EP008: Ben Stapley & Communicating via Church Online

Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff Reed, and

it is great to be here with y'all today. Once again, with the Church Digital, we focus a

lot on church online, talking about what that ministry looks like and how it can be utilized

in the church today. And I'm joined today by a guest here, and this is a man that I've

grown to love in a very short amount of time. This is Ben Stapley, currently Weekend Experience

Director, I believe is the title, at Christ Fellowship, and he's got a long track record

of online and communication, formerly with Liquid Church, and as I'm sure as well as a number

of other churches. I just want to say this up front, even before I let you talk, Ben, because

this is awesome. I respected you before I even met you. And like Ben was, I don't know if

you follow Ben online at Ben Stapley, but I don't know many people around in the Christian

industry, and I'm sorry to call it that, but the Christian industry, that utilize technology

as well as he does to create a platform and to create resources that are out there. And

so like it was one of those things, you know, even like four or five years ago, I was like,

man, this Ben Stapley guy is awesome. I love this. And I was sharing his resources out with

pastors and with church staff and people that I was working with. And it's awesome now to see

him down here at Christ Fellowship at a church that I'm very active with and involved with

doing his thing and helping the church here. So Ben, that's the best intro I know how to give you.

I will give you the $20 after this conversation. Thank you. That was wonderful. That was wonderful.

Awesome. I will gladly take that. Apple Pay is a great option. Cash App works too. So hey, Ben,

man, just tell us a little bit, like I've totally just sucked up, but what can you do? What do you do

at Christ Fellowship and what does your day-to-day look like? Yeah. So let me suck up a little bit

back. First of all, I've been loving the podcast. They're incredible. Learning from this platform that

you have right here. And I love you spearheading this because I think this is a need and will only

grow in its neediness for the church world as we continue in advance. So I love the fact that you've

launched this platform and these conversations for people to engage with and to learn with.

And I also, I also love learning from you because you, I like to call myself cutting edge, but you're

bleeding edge. And so like, I look to you and see what you've done and the mistakes you maybe have

made or lessons that you learned and say, I'm going to apply that from Jeffrey. So I think you're a

vanguard there. And I appreciate that heart of yours. In relationship to what I'm doing here at

Christ Fellowship, the weekend experience director kind of encompasses a couple different things.

Basically, we're looking to craft services so compelling every week that people invite someone

to join them the following week. Oftentimes the bar for most churches is, hey, we just, if people come

back, we're happy. For me, the bar is a little higher. I want services so engaging that I'm, that our

guests are inviting new guests to join them every week. That's the bar for me. I have the privilege of

leading a couple different departments to pull that off. The worship production, creative, online

communications, kind of a whole collaborative team to how do we maximize this one hour on the

weekend. But then beyond that, how do we maximize the other 167 during the course of the week and to

make sure that the message that we hit on a weekend experience continues to get extrapolated over the

course of the week and we engage people that way as well. So that's the big picture of who I am,

what I do here at Christ Fellowship. That's awesome. And that's really the challenge of churches a day.

It's not just to focus on the one hour on Sunday, but to create resources and utilize the communication

channels, social media, mobile app, website to really drive a discipleship plan, a discipleship

process to help connect with people. 168 hours a week. I actually bought a domain name, 168.church,

because the goal was to create a church that does something 168 hours a day. So if that just spurred

an idea in somebody's head, I'm totally willing to sell it. So feel free to message me. I'll put the

information in the blog notes. And if you are like, I want to create a church that operates 168 hours a week,

that church can't be yours for the right. I'm your guy. That's awesome. Well, Hey, the topic I want to

talk about today is, um, is really communicating in context of church online. And we started this

dialogue just kind of on the side, Ben and I, and the initial topic was, was more towards a teaching

style, but then that just kind of naturally grew towards, okay, well, what about like on, uh, hosts and,

uh, and, uh, you know, campus pastor and communicating to the lens and what's that like. And then suddenly

we found ourselves kind of transitioning into, into chat hosts and that communication. And so like

what I want to really do today is just do a holistic view where we're talking about all of communication

in context of what happens in, in a church online service. And so, and like I said, Ben is the man

on this topic. I cannot think of a better person to be talking to. And so let's dive in. All right,

Ben, number one, like teachers and preachers, people that are communicating, which in the context

of our physical services, like this is the majority of time in a physical service. And vis-a-vis it's

the majority of time that happens in context of, of an online service. Like what options,

what instructions, what coaching would you give, you know, to a teacher that maybe for the first

time is really starting to, to expand into online. That's, that's nervous about doing it online.

Like, like what steps can you give them, uh, to help these, these communicators, uh, do online

teaching better? Yeah. So I'll try to tackle some low hanging fruit first and get to maybe more

advanced stuff as we go. So the, the, the one is, um, I would say just, uh, first of all,

um, communicate, um, to that audience, engage that audience and reference that audience. So oftentimes,

um, oftentimes the preachers will just preach to the room. We'll just preach to the people they

literally see in front of them, which makes sense because that is the way that they were trained.

Most preachers, um, especially if they're a Gen X or boomers were trained to preach to a room,

they weren't concerned with cameras in the back or, or even if they were not necessarily even where

those cameras went, like who's watching that video experience. And that is obviously, um, blown up

over the past decade in terms of the different avenues that that experience can now reach. So,

so first of all, um, you know, mention that campus, um, really basic thing. A lot of multi-site

churches do is they'll, Hey, you know, I'm preaching from such and such location, but I want to give a

shout out to, and they'll mention their other campuses or locations. Uh, the other thing is making

sure if you have an online campus to include them in that shout out where I've seen that before where

pastors will mention, uh, there are four other campuses, but they'll forget their online campus.

And then again, if you're doing that right away, and if you, if you view it as an actual campus,

um, then call them out accordingly and reference them accordingly. Uh, we'll even do that in promotional

materials for our price fellowship. Hey, we got a great experience happening this weekend.

Um, it's at six of our locations or, or, or online. And so even before the weekend comes,

we're just acknowledging that as a vital and valuable, um, avenue to experience, uh, what's coming up over

the weekend and keeping it on par with physical location. So calling it out is the first and lowest

hanging fruit for, for communicators, pastors, teachers, preachers. Uh, the next thing I would say

is, um, as much as they can preach for the screen and not the stage. Uh, this is, this is funny. We, um,

um, you know, I've seen this before, but you've probably seen this before where, before cameras

happened and before I mag image magnification, where you would project yourself onto the screens

behind you. Um, you as a communicator had to be big and bold and, and, and visibly dynamic

to engage the room. And so you would literally walk around on stage and create all this kinetic energy,

um, because you didn't have those support systems. Well, guess what? Now we, we do now have those

support systems. We've had it for a while and we, you don't need to, um, manufacture all that kinetic

energy anymore because it's already there. So, um, preach for a screen experience and not a stage

experience, but it's one of the basic ways ways is to, to not walk around as much and, and kind of be a

little more locked in. Um, because if you do it, it's a silly thing, but, um, it's, it's, uh, my ability

to follow you from an audience perspective. If I'm in the room from farther back, it's easier for me to

pan because it's not that dramatic, but if there's a tight shot on me, like a waist up shot and I'm

walking back and forth, then the audience, the visual experience there is going to create some

whiplash because it's, it's going back too fast and, and, and back and forth. So just like taking those

things into consideration. Yeah. The camera officer having fun there, trying to keep up with, with a guy

walking back and forth, I've done enough live video to know, uh, that's, uh, that's always an

interesting position to be in. What else you got? I would say, this is funny. I use the, um, I remember

back in the day when people would design websites, you know, probably like 10, 15 years ago, the, the

phrase would be, um, it's gotta be, it's gotta be mobile friendly. So the adage back then was you're

making a website for a desktop experience, but there might be some people, you know, I say like 10,

you know, 10, five years ago, there might be some people who are going to experience it mobily.

Well, obviously that has radically changed over the past five, 10 years. Now it's, um, the phrase is

you're going to make it desktop friendly, but the assumption that your primary audience, the majority

of your people are going to experience your website, your content on a mobile device. And then the

secondary audience is the desktop experience. And so that, that same switch has happened there. I

encourage, um, preachers, communicators to make that same switch, um, in terms of how they view

their audience that, um, they, they need to make sure that it is stage friendly. So your main audience

is people through the screen, but then you need to make sure that it's stage friendly. So, or another

way to say that is, um, your, your primary audience is, is online and your secondary audience is actually

in the room. Again, this is for some communicators, this is revolutionary and it's even hard for them

to kind of wrap their mind around it. But if you just look at the numbers, uh, how many people you

have in the room, how many people you currently have online or could have online, that's your primary

audience where your numbers are at. So if you make that switch, um, a lot of everything else in terms

of how you communicate, uh, follows. So follow the numbers, uh, and then communicate to them accordingly.

Hmm. So like if, if I'm tailoring something specific for an online environment, um,

or trying to reach the online people first now, like I read YouTube, YouTube, the average video is like

five minutes long. Facebook, the, I think the average video is like three minutes. Ted talks are like

what 15 to 18 minutes, some, something like that. And so in an online audience, like the content is

in a much shorter context. Um, how do, how do we wrestle that tension? You know, the average sermon

is what 30, 40. Uh, I was, I was actually at a church the other day that's considering doing church

online and the pastor preached an hour. Like, so what, what, how do we wrestle with that? Okay. I want

to target an online. I want to reach a younger, but the, the experiences that we're currently

creating and fostering are much larger. Like what, what does that conversation look like?

Yeah. The, the, the Ted talk is interesting. The, um, I usually say, Hey, a good, um, Ted talk is 18

minutes, um, because primarily it's mainly it's, it's meant to engage your head. You know, it's an

intellectual experience. Um, there isn't much in which is engaging your heart from an emotional

standpoint or your hands from an action point standpoint, but, but, but messages aren't designed

just intellectually speaking. They're all three of those facets, the, the head, the heart

and the hands. And so because of that, I say, Hey, Ted talks are great. 18 minutes. Um, we're

trying to do more than that. Why don't we double it and go for 36 as an average or, or starting

there at 36. Uh, but that's the kind of rule that I use in relationship to that. Uh, if you're

talking about a, a, a service experience, a message experience, if you ultimately want people

to take, to understand it, what you're trying to communicate, to feel it, and then have a clear

action step and, and take action on that, you need a 30 to 40 minutes to kind of accomplish

that from, from my vantage point. Now, if you're talking about just general communication, how

you can cut up that 30 to 40 minute experience and have that land on the range of social platforms,

there's a lot of different ways to do that, but I would still encourage most communicators

to still land from there, the 30 to 40. Now there is, there is some helpful things to do to make

sure that it's evergreen, that it's going to land on the, whatever platform it's going to land and

it's not going to be time-based. So some, again, some basic stuff, but if you're used to preaching

just for the room, you need to reluin these things. You cannot, you cannot date things. Um, and

you cannot, um, you cannot pace them on the day. Hey, good morning, everybody. Well, if people are

going to watch this later on at night online, that doesn't make sense. Um, um, or even calling

things out, like, um, I'll try to, I'll try to keep things that are seasonally based, um, outside of

the message experience. Uh, so here's a good example. Um, Mother's Day. That's great. We all know we're

going to celebrate Mother's Day. It's probably going to be like one of your biggest services over the

year. It's usually like after Christmas and Easter, it's usually the third biggest service for most

churches. That's incredible. If you, if you communicate all that in your message, well,

then you've dated that message and it doesn't have a great shelf life. So how do you do that? Well,

then you, you, you include all that, that, um, that time-based content and, um, anything else outside

of your message experience. So during your hosting, during your worship set, during the live stuff that

might just live, uh, live and locally, keep the time-based stuff in those moments and keep the

message portion as evergreen as you can. Now I understand that sometimes you're making a cultural

reference that's, you know, a tragedy just happened. Hey, there's, you know, shooting here

or whatever it might be. Um, but trying to minimize that as much as possible. So it has a longer shelf

life. Hmm. I like that. So position content within the context of your live service to kind of keep

that, that sermon, you know, I don't know if pure is the right word, but something where it's focused

on the topic, you know, so that you can cut it up and do things with it later or, or utilize the

sermon archive even to market outside of that. Um, so like, um, you know, guy wearing a baseball

Jersey or it's Superbowl Sunday and preacher wants to like check out in that, or, you know,

like, is that how, how does, how does illustrations, things like that, how does that tie into an online

environment? Yeah. Some of those like big moments, it's hard to kind of get around from everyone.

Every preacher is going to want to incorporate Superbowl into their message somehow come February.

So that's hard to get, hard to get around. Um, but again, if you can, if you can, um,

if you got a great illustration and it doesn't need any of those, uh, references that base it upon

time, then, then pull them out. Uh, again, it's something as simple as not saying good morning

to begin your message that oftentimes that's how a lot of preachers do that. Um, and that's like,

that's even helpful outside of the online experience. Um, you'll see a lot of churches

they'll do this. They'll have like maybe a Saturday service and they'll use that as their

backup service. If this is like a multi-site and the stream goes down on Sunday morning

and that's the backup. Well, they're used to saying, Hey, good evening, everybody. Well,

when that gets played back Sunday morning, that feels weird. So even outside of the online

people, when you do that, uh, as much as you can stop making your messages, see time-based,

it has benefits across all the playback platforms.

Awesome. You know, and I know one of the things, um, that, uh, that you and I have talked about

in the past, and this goes back to the liquid days. Um, there was a, there was a review team

and, or honestly, like, I forget the exact language, but it was the first time that, that I'd ever had

had this experience of, uh, or hearing about it where like a sermon would happen like as an early

read and there, there was like feedback from a, from a different demographics or like, could you

explain some of that, uh, to the audience? So real, like real big picture is, um, Hey, um, like for

the preachers out there, uh, everyone's going to review your message, um, already. So when you're

done, everyone drives home, you know, husband and wife, Hey, you know, what'd you think of that?

You know, I thought that was a train wreck. I thought it was terrible. So every, everybody reviews

your message already. What I encourage preachers to do is to bake in some type of review process

before the weekend. So they can get that honest coaching and that honest review, which will then

minimize the negative reviews on the drive home out of the driveway of the church later on.

Now there's a lot of pushback for that, you know, pastors, preachers, Hey, you don't understand

like my weeks are, are crazy. You're going to have to do the same amount of prep work, whatever

it is, you know, 10, 12, 15, 20 hours. Um, most people, most preachers and pastors will do meetings

in the first half of the week and then sermon prep in the back half. If you just flip your week

structure around and do message trip at the beginning and, and meetings on the backend, which takes

some organizational finagling to get people to do that. Well, then you can have a

review mid to late week. You can get feedback from a trusted panel of peers. Um, and then

you can make the message spear experience so much better, like basic things, right? Like,

Hey, like that cultural reference is a little dated, uh, or that theology is a little wonky.

Um, or, you know, Hey, that joke was a little sexist to be frank. And like, that's not going

to play with half of our audience. Um, because it's kind of alienating. You catch all those

small things and you make the message, you turn the message from good to great, uh, because

you, you apply that. Uh, my quick feedback here is, is it needs to be a, um, it's not a,

it's not a democracy, you know, it's a benevolent dictatorship. So, so whoever that panel is gives

their feedback, but ultimately the, the lead pastor, the communicator absorbs that and takes

it and does not, or does not, and then applies it. Um, so the benefits again of that is for the

audience within the room because then they get a message that, um, that was polished and

was great. And because somebody gave feedback on it. Uh, but then again, beyond that for

our online audience here, they also benefit from the, from an extra, usually an extra, like

95 minutes of work in the course of the week. So 95 minutes, right? So, so the preacher gets

all this done. Um, they then perform for a panel, right? And it's kind of like, it's, it's

like, you think like maybe American idol, but there's no Simon Cowell's like, there's

no one who's going to grill them. Right. And they, and they, they present their, their

message, um, and the way in which they do it, right. You always want to practice the way

you're going to perform. So like do it the way you would do it. And, uh, and then a 45

minutes of a, Hey, let's go around, uh, and, and review. And hopefully you had a manuscript

you can kind of go point by point and like, Hey, on page two, like, I love that point.

I think there's like more meat on those bones, like drill into that or on page three

here. It's got, you know, you're just kind of redundant. You were repeating

yourself. You know, it seemed like to me, so an extra 90 minutes in your work week,

this benefits the physical campuses and the online campus, because then they get a

much more polished message. And here's the, here's the great thing. This is a great

for them. It's also a leadership pipeline because you can then bring into that

panel, an aspiring communicator. Uh, maybe it's your student pastor. I don't know who it is,

but someone who can see how the sausage is made and their learning curve and their leadership

and their communication, um, their curve skyrockets because they're doing, they're

seeing this, they're seeing all this behind the scenes stuff every week. So it's like,

it not only makes you better as communicator, makes your audience and your guests better,

but receiving a better message. And then it's a leadership. I can go on and on, but those

are some of the benefits. And obviously the huge thing is the online people get a polished

experience because here's frankly, a lot of churches will take their, their first message

and, and, and, and roll that out as their online experience. I mean, it's a Saturday night or it's

the first thing Sunday morning. And if you don't do this, then, then it's, it's, then that's your

practice message, right? If you don't have a review process during the week, then you do your review

process after the first message. And that's when, and then, then that's a shame because then your online

community is getting your worst experience and they're getting your message without any review.

There was, yeah, there was a story of the church. And I've heard this recently where

it wasn't the lead pastor was, it was like a second level teacher was, was had the stage

and basically had a sub point that it is a sin when we do not come together on a Sunday.

And, and, and like that, that's great. Uh, there was a, uh, there was a person who was a regular

attender in a different city, in a different state of the online campus, uh, an online small group

leader, as well as a regular, uh, tither. And so in metrics of what an actual person is, uh, this,

this person in a different state met all the metrics in place for somebody who was actively

involved in the church. Um, and, and, and like, there was a freak out moment of, um, sinning

because I'm attending church online. Like that was the, the connection point. And while, and, and,

and while it looked great on paper and there was no, oh yeah, Hey, no, no big deal. Just, just roll

with it. Um, kind of hearing that in the context and shaping it like really negatively affected

this online ministry, taking out one of its key, um, leaders who just out of frustration. And so

setting up those, those review places, having somebody to, to kind of hear and focus in, in

the online context to be aware of some of that stuff, um, would be awesome. And, and, and, and I do

know, I've talked, I talked with several churches that that first service is what makes it to online

and, and, or even, you know, sometimes you get the ball rolling. And even if you catch something

in between the first and the second service, that the odds of you trying to get that changed

as, as quickly, it just, it's so difficult. So, you know, getting that stuff done beforehand

while it's still shapeable, um, man, churches like jump on that.

This, we, we haven't touched on this in terms of copyright content, right? So you'll have like

churches like Life.Church where it's like during their incredible at the movie series. It's

like, this is not available, which is understandable. This is not available, um, online and you'd

have to go to one of our physical campuses. So like, which is like, I'm not saying that's

a good thing or a bad thing, but they've understood the cost and they've counted the cost and say,

we're going to, we understand the pros and cons. We're going to move in this direction. Um,

because we still think it's a net gain for us. Um, but if you don't have someone from,

from an online perspective, thinking that through saying, Hey, that's awesome. In your message,

you threw to the such and such music video and you built it all up. And then afterwards,

you came out of it and, and you talked, uh, about it and you referenced it, but we, no one online saw

that because it got flagged. Um, and the whole video was taken down or we knew it was going to get

flagged. And so we cut it out before we sent it there. Um, you, you know, you can't do that or,

you know, you can't, you, you probably shouldn't do that. Um, but here's some other options,

either just like, uh, read the lyrics that, you know, you think the lyrics are really strong,

like read those, because that won't get flagged and that will, that will translate to our online

let's get, let's pull the band up and they will perform the song because we have copyright to do

that. And we're legally covered there and that's not going to get flagged. And so we'll have the

band perform the song that you want to do. So, um, anyone who has that hat on, if they have a seat

at the table, they can flag all that stuff. And, uh, you know, something as silly as basic where,

uh, this was happening at liquid and we flagged it with Tim and he's, Oh, that's helpful.

Where he was talking about the incredible teams of service, um, that people could jump on

and participate and serve. And all the teams that he mentioned were all, uh, at physical locations.

And then, you know, myself who was representing online at the time said, Hey, could you,

could you mention chat hosts, um, online? Because that's one of the volunteer isms for people on

that campus. Hey, you know, he, he didn't catch it because it wasn't on his radar. I put it on his

radar. He incorporated it into his message. And then we saw like a 50% increase of our volunteerism

over the next quarter on there because he, just that one reference, people realized that they

could also serve. It's not just a, a come and consume. It's also a come and contribute platform.

And, and someone was speaking that into the lead pastor. So you need, hopefully you need someone

at that review panel who could speak that in for the online experience as well.

That is, that is so good. And, and having produced, man, I don't know, thousands of church

services over the years, uh, the idea of, of having, you know, something

like that to be able to, to shape around, to be able to just go that extra five, 10% to really

nail something, uh, to have that, that connection, to have that relational point, to have that impact

into the audience, um, whether physical or virtual, man, that's, that's awesome. So, Hey,

let's, let's shift gears off the, off the teachings. We've got some other stuff I wanted

to cover and let's talk about chat hosts, you know, like there's, um, or I'm sorry,

not chat hosts, let's do on camera hosts where you we've got, um, you know, it's, it's sometimes

it's the campus pastor. Uh, sometimes it's not a, uh, a exclusive content for the online.

It's just the piping in of maybe what's happening within the broadcast center. It's, it's somebody

else, um, live in the room versus maybe something that's prerecorded, you know? And so let's,

let's kind of just talk through the pros and cons here. Let's open it up with this,

like pre-record content dedicated, exclusive for the online audience or utilizing the physical

campus announcement time period in context of church online. Like, what do you recommend?

What are those pros and cons? Yeah, I would say I don't have a strong recommendation, but like you're

saying there's pros and cons to both. So understanding what you're trying to do as an organization during

a particular season will help you identify what you need to do during that season. So for, uh,

us at liquid during a season, our online ministry, uh, wasn't well known. And so what we wanted to do

was we wanted to do our, our, our, um, our on-camera hosting. We wanted to do it in the auditorium of

our, in the, um, in the lobby space of our broadcast campus, because we knew that if we set up a station

there and we had lights up and a camera up and two people talking on there, and we had a screen behind

that showed live what was happening and we had stations of volunteers out there as well that were the actual

chat hosts, then we created incredible awareness of something that could have been hidden, uh, and, and, and

tucked away. And so, so no, no, we want to, we want to pull it out physically to broaden the organizational

knowledge of this incredible campus that we have, our online campus. And this is what we're physically going to

put it in front of people's faces. And so as people were walking into the service experience, they're

seeing a, uh, you know, uh, a pre hosting done by people. Hey, what's that all about? Oh, that's our

online campus. Uh, that's what we want you to do an experience while you're not here. Or if you have a

friend who wants to check out church before they come to church, tell them to do that because that's,

that's a safe environment for them to do it. And then, and then that's a great environment for if

you'll never be able to come to a physical location, that's where you have robust spiritual

discipleship happening. So for us during a season, we said, let's do that, um, on site in our lobby

just to bring awareness. So again, it was an organizational value for us during that season

to bring awareness to what was actually happening on the ministry. Um, you, you, now that being said,

another way you mentioned is to do the, the pre record, which is like super helpful when you want

to communicate just to your online community. So you're not, you're not showing, um, things that

are happening at a particular campus, which kind of conveys the fact that that campus is, is there as

present, maybe as important. And so the fact that you're, if you're shooting in the lobby of a space,

you may be conveying the fact that, Hey, thanks for coming to this online thing, but the real deal

is coming to the physical thing. So you have to be aware of that. So if you pre-record it, you,

you avoid that, right? You avoid big brother, little brother syndrome. And you just say, Hey,

we're talking to you online community. The other big pro about pre-recording is you communicate

just to them. So it's not like generic hosting, like, Hey, at our church this weekend, um, you can

communicate to your people. So, um, an example of this is, uh, we were at a liquid, we're doing an

event called night to shine. It was the Tim Tebow foundation, uh, chance to give people special

needs, incredible prom experience that they might not have experienced during, during the high school

is one of the most beautiful things. If you've never done it as a church and, you know, my old sales pitch

for it, it's one of the most redemptive things I've ever done. I say it's like the closest step to

heaven I've ever had here on earth. It's just beautiful. Uh, there's, there's my, there's my

plug. And, and so for us, we were trying to communicate to our online, um, community that,

you know, how they can get engaged with that. And, and, and for us, it was like, you know,

it was during that season was prayer support because they weren't able to physically come,

you know, a lot of our people who weren't in state, Hey, you know, for this, for the,

we had this incredible event coming up, um, the way in which you can participate during this event

is through this. So we, we, in other words, we tailor made our content, our announcement content

and the action steps to our online community. Um, so that's, that's a huge benefit of pre pre-roll

and pre-recording versus doing it live and onsite. Awesome. Um, so then you're right. It all comes

down to the purpose, which, which you're trying to, you know, accomplish by that. Um, having one

person, you know, it's like, there've been times in my life when I was doing, you know, for me,

it was just the one person kind of, kind of doing it. And honestly, his life was so hectic. Like I could

never just get the other person in there. Uh, and, and I've seen recently, you know, more and more

where there's a trend towards having two people kind of in their hosting together versus that.

And I've seen this online, but I've also seen this more in, in physical churches, uh, like doing,

doing that as well, having two people on stage, like what's, what's this trend towards having

kind of the, the co-hosts, uh, and involved in that. Yeah. I think you, you hit a couple of things

there. It's, it's, I always say two is better than one, uh, from a very practical standpoint,

if it's you and I on stage, it's hard for me to remember like maybe four points of content,

but if we're ping ponging back and forth and I only need to remember two, because you're remembering

other two, well, I do the first one. And as you're communicating the second one, I can mentally roll

back my mental, uh, index and remember my third point. And so it's just like, from a practical

standpoint, it's a little easier to do because you're relying on somebody else as well. Uh, but the big

good thing for me is it's, um, it's a con, uh, when you have two people, it's a conversation.

When you have one person, it's a monologue. So the fact that we're talking creates, creates a

conversational tone, which is, um, which is vital for the online community because they need to sense

that it's an, it's, it is a conversation. Um, whenever we would naturally ask ourselves questions,

like if we were, you know, um, as hosts, we could then naturally ask our audience as well.

Say Jeff 4th of July is coming up. What are you doing for this weekend? Uh,

Hey Ben, we're, we're, we're grabbing some, um, burgers and fireworks. It's going to be awesome.

Hey, online community, what are you guys doing? So the fact that we would have natural conversation

and questions and answers between ourselves, then allows us to throw it to the online audience

as well. Encourage them to jump into the chat and participate. So it kind of creates a conversation

between your, your talent, but then creates a conversation more importantly with your audiences.

So that's, um, that's vital to have two people instead of one. Um, I used to, I, um, again,

it's a leadership pipeline. So you have somebody with you that you're training up and doing this.

I got to the point where, um, as the online pastor at liquid church, I stepped out of that role and just

let, um, other people play that role, but I realized I was missing it because I wanted to raise up

leadership, which is, which is a great value. But I realized, um, I, I lost the, the, the online

campus lost the face of the campus. In other words, I was the face of the campus. And if I was never on

camera, then people didn't know who was running the show. And it's not that it's about me or you or

anybody else, but guests want to know that there's a point guy or gal, there's a point person. And that

if, if they need to get, get questions and they need to go to the top, they know who that person is.

And so I would encourage you to, um, whoever's that, that visible point person to have them play

that role and not be, not be in the passenger seat, not being the back seat and not be seen

by the community because the community wants to, ultimately the community wants, they want to know

who their pastor is. Um, and it's great that you have associate pastors and there's layers,

but they, they will be thinking in a hierarchical mindset and saying, okay, but who's on the top

here. And so you just need to visually demonstrate that as well. Yeah. And there's a lot of impact,

by the way, um, by hat, by that online pastor. Like I can remember times where I'd be walking into

like a Home Depot and the guy, the greeter at the door is like, I know you from somewhere. And I'm like,

okay, like I never go to Home Depot. And he's like, no, no, no. You're the guy from the web,

literally you're the guy from the website. I'm like, oh, church online. Yes. Yes. I'm with, uh,

with, uh, the online campus pastor there. Or, and it was funny, just another brief story. I'm,

I'm literally, I'm having coffee, uh, working at a Starbucks and I've got an executive pastor of,

of the church I was at at Christ fellowship. And I've got a campus pastor sitting next to me. Like,

I'm, I'm just working, doing my own thing. And I got these two guys, a campus pastor and another

other one next to me, then they're having their own conversation. I'm just drinking coffee and working.

And somebody walks in the room. They don't recognize the campus pastor. They don't recognize

the executive pastor. They recognize me and come up and start to have a conversation. And it's, and it's

like, Hey, have you met these people over here? Cause like they're more important to the organization,

but it quickly becomes that there's influence, uh, within the, the online campus because you are

reaching, you know, the, the front door where people are interested in coming into your church,

the church online is reaching them a side door, people who are, you know, sick or traveling or for

whatever reason they're, they're not coming in. Uh, you are reaching those types of people as a,

as a campus pastor or online host. And so like the ability to, to shepherd and to be kind of

responsible or the face of to route those people through like that, that's a high value. Um,

so like, what's the, I just want to know this. And, uh, we like, this is just me. What's the worst

experience you've ever had being a host for that? I'm going to put you on this because you've been

doing this probably longer than I have. And I bet you got a story. And so I want the one story.

Let's go ahead and do it. I'll give like something like really practical. Um, and then let's see if I

can find something funny, but like for me, it, it, um, it took away, compromised my ability to be a

secret shopper. So what you're talking about on there right now is that you become,

you became a face, um, and, and then a brand and the, and you represent the organization and

people are aware of you, um, because of that. Well, I, I also like to go around to our campuses,

the, you know, liquid, you know, we had six locations. Uh, we have six locations down here

at Christ fellowships as well. And so I love, um, to go around and just to play the role of a guest

and, and, and try to fly under the radar as much as possible. And just, you know, walk up and I was

doing this like a couple of weeks ago, you know, walk up to the sound tech, like, Hey, look,

it's like, uh, it's like, it's like loud in here. Like, I like that. It kind of feels like awesome.

Like, you know, what, like, what DB levels do you run it at? And the guy didn't know me from Adam.

And he just thought I was a regular person. He's like, you know, he's like, I don't know.

I was like, Oh, okay. That's, you know, like mentally this, but in the back, my, Oh, okay.

Good to know. Um, and it allows you to follow up and get like very honest and unvarnished, um,

responses from people when you, when you are not the on-camera talent, when you are,

you walk on and you're known and you, you know, people can kind of start cleaning up their actor

or whatever. Right. Um, and, uh, and you, you, you lose, um, some of that. Um, yeah. Now,

like my, my, my, my funny story in terms of being on camera talent is, um, the fact that I'll always

make, um, shorter guests, uh, stand on some type of riser so that I'm relatively on the same level.

So I would have, you know, I'm a six foot dude, sometimes I'd have like five foot, um,

gals, um, uh, on camera talent with me and I'd get them, you know, a riser to stand up. So we were

not completely eye level, but so it didn't look weird on camera. So there's a lot of behind the

scenes photos of, of talent of mine standing on those risers. And that, that, that always gets,

gets a kick of me. Um, and so I always look for that when I watch people co-hosting and try to

figure out, you know, have they elevated one of these people or are they clearly, you know,

the guy clearly heads and shoulders taller than the gal and they, and they didn't look do that.

And maybe it looks a little wonky. So that's a kind of fun behind the scenes mentioned in, uh,

in film world, those are called apple boxes. And so you're standing on apple boxes. There you go.

I've done that drill. No, no, that well, you'll see the NBA games, right. And so like the reporters

having to like stretch their arm way up to get the interview with Shaq. Like, you know,

they're a little bit closer to them. Yeah. That might actually be a small ladder in that context.

But, uh, yes, that, that being said, that's awesome. Um, man, well, I tell you one thing,

the last area that I wanted to hit on was, was the chat host. And this was a, this was like a,

a side conversation that it's suddenly clicked from a, yeah, let's, let's really focus on that. And

actually to set it up, I was listening to a Kerry Newhoff podcast, uh, recently, and it had, um,

Oh man, he did like two back to back that were focusing on the, the, um, uh, the church cross

point up, up in Nashville where they had like the creative director and someone, but then they also

had the, the lead pastor and someone in that podcast said this, I'll have to find it in the show notes

and come back. But they were quoted as saying, some of the best pastors in our church are chat hosts.

And, and, and to me, it really resonated the, the importance of kind of like these people are on the

front line and there were stages truthfully of my online ministry where I was like afraid of what a

chat host would say because like they're representing the church, they're representing it externally,

probably more so than what's happening in the physical building. And so, you know,

a chat host and an online service says the wrong thing in the wrong context. And all of a sudden it's

like, you know, press up all in your face and things are going crazy because the church just

said something and it really was, you know, just a volunteer. Um, so like, what are some ways,

cause they have power though to the point that they can be the best, best pastors. And, and so like,

what is it, what is, what does that look like? How can we utilize these volunteers, uh, in, in such a way

that we can trust what they're saying and then get them in an environment where they can really,

you know, pastorally lead and shepherd people? Yeah, the, I think you just, the one thing you said

there, I think is just foundational. So I'll echo it is that they are representing the organization.

So you may, um, you may be on Facebook and you might give them, um, you might have them just log

in as themselves. Like, Hey, you know, hi everybody. I'm Ben on the chat host today, uh, and Facebook

live and they're, they are logged, even though they're logging in by themselves or as themselves,

they're still representing the organization. Once they said I'm, I'm the chat host and identify

themselves that way. And then clearly as the conversation goes and they're leading it and

responding to it, they are representing the church. And so them feeling that weight, like,

you know, there, there isn't any other ambassador other than you today representing the church,

you know, do us proud, do not do us proud, uh, represent Jesus. Well, uh, is, is the big thing I would say to them.

Now you could, you could also have them log in as your, um, as your church, again, in this face,

Facebook platform, I would encourage them not to do that because people don't want to be interacted

by an entity in our organization. They want to be, you know, uh, they want to engage with a person.

And so, so I would still have people log in as people on shop. The same thing applies on that

platform as well. Um, or I think any other additional platforms I'm not thinking about right now that,

um, have the person log in as themselves, but realize they're representing the church. And that

goes, that goes 90% of the way right there. Um, the other thing that I'd say, the same thing applies

for on camera hosts is that it does for chat hosts that, um, two is better than one. I remember I was

part of a church that did, um, open air evangelism. It was in Chicago and, you know, they had the,

the, the flip chart there and the whole, you know, here's this, where you are in this big pit.

And there's like, this is where God is. And, but if you use the cross, this is, you know,

the visual illustration that I'm sure a lot of us are aware of. And, uh, and so they had different,

like, whereas they're talking about it and rolling out, like, Hey, you're going to be the person that

illustrates it. And you're like, you're going to be a person standing and watching it. I was like,

wait, why am I going to be the person standing and watching it? Like that doesn't, that doesn't

make any sense. And they said, no, it does. They said, um, it takes a crowd to gather a crowd.

And like, tell me more. They said, if we're doing this out on the corner and, and we start,

then people are just going to walk by because no one wants to be the first person to stop and watch

because that's pretty vulnerable. No one wants to be the first to do anything,

unless you're like Jeffrey and who's a complete innovator. Uh, you don't want to be the first

person to do it. So, but if we have, so if you stand there and watch and participate, um,

then someone will come behind you because they feel safety, you know, and then someone will come

behind that and come behind that. And then we'll, we will gather a crowd. Um, same thing applies for the

chat host. If the chat host is there and Hey, how's everybody doing? How was your weekend?

What are you taking away from this message? What do you think? And, and there's nobody responding to

them. It's hard for that first person to respond, but if you have two chat hosts, um, they can go

back and forth. You and I, um, jump in and everybody, um, everybody I'm Ben Stapley. I'm one of your chat

hosts. It's great to be here. Um, Hey, uh, can you give me a highlight from the message that you put into

action last week? And if you were to jump in and respond to that, then we create a dialogue that's

easier for someone to jump in. So same thing, get two people, not just one for chat hosts. Um,

again, really simple is, uh, very, very practical. If someone's sick, then you at least have somebody

to follow up, follow up on. I can't tell you how many times when I had one chat host and they were

sick and they forgot to get a replacement. And then you have the experience with no one leading the

chat host. So, you know, complete train wreck. So, um, you cover your back there as well in terms

of sickness or call outs for volunteerism, but starting with two is key.

That's, that's awesome. How do you like, how do you prep volunteers, communicate to volunteers?

Like how much information do you tell them about the service or are they blind and blind?

Like what, what is the experience of kind of leading that group to help them understand the service?

That's a great question. So first of all, in terms of resourcing them, there's a general FAQ page

that I have on the available for them, the questions that we know get asked every week or answers that

we want to provide in action steps that we want to provide every week as well. So there was the,

Hey, this is a general FAQ. When people ask, Hey, like, where, where are your locations?

You know, you have the, you have the tab ready to go to send them to that, uh, people want to serve.

You can send them the URL for that right away. Um, we know that when the giving talk is given,

we want you to encourage people to call them to giving as well. And this is the language that

we've crafted around this. And there's the URL, the action step, and encourage them to take the

step of faith and obedience. So there was the FAQs that I had available. Um, there was the, um,

boilerplate, like these are the five things over the course of the chat that need to be communicated

sometime during it. So these are core values that you need to hit these. Um, and then, so that was

a great starting point. And then, uh, uh, in addition to that week, uh, that, uh, foundational

document, there was weekly communication that I gave to the chat hosts in terms of letting them know

what was coming up and in particular to that weekend or that message. Um, so everybody, um,

there's a particular call out, um, you know, during this message, uh, by Rick. Uh, and so like,

you know, here's the action step or, uh, one time that happened for us was, Hey, we knew that this

service, it was, uh, it was on relationships and it was on like, um, it was a sexual dynamic to the

message. We know that this is going to, it's not going to be, it's going to be PG 13 and up the

content. And so in our services, we mentioned that during the hosting moment, but that wasn't shown

online. So we had to tell our chat hosts to communicate that. So if you're watching this with

your kids right now, you might want to ask them to step out of the room or just let them know,

this is going to be some more mature content and you'll, so we had to flag that in advance to let

them know. Um, this is silly, but it's super helpful that every four years come November,

I have to give a lot of clear instruction to the chat hosts so that when the political

conversation comes up and who's God's man or who's God's gal for president, redirect the conversation

because we are not going there. And so even like something silly as that, um, where, um,

uh, you know, how to, how to, how to gear them around that. Um, you know, this recently there,

um, a while ago, there was a shooting, I believe in a, in a mosque, right. Um, I think Australia,

am I getting my country, right? Uh, yeah. Uh, news, news. Thank you. A couple, you know,

a couple of months ago. And, um, and like in relationship to that, it was, you know, I saw,

there was a lot of conversation happening online. Like, Hey, Hey, it's kind of silly. Hey, do,

do we pray for these people? Like, of course we pray for these people. They are,

you know, these are people, um, whose lives were lost. Like, do you know, do we, do we pray over

the situation as followers of Christ? Yes, we do because we're all God's creation. Uh,

and he wants all to come into a relationship with him. So like, so even we saw that conversation

happening, um, um, on social media, like leading up to the weekend and we knew, you know what,

we should probably give some instruction to our people to how to handle this well and give us some

particular language or the conversation can quickly unravel if we don't give some leadership here,

because we know this is going to be contentious. So flagging those contentious topics early allows

you to keep the conversation civil online, which is sometimes hard to do.

What type of trainings, um, have, have you done in the past to get into like,

and obviously you want to flag the scary conversations, like, uh, to the point, the man or the woman,

you know, either way on the presidency side, but you know, um, I'm depressed. Actually, I was,

was reading a article recently about how, uh, teenagers are more lonely than they've ever been,

even though they're engaging more in the technology piece. And so like, I'm depressed, I'm suicidal,

those things. And that that's rare in, in an online experience, but you still want to, want to prepare

the people for it. So like, what does that look like for you in context of to have the,

to handle some of those, those spiritual or psychological issues?

Uh, you talking about stuff that is like baked within the message that is

tackling or just stuff kind of from out of left field,

just out of left field coming in or, or the, or the crazy guy come, um, don't want to compare

depression and craziness, please. But the, the, the, the, the person that comes in to cause trouble

and where they're the chat host is trying to deal with either a very sensitive topic or a, um, very

aggressive type of personality.

Yeah. So the, that's great. So we give, we give a lot of responsibility and therefore permission to

our chat hosts. And, and I would, I would say this as well, like you have to vet these people out well,

because they're, again, they're representing the whole church. Um, and, uh, it's like one of those

things there in terms of, if someone is, uh, is, uh, is spewing toxic in terms of, um, hate speech,

um, sexism, uh, bigotry, like you kind of go down, like what that could entitle. Um, you know,

not only do you have the right, but you have the mandate to block them from the, um, from that exchange

as quickly as possible, because we're not going to let the conversation rabbit trail. And if someone's

coming in with that type of hostility and hatred, then we're going to cut it off right away because

they're not looking to contribute to this conversation. They're looking to derail it

and your responsibility is to keep the conversation moving along. And so to do that, block them. You

know, I always say lovingly, Hey, invite them to the block party as quickly as possible. Uh,

that type of person, because we're not going to let the conversation get there.

Now that's the, the few and far between like most people don't come that way. Most people are,

um, or maybe have a bone to pick or they have a soapbox to get onto. And so it takes more

massaging the conversation and redirecting a lot of conversations kind of redirected back to the

message. So, Hey, that's an interesting point. I love your opinion on the Seahawks or that football,

whatever it is, but Hey, like, you know what, what are your thoughts on the message or that,

that last point he made. And so block if you need to, but more importantly, probably redirect will be

the main way to handle somebody who's taking the conversation a little sideways.

Um, is, is the, is the way I'd handle it. And then the last thing there too, is,

is don't feel they need to be the answer man or the answer woman. So like, just because we've been

trusted you with this doesn't, doesn't mean we expect you to have all the answers.

Uh, and when you don't, uh, but, but when you don't always, uh, redirect. So don't just say,

I don't know, say, I don't know. Um, but that's, uh, that's an incredible question. Uh,

why don't you email the online campus pastor, uh, Ben Stapley at, and he would love to give you

additional information on that. Or, you know what, you know what I've, uh, I've screen captured that

question. Uh, and, and, and you, you provide your email and he will follow, he or she will follow

up with you. So it's, there's layers, right? So it's the people you have to block, uh, the people

you have to redirect, um, in the conversation, and then the people you have to pass on to saying,

hey, that's just kind of outside of my pay grade or, you know, I'm not entirely sure, um,

what our stance is on female leadership within the church. Um, but I know someone who'd love to

dialogue with you. Here that person is reach out to them. Um, so those, those are the ways I'd handle

that. And the bonus of having two people involved in the chat host, and that was, that was so eloquently

said earlier, but the idea that now you've got, um, a person that can handle this, the sensitive or the

isolated issues separately. And so route that have a person peel off and just either direct message or

on chop, you can have a one-on-one conversation and the other person can still focus on handling

and directing the rest of the service without, you know, waiting for that, without dealing with the,

the messy slash sensitive, uh, situation. And so like, that's, that's an exact reason why you always

want to have two in there, um, making that work. So that's, that's awesome. Well, man,

Hey, this has been a great chat and we could sit on here and just keep going, but I want to be

sensitive to time of your side and on others. So, uh, man, any, any closing thoughts in any,

you know, just any passing lob you want to like throw at me? What, what do you got?

Yeah. We, we, you know, we talked all about the, like the, the, the house, right? Like I was just

always come back to the wise. And so for me, it's that this is like, this is an incredible

opportunity, incredible platform. Uh, the church is leveraging it. We'll continue to leverage it

to draw people closer to Jesus. And so as long, you know, even I forgot to frame the conversation

that way, but you know, sometimes we can get lost on the, within the technology itself. Um,

or we can get lost in the comparison game. This church is doing that or that church is doing that.

Why aren't we doing that? Um, um, or even for myself, sometimes like the, the, the volunteerism,

right? Oh, this, you know, this chat host isn't as polished as I'd like them to be. Um, for me,

coming back to the, Hey, um, keeping that in the forefront of our mind that this is just another

platform, another venue, another environment to ultimately introduce people to Jesus and, and

allow him to woo them closer to him. Uh, for me, keeping that wine in front of my eyes helps handle

all those tensions that I just mentioned that I, you know, that we all wrestle through, um, uh,

on a daily basis. So keeping that out there is, uh, super helpful to keep moving us down the road.

Yeah. We've, uh, why is, has got to be the first and foremost thing. And we've, uh, we've talked

about it in an earlier podcast and, and there's, um, you know, there's plenty of resources. And

actually, if you go on the blog at the church digital, you find that I asked that, that question

a lot where what, what's the why of it? You know, I was on, I was on Facebook recently in a group for

church online and, um, and somebody was like, I've got $5,000. What should I do? And, um, you know,

the, the, the first question I kind of threw back at him was what is the purpose of what you're doing,

what's working and what's not working. Don't just blow your, this newfound budget on, on the newest

toy. Um, if it's not going to solve a problem. So let's, let's talk through your problem, then find

where the money should go. And, and everybody was kind of laughing at that, but, and it's, it's the,

really the purpose behind it where we don't understand as an organization, a lot of churches don't

understand the why of church online, or they don't have it yet. They haven't, or it's the lead pastor

wants to do one thing. The executive pastor wants to do another. And the, the, the campus pastor or

the guy who's in charge of online is in a completely separate direction. And so there's not alignment

in that. Uh, and so, man, that's a great way to ground the message just for us to collectively learn

how to, to find that why and then custom design what we're doing in context of our communication,

whether it's with teaching, uh, whether it's through the chat host or, or whether through this,

you know, the stage presentations to aim and direct the online audience to the why.

So, man, uh, Ben, thanks for, you know, landing the plane right there and helping us keep focused

on that. Um, Hey, this has been a great, uh, time with you and you know what, we're gonna have to do

it again. I'm sure at some point, because I just like hanging out with you and, uh, you bring a lot of

knowledge to the, to the table and a lot of experience, uh, through, uh, liquid through

Christ fellowship and others. So thanks for joining us once again. And, uh, for the audience out there,

thanks again. Uh, next podcast is coming up. So stay tuned for that. And until then, uh,

my name is Jeff with the church digital. Thanks for being here.