An Amplified Ministry - Nils Smith

I got arrested with my sister for shoplifting and sitting, you know, in that juvenile jail cell was just kind of this like I could see a life path and what synchronously happened is my mom who was a, you know, a non-religious, you know, person said, you're going to start going to church with your dad again, maybe that'll fix you. And so when I started going to church in the midst of just kind of life challenges or confusion and God got a hold of my heart, I am Nils Smith and I am the founder and CEO of Amplified Social Media helping Christian Ministries maximize social media and the head of innovation for a company called Dunhamn Company where we help with fundraising and marketing for Christian Ministries and I'm grateful to be a part of this and that's my faithfully story. Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at Faithly.co. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Stories podcast. Usually ask people like their faith journey but with you, I want to ask you first the origins of your name, yeah, because I don't remember at all, is Nils short for something or? Nils was actually my great-great-grandfather that brought my family over from Sweden. In Sweden, Nils is a very common name. I actually just met my first other Nils who started an app called BibleMate and he's based in Boston but yeah, so Nils Bergerin brought, you know, my great-grandmother over from Sweden to the Boston area to Worcester, Massachusetts and that's who I'm named after but I've never, up until recently, he's still never faced this and met another Nils. That makes sense. You got a little bit of viking. Look. I got blue eyes. Oh, I got no idea. You were Swedish. Okay. Or Swedish background. And when I had hair, it was blond like dirty blondish and so I, as a teenager, I looked more Swedish. If you post that on your faithly profile, we'll use it as the thumbnail. Nice. Okay. Okay. I'll do it. I'll do it. Awesome. Can we get into your faith journey? Like, how did you come to Christ? Yeah. So I grew up in really two different homes. My parents split up when I was young and my mother, you know, was, you know, agnostic or, you know, atheist maybe I don't, you know, kind of identified as non-religious and my dad went to church consistently, but I wouldn't say faith was a priority for a family. It was more just a, you know, it's something out of tradition that we did. And I rebelled against it probably in middle school, but where, where I, you know, came to Christ is, you know, too significant things happened in my life as one. When I was 15, my dad had a had a very transformational experience on a, you know, it was called a walk to a maze within the Methodist church. I saw his life, his faith becoming more important to him, you know, where it was more than just going to church on, on Sundays, but, but something that became important to him. And then simultaneously when I was 16, I actually got arrested with my sister for shoplifting and sitting, you know, in that juvenile jail cell was just kind of this, like, I could see a life path and what synchronously happened is my mom, who was a, you know, a non-religious, you know, person said, you're going to start going to church with your dad again. Maybe that'll fix you. And so when I started going to church in the midst of just kind of life challenges or confusion and God got a hold of my heart. And so I started, you know, gave my life to Christ at probably when I was really 17 before my senior year of high school and, you know, started walking with Jesus figuring out, you know, what some of that look like and very challenging in high school when everybody knows you, you know, as a part of your, as, you know, as a, you know, whatever, you know, opinions people had of me. And then really it was early days of college where I started, you know, I found a group of men and the fraternity brothers under Christ, which is where I really began to be discipled in growing in my faith. Oh, what did you get caught stealing? That's a little embarrassing. And so we got, we got caught at, I think is what it was called, which was like a female shopping, you know, female clothes placed. So my sister was actually stealing clothes. And I just happened to be with her now. We, you know, transparently, that was just when we got caught. We used to shoplift all kinds of things like, you know, I actually, what I, what it was is it was actually a, you know, I used to sell an entrepreneur from a young age. I used to sell like baseball cards in middle school. And then candy and elementary school. And then I actually found the margins to be really good when you began just to steal items and then sell them because you didn't have no upfront costs. Now, there were other costs that later became associated with it, but my top, our top product was a guest wallet. So I used to steal guest wallets or my sister would, you know, it was actually the better shoplifter. And then I would sell them to people at school. Yeah, but we, we, you know, found things that we thought people would buy from us at school. And I literally, my truck became a storefront of shoplifted items until we got caught. And so we probably about four months had a, had a little business we ran out of the trunk of my, my 1985 Chevy Blazer. And it was, yeah, it was really bad choices as a teenager, but that was my entrepreneurial journey of shoplifted goods. So you literally got saved at a jail sale like, you know, well, I would say, I would say God got my attention in a jail sale. I got saved at a youth retreat that, you know, I remember, you know, the, the longer story maybe is that I went up there chasing one of the things I actually found that I liked about youth groupers. There was lots of girls there. And so the girl I had a crush on there. I kissed another girl on the bus on the way to this retreat. And she found out which ruined my chances for her at this retreat. So it kind of forced me to pay more attention to the third treat. And I just remember how to moment got up. I got up here real. I need to know. And I really don't want to waste my time with this religion stuff. The morality thing like I do either way, I need to get my, you know, morals together of, of I'm seeing the consequences of my bad choices, but the Jesus thing I'm struggling with. And in that moment, I literally called, I felt like maybe I'll see an angel or something and got to reveal themself in that way. I didn't, as I call my mom, and she, in the midst of that, was going through a really difficult time battling depression and she was in tears just saying, I just got this new job or I don't know what the situation was, but she said on the phone, you know, God is good. And I remember thinking my atheist mom just said, God is good. And it was just this like holy, sweet moment of like, oh, that's Jesus telling me he's real. And I like a moment of our way back in the chapel and gave my life to Christ. And then it was like, oh, no, what do I do now, you know, like, because I was still like while I was like turning around my morals, I was still drinking and dipping. And, you know, like I was, I was, you know, trying to, you know, yeah, I don't know what I was doing. I was a teenage boy, but I was, I was searching and God revealed himself to me. So I hit a, hit a low low in that jail cell, but, you know, I think that the journey really began on that retreat. There was probably six months after the jail cell. And then it was like, okay, now I'm going to, now I'm going to live this, you know, and now I'm going to figure this out. And yeah, but it, but I did it with the Holy Spirit. And so that was the difference where it's like it first started going to church to get moral. And, and then that turned into a place to chase girls, but it really took about a place to, to find Jesus and so that, that's where the faith began. Another proof that the nicest people have the darkest past in the nation. You like that, because like we would be really good friends, but I never got caught. So that was the reason, no, it's not because that's the way that fear of the Lord, you know. Yeah. But luckily I hung out, like with the church people more as I got older, so I just like that kind of life and those friends kind of kind of naturally faded away. Yeah. Yeah, I'm more, I'm more flipped to switch in my journey. Now I, I flipped a switch and I remember thinking, I remember going home from that retreat and like, Oh, I've got to like, I can't speed anymore. And then it was like, I don't know, you know, can I, can I speak, can I not her? And then it was two, some of the things like dipping, like I really enjoyed dipping tobacco. And that was really hard to say. Because Jesus thing is cool, but the moral thing, I actually kind of like these since, you know, like, but also I remember I stopped speeding and I was like, Oh, I don't have to look out for cops all the time. Maybe not speeding isn't that bad. And I remember like when I stopped dipping, I was like, after probably like two weeks, I was like, that's actually kind of gross. And so there are certain things where it's like, I just took the desire for some of the sins away. Now, obviously there were other desires, one of the things that I remember I had a youth pastor that said, I think you should not date for a year. And I was like, I'm 17 years old. I got, you know, like, I can't not date, but I did. I made a commitment. Now, you know, I wouldn't be perfect in that, but I remember, though, I just, I put my focus on Jesus, you know, in those beginning days. But man, I was, I would say I was a good, I was always a good person, but I remember to like, I had like a big Nike earring that I wore. And I was like, do I have to stop, do I take out the earring now? Like, is that a part of me or is that bad? There were a lot of things that it's like, so I kept the earring for a couple of years, not that I switched from a Nike to like a stud because that was more Jesus life. I could have done it across maybe. But I, you know, I think there were just things where it's like, okay, let me figure out how I connect the dots of Jesus growing in my heart, but then also being lived out through my life. And I think it, you know, what I obviously, I think, learned that their college, it was less about what I didn't do and more about what I was beginning to do. But it was, you know, so much of what was getting my attention, though, was like most of my behavior, most of the words coming out of my mouth were just not good. And so you can, you can be a nice person, I think, and make really bad choices. And, yeah, but that was, you know, it's, it's crazy too, because it, it also seems like it was a couple of years ago, 43 now, you know, and that was when I was 16, 17 years old. But man, I still remember, you know, like, and I still remember the adrenaline from the top of the thing. And some of those things that, you know, it's, it's, sin can be very appealing and, and transitioning when, especially when you have a reputation and, you know, for sin, and relationships built around sin, it's, it's hard, you know, to make that transition. And that's where college became a natural fresh start for me. Yeah, it was a crazy journey. Would you go to school undergrad? So I went to Southwest Texas State University, which is not Texas State University. It was because of my, you know, life decisions. I didn't have a whole lot of college options. It was actually, it was a one-page applications, and it was $20, and I remember I went on my college visit, and I didn't actually make it to campus, because there was this, there's a river that runs through campus, and it's known as a party school. And, and there were, you know, a bunch of girls laying out of them, and a bunch of people just parting and hanging out. And I just hung out with them for the day on my college day, and a buddy of mine from high school went out there for the college day, and we're like, yeah, we're going to college here. So, you know, and I was saved to that boy, but I was still in my, you know, like, in my journey. And it got, took me to a party school, and I got discipled there. And I feel like it was all the temptations that where my son was, but at the end of that, I found a new community of people, and then I also was able to be very relatable to them. The minute, I feel like I've never had a more fruitful ministry than I did relationally while I was in college, just by I think it was people that were wired like the old me, but it, but I also understood them deeply, and I also understood the shame and guilt that often, even when you don't have Jesus that comes with a lot of those, those choices. So, who are these people that you connected with, and the help to you, discipled you? Yeah. So, it was the beta oops long guy who was the actual name of the fraternity, but brothers under Christ is kind of what they're, they're known for, and it was a pretty new Christian fraternity that only existed to text another nation wide, but they, you know, there was probably 20 guys, but I remember, you know, a mutual friend or somebody connected me to them, and they're like, you should at least check them out when you get up there. So, it was the first thing I did when I got there was like, how do I find out about this Christian fraternity, and this is pre-internet, you know, no website or anything. And I think I found them at a booth in like the, the big courtyard, you know, the main college, you know, center, center of college area. And they had a booth set up and they were doing rush, you know, with all the other fraternities and, and I went to their first rush event, I remember, these guys looked like me, they talked, like, these are like my old baseball buddies. And I just, my perception of Christians and, you know, there were cute girls at the youth group, but the guys were all dorky and, you know, I felt like it, I did, I, I struggled to relate to a lot of the guys that I had been around that were Christians and I felt like these are guys I want to just hang out with and do things with. And so, yeah, they just, I socially, you know, connected well with them and, and then spiritually, they had what I needed, you know, without, without knowing that. And so, I knew I needed some Christian friends, you know, and I knew, knew I probably needed to find a church up there, you know, somehow, but I, yes, that was like first week I was there. I found them and it was such a godsend that, that connection. I remember just some of those, you know, they, they, and I, I wish I could remember exactly kind of what some of the things were, but they, they often joked of like just how, you know, I was, I just didn't know the Christian language and, you know, so much of that, you know, yeah, just had a, had a function in Christian community yet at that point. And so, yeah, it was, it was just the, the way these guys, and I remember I had a big brother's name was Chris Peacock, he was on the baseball team there at, at Southwest Texas. And so we just hit it off because of baseball initially, but he, every Wednesday, we'd go to dinner and, and he just, you know, poured into me, my freshman year of college. But so many other men and, and I remember it got him David Arnold and Travis Young and Brian Stone and, and these just guys that were a couple years older than me. But guys, I wanted to be like, and so to be able to be around them and have them investing in me and pouring into me as a, as a young new believer, and just as a young man, I was 19 years old and, or 18 years old probably at that time and they, yeah, there was, that's, that's where the, the discipleship process really began in my life. Are you still in touch with them now? Yeah, a lot of them, you know, a couple of them stood next to me by wedding. I mentioned Travis Young is planning a church right now in the Fort Worth area and we've stayed in touch through the years and that's a beauty of social media and a lot of ways. You know, I would say all of them, I, I probably have some at least once a year, some kind of interaction with them there. I would say, you know, it's interesting you asked that, but a lot of them are still my, you know, my, my good friends and what one, one guy actually fund that fraternity, he, he was, he came a year after me, but we, every Wednesday, we do a Zoom call, he, he lives in Austin, Texas and we do a Zoom call and just it, we, the only objective of that call is just catch up, it's just, it's a, it's a social hangout. It's not really accountability, it's not really, you know, like it's just, we just do life every Wednesday on a Zoom call. We typically both get lunch and do the Zoom call together and see, yeah, he's, he's, he's a great friend. Yeah, so a lot of, a lot of those relationships continued, I mean, 20 plus years later, Bucks is what we call the fraternity, they actually became a client of my two years later, probably about five, five or six years ago, I got to consult with them for about a year around their social media marketing and, you know, and fundraising strategies and so it's, it's kind of, you know, been full circle, even with the organization of Bucks and love how they're, you know, raising up men, you know, and, and colleges around the country. So what happened after college? When was your first job? Yeah, you know, I would say it, it actually happened not after college, but after my freshman year of college, I got an invitation to be a summer youth pastor for a church, St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Baytown, Texas, and, you know, you know, I was a new believer realistically, but I was cool, you know, and I had long hair and I, you know, had an earring and they're like, you'll attract youth to our church and it was $1,000 a month for three months and, and I was their summer youth minister. I remember that first, and this is actually how I got into digital ministry as well. That first Wednesday night youth group, there was a seventh grade girl in a high school boy, and I remember I like, I'd planned this like youth group, or I was like, I'm going to, I bought a, like a worship CD and a boom box and I was like, that's how we're going to do worship, because it's, I don't have a worship leader and, and then I'll do a talk and I was thinking there's going to be probably 20 or 30 kids show up. Well, there's two, you know, the seventh grade girl in high school boy, which is awkward and, and I played like the first worship song that I planned and the worship set, and then I was like, okay, this isn't working. Let's stop this. And I remember I, I did my devotional and then the seventh grade girl asked me a question that changed my life, and she said, what's your aim? And I, and I said, my aim is to reach every teenager in Baytown, Texas with the gospel of Jesus. And I was so deeply passionate, like in my mind, I was like, this summer for three months, I'm going to do nothing, but change Baytown, Texas, and it was, you know, small oil town outside of Houston. And I'm going to, I'm going to just go tell everyone about Jesus. And, and she said, no, what's your aim? And I said, well, I just told you my aim. She said, no, what's your A.O. will and stem messenger. That's where all my friends are. And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. She's like, you know that CD, you put in your computer, you get in the worldwide web. And it's a chat thing. And, and that's where all my friends are. So this is my aim in the high school boys, again, me too. Here's my aim. So right after that youth group, I got on aim, I added them, started chatting with them. I literally, we had one computer in the church. It's like the secretary, it was when you saw the secretary, you know, the secretary's desk. And I got on aim. I literally stayed with that computer until two in the morning chatting with teenagers, which no youth pastor should ever do. But there was no rules to how the internet worked and out on my ministry work back then. And, and built relationships with them, you know, immediately. And they started connecting me to their friends right there. The next day, I had a, we had a 15 passenger van, which is also now illegal. And no 19 year old should be driving teenage kids around in a 15 passenger van. I just went and picked them up the next day and took a bowling with their friends that I'd met in the chat group. We had a whole, like we ran out of seats and seatbelts on the bus going bowling. And so there's digital relationships turned into physical relationships. And so that summer, I just chatted with every teenager that they would connect me to, shared gospel. I had more than a dozen kids except Christ in a chat room on aim that summer. And we had more than 30 kids except Christ in our gatherings on the Wednesday at youth groups. And we did a big lock in at the end of the year that we ended up with like over 50 kids at this thing from two kids. And it was just there's digital relationship became in personal relationships. And that was my summer in youth ministry. And I was, I was, I was just, it was like, this is what I've made to do. And this is what I want to do forever in my mind back then. But then I was like, you go back to college and you know, kind of get a flow. And I ended up doing that every summer at different churches during college. And then I'm, I remember when I graduated and I got a business degree, I got a business management degree and I remember having a conversation with my dad and the economy was down. And he said, why don't you just do that youth thing like full time for a couple of years. Let the economy pick back up and then you get a grown up job. And you know what, I'm 43 years old now and I've never gotten a grown up job. And so I did youth ministry then for about a decade, but social media is at the core of that. And then that's what led to, you know, a church in San Antonio said, you seem to know how the social, we've been thinking about launching an online church. And this is 13 years ago. And I said, well, I think if you use this new Facebook.com website, I think, you know, AOL had come along, my space had come along, but Facebook was this new thing that was just now going from being just for college students, not being for everyone. I said, I think this thing is going to really catch on. So we bought online church.com and yeah, we started doing digital ministry and took our local church global. And within weeks, we were seeing, you know, thousands of people all over the world logging into our online services and figured out how to do online church. And so that was kind of my journey into full time ministry that went from like summer youth minister with a 19 year old that barely, I mean, the bad theology. I taught, you know, a must have taught and said, but kids despite, you know, my, not knowing what I was doing or having a strategy for online, kids got saved and, and God was gracious in it. And yeah, it's been a fun, fun journey along the way. Well, where are some of the social media strategies you're using throughout your ministries, your youth ministries? Yeah, you know, I would say there, there's, you know, at the core, I just built relationships. You know, I just showed up to where they were and just tried to connect with as many teenagers as I could, you know, I would say there were a couple of just transformational moments though, where I began just to see breakthrough is one, you know, especially probably when Facebook had come out, and this is when it was still just for college students, they had opened up where you could run ads on it. And I was running a college ministry for, you know, like we did youth and college. And our college ministry is maybe 20 college students in a Bible study, and I started running Facebook ads, spending, I think $10 a week on Facebook ads within like a month of doing that. We had tripled our, we had over 100 people in the room because Facebook ads are super cheap. You could target them to just college students in San Antonio to come be a part of this Bible study. It was like, what do we do with this? And so we ended up growing that college mystery to over 200 college students all through Facebook ads, and I don't think I ever spent more than $200 altogether for those ads. And just the fruitfulness we saw there. So that got me really into digital advertising and what's possible there for a minister. I, you know, I had no background in doing that. I just saw a, you know, I saw an ad and then it said, create your own ad, it was like, let me try that. And so that was, that was awesome. And then when we launched on my church, after I had that experience with Facebook, I ran Facebook ads to bring people into online church on a budget of $100 a month. And when I then opened up that targeting from just college students in San Antonio to anybody anywhere in the world, those ads became way cheaper and we were able to reach people all over the world and bring them into our online church. And so just, you know, I think that that connection of digital advertising and the power of Facebook, the other thing I'd say we did with Facebook in particular is we had a Facebook page that we used to build community, you know, 24, seven in between our church services. Well, where most people used social media and most churches, in particular, was for marketing. They would just say come to our church, you know, come to our church, come to our church. And what we did is we just, I just used basically quotes from the sermon, I used Bible verses from the message. And what I found is that when I actually did minister asking, we'd always ask for every day, we'd do a prayer, how could we pray for you when we were just do a big prayer through it on the Facebook page. And so what what happened is these post were just going viral. And so when we said we're going to use this mostly for a ministry and then secondarily for marketing, we saw organic reach exposed that that page within a year. I think we're over three, you know, followers all organic on our Facebook page ended up growing it to about a million. And it was just because we chose to do ministry there rather than just making a marketing platform. And so we still did marketing and but primarily through advertising and then used our page for ministry. Do you feel like that's an effective strategy now or just because those early days, it worked really well because yeah, 2002, it's like almost 20 years, you know, you've been there. So that strategy I think really took effect about 13, 12, 13 years ago. And I actually created a formula back then that I still used today with my clients. And the formula was we're going to post a minimum of 50% inspirational content, a maximum of 20, 20% informational content. And then the other 30% are I call them three C's of conversation, celebration and connection. So conversation being we're just going to ask a question like can we pray for you or it was funny in my past, we used to get upset because I would ask like where's the best hamburger? You know, and everybody had opinion of a bunch of people comment and then he'd be like ask him what their favorite point was from the Sunday sermon and we get like 10 comments, you know, it was just too deep, you know, I think we realized that the more shallow we kept the conversation. Sometimes it would just it was more easy, it was just more natural and easy to respond to you. So we said, conversation, celebration, connection, so celebrating what God's doing in the life of our church or ministries, it would celebrate, you know, salvation, celebrate baptisms, would celebrate life changed or sometimes we'd even or just celebrate Easter or Christmas or, you know, things like that. And then connection would be a behind the scenes. And so hey, we're filming for Sunday or, you know, you know, celebrate our pastor's birthday or we're going to highlight a volunteer and it created a personal connection to the ministry. And so we've used that formula and still today, we use it. I actually, one of the things that happened to me and where my agency was birth is about a year into launching on the church.com, I got him Nika Vuichich, came was a guest speaker at our church and he's like, Hey, I've got 20,000 people in my Facebook page. Can you help run that for me on the side? And you seem to know how this Facebook thing works really well. And he said, and I think I said, because you're so engaging with video and he has no arms and legs, if you probably many people have probably seen him online, I said, I think you should be on YouTube too. I think people should see you and will engage better there. And so we dove in and really built up his Facebook and, you know, still continue to run his social media, but we use that same formula today with his ministry and all of the ministries that we work with. And it's, you know, we tweak it a little bit based on some trends, but, you know, more than a decade later, that same formula continues to work in it. But I think it's really the mindset of for ministry leaders, focus on ministry, use these for ministry first and secondarily let them be a marketing platform. And I think it's just like your Sunday services, you need announcements that church people need to know what next steps they need to take within your church, but they're there for the worship of the message. And so if they're not first being inspired, they're not going to effectively take action. But I think the mistake that people make is they often try to be inspirational and then tag on a marketing, you know, within one post and you just got to mix it up within your content flow with, with a diversity of content. Could you give some examples because it sounds very broad and I'm pretty sure a lot of churches are like, wait, we are doing that. It's like, no, you're posting announcements or you're like, it's like a classified ad instead of like inviting people into experiencing seeing what your church members are seeing. So yeah, for sure. You know, I think practically it's, it's also, you know, when something is inspirational people are more likely to share it. And so I often describe that as even like micro content that leads into your, you know, core actions that you want people to take. And so historically for us, that was that, you know, back 10 years ago, that was taking a quote from the sermon because there's all text based or a Bible verse and then we started using graphics, you know, when that would started to be implemented into these platforms and that that began to see more virality. Well, now that's clips, that's a, you know, a 30 second clip, that's a real on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok. And so it looks different. I think that the format might be different. But every church is creating, you know, content every week with their sermon. And I think what's happening is there's just these digital platforms for it to have maximum impact. And so I think though where I see even the mistake is people are often just like, hey, here's our new sermon series come, come see it on Sunday. What the reality is you can actually have clips from that sermon. And so they're already creating a connection to that sermon series through those clips that they're seeing. And that's going to naturally lead them to the action that you want them to take. But I think even where it's a mistake is I've seen churches that will be like, here's a clip about the woman at the well. And then they'll also even add into the post of like, oh, by the way, if you're a woman and you want to come to our women's retreat, you know, it's going to be on the state. And that takes away that distracts from the message of the post. And so when you want to post that women's retreat promo, just post it. It's not going to do as well. But if you have that balance of other content, but if you tag it on to your inspirational content, that's going to diminish the focus of that content piece in and of itself. So I think we just have to mix in different kinds of posts within our content strategy. And so it does take, you know, it takes, you know, I think some rhythms, you know, consistency of developing out how to create those clips and, you know, tools to use to do that. But, you know, we find that that the investment is is well worth it based on, you know, where the front door that that creates for your church is before we do anything today, we typically check it out online, you know, and so and often even, you know, I it's hard for me to even think of a restaurant that my wife and I have gone to you on a date night that we haven't first found on Instagram and somebody shared a, you know, like, check out this place. And so it's how we find so many new things. And honestly, it's how people are finding churches today as well. And so I think packaging our church experience well and making these platforms ministry first, that's your first touch with people. It's not when they walk in your door. They're likely checking you out on social media first, then go into your website and then finding your Sunday services and then showing up at your church, but there's that process before someone is going to commit their time to showing up. And so social media is what I've had to be the best front door for churches today. Yeah, I totally agree. I think even before I did like faithless stuff, I didn't really get into all the social media stuff because I think I just had a very traditional mindset of just organically and relationally, but just the ramp of technology and the speed in which information travels, I realize, oh, no, social media actually is a tool. And if anything, Christian should be pumping out more content because there's just a lot of not great content. So might as well be inspirational in switch that nobody likes. You know, it's like, you know, let's just this thing be the thing, right? And let the other thing be the thing and don't like try to manipulate like an inspiration of code and then be like, oh, $9.99, just what is this thing? Yes. It's like a commercial in Vietnam, one of the Asian countries about the dad and like, you know, he's like struggling and helping his daughter and then it's like an ad for like something just like feel super manipulated. Yes. Yeah, I'm realizing more and more of the importance of just engagement because if people are engaged and then mean they're interested and they're invested and those are the kind of people you want to bring into your church because they're like, oh, like I want to be here rather than forced to be here. So in your opinion, with the current landscape of how social media is, like, what do you feel like we are currently and where's it headed with like AI and with the Apple Vision Pro coming out? Everyone's going crazy about that and like, yeah, so what is your thoughts on all that in the future of how we would use technology and engagements outside of what we're doing now? Yeah, it's a good question. I think practically where social media is today is it's probably 95% video today. And so I think YouTube in many ways is replacing television. And so where you and I probably flip channels growing up, my kids just know how to search YouTube, you know, and it learns us and it feeds us what we want rather than having like flip channels to find what we want. And so I think you're saying that TikTok's algorithm is unbelievable and not being copied by these other platforms is short form vertical video. So you see kind of all platforms moving to video and that becoming more and more significant part of what we're consuming. So when we think about what content we want to create to reach people, I think we've got to be thinking about video. The AI side of it, you know, I think it's, you know, there's so many things that it can help with from, you know, there's tools like opus clips that can help create, you know, basically sermon clips for you. I think tools like Canva, they can do graphic design for you with AI integrations. There's, there's tools like chat GBT that can actually design your sermon series logo, you know, or things like that with their dolly integration. I, you know, one of the tools that I've been using a lot with some clients is just chat GBT. You can teach it. You can basically feed at the transcripts of your sermons and then just say, hey, based on the voice you've now learned from our pastor, can you write an email or draft an email and then you edit it. And so I think there's just these integrations that it just is going to create a lot of efficiencies for some of the processes we do. And I think the advantage that is to church leaders that lean in is it's creating efficiencies so that people can do it only people can need to do. And so I think it's going to allow for more pastoral ministry, rather than like behind a computer editing videos or, you know, creating graphics and, you know, websites are going to better optimize themselves. And so there's a lot of tools that are, that are, that are creating some efficiencies. I think there's some darkness to it of like past, you know, you think about all the fake accounts that are created of pastors and some things like that or deep fake technology that will impersonate maybe, you know, adjust to bat theology sometimes. And so I, I think there are some, some challenges with AI, but I'm mostly excited and optimistic of the opportunities that other, my, my friend Nick Woodchich actually created a tool that he built for his ministry that they're making available to the mass public called multitude. And it's actually does voice translation, they call it branded voices where it learns your voice, translates so it can actually take, you know, it's taking, so we're starting with Nick takes his content, which he speaks with an Australian accent, because he was birthed in Australia, but, but he's from America, so he speaks in English, but it translates and it uses his Australian accent, but speaks Spanish or speaks, they do have to 36 languages. So it sounds like Nick, but it's actually putting a voiceover of his voice into any language. So you think about your church being able to be in any language. And when we talk about going to the ends of the earth and the great commission, you can see where this technology is going to help us do it, just like social media with, you know, three billion active users on Facebook and YouTube, like that's helping us go to the ends of the earth in a lot of ways, but it's also helping us go into our local communities more effectively as well. So I think there's some really interesting innovations that are happening. When it comes to VR, you know, when you think about the Apple Vision Pro and what's happening there, you know, I tested VR probably for the first time eight years ago, and I remember thinking this is the future, and I actually own the domain virtual reality dot church. Because I was like, we're going to do church and virtual reality. I've seen churches do that. I think a lot of churches, I've actually, I'm typically seeing churches be late adopters to things. I think more churches actually have actually been too early of adopters to virtual reality. I think what I've experienced so far has, you know, maybe reached a few, but there's just not mass adoption there yet, but I, but I do think that there's just an inevitable future of the, they're kind of saying that VR or augmented reality, as well as kind of the last computing platform. The final computing platform is what a lot of people are calling it. I think actually neuro linkist is what that actually will be, but are that type of technology that is implementing things into our brains, and that gets really scary and dark. But virtual reality, I think it really immerses us into a environment, and I get really excited about what I think of like virtual reality devotionals, and even Apple has already created a meditation app. I think that's going to be a pretty neat technology. I think three 360 video, if you've ever experienced that, it's as if you could be at a concert or sports venue and be sitting on the front row and experience it as if you're in the room. And we're going to do church, and some people can experience church that way. I don't think that's going to replace church, just like online church has replaced church. So I think there's some cool opportunities there. I think right now, though, the technology that churches need to pay attention to is AI, and how to integrate AI systems into your processes that are going to create efficiencies. I think virtual reality, you know, augmented reality, that type of technology is still probably five to 10 years away from mass adoption. And how to effectively govern a lot of these innovations, and we need guardrails around this, just from a societal standpoint, you even take out the faith side of it. I'm like an extreme, like pure libertarian, because like my guiding principle is like everyone is personally responsible, because we're going to all face judgment. And I don't mean like a scary condemning way. It's just like God's a light. He's going to show you everything that you don't even realize about yourself, and then you're going to either be really humble, or just like double down, be like, no, I think people should be allowed to do anything, like even if it's self-harm, if you want to do that with your life, that's great, as long as it's not hurting other people around you. So that's the context I'm going to say this. I no longer trust anything man-made, because like I grew up with technology, like in the name, like our generation is so special. We're like at the press conference, and now at the dawning of like AI, it's just, it's a movie. I'm losing a movie. Totally. Totally. Totally. So anything man-made, like is like only 99% perfect. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. There's always this ability, like things fail, just even like how neutrinos work, and like flips a bit, and like computer crashes. Yeah. That's why I would not trust it personally, but I would have you on the podcast and talk to you. That's you. Yeah. It's because I do think like, yeah, like advances in technology should help people decide what kind of quality of life they want, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because this is all a personal choice. For sure. For sure. Yeah. As long as it's outside, and it's part of my five senses, I'll use it. Yeah. And the other stuff is like, I'm now learning how to not be so dependent on technology. Yeah. Like, those are the time in my life where if I couldn't find my phone, I'd be like in the worst mood. It's like my life would be over, but now it's like, oh, okay, I guess no one could cut that to me. That's kind of nice. Right? Or I'm like, high-key is like, so yeah, all that to say like, yeah, everybody, you do you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.