Loving Community, Connections, and the Church - Katie Allred

I think I just kept searching after that same dealing of being connected. I felt like I really knew these people. I love community. I think that's why I love the truth. I love community. I love creating relationships and connections. I'm good at that. And so I had created a beautiful community online that I loved when I was a kid in a teenager. And I think I've just been searching for that kind of feeling ever since. Hi, my name is Katie Alred and I'm the founder of Church Communications.com where we help churches clarify their message and help them speak more clearly to their congregations and their communities and figure out new ways to reach them. So this is my faithfully story. Welcome to Faithfully 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 Faithfully Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithfully, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at Faithfully.com. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry on the Faithfully Stories podcast. So yeah, if you could start by just tell me your faith journey. Yeah, I would love to share. So I grew up in church. I grew up in very rural Alabama and I can remember the first time you went to church actually. I mean, I was four, so we weren't going really extensively before that. We had just moved to a new area that was pretty rural. It's where my family on both sides actually came from, but my mom and dad had moved away or even actually my grandparents had moved away. So yeah, so anyways, we had a lot of family heritage in this area. So when we moved back, we started going to the church actually, that my church, that my family helped plant back in 18, 18 year before Alabama, it became a state. So we had a lot of family history out in that graveyard. So yeah, we started going to the church when I was really young and then I just fell in love with church. I love the community. I was a very extroverted child. I wanted to be there at all times. I love the business of church, which I thought was probably a little weird for most people. Like, I wanted to be at the church budget meeting on a Sunday night and like the church band would have to go pick me up because my mom wasn't taking me, you know, she was like, why do you, you don't need to be there? And I really know. I need to know how much they're spending, um, anyway. So yeah, I think that, that played a big part in it, but like, so I'm going to spiritually, you know, I, I started like having the head knowledge of understanding Jesus and what he did for me, like, pretty early on, uh, but then a brown tin, I started asking a lot of these questions and I don't think I fully understood them, but I, I got baptized then, um, and, uh, which is a very Southern Baptist thing to do. I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church, um, and I ended up like feeling like my head knowledge, my heart knowledge caught up with my head knowledge around 16, really, uh, but even in those years, in between that, I was evangelizing on the internet from nine to 16 on a Harry Potter forum, uh, and so funny because like, yeah, I didn't like exactly know what I was talking about, but I just knew that like, I love Jesus and I love church and I love following what Jesus taught and how we should love one another and I wanted to share that with the world because that's the good news is that Jesus is for everyone. And so, yeah, so that's a little bit, I mean, that's like a short version. I mean, I went on to, uh, lose some, actually, I lost a friend in a tornado, which is a very strange thing that happened, but it really affected me very early on with grief and but through that, God actually taught me a lot and there's, there's, there's not actually story about this online, I prefer not to share the whole thing, but like, I think God really prepared me for that because then we ended up, my, my school ended up losing someone in an accident and then I ended up losing my father in 2008. So I dealt with grief myself and then I had to help my school deal with grief and then because I was the fellowship or Christian student's president at the time, um, is a small school. I went to a very small school and then, yeah, and then with losing my dad at 18, I kind of grew in my faith quite a bit and that's what I answered called ministry. And so, yeah, that's a little bit of my faith journey of like understanding, I don't know, where I wanted to kind of fit in because in that meantime while I was doing it, uh, when I was doing the online community thing for Harry Potter, I understood like, I wanted to do something with technology and Jesus. I didn't know what that meant. Oh, I studied like computer science because I thought like, that was the closest thing. Like digital marketing didn't exist. That's all I wanted to know. And online community, the idea of it just didn't exist. Um, and so I studied what I thought was closest to it. That would help me make it happen and ended up studying like web development, my masters and, yeah, and, and all of that kind of led me to working at church and then, uh, becoming a professor and then working at meta and then, uh, founding church communications and it's a very strange story that we've been, but it all makes sense like looking back on it. So yeah, most of life is that weaving and only when you look back, he's like, oh, all of these interconnect and God knew exactly what he was doing, right? Oh, yeah, 100%. Yeah. Um, so there's a lot there that you shared. So I kind of want to unpack some of it. Um, what was it about church that like really stuck with you and like, what did you enjoy most about church as a child? Yeah, you know, there's a saying it takes a village to raise a child. I actually said that. So when I graduated, I like made a speech and I remember saying that in high school, like, it took a church to raise me and I think I really love the aspect of having all these older adults that weren't necessarily my parents that spoke into my life and that I could go for advice and I knew cared and loved about me just as much as anybody else. And I loved the discipleship aspect. I think, you know, churches, they love to build like a program and like do events and something I really loved about growing up was not that it was the personal relationships I made with people that were not, you know, they weren't intentional, but they were my, the guy who discipled me was my six grades on his school teacher who ended up, we just became really good friends and I mean, which is so funny to say because he was like a, you know, a six year old man and it's fine. He'll be okay with me talking about this still. But yeah, he owns a furniture store, you know, and, but he was so good at like answering my questions, but then also asking me questions back and saying like, all right, but can you find it like in scripture, can you back up what you're saying with, you know, like some scriptural background or whatever and so it was really good. You know, that was a very discipleship relationship that came here organically and I think having that really good experience early on made me love it because not everybody grew up in a church for the same 15 years and then walked away with a good experience of it. You know, of course there were people in church that will like Bernie, but I was really grateful if I have had basically the same pastor the entire time and I mean, the congregation was only like a hundred people so I knew everyone and for me, that was a really beautiful way to see church and then I ended up working a mega church right out of college. So funny because I told myself I never would I didn't think to me that didn't feel like the expression of church, but that was the one I, you know, I didn't grow up in that kind. And so I was really need to see the opposite end of it and to see how like God came grow and blessed that and how building relationships looks differently that way, but yeah, that's kind of wide church in a way and then like communication kind of just was my native tongue. It was what I was really good at. So yeah, it's kind of like using my talents for that. That's fascinating because even you sharing like the joys of your childhood in church, I realized like me at 40 that predominantly, I mean, set aside like my mom praying for me and saving myself like it was really because I had so much fun and most of my good memories came from church and so like it stuck with me and now like all I want to do is like recreate that for other people because it was so like good and like yeah, that's just kind of like and it's funny that, you know, you mentioned that too. So I really think like for children, it's so important to create that environment, right? Yeah, for sure. And yeah, it's so interesting because like our children's ministry growing up mine wasn't the best, right? It was in the early 90s or whatever we didn't have the coolest. There were no check-in. Yeah. There were their check-in system. And I know it's a very different time now and kids are different, but you know, all we have is like a playground outside and play dough and building blocks like that's all I hear about but like I can remember how much Ralph Ramsey and Miss Jean Ramsey cared for me. You know, I can remember, you know, Suzanne Williams buying CDs to make us tell, like, encourage us to bring books to the Bible. I can't remember those things that are very specific, you know, and Ralph Ramsey isn't with us anymore. He bought in World War II. And these are really great, like people are just like getting to know people on this like really personal intimate basis. But yeah, I think the best way to have from childhood a lot of them are associated with church thankfully. But at the same time, like, they made me feel included and that I belonged and that I was loved. And I think that does look a little differently today. I think we need to to stretch more to fight for that kind of feeling for kids and teenagers. It's one of the hardest things I had to deal with when I lost my best friend when this was almost 10 years ago. And he was like close to my age and I honestly couldn't stop crying when I thought about him for like the first 10 years. But like I really see God used that in my life. So I'm just curious like what advice would you give to people who are grieving and going through that process? Yeah, grief is a journey and it looks different for everyone. Like you said, you crying every time you thought of him, that's perfectly normal and it's I think it's really okay. And I think everybody does it so differently. And for me, it was finding that space and the people who told me it was okay not to be okay. And because I was a perfectionist, which is probably why I also thrived in church. I didn't want to ever be seen as broken. And it broke me very early on. And it's okay to be broken and it's okay to grieve and cry and have to get through those things. I think that yeah, grieving looks so different for everyone. But for me, like the easiest, the best things I could do was just like surround myself with the right people and and remind myself that it was okay to miss them. There's that like Winnie the Pooh quote or whatever that like how lucky am I to have had someone that I miss so much. And I can remember the pastor I worked for at that and mega church I worked at saying like, you know, we may have only had this person for so long, but how how grateful we should be that we knew them for that long. And so I try to remind myself that like at least I did, you know, at least I was part of their story and I knew them. And in that way, you know, they stay alive. And so I think yeah, I think that was probably a big learning curve for me. And to like spiritual, I think, you know, God had prepared me for the loss of my friend in a very unique way through scripture, just reminding me of the specific scripture over and over again. It's from first Kings 19. It says, you know, God went through the mountains and he tore across that he tore the mountains apart with wind and then fire. But then there was a gentle whisper. He's talking to Elijah. And the gentle whisper and the Hebrew, I believe, really kind of means the overwhelming presence of God. And having that like, the reminder that like this is holy ground, like the grieving process is just the beginning of the next adventure for that for that person. And it's really beautiful. I think, you know, it also reminds me of Harry Potter. I like the double twirl. Like death is not but the next great adventure. And, you know, it's sad because they're no longer with us, but at the same time, like how grateful I am to just have had a part of their story. Thank you. That's such a beautiful, beautiful statement. I never thought of like suffering as holy ground, but that makes so much sense now. Thank you. So how do you go from Harry Potter church communications.com? And some of the podcast you're explaining, like you're just this Christian girl in the Harry Potter forums sharing the gospel. And then you created this Facebook and it blew up. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny because I did not connect those two for a very long time. I just thought of my Harry Potter experience not being related to it. I really didn't even think of it. It's so funny because it was like so far in the back of my mind, right? Because I was a kid. Um, yeah. So I think I just kept searching after that same feeling of being connected. I felt like I really knew these people. I love community. I think that's why I love church. I love community. I love creating relationships and connections. I'm good at that. And so I had created this beautiful community online that I loved when I was, you know, a kid in a teenager. And I think I've just been searching for that kind of feeling ever since. And Facebook groups were just like on the horizon of being cool. I don't know. I mean, they weren't really being used. And I was in one group that I thought was really fun. And it was like an entrepreneurship group for women. And I was like, this is cool. There's not really space for people who are doing what I'm doing. So at the time, I had been working at a church for about three years, and at the time, uh, doing social media and web development. So, and I was very much, you know, at the bottom of the hierarchy chart, the organizational chart, doing this work at this mega church. And I was like, okay, but we have so many resources. And I'm fortunate enough to be able to do this job and only do this job, right? So I guess to go deep with it with my knowledge instead of like a breadth of knowledge, which I think a lot of people had as church communications directors, because they're end up doing everything. And so I was like, I'm going to start a group. And at the time, my boss and I, uh, at the church, he was also helping me do some of this. And we were, courses were like a big thing. So we were thinking about like doing a course or whatever, but we ended up doing a group. And the group took off. And we, we did do some courses. And, you know, those are still good. But the community really like, I don't know, went on fires, essentially. Uh, really quickly, we had a thousand members and then 5,000, 10,000. And now we're at like 33,000 or something like that, which, you know, there's like 300,000 churches in North America. So it's like 10% of the churches, which is insane to me. But like, you know, I think I just wanted to minister to ministers. And I knew that they could help each other and that they could help me. And so I was like, let's create a community strictly around communication because we can get into debates about theology very quickly. But the one thing we all have in common, that was love Jesus. And we love communications like we love. Merping and branding and websites and social media. These are all things we have in common regardless of our theological differences. And so, which is a beautiful thing, right? So it's like a big global sea church all working together, even though we might feel very differently about some things. And so yeah, that's kind of how it began. And it's been growing ever since. I love the fact that yeah, you found a way to create a community around a common problem because at the end of the day, that's what every company is and entrepreneurship, like you have a problem, you want to solve it. I'm really curious as to how you like grew it or how it grew by its own or like what is the story? Because part of faithly is like we're focusing on groups and we want to create that community. But it's really hard to get it going first. So yeah, I would just love to hear your experience on that. Yeah, so that is a great question. I was up to say that I had some intentional strategy. I definitely did not. I think our first thousand members came from other groups where people were tired of people talking about communications, church communications in them. And so they sent them to our group because they were like, oh, this isn't the right place for you to talk about this stuff. Interesting. I think at first we were just like the red-headed stepchild. You can send your conversations about that here because there were a lot of like media groups, like church media. But that revolved more on audio video stuff and not necessarily like communications, things like branding and websites and whatnot. And so we kind of became the you know, place to filter your topic. So why I loved about like former administration is used to have to have threads about different conversations, which I still would love. But now you kind of have to have different groups for these different conversations almost. Even though communications in itself has a lot of sub-categories. So yeah, that's kind of how we grew up first was just people like word of mouth telling people about it. And then from there it became more of a necessity. And also I do think we had really good SEO value to be honest with you. Like really good search engine optimization because we're literally name church communications. And people were searching for that because they've worked in church communication. And so in most of the time like at church as a communication team. And so I think we were just aptly named. I was lucky enough to get the domain name from some guy. Well thankfully my boss was able to like negotiate him into giving it to us. He had had it for like 10 years when it was making VHS tapes or something off of it. So yeah, we're very interesting. Tristunications.com was like a VHS. But yeah, so yeah, I wish I could tell you it was that but it was really it was really that. And then also people tagging people who weren't in the group and then me telling them hey they're not here but you should like go and get them and add them because and there was a lot of conversations happening with really good information. And I think people added their friends so that they could see it because they were like oh this is really good. We need to know. And I'd love to say that I was the one driving all this content. That's definitely not the case. It was definitely these were people who were creating content who wanted people to see their content and get feedback on their content. So it was very organic and natural which is really cold. And then like the why to why I started it. It it was also a little bit because I was mad it didn't exist because I too was frustrated in the other place to ask questions. And so yeah, that's why I ended up I you know and I wrote the book and it was because I was mad it didn't exist not because I was passionate. I don't think like I'm the best person at this topic at all. I just think I'm the one that had the time. So I didn't. That's not because I think I'm the best at it for sure. No that's perfect because recently I'm realizing that because we're created in the image of God like the name, image and likeness that we all go through unique problems that are actually really common but it's the first person that says okay this needs to exist. So I'm going to start it but I'm going to get a bunch of other people to kind of grow it right now. And then you kind of like enjoy what you had in your mind grow but like you don't need to put invest all your time and energy into it. So yeah that makes perfect sense. So what does communications.com do? And like how do you go about solving that problem? That's a great question. So first we are the group you know the Facebook group. But then also we offer a blog, a podcast, resources, and soon we are starting consulting and coaching as well adding cohorts for communications directors to meet like on a weekly basis so that I can learn from each other like via Zoom so that they can have more in-depth conversations because I just felt like there's a void for that. And I'm mad it doesn't exist. So we mad it's all making exist. And yeah and then also we help churches do websites and those kind of things too and do communication audits and help them see the gaps that they have in their communication messaging and how they can build you know better messaging so that people understand who they are and when they come. Could you give me an example of what these people are talking about or what are some of the pain points that you personally experience in church with communications? Yeah you know I think a lot of churches use like their mission statement as their tagline and that doesn't necessarily resonate with someone who it doesn't know Christ and at the end of the day people are looking for what can benefit them and I know that's like terrible to say but like it's true like yeah we are trying to survive and so if your church isn't helping me survive and thrive like you're basically like not you're like not what I want right and so I think you know churches are a perfect way to get interconnected with people who can help you get jobs that can help you find you know childcare that can help you do I mean just have community and friends like there's so many good things about having this third place right that people talk about now and it used to be church and I still think it should be I think that we just created it to be such an exclusive club that it's hard to get past the words sometimes so pots on the website or what they're speaking or because there's like this certain way you have ah there are a certain way you have to um there's certain things you just have to understand right and so a lot of people may not understand the phrase like said by the blood of the lamb that sounds weird and so we help churches understand that might be weird and what can we do to make it where you know seeker friendly but then also like how can we help them under like understand like their websites are like 80% visited by people who are new and most of the time they build their website for the 20% of the people from their church that are visiting their website and that's not who they should be building it for they should be building it for the community that they're in and how they can serve their community and honestly they could be putting community resources on it you know and all those kind of things but they typically don't they don't have like interest in Google would prefer to send people to a local answer for a lot of questions especially like spiritual questions I found like have a pray or Jesus or whatever you know all those things like it would prefer to like also give them a local answer but often there is no answer for how to pray on your church's website and so we help churches understand that they should have this content available on their website so that people can find them when they're searching for those like questions because people aren't asking their pastors anymore about what happens when I die they're asking Google and so we need to provide them with answers somebody is somebody is already providing them with answers on the internet so it might as well also be coming from your church as well because then if they see oh this is a local church near me like I can go to that church and find someone to talk to about this so as you're talking a new image that came to my mind was communication that's out we're facing and then we're facing so a lot of what you were explaining makes a lot of sense when you're trying to communicate to the outside world hey where this is who we are in the way you understand things but like is there like a split between internal communications and out the out-of-basin communication or like how do you fit that together to working with your comp team there can be it sometimes often feels like there is and a lot of times like for like a company they would say the externalist marketing the internalist communication but churches don't work and to me like this stuff that we're doing online or the way we're talking to the you know people who don't go to our church that's evangelism to me and so and we're communicating to them who we are and and what we come from but to yeah there's a totally different set of problems that come when you're communicating internally to your church and the congregation that is there right like um there's the ever never ending battle of bulletins and butter churches should have them or not that's that's a that's a fun printed online people have lots of feelings about it in our group still to this day um yeah like should your baptism be wrapped thinking behind a wrap or not and there's so many like random things that like you're like what doesn't even matter i don't know um and so yeah and then also how do you communicate like what's going on in your church uh to your people so like i think again i think social media should be like an external thing i think that should be a thing where you it's like your front door you're you're telling people stories of like life chain you know what god is doing in your church and what god is doing the lives of people in your church more importantly not just their church of life but individual people the more we can share that the better because that's what church is is the people it's not the building um and so but with communicating like internally about what's going on i really recommend like emails and text uh just because and obviously the pulpit announcement stuff i take morning i think those three things are really like to me that the heavy hitters of today of like how people are keeping up with what's going on at their church um the best and for me like this social media i mean i think it's fun to put some of your announcements out on social media that's fun uh but it shouldn't just only be announcements that makes sense no i totally agree with you because i see churches using social media as like a glorified bulletin i saw that our bulletin board when it's like majority on that people on the social media space don't go to your church and this is a perfect time to have exposure and even as i'm going through my stories and reels of like other people like yeah it like captivates me like they're telling these stories about what they're doing and i'm like oh more curious about the church um so to that effect like what advice would you give to churches to kind of be more effective on social media platforms to be outward facing i think look at what's working for other things um so i love the example of humans of new york this is very to me community driven and also people centric and they're telling stories of people where they are how they are and it's very vulnerable and honest and i think the church could use some vulnerability and honesty and so sharing those stories i think is so important figuring out where those stories are in your church is so important and like doing like even funny you know the on the street type videos that's great too like you need to show that your church is alive and yeah the there are people that go there and that's sometimes they're funny and you know those kind of things i think creating like fun content is great i think showing your staff having fun is great showing your people having fun and so and like fun recaps of events aren't going on and how you can get involved i think that is showing the life of the church rather than just graphic after graphic after graphic that's pretty sterile and like there's stock images it i think i actually showing people who go there even if it's not polished it's it's better yeah so like part of this podcast is that i wanted people to know the people on the site and i wanted to get to talk to them and relate to them because even if you go on like faithly or like linked in easier picture and you see all their details like you don't only get to know them personally and so it's hard to connect you know um yeah i love that so how do you see a i kind of disrupt or maybe help or yeah analyze because like you said people are going to google for answers but not they're just going to go to AI that is also true is it's going to happen and and i hope that AI will be as uh what sort of sensitive maybe as as Google has been which i mean is AI right like at the search engine is AI and as to giving people local answers you know i think because there's so there's so many answers there's so many different uh beliefs even within the Christian you know world of for for questions and i think the more it can point people especially in the world of spirituality to a local like organization to help find those answers to better so i'm hopeful that you know that might happen but too i'm excited about AI because i think it will help us have better conversations in what way i think the like i personally would have loved it if like in my group i could pull all the data of what people have written and i know what their top pain points are i know uh what's trending like what people are asking and talking about the most inside the group and these are things that AI can do now uh which they couldn't do it couldn't do a for really uh pulling and and searching through all that data so quickly and finding and in just writing like a response that makes sense uh and then creating questions based on that that data right on what those pain points are or what's for it is trending like pulling uh resources that can be posted those kind of things i think is what i'm excited about when it comes to like the community aspect of AI that's fascinating because i never thought of that in that context in that way and we should definitely talk after the podcast because now i have so many other questions i don't want to get into a rabbit. Somebody please make it please Danny. Well that's the point of faithly and why i want to talk to you because we want to fit all that in because we want to be very community driven and people like centric because at the end of the day all people are a problem solvers but we're really trying to solve people problems you know um so you said community is what you make of it and how you show up and contribute and what is church but a community of people who love each other i absolutely love that quote and like it made me tear up because i totally and why i love the local church um how did you like come to that realization or conclusion or truth for you. Yeah well i think i came to that conclusion really after you're studying like friendships and relationships in general like friendship is you could replace the word church with friendship in that same sentence and get like friendships are what you contribute or like what you bring to it um and so at the end of social media is what you bring to it you know and so what how can we make this world a better a better place and how can we make the church a better place it's about you like it starts with you it doesn't start with like necessarily your pastor's got too much to do so like if you see a problem like you should solve it um and or if there's something bothering you specifically you should solve it because yeah there's just there's not going to there's not going to be a better time or a better place uh and and for me churches this like beautiful way of having community of having resources of having shared resources is so funny i'd read when i was like 12 add read the irresistible revolution by um Shane she will succinct Shane Claymore who's like very much a um a hippie uh more like a hippie christian i know um and it's so funny that i got my hands on this book because i was not right like i was racing a very um a legalistic version of christianity in a way and like do this do that don't do this and i think having read that book an early age i saw if there was this different way that church is meant to be this living organism and it's meant to be beautiful and broken and different and and a family because families are not perfect and so i have you know been striving to figure out what that looks like kind of ever since yeah that makes a lot of sense a lot of my drivenness for community was or is really because i miss being part of like a very cohesive family um and it's funny how like god uses it so that i can help other families as i'm longing for my own right i just want to add to the the the world is super disconnected right now we're more connected than we've ever been but more lonely only are than we've ever been if you like search and this is how i started a lot of my like talks like if you search right now like who's the loneliest generation you're gonna find headlines for jinsies the loneliest millennials are loneliest boomers are the like every generation's the loneliest generation uh and some kind of i remember there's like i think the stats from our sigma like one out of four people don't have someone they feel like they can intimately have a conversation with like share something personal that's happening their life with and that is bad yeah that should be something the church should feel passionately about um more so because that's that's the love of christ to me is being the person that you can share someone with and not feel like you're going to be chased out town and um i think we've made it the place where you feel like oh i don't want to absolutely don't want them to know because they're going to chase me out of town and i think that we're all longing for the ab essence of home that sends a family that sends a belonging and the church should should be that and so it's hard it's hard because they're all broken people and you know we've all got these ideas and these rituals that we've set up for years and years about what it should look like to be and so i don't have like a great answer for that quite yet but i think it starts with like people like us at least having a conversation around it because otherwise it's just going to keep being same thing it's been probably for the like the last 50-ish years you know i think that there's been certain places of pockets of families that work really well the churches that work really well like you and i had good like we're you know we remember really good things about the churches that we grew up in like when my dad died the ladies of the church that i grew up with came to our house and cleaned it top to bottom the day my the day after my dad died um made us leave and said we're going to clean this house and i mean and they scrubbed and it hasn't been that clean since and and then also helped my mom go through my dad's belongings uh and i think about that and to me that's church like my uncles didn't do that they didn't show up uh but my church did and so i think that's like the beauty of it yeah um so i kind of agree with when you said like online churches church because again it's about the people gathering together but in your opinion how do you also because unless you're meeting in person two i feel like you lose some of that relationalness right so how do you combine you know having people gather online as a community but also like encourage them to meet in person yeah that's that kind of the the rub right because kind of the friction of online church i love the idea of it because like i said i love those friends of mine in my Harry Potter group i love the people i have in church communications and i have not met many of them and many of them feel like they know me personally um even though i may not necessarily know them and and that's the issue right is like you know there's not enough like room and so i do think like encourage i think it starts online i do think like i would love to encourage that in person involvement whatever that looks like whether the online church has a meeting a few times four times a year once a quarter or something in one place or rather they uh set up like local chapters where people watch together in their homes i think that could be an interesting innovation of it because yeah you're right like uh online people can't necessarily they can send money though like that they can do different things like you know like it may not be exactly like it was so that's the interesting part like they could still send us a cleaning crew like after someone passes away like so it's a little it's a little different um so i do wonder like what that like looks like exactly uh you know i don't know that i have that figured out either and i think some churches are doing it really well like sound of back has a really great online church jay can't kranda's amazing he oversees that and it's the pastor of it and like he flies anywhere where somebody wants to be like baptized and um most of the time a lot of those places do have those like home churches where they're all watching together and they kind of created their little smoker around it and so i do wonder if like that's the future of church because i i don't know that it's big you know i don't know and and that's funny because i can't i burnt out at a church right um i think that our generation is burnt out from that and really does seek those the wanting to be intimately known again and i think jen z sees through that and while it's so good for resource purposes it is like it's so good for like meeting and like having like that space is so awesome it's also i don't know it's also so hard because the bigger your spaces the more the communities like but you could be giving that to the poor and like what are you doing like and you you could be serving them through that building i don't know you know i don't know what that that is but there definitely is like a balance of what that looks like but i definitely feel like the future of the church is smaller and also my pastor at the mega church used to say the first reformation was about giving the word back to the people but the second reformation will be about giving the ministry back to the people that's good and i think that's where we start so that means it might be in homes and it's going to look smaller and different i totally agree with you now i don't know how it's going to get there because i've always said the church is supposed to reflect the home the home is not supposed to reflect the church and i feel like and it just really comes and you'll hear me say there's a lot on the package it really is how we started off in like the birth of the century of like an industrial mindset or constantly scaling and building up right here so like scarce of resources but now we have too many resources if you really think about it we are like like a glutton for information and technology and now i think like you said we're gonna trickle back to okay but now we need to build out relationships and yeah you know the whole online church thing the thing i was thinking about is like long distance relationships maybe we will just find a way because one thing i know about like two people dating that are crazy in love with each other and they're like i'm trying to do anything and everything and i think people who have that gender and heart for each other will do the same because we're just human yeah yeah i've said that on the podcast i think before too yeah like on my church as well i call my dating like eventually they're gonna they're gonna see each other why that's just how it is but yeah i don't think about too how good it is to build a network that's wide you know that's not just local because we're very much becoming a nomadic culture we're not like staying in one place for 50 years like we used to we're very much like picking up a moving uh especially as millennials like most of us don't own houses so like we're just like uh well you know i'm as well my as we'll go uh so yeah i think that opens up opportunity to for jobs and and so many other things in different ways of life so yeah i don't see it as a bad thing i just say it's a different thing it just looks different yeah yeah yeah yeah um so i'm gonna ask you three questions as we end this podcast uh when was the last time you changed your mind about something that's hard um i've i've changed my mind about a lot of things recently i don't know if i want to share them on the podcast okay not just one anything it could be silly it doesn't have to be serious or maybe communication style you thought was like oh this is the way but with new information you're like oh wait oops yeah you know i think i what this was a really recent one though like i'd changed my mind about snapchat one time okay let's talk about how how can snapchat be used because a lot of young people are on it and i don't think any church is on it well i had our church on it back in 2015 and i changed my mind because you can change settings first off to make it more safe but to uh i think the ability to have conversations with people like one on one that you can do in snapchat is like maybe worth worth the risk and then you know when things happen which they will regardless like of what platform you're using whether it's in person or not things are going to happen and when they do you have a system you have a plan for when that does happen something that you thought was inappropriate happens so i think like taking the risk of making a relationship or reaching out to people even if it's different and i think like i thought that about twitch or like tiktok i remember i first like when tiktok came out i was like no tiktok like that's a terrible idea um and now like i spend the majority of my time on tiktok so i can't even like say it's a bad idea anymore uh and or like the idea i used to think like everything that came out of the churches like like social media needed to be from the pastor and now i don't think that at all like i think it should not be from the pastor actually i think everything from social media should be from people at your church not not the pastor necessarily i think it's fine to have them on our hot time on there a few times but like i said the church is the people's not just the pastor so yeah no that was great that was great like when you rewatch this you'll be like oh wow that was a really insightful isn't it no because it's not about the thing it's about the lesson you learned and the concepts that will apply to other like you said not just map chat but other platforms where what i'm hearing when you say that is relationship is risk right so yeah might as well put in the effort to try to connect and if it doesn't work you can just move off platform you know so there's nothing wrong with experimenting the printing press was evil yeah and it was evil for a host of reasons that were outside of like like just people think people like the church on it was evil because they you know and our government thought it was evil because then you know they were controlling the church like there's so much more behind like why something is evil than just one thing so yeah um what are you hoping for and faithfully like honestly all the jobs i've ever gotten and probably the same for you have become have been because i'm known somebody i don't think i've gotten a job yet because i know i don't think no i haven't gotten one yet because i just applied so everything that has ever been opened for me has been because i knew somebody who knew me and so i think that is what i hope for faithfully is that there's just this like why network of people who get to know each other and can help each other especially in this especially in this economy um but i can help each other grow not only like professionally but spiritually as well thank you um and how can we be praying for you yeah well we're going into holidays the holidays are tough time for me um traditionally but i'm excited about them nevertheless uh and they're just i think they're a hard time for a lot of people so yeah i guess just like prayer for not just me during the holidays but for a lot of people who are dealing with grief thank you well thanks for coming um this was great um and i have so many questions when i ask you at door six but great see how much time we have uh that's if we're the podcast guys thank you for tuning in to the faithfully stories podcast we pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey the faithfully stories podcast is brought to you by faithfully an online community committed to empowering church leaders pastors staff 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