EP027: CITN & the Community and Camaraderie of Ministry

The Church Digital podcast is going to be a little different than what you're used to. We're not bringing in one guy to have a conversation with. We're not bringing in two. We're actually bringing in three different people to have a conversation. And on top of that, they're IT guys. Like, I don't know if you spend much time hanging out with IT guys, but I'll just tell you up front, they're a little weird. You get jokes like this: Why is beef stew a horrible password? Why is beef stew a horrible password? Because it's not strong enough. Yeah, weird. How does a computer get drunk? Don't think about that one. It takes screenshots. A computer screenshots. You start to see how bad it is. Why do we not call an iPhone charger apple juice? Okay, no, I actually think that's legitimate. But these are IT guy humor jokes. And if you hang around IT guys long enough, you start to discover, at least I do in my life, they're a little weird. Okay, they're really, really weird.

So we got three IT guys coming into this conversation today at the Church Digital. Jason Powell, who has a very awesome title that he will share with you from Granger Church. Another IT guy coming in, Matt Pew, from McLean Bible Church, a huge church over on the East Coast. And then also Jason Lee, who's with Northwoods up in central. And these guys have been doing ministry for a long time. These guys have been doing church IT and church technology for a long time. Bringing these guys together, I got to tell you, I wanted to have a conversation about camaraderie and community. But honestly, the thing that I learned the most about was relationships and the value and necessity of relationship. So while you might not be the IT guy, and you might think that IT guys are a little weird because they are, there's a lot that you can learn from three IT guys talking about camaraderie and community in context of ministry. Everybody, here you go.

Hey, Jason Powell, because we got a couple Jasons in the conversation here, man, just take a minute. Tell me a little bit about yourself and kind of how you got wrapped up in this church thing.

Sure. My name's Jason Powell. I'm the Tech Ops Director at Granger Community Church. This is my sixteenth year at this position. Prior to that, I was the IT Director for a large school system in northern Indiana. And prior to that, I was a high school accelerated and Advanced Placement teacher. So quite an interesting journey to get into the church world. The short story is my best friend in college became the youth pastor at Granger Community Church. And out of the blue one day, called me up and said, "Hey, we've got an opening for an IT guy, and I think you should be it." And the next thing I know, we're praying and God is doing amazing God things, and we're moving from Wisconsin to Indiana. And you know, sixteen years later, like it's still kind of amazing to go, "Yeah, this is where we're at." And you know, yeah, just really, really fun.

And then we got Matt jumping on as well. Now, Matt, you've not been sixteen years, right? Is Jason the veteran here?

Oh, he's definitely, he's definitely got us probably outnumbered by several years. But you know, I've been doing IT in the church world for probably coming on ten years now in just different capacities, from just managing CHMSs for our church here to working at Fellowship One for four and a half years to coming back as the IT Director here at McLean Bible Church just outside Washington DC.

What's the greatest story you can share quickly outside of working at McLean? So Fellowship One, give me something there.

There's lots of stories that I wouldn't say are necessarily IT related or job related, of being on site with different churches. A friend and coworker of mine and I were doing an implementation at a church in Atlanta, and we happened to drive down to where they were filming The Walking Dead. And we were walking around the town, and you could see the wall was up, and so they were filming that day. And you could see the lights on the other side of the wall and everything. But since we're completely out of town people, no one knows who we are. So we walk into this restaurant, and you could tell everybody in the room was kind of staring at us, wondering if we were actors or zombies or just out of makeup for something. And because we're both bald-headed guys, tall, like it was pretty funny because you got a lot of strange looks while we were in there just trying to get some dinner. So that's probably one of the funniest experiences I've had, just you know, traveling around doing church consulting.

That's awesome. I was hoping to hear you say you were gonna be like in episode four of season six or something like that. But no such luck. There are other random zombie-looking people, but not you. You didn't make that cut.

No, talk to your casting agent for that.

And then thirdly, we've got Jason Lee on. And so Jason, you know, those zombie stories, I'm sure, for you. But give us a little bit of a bigger background.

Yeah, so I'm the Online Campus Pastor and IT Director at North Woods Church in Peoria, Illinois. Been here just over thirteen years, but doing church IT since 2002. So I might have squeaked in there just a little bit longer than the caller Matt. But my story is a little unique in that early on in our time as church IT network, I was one of the few guys who wore the hat as a pastoral role in addition to being a technologist. And so you know, from the very beginning of my time in ministry, I knew that I have been called to do ministry. But I knew that I did not want to do, let's say, student ministry or things like that where all of my colleagues went to do ministry internships out of college. And then I, you know, that was not my thing. And just knew that God gifted me a little more in the sense of a mind that uses technology and to help the church and have a vision and a passion for, you know, the church using tech to achieve the vision and the goals of what our leadership wanted to achieve. And really, that's just been a common camaraderie among the three of us and especially those that are in the Church IT Network. It's just a kind of a common place where people have found likeness of like-mindedness, just kind of, you know, a place where it feels like home where you're understood. But you know, I love to see the church harnessing technology to solve problems. And that's kind of been, you know, what has kept me going over the years of working in the church. And just the journey that we're on, you know, and really have been part of this community, the Church IT Network, since about 2006. And just seeing it grow from just, you know, a small handful of people to now hundreds of people who are in our sphere of influence that are contributing and adding their thoughts and perspectives to the community. It's just been a cool journey.

Part of what I wanted to talk about, and Jason kind of eloquently set it up right there, is this idea of camaraderie. And that, I'll be honest, like I'm sitting in the room here, virtual room here, and Matt, you were ten years, right? Jason Powell was sixteen. Jason Lee, you were, remember if you said, but you're somewhere around ten where you are at your church, right?

I've been here thirteen.

Thirteen, yeah. So tens, tens, youngest. I haven't had a ministry job longer than four years in my life. Like, and I just openly confess that, okay? And at this point, I've actually stepped outside of a full-time ministry job, staff church staff job. I am actually consulting very deeply with several churches and helping IT at a high level. But for me, and this is maybe a Jeffrey tissue, I've always when I've been in church staffs, I've always been the weird guy. Not like the techie guy that just wants to talk about Marvel Cinematic Universe all day, although Spider-Man leaving the MCU is catastrophic, and I've already talked about that on another podcast, so I don't need to go there now. But it's been the, I think, different than everybody else in the entire church. I've often times had conversations with, there was a spiritual development pastor at a church that I worked at, and he asked me, "So, do you consider yourself a pastor?" And I said, "I don't know. How do you define a pastor?" And he said, "Well, I define a pastor as the biblical, you know," and started reading it to me. And I was like, "Yeah, I consider myself a pastor if that's the thing." And then he's like, "Well, why do you do so much with the tech?" And I was like, "Because I can be pastoral and techie at the same time, can't I?" But that's this weird balance where a lot of times in church, you've got the pastors and then the techie people that aren't considered pastors in that part. I've spent years alone. I've spent years, for us to, I feel like this is confession now. I'm gonna start bawling. I got Kleenexes over here. But I've just spent years that I felt alone. Yeah, thank you. Jason's got some for me. Where I've spent years alone. I've said this four times now because there weren't people like me in the church that I was at. That didn't have a lot of budget for conferences. I just didn't know how to connect with people who were thinking like me. And there were questions that I needed answered that I didn't have the answers to. And just to be completely honest, I didn't know who to talk to to get those answers. And it was funny. Like, this is just pure testimony for me. A couple years ago, I went to a church conference, a church tech conference, and my brain exploded because I was surrounded by people who thought the same things I was thinking, who struggled with the same questions that I was struggling with, and who were wanting to have conversations with it. And all of a sudden, I found myself surrounded with this idea of, "Hey, there's camaraderie there. There are people like this out there. I'm not alone." And not being alone really validated who I was, at least to me. It gave me confidence to say, "Hey, I don't have the answer to this question, but neither do twenty-five other churches. And at least twenty-four of them are trying to come up with answers. So we should, you know, as well." And that's why I love, and all you guys with the CITN, ID, in this, what I really want to park on is, what does camaraderie look like? And what are some stories either from yourself or others? Because as churches are out there and as listeners are out there, yeah, there are podcasts. There are ways that we can resource in different ways. But even through conferences and through the network that you're doing, you're helping churches come up with answers to questions and you're encouraging these people that need encouragement. So you know, from a practical standpoint, CITN, what are you guys actually doing to help solve these problems?

Well, I think one of the things that our community has brought to each other is this, is like you talked about. This is that longevity and survivability. There's only for so long that you can go into a ministry and go off of your experience and go off of what you've done in the past, and that starts to run out a few years into it. And I think the big piece of what we do as a community is people are coming into our Slack channel or in our forum and saying, "Hey, just came back from this meeting. I've been tasked with this. I'm supposed to solve this problem, and I need to do it in the next twenty-four hours." And then suddenly there's a community of people who are offering solutions. And probably all sorts of solutions for the problems. Some of them are duct tape and baling wire type solutions. But it's a collaboration of like-minded and like-thinking people who many lives eat and breathe technology but also have a passion for the church moving forward and so trying to solve those problems using.

Technology, I think that's one of the things for me. I don't think I could have been in the role that I've been in the last, you know, ten, thirteen years without the community around me to just say, "Oh my gosh, I have no idea how to go about solving that problem," or "I can't believe somebody just asked me to come back with this solution in that short of a time period." And yet the community rallies around one another and says, "Hey, I've solved that problem before this way," or "Have you thought of, you know, doing it differently?" It's that kind of camaraderie and partnership. And you know, honestly, the leadership team of Church IT Network has become some of my closest compadres in ministry. And you know, we bounce things off of each other in a smaller segment of our community of just, "How would you solve this problem?" or "You know, man, can you believe this person said this?" or you know, whatever it might be. And there's honest conversations of, "Yes, I can believe they said that because they were right and you're wrong," or "No, I can't believe they said that because that's totally crazy." Right? There's that almost give and take. And I think, you know, it's no different than the church being the church to one another in any aspect of what we do. It's all about we want people in community, right? And so this is community for technologists in the church.

And Jeff, I think you hit it on the head, kind of the thing that's been in my mind and heart since kind of getting into church IT. Well, initially, like, I didn't know anybody else in church IT, so I felt like I was all alone. I was the, you know, only hire here. And you know, it felt like, you know, a prompting from God kept saying, "You know what? What might God do if a bunch of like-minded individuals got together and talked, you know, just about what's going on? You know, what questions do you have? What failures have you experienced so that I don't run into them again?" And that's really what started the Church IT Network was that idea. If we could get a bunch of like-minded individuals in the same room, man, what would God do with that? You know, a lot of it is just sharing successes and failures. You know, "Hey, we're getting ready to do a project on voice integration. Well, good grief, don't do it this way because we tried this and we, you know, spent so much time and then resources and it was a complete fail." Or even just connecting it into partners of the Church IT Network that provide, you know, not only hardware and software services but just their expertise. So it's really cool that the Church IT Network is both staff and volunteers, and we've got some amazing partners that have come alongside us and understand like the mission, vision, and values of the Church IT Network, and they help foster that and promote it so well.

You know, let's, yeah, thank you for that, but let's make it a little practical here. So like, what if I'm an IT guy? I'm a new church online guy? I'm a social media person? I deal with technology all day long. Maybe I'm starting to come into some production AV stuff, or it's a mixed role. How can Church IT Network, how can you guys help me?

Oh, I think it comes down to just the extent of the resources that of the individuals that are involved and the sharing of those little gold nuggets of information. A lot of times, I don't know how many times I've been in a room where someone in the room is just casually talking about something and says like that one little thing that they just assumed everybody else knew, and everybody else in the room goes, "Wait, wait, what did you just say? Like, rewind. Out. Let's, what?" And it's like this, like it just reveals so much to the people that are in that are just in communication and just in the room together that really furthers their church because now they've learned this one little thing that was insanely valuable that they didn't even know that they needed to know. And it's those conversations and those interactions that really drive this community. It's the things that you have no idea are going to happen that are the things that create the biggest impact.

Big churches, small churches, who really gets involved with you guys?

Everyone. I mean, it's a wide array of different sized churches, from the one-guy IT shop to the churches that have IT departments at five, six, seven, eight, ten people. Yeah, I mean, everyone. We've even got some nonprofits that send people every once in a while, and then we've got, you know, the partners as well. There's a lot of partner involvement, not just from a standpoint of, "Hey, let me be kind of a sponsor of your national or regional events," but "Let me just be a part of this community because they learn just as much information as they are able to share into the network." So it's beneficial to kind of everyone that's involved.

I think that's one of the things for our community is that it's an expectation that everybody is a contributor and everybody is a learner. Somebody has something to give that somebody can learn from, and there's always people that you can learn from. And we always tell people, if you come to our conference or our one-day regional events or you're part of the community and you're not getting your questions answered, well, shame on you. But the same side of it is when you participate, you're teaching and offering something the same way. We last that oftentimes, you know, some of the larger megachurches will have a solution or have a problem, and it's some of the churches that are much smaller that will have these amazing solutions that are so incredibly cost effective because that's out of necessity. They've had to figure out how to solve some of these problems. And so we laugh at some of these, it would appear to be baling wire and duct tape type solutions, but they're genius and they cost nothing. And then everyone in the community steals the idea because they, it's virtually free versus, you know, someone might be looking at a multi-thousand dollar type solution. And then, you know, somebody hops up and said, "Well, I've never thought of this. Have you seen such and such a website ever?" You know, it's like, "Oh, I didn't even know that free thing existed." And so that's where I think, as a man, the size of your church or the years of experience that you've had in the church space, you've got something to offer as somebody who is a technologist to our community. And that's what's so exciting is some of the solutions that come up like I would have never thought of that on my own. And may I, you know, the expectation is I'm going to make it better and then bring it back. You know, and that is just something we communicate all the time. And that's what I love about what, you know, how Jason has started this as a collaboration of community of collaboration in that, you know, your responsibility is to take this idea, take it home, make it ten times better, and then bring it back and let someone else then learn from it. And that's just the expectation of thou shalt steal ideas. Only ideas, but you know, within our community.

And so quick fun story at the very first event we had churches ranging from attendance of two hundred up to over twenty thousand. And it was amazing that Terry Chapman, who was the IT Director at Fellowship Bible, you know, Ed Young's church, like one of the smaller churches, he mentioned something about script logic in printing, and they just couldn't figure it out. And one of the smaller churches had a solution for him, and it blew his mind because I distinctly remember him saying, you know, he basically, "I came here not expecting much, and I'm going to go home with a solution that I don't know that we would have ever figured out." And so it was just affirmation that, man, everybody's a learner and everybody can present. You know, so peer learning, community inspiration have been like the three pillars that we've landed on and built on over the years, and it's just part of who we are.

So it doesn't matter if you know, your NewSpring, NewSpring brings a bunch of guys to the conference and gals, or if you're a one-man IT shop, or you maybe you're just the volunteer in your church and you've got a way to, you know, get to Kansas City this fall, man, we love to have you. And I guarantee no matter where you're at on the learning spectrum, there is something for you, not only vocationally but also spiritually. And we're going to feed you a whole bunch of food, and you're going to, you know, your belly is going to be full. So we'll fill your heart, soul, and mind.

So yeah, great setup on the conference. Heart, soul, and mind. That's those are three high standards, man. Belly would be, you know, maybe the asterisk for four, but well done.

What areas does, because IT in church tech, like those are very broad scoping areas. What do you guys look into? A track? If you grew up playing the game Oregon Trail, then you should come. Alright, so that's an inside joke even I don't get, so you'll have to come with the conference to understand it.

We've got everything. We've got leadership workshops. We've got online ministry workshops. We've got, you know, some SQL workshops, so if you're kind of a more of a developer type person. Obviously, we've got, you know, lots of different IT type tracks for, say, like Office 365, or "Hey, what's new in the world of Wi-Fi?" We put panels together with some not only partner experts but church experts. So, you know, we'll have a panel with somebody that's on staff at a church and maybe a partner, and they can present together on a particular solution or whatever.

Last year, NewSpring did a great couple of workshops on how they're, you know, utilizing Meraki from, you know, the highest level of networking down to, you know, their switches. And now they've gone all Google. And so it's just a place for, you know, there's about something for everyone. We've even got the church management solution providers there. And so, you know, maybe you're wearing multiple hats. You know, I have to keep track of the database. I've got to make sure that Wi-Fi works. I've got to figure out what the heck is Dante and how does that interact with, you know, the world of IT? And everything's got an IP address for the, you know, the audio-video team. And maybe I'm also trying to figure out, "How do I lead up to my boss?" And I'm in charge of the online church, and I gotta figure out how to stream and help people, you know, find Jesus through an online medium.

Yeah, that's a lot. The tech help, the camaraderie, the "Hey, I need help finding the solution," that's one thing, and all that's awesome. The thing that you just told me that I'm like, every person who works in tech in church in America needs is that phrase of "leading up." You know, how do I, so I have this vision, this will help the church, this will help reach people. I have to sell it to leadership who has no idea any of the language or the acronyms or the talk that I'm saying. You know, the lead pastor still has an AOL email address. Like, that type of thing. So, hey, you know what? Because I'm dumb, serious. Like, the listening audience, you know, this listening audience, there's a drop. Drop me a nugget. Give me one thing. Help me here. My lead pastor still has an AOL email address, and I need to convince him that I need some sort of a tech upgrade thing. What's how do I get started on that road?

You buy a ticket to Church IT Network conference for eighty-five bucks, and you have a full belly, and then everybody there will brainstorm ideas on how to solve that problem.

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

That's why they're taking red. No, it's all relationship, man. It's, you know, that's the thing about what we do is it's so easy.

To think that technology solves every problem, and it's all about the relationships with your colleagues, with your senior leadership. It's investing relationally in order to have the conversation of, "Bro, let me just tell you honestly, having an AOL address, it's not giving you any credibility. It's not helping you out. What can we do to give you something that has some respectability?" You know, an AOL email address, maybe in 1980 that was cool, but maybe not now. And I said, "But you only can have that conversation when you've invested in that relationship." And so it's all about building those relationships so that you can have those conversations.

Just this last week, had a conversation with our senior leadership and just talking about where we're going with online ministry. And around the table, there were very differing perspectives. So we didn't agree to disagree, but we all heard each other out and appreciated what each person brought to the table. And that only happens because of the relationship and the investment that you have in those people that are around that table that are outside of the four walls of their offices.

It's not because I came and fixed your computer. You're now going to believe me when I say this is a trend or this is something that's going on or something that maybe we're missing. You can only have those types of conversations because the investment relationally. And I think that, you know, I'm better at that because I've seen my colleagues in the community do that, and I'm in a, so it's really the give and take of how we as a community have learned it.

It's not a matter of sitting down and saying, "Just because I have the title of IT director, I've been doing this for thirteen years, that you have to listen to me." That's not it at all. It's, "How have I invested in our leadership and built a legacy?" Probably the wrong word, but how have I invested over time and built credibility among what we do? I think that's where we have to rely on. That is that you can't even start to have those conversations about, "Don't do it that way," until you've invested and have the credibility in the relationship to support in order to be able to speak into and say, "Okay, let's have an honest, transparent conversation."

And in the AOL address is probably one of them. And another thing that's been super huge for me is I bring my boss. My boss is the CFO, if you will, the finance director. And so it's been really helpful for him to come to the conferences for the past three years, I believe. One, because it, you know, relationally we get to spend time, you know, just doing life after the conference, you know, hanging out, just that personal time to hang out with each other. And as he's at the conference, you know, he's going to various workshops. And every year he comes back with kind of some eyes wide open. He's like, "Wow, you know, I was just in a workshop on, you know, virtual online ministry, and you know, my mind was blown. I don't even, you know, understand how to wrap my brain around it." And it gives us kind of some both of us handles to be able to talk about stuff. Or, you know, he's sat in on a budgeting workshop for IT, and he's like, "You know, it just helps open his mind to what we, you know, direct reports are doing behind the scenes." And it's just really helpful, you know? You got the awesome relationship-building aspects of it because we do have a lot of fun at the conference as well. But you know, you also get them able to maybe learn some stuff about your environment that they never thought about before.

So I mean, really the relationship swings two ways. Because at this point, you're connecting with other churches, but there's also another opportunity to bring in leadership to have them experience maybe some of the same things you are, but then use that as common language to build toward something. So your CFO experienced something in church online, in online ministry, and so you want to have a common language to talk about, "Okay, the conference said this. What would it take to do that here? Maybe this works better." But at least now you're in the same ballpark. You're having the same conversation. You're on the same road.

You know, I've expressed testimony and I've told the story before on the podcast. I've been in sessions with church staff where basically I'm at the end of the document to jump into the water, and there's not a soul within five hundred yards of me. You know, and while I'm turning around and asking leadership for advanced, high-level decisions because I've been doing church online for a long time, the leadership was that much more of an elementary, basic level because I've been running completely on my own and hadn't brought leadership with me through the processes. So the more that leadership can experience that, obviously the better it'll be for you guys.

So a lot of our listeners are church online, and so because we obviously we do focus a lot on church online and online ministry and that sort of thing, transparently I've been working with you guys and developing come to the online tracks and some things like that. And now Jason, you're involved in that. But what are some things that we can expect in the church online realm specifically? Like, what does that look like at the conference?

But I think, you know, the cool thing of how our conference has evolved is it used to be conversations about buying storage and network switches, and that was the extent of it. You know, I mean, everybody talked about over and over again. And you know, what's, and you're gonna buy what you're, what network infrastructure you're going to have? And it's interesting how the conversations have changed from that to a much different conversation. And that's where we felt like the online ministry really dovetailed into what we're doing from a core IT perspective because not only does core IT, oh, you know, but also encompassing the online ministry aspect of it, it's also the church management data side of it. And how do we keep tabs on people and care for them and reach out to them without good systems and processes? So online ministry dovetails in with that as well.

And even now, just the convergence of IT, core IT, and AVL, everything it seems in our production venues now wants to plug in to at least one, if not two networks at the same time. And so how do we build those relationships across those teams so when we have those conversations, we are talking with common language? And I think that's the big piece. And we even have our communications team bringing to people this year, and there's really no vertical or track within our conference for that. But because of their heavy involvement in what we do online, it's giving them perspective and language as well. How do we as an online team interact with our communications team? How does our online team interact with our AVL team? How does our online team interact with our core IT and our database team? And it really is that, you know, there are a few places I think you can go to have those types of conversations where there's the overlap of technology but also then the camaraderie and the synergy that of moving that forward.

Now I'm super excited about some of the workshops that we're planning that are just kind of stretching the envelope and helping people to think about, you know, 2010 to 2013, online ministry was basically streaming their services. But is that what digital ministry or online ministry is in 2019? Probably very different. And so how our church is evolving through that, how might someone, you know, take their church through that transition? How do you help your leadership process what's different? The trends that we're seeing, you know, so I think there's a lot of it that, you know, the questions that we're all asking. And it's just to be able to get into the room and hear, "You're not alone." And then go back with a plan. "Here's some things that I think I'm gonna steal from somebody else," or "Questions I'm gonna go home and ask and hopefully get some answers on."

That's awesome. I'll tell you, one of the breakouts that I'm writing in, this is new content. I mean, I've never done it, but it's a breakout that's designed out of conversations with all of you, the listeners and people online. Church online is perceived to wrestle, to challenge, to take away from the physical church. We're seeing physical attendance at the physical campuses drop. Virtual attendance, digital tangents, online is skyrocketing. So therefore, you know, let's shut down the online church so people will go back to physical. And there's, it's 2019, may or may not actually work that way. But let's dive into, okay, how can we set up church online and develop a strategy for it so that it complements what's happening at the church instead of threatening it?

A lot of times, the perceived weaknesses of church online isn't a weakness. It's actually a strength. We just may need to look at it from a different perspective. And so the goal for a lot, and it's called "Phygital," a merging of physical and digital into a single environment. And so how church online can do that so that church online can be a strength for the physical campuses, so that digital can be a strength for the physical campuses instead of something that's taboo and an obstacle that's ignored.

I can tell you that's one thing that I'm gonna be digging into, one of the breakouts that I'm teaching. And I'm looking forward to meeting and collaborating and sharing and all that with everybody at the conference.

So when is the, and we've been talking about it on whether we slap dates on it, so when's the conference? How do I sign up? What's the cost? Give me the bullets on that.

The conference will be October twentieth through the twenty-third. The twentieth, there's a kind of a meet and greet. Twenty-first is when the conference technically starts in the morning. It's gonna be about eighty-five bucks to register, and that provides for you all of your meals while the conference is going on, swag, fun, entertainment, inside jokes, just a really, really good time to connect with your peers and people that are struggling with the same things you're struggling with.

It's going to be in Kansas City at Church of the Resurrection. And yeah, I don't know if you need any more information. It's pretty simple. Go to churchitnetwork.com, and you can find out more information to get registered.

Awesome. So check out the website. We'll link it in the show notes as well as generic information about the conference. And we'll go from there.

Well, hey, this has been great. Thanks for the time. More information on Church IT Network, check out the show notes. And we'll hopefully see y'all out there. It's gonna be a great experience on the online ministry, church online site, but also just general IT, network, database, programming, there's leadership development, working with, like, there was just so much in that thread. Jason Powell, I don't know how y'all keep it straight, but well done, well done doing it.

So gentlemen, any last thoughts while we're landing the plane?

You'll also, if you come, see the world's largest stained-glass window. Is that a legit thing?

Let's make it snow. Good thing it is legit. The largest stained-glass window in the world. That's up. That's an ironic thing to say for a church technology conference. "Don't see the world's largest stained glass." I mean, that's really interesting, really cool. I knew it was big. I just didn't know it was like legit.

So yeah, well done. Now, like, I'm not gonna put that in the show notes because you don't want to see, there's a web, there's whole website dedicated to this, but I'm not gonna, you're gonna have to come to the conference to see it. We're not gonna let that cat out of the bag.

So hey, listen, it's been a great, great podcast.

Matt, thank you for joining us. Jason, Jason squared, Jason Powell, Jason Lee, thanks for joining us today. My name is Jeff with the Church Digital. It's been an awesome podcast and we look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks for joining. Bye.