

just, you know, kind of doing life after the conference, you know, hanging out, um, just, just that

personal time to hang out with each other. Um, and as he's at the conference, you know, he's going to various

workshops and every year he comes back with kind of some eyes wide open. He's like, wow,

you know, I was just in a workshop on, you know, uh, virtual online ministry and, uh, you know,

my mind was blown. I don't even, you know, understand how to wrap my brain around it. And it gives us

kind of some, uh, both of us handles to be able to talk about stuff and, or, you know, he sat in on a

budgeting workshop for it and he's like, you know, it just helps open his mind to what we, uh, you know,

direct reports are doing behind the scenes. And it's just really helpful. You know, you got the,

the awesome relationship building aspects of it. Cause we do have a lot of fun at the conference

as well, but you know, you also get them able to maybe learn some stuff about your environment that

they never thought about before. So, I mean, really relationships swings two ways. Cause, cause at

this point you're, you're connecting with other churches, but there's an, also another opportunity

to bring in leadership to have them experience maybe some of the same things you are, but then

use that as common language to build towards something. So, uh, your CFO experienced something

in, in church online and online ministry. And so you want to have a common language to talk about,

okay, the conference said this, what would it take to do that? Here's maybe this works better,

but at least now you're in the, in the same, like the same ballpark. You're, you're, you're having

the same conversation. You're on the same road. You know, I've, I've just testimony and I've,

I've told this story before on the podcast. I've, I've been in, in, in sessions with, uh, with

church staff where basically I'm at the end of the dock and ready to jump into the water and there's

not a soul within 500 yards of me. Um, you know, and, and while I'm, you know, turning around and

asking leadership for advanced high level decisions, uh, because I've been doing the church online for a

long time, the leadership was at much more of a elementary basic level because I'd been running

completely on my own and hadn't brought leadership with me through, through the process. So the more

that leadership can experience that, obviously the better it'll, it'll be for you guys. So a lot of

our listeners are our church online. And so, cause we, we obviously, we do focus a lot on church online

and online ministry and that, that sort of thing. Uh, transparently, I I've been working with the,

uh, with, uh, with you guys and, and, uh, developing some of the online tracks and some things like

that. And I know Jason, you're, you're involved in that, but what are some things, uh, that we can

expect in the church online realm specifically? Like what, what does that look like at the conference?

Well, I think, you know, the, the, the cool thing of how our conference have, has evolved is that,

you know, it used to be conversations about buying storage and network switches. And that was the

extent of it. You know, I mean, everybody talked about over and over again, you know, what SAN you're

going to buy, what your, what network infrastructure you're going to have. And it's interesting how the

conversations have changed from that to a much different conversation. And that's where we felt

like the online ministry really dovetailed into what we're doing from a core IT perspective, you know,

because, um, not only does core IT, you know, but also, uh, encompassing the online ministry aspect

of it. It's also, uh, the church management data side of it. And how do we, um, keep tabs on people

and care for them and reach out to them without good systems and processes. So online ministry dovetails

in with that as well. And, and even now just the convergence of IT core IT and, uh, AVL, everything,

it seems in our, um, production venues now wants to plug in to at least one, if not two networks at

the same time. And so how do we build those relationships across those teams? So when we have

those conversations, we are talking with common language. And I think that's the big piece. I mean,

we even have our, our communications team is bringing, uh, two people this year and there's

really no, um, vertical or track within our conference for that, but because of their heavy

involvement in what we do, uh, online, it's giving them perspective in language as well to how do we,

um, as an online team interact with our communications team, how does our online team interact with our

AVL team? How does our online team interact with our core IT or our database team? And it really is

that, you know, there are a few places I think you can go to have those types of conversations where

there's the overlap of technology, but also then the camaraderie and the synergy that of, of moving

that forward. You know, I'm, I'm super excited about some of the workshops that we're planning that are

just kind of stretching the envelope and helping people to think about, you know, 2010, 2013 online

ministry was basically stream your services, but is that what digital ministry or online ministry is

in 2019, uh, probably very different. And so how are churches evolving through that? How might someone,

um, you know, take their church through that transition? Um, how do you help your leadership

process? What's different? Um, the trends that we're seeing, you know, so I think there's a lot

of it that, uh, you know, the questions that we're all asking and it's just to be able to get into the

room and, and, and here you're not alone, uh, and then go back with a plan of, here's some things

that I think I'm going to steal from somebody else or questions. I'm going to go home and ask and

hopefully get some answers on. That's awesome. I'll tell you one of the breakouts, uh, that I'm

writing and this is new, new content to me. I've, I've never done it, but it's, it's a breakout that's

designed out of conversations with, with all of you, the listeners and people online of church

online is perceived to, uh, wrestle, to challenge, to take away from the physical church. We're seeing

physical attendance at the physical campuses drop virtual attendance, digital attendance online

is, is skyrocketing. So therefore, you know, let's shut down the online church. So people will go back

to physical. Um, and there's, it's 2019 may or may not actually work that way, but let's dive into,

okay, how can we set up church online and develop a strategy for it so that it complements what's

happening at the physical church instead of threatening it. A lot of times the, the perceived

weaknesses of church online isn't the, isn't a weakness. It's actually a strength. We just may

need to look at it from a different perspective. And so the, the, the goal, uh, for a lot of it's,

it's called fidgetal. It's a merging of physical and digital into, into that's a single environment.

And so how church online can do that so that church online can be a strength for the physical

campuses so that digital can be a strength for the physical campuses instead of something that's

taboo and an obstacle that that's ignored. Uh, I can tell you that's, that's one thing that I'm

going to be digging into one of the breakouts that I'm teaching and I'm looking forward to

meeting and, and, and collaborating and sharing and, and, and all that with, with everybody at the

conference. So when is the, I mean, we've been talking about it. I don't know that we slapped

dates on it. So when's the conference, how do I sign up? What's the cost? Give, give, give me the,

the bullets on that. Well, the conference will be October, uh, 20th through the 23rd. 20th is a

kind of a meet and greet. 21st is when the conference technically starts in the morning.

Uh, it's going to be about, uh, 85 bucks to register. And that provides for you all of your meals while

the conference is going on swag, fun, entertainment, uh, inside jokes. Um, just, just a really, really

good time to connect with, um, with your peers and people that are struggling with the same things

you're struggling with. Uh, it's going to be in Kansas city at church. I always get it wrong church

of the resurrection. Uh, and, um, yeah, uh, I don't know if you need any more information. It's

pretty simple. Go to church it network.com and you can find out more information to get registered.

Awesome. So check out the website. We'll link it in the show notes as well as generic information,

general information about the conference and, uh, and, and we'll go from there. Well, Hey,

this has been great. Thanks for the time. Um, more information on, on church it network,

check out the show notes and, uh, we'll hopefully see all out there. It's, it's going to be a great

experience on the online ministry church online side, but also just general, um, it, uh, network

database programming. There's leadership development, uh, working with it. Like there was just so much

in that thread, Jason Powell. I don't know how y'all keep it straight, but well done. Well done

doing it. So, um, gentlemen, any, any last thoughts while we're landing the plane? You'll also, if you

come see the world's largest stained glass window, is that a legit thing? It is a legit thing. It is

legit. The largest stained glass window in the world. It's that's a, that's an ironic thing to say for a

church technology conference. Come see the world's largest stained glass. I mean that that's really

interesting. Really cool. I knew it was big. I just didn't know it was, was like, like legit

that book. So well done now. Like I'm not going to put that in the show notes. Cause you don't want

to see there's a web, there's whole website dedicated to this, but I'm not going to, you're

going to have to come to the conference to see it. We're not, we're not going to, we're not going

to let that cat out of the bag. So, Hey, listen, it's been a great, great podcast. Uh, Matt,

thank you for joining us. Jason, Jason squared, Jason Powell, Jason Lee. Thanks for joining us

today. My name is Jeff with the church digital. It's been an awesome podcast and, uh, we'll look

forward to seeing you next time. Thanks for joining. Bye.