EP078: Kristel Acevedo, Women's Ministry Online & Creating Community Around Content

Alright, episode 78 of the Church Digital podcast, once again powered by Stadia Church Planting. Jeff here. Alright, we're coming out of this COVID season. Maybe we may be coming out of this COVID season. It's too soon to tell. I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel, although really this could just be like one tunnel and there's a whole other COVID 2.0 tunnel coming up soon. Who knows? God knows. OK, God knows. God knows we can say that, right? Other than God, who knows about one thing? That's of course in this COVID season, this podcast and other resources. We're learning things throughout this season, and one of the things that we've learned is the importance of community. We're seeing small groups created online. We're seeing churches wrestle with this idea of digital community and engaging in those areas, and I love those conversations.

One thing that I really have not seen a lot of traction with, or maybe it's just I'm not hearing these conversations, but as someone that centers around like women's ministry, felt needs, creating community centered around those community online. So with this podcast, I just wanted to shed some light on, hey, maybe there's some opportunities to engage in already existing communities online, like a women's ministry, which just has a phenomenal, rich opportunity as you'll explore in this podcast.

And we're bringing in Crystal Acevedo, a longtime friend of the podcast here. She's been friends with Rayd the Armas and I for years, and she is currently on staff at Transformation Church. TC, if you're gonna hear it referenced a lot on the show that way. TC. But she is one of their content creators, and her husband's a storyteller, video editor on the communications team, Alex. And just they have a really rich family DNA when it comes towards creating content and helping the church tell more effective stories.

And so we wanted to bring Crystal in because Transformation Church, TC, is doing some phenomenal stuff, some really interesting stuff that in women's ministry, maybe some of these other groups, but more than even just like the felt needs, what I think TC is starting to really scratch the surface on is, how do we take content and how do we build community around it? Like, how can the content fuel the community that allows for engagement? And what is that community most effectively look like?

And so to that end, we're bringing in, actually, to be honest, like I didn't even be part of this conversation. Ray and Christa, I would have a great friendship, and I had a scheduling conflict and I bowed out. So in this conversation, we're bringing in Rayd the Armas, host for the Church Digital podcast, in this episode, and Crystal Acevedo, once again, content creator for Transformation Church, in a conversation that I'm calling online women's ministry and creating community centered around content.

Okay, everybody, here you go. At TC, my title or role description, if you want to call it that, is content creator. And I love that because it sounds like a fake job. Sounds like a millennial job. What's a content creator? Whatever I want it to be. Exactly. That's the beauty of it. So it looks like a lot of different things. I work very closely with Pastor Darwin. He is writing books. He just were getting ready to release "The Good Life," which is his latest book, and he actually started writing another book today because he's just ready for it. The Lord has illuminated his mind, you know? So I helped him with his book writing, writing questions, just helping him in general with all his writing projects, because he also writes articles or has different things going on with different places. He also has a podcast called "Marinate," and that's what I basically produce that podcast and just helped steer that and cast vision for that. So that's all Pastor Darwin inside of things.

The other part of my job is equipping and discipleship, so creating resources for our small groups or for individuals who are wanting to learn more about the Bible or learn more about what it means to be a Christian. Or a lot of, most of all, all of our small groups are sermon-based, so we create a sermon-based study guide for all our small groups and that's what they walk through so we can equip our group leaders to lead their groups. And we're in this space now where we're just trying to create a lot of digital resources and figure out what it looks like to disciple people online. So we've been on the front end of that trying to figure that out and creating resources and content for that.

Yeah, what really caught my eye is specifically what you guys have geared in towards women in the last few weeks, particularly with Vicky. Because what Darwin does is great, and I think Darwin's got a vibrant personality, you know? And for those of you who don't follow him on Twitter or on Instagram or any of the socials, you should, because he really demonstrates like a pastor's heart and shepherds people through some really tough topics online, which is great. But the other side of that is Vicky, his wife, and what you guys have really dug into here in the online space. Why don't you explain to everybody what you've been doing for the last few weeks?

Yeah, definitely. And something that I love about Vicky is that she is just an amazing disciple of Christ in her own right. Most of the times when I introduce her to people, I don't say she's the pastor's wife. I lead with she's our executive directional strategist, because that's what she does. She's a very integral part of TC. And so she's also a very gifted Bible teacher. And I think for a long time she was had her hands in her head and all these other things and couldn't focus on the teaching side of her giftings. And now she's just in a space where God has just called her and said it's time.

So we have been wanting to create a women's ministry, and this is something that we have been talking about pre-COVID. And so we were thinking about what does it look like to start a women's ministry at TC? Part of the tension is that our vision is to be a multi-ethnic, multi-generational, mission-shaped community. Therefore, we really focused on having all our groups be multi-ethnic, multi-generational. We didn't want to have all these like sub-things, like this is a group for just women, this is a group for just moms, this is a group for just, you know, dads who love motorcycles. We wanted it to just be all multi-ethnic, multigenerational. But we realized that we weren't just in a place now, within our, as we have grown, we just celebrated ten years, where we want to start a women's ministry and men's ministry and still keep the multi-ethnic, multi-generational vision within that.

So we had been talking about that and we had been planning for our very first women's event, and then COVID happens. So we had to cancel it. So we said, okay, what are we gonna do? Because we have all this momentum and all these plans and we don't want to lose that. We don't want to lay that to the side just because we can't meet in person. So then we decided that we wanted to provide an online space for women for this ministry, which we're calling "For Her," because it's for her, for anybody, any woman, any age, any ethnicity.

And so at first, we did not realize how big this was going to be. And so we had planned to just host it on Zoom. It'll be fine. We'll have some, you know, a few women jump on. Vicky will teach. We'll go through the book of Esther together. No big deal. We opened up registration and it was like the floodgates had opened up, and there were so many women who wanted to sign up. And it got to the point where we decided to cut off registration because it was too many women and we were not gonna fit on a Zoom call.

Well, they didn't like that. And even, it's funny because Pastor Darwin said from the beginning, "You can't do this. This is not how you guys meet. This is gonna be big. There's gonna be a lot of women who are gonna want to do this. We're gonna want to hear from Vicky. We're gonna want to connect with each other." And Vicky was like, "No, it'll be fun." And so, you know, we tried it, but then we realized it wasn't fine. So we had to pivot. All of a sudden, that's when we decided to use Facebook and we created a Facebook group called "For Her" and decided to host teachings, video teachings on there, create a watch party so that we could all watch together and be chatting, and then we created subgroups that would be like small groups.

So we tapped like twenty-one women on the shoulder and said, "Hey, can you lead a small group?" Because we always said, and we're just trying to like make it happen, and we have just amazing women servant leaders at TC. So we created, I think, twenty-one or so small groups from that. So we had groups for those smaller groups, and then yes, so then we would watch the teachings again and they would go to their small groups for discussion time at the same time. We still couldn't get all the women into small groups because there was too many women. And so we would host a chat within the large group for all the women who couldn't be in small groups, and that's just kind of how we've been running it. And so I think last week was the final week of the Esther study, and now we're trying to see how we're gonna move forward with this group.

That's good. What was the strategy and capping the small groups? Like, what did you guys decide to cap those groups at? That you're like, man, we can't fit everybody in a group. And what was the reasoning and thinking behind that?

So Vicky's heart was really to keep the group small because we realized that when a group that's too big, it's just not conducive for conversation. There's gonna be people who don't feel comfortable to speak up in a larger group, and we wanted it to feel intimate and just like a little tiny family, you know? So we wanted to keep the group small. And then at the same time, there was only so many women leaders that we had because we honestly, like, this was just big within a week. We had to just change our whole strategy from Zoom to Facebook and figure it all out. So we were able to find, like I said, I think twenty or twenty-one women to lead groups, and we wanted to keep maybe like twelve women per group, which is still kind of big, and then just go from there. And so that's like the reason we capped it. But that's also why we kept a large group open.

And one of the other girls and I, we would chat with the ladies in their twenty-one groups. Twelve women per group. It's over two hundred forty people. I mean, that's that's a lot of movement in a very short period of time. And really, let me ask you, what were your expectations versus, have you guys done a women's event in person? Like, what was that going to look like first? Is doing it online?

Yeah, so it was basically going to be a night for her. So just go get a babysitter, you know? Come hang out with us. Forget about everything else and just have this time for you, you know? Right. Um, and we were gonna have teaching. We're gonna have music. Who's basically gonna be, we have these Wednesday night services, so it's gonna be basically like one of our Wednesday night services but for women only. And then we were going to point all these women to small groups. So we were still gonna do small groups, but they were gonna be in person in people's homes, et cetera. But so the plan was still gonna go to groups. But this obviously made a big shift in terms of, hey, we're gonna do a big night versus, hey, we're gonna do this consistently on a week-to-week basis. It's a big shift that really isn't good just to be considered.

What were some of the things that you would look at and say, well, this is what we're losing out on by doing this digitally versus having an in-person?

Yeah, I think there was just, I think just that in-person connection, being able to see people and hug people and all that. I know that that's a huge deal. I think one of...

The obstacles was that not everyone is tech friendly, and so that was a big obstacle for us because again we are multi-generational and sometimes older folks and sometimes even younger people just don't know where do I go to to see a watch party and how do I click on this and where's my small group and how do you join a Zoom? And so I think that was just one of the biggest obstacles. And in the beginning it was a lot of helping people figure it out and putting out little fires all over the place of things not working properly. And so I would say that was just one of the biggest obstacles. And I don't think we would have had that if we met in person, right? We wouldn't have all these technical difficulties, hopefully. Sure. But one of the amazing things is that we had women—even though there were only 250-ish women in groups—we had 800 women within the large group. And these are women from all over the country, not just local TC. We had women from Canada and from Africa join it. Like, it's just been amazing to see these women connect right all over the world. And so I think that was something that we saw as a plus: reaching so many more women in an age where they feel very disconnected, right?

So illuminate a little bit more to what's going on with that. The 800 people—is that how large the Facebook group overall has grown, like Annie? Or week to week it's just blossomed over in our people? That's huge, yeah. That's good. And so give me an idea, like in terms of your Sunday morning makeup in terms of the different services and this kind of thing, how many women would you say attend TC versus men? What's happening here within For Her since you guys have done this now?

I have no idea. I think on a Sunday morning regularly, like before COVID wouldn't be in person, there was about 2,500 people, right, general adults. I don't know, half of those are women at least, sure. And to say that now 800 women are involved in some kind of discipleship process, I mean, that's huge, you know? And grant it, not all of them are there, you know, where TC is, but still, like, it's a big thing to say that you know you guys made this shift, which was big. And even to see all these different people kind of forming community from different places around the world sharing their story. And it could be—let me ask you, are there any stories of like evangelism that kind of came out of this? Like, hey, my friend or my relative who wasn't connected to church is now digging into For Her? What's going on there?

There was one woman who said that her husband had just taken his life recently, and she moved to Texas because that's where one of her kids lived and she wanted to be close to them. And she had felt, just, you know, obviously that's a tragedy to have to live through as a wife. And so she was just obviously going through a terrible time and just feeling disconnected in a new place with no real community, no church community. And somehow she was connected to the For Her Facebook group, and it was just a blessing to her. And she like wrote this long message to us letting us know how much she appreciated it and how it was just a blessing to her during that time of her life. And I love those kind of stories because we're making an impact and someone's life and they don't even live within our state, you know? That's awesome.

No, I think that's tremendous. And she's obviously very integrated. She's very much part of the community. She's that willing to share her story with you, which—it's hard. We've talked about this before—for people to pass online from anonymity to community is very difficult for people to kind of break that barrier and say, "Here I am. I'm watching you guys. Here's my story and I want to stay walking with you." And she's done that. And that's a big deal.

So now looking ahead, what does For Her look like? I'm sure you guys are thinking about reopening. You guys are thinking about all sorts of things. What does this look like going forward? Because you were looking at this as once a month and now it's gone once a week and growing. So obviously there's big plans for this down the road, definitely, yeah.

So we've been thinking a lot this week, meeting and praying and dreaming together. And so like I said, Pastor Jones' new book The Good Life is coming out. It releases June 2nd. As a church we're going through The Good Life series sermon series, and that starts on May 31st. And so all of our small groups are going to be reading The Good Life book together and going through a conversation guide that we're creating to help facilitate conversation about the book. And so what we've decided to do is within the Facebook group we're going to host a watch party of our Sunday services so that women, if they want to watch together weekly, they can all congregate within the For Her Facebook group to watch the service together every Sunday. And then we are going to—we have a few women that we're asking to be servant leaders in the group as moderators, and they are going to be creating conversation using the questions from the guide to have conversation within the large group of women. But just making posts like sharing their own insights, encouraging the women to read the book along with them and share what they're learning, what God is showing them. And then we are also pointing them to our Good Life groups. Since all of our small groups are going to be walking through the Good Life, we're saying if you want to be a part of a small group you can be. It's not going to be as specifically like women-only group, but it's a small group that is going to walk the Good Life together.

So you guys are looking at this as a way to on-ramp people towards regular small groups, not necessarily keep them in For Her small groups, right? So if that's the case, is there hope to revamp or to re-up For Her down the road? Or is this just, hey, this is a one-off? We're gonna leverage this to pull people into small groups and then we're gonna keep moving on?

Yeah, no, I think we definitely want to keep it going. We see the desire of the women within our church to have this connection with other women. And so we want to keep the For Her Facebook page going. We're creating like a content calendar for the group specifically so that we can always be sharing things on there. And we want to be just creating that space. I think the more we engage on it, the more other women are gonna engage, if that makes sense. And so we just want to keep it going. And then we're just asking God to show us like as we move—like we're taking it step by step. Like we did the Esther study together. Now we're gonna go into the Good Life. And then we're gonna see how it goes, how it moves in the fall as we begin to reopen and all of that.

That's cool. That's really cool. I know there's a lot of it that's still very ambiguous. Like we don't have a really well-defined sense of whatever kind of church future is gonna look like anywhere, really. I know some churches have reopened, some have not, some have not stopped meeting—they've just kind of worked through whatever guidelines are there. And even with small groups in particular, this is a pretty big struggle because everybody's talking about big church reopening. Nobody's talked about small groups reopening and in terms of what that's gonna look like. How much of that do you feel like in the immediate is going to continue to be digital at TCC? And how some of this is going to be fresh?

Yeah, no, everything we're encouraging all our small groups to keep meeting online throughout the series, The Good Life series, which is an eight-week series. So I mean, we're just—we don't see—we would rather keep people as safe and healthy as possible than risk reopening to have to close down again because an outbreak occurs within our church. Like we don't want to risk that at all. And so the same with our small groups, like we are encouraging everyone to meet through Zoom, meet online, and hopefully they can continue to do that.

Let me ask, has there been a shift in terms of the thought process at TC as far as online discipleship and all this since all this has started? Because I know, like times like you and I talked before, and it was like not necessarily on their radar, on the reason being—and this is a whole lot of churches, this is no offense to anybody—it would be trying to reach their local community. But obviously now all of our local communities have moved online. And so you know, how is that affected TC's discipleship strategy just kind of moving forward, looking at all the success that you guys have had, especially with this?

Oh yeah, it's all changed. I think that this was the wake-up call that like our leadership team needed. And it's funny because our communications director said at the beginning of 2020 that this was gonna be the year of digital. So back way back in January he was talking about this—video, digital, we're gonna ramp up our online presence, we're going to change our website. They're working on a total website revamp. And that was there, but we hired a digital strategist who is just amazing, is so smart. And so we had already been moving in that direction. And then just when this happened, it just—our digital strategist is very busy now. See a lot of work to do. Um, and which is great because she's so amazing at what she does. But yeah, I think we are just really trying to shift everything. And I think a lot of that is going to be reflected in our website and in the opportunities that we give people. Even when it comes like, the For Her was not the only online connection group that we created at the onset of this. We also had started doing TC Kids online, which we had never done before. And like Zoom, like TC Kids Zoom playdates. We did a brain health awareness month in May. And so we had brain health chats every week for the month of May where we had different brain health experts. At the last week we had a panel where they talked about brain health and they talked about what it means and like what needs to rest, what it means to stay healthy mentally and physically throughout this coronavirus time. And it was great because we could point people to—we still have resources, we're still here for you, we're still providing care for you, we're still providing connection points for you even though it's all online.

That's good. And you feel like the church ship is really kind of absorbing this and tuning into it and feeling like they're a part of this, right? Like this is a big deal where it's not to say we're putting content out or you go, yeah? As far as like how it's going?

Yeah, I think people—what we always try to do is create ways like relational opportunities. And so a lot of that is just like, let's say in the chat, everything, every video that we premiere or go live with, there's always a chat and there's always engagement in the chat, asking questions, pointing to websites, giving information so that people know that we're not just—you're not just watching a video. We're here. We're watching it with you. We're having a discussion about it. If you have a question, I'm here to answer it. So that's a big part of it. And then like, so one of the other things is we are now doing membership online, which we had never ever done before. And so one of the biggest things that we wanted to make sure was that it wasn't just, alright, watch this video and sign a little thing at the end that says, okay, I want to be a member of TC. Like we wanted it to be as relational as possible. So again we had like a large group where we did like a teaching and then we broke up into smaller groups where there was basically like what used to be called table hosts, but there's no table now because it's online. So a chat host, let's say, or a breakout host, where they would kind of lead in some discussion questions and facilitate questions. And that was a relational touch point. And we had the same group, like the same host with the same group week to week so that they would create.

A bond and then we're having like a social distancing drive-by, because usually at the end of our membership classes we get like a little gift. So we're gonna do a drive-by where they come to the church, we're gonna stand six feet apart and wear masks and gloves and give them their gift because and say like hi and wave to them and say we're so glad you're part of TC, you know. Um, so it's all about, I guess Jeff always uses that digital word, which is weird. We're trying to figure out how can we be digital and physical at the same time. I'm mad because I was the one who gave it to Jeff. No, oh, are you the one? Okay, sorry guys, it was Rainy Armas. I'm gonna take away from Jeff, just like I'm taking away his podcast right now. But yeah, you know, it's and I'm glad that you guys are wrestling through all this stuff because it's a challenge. It is a challenge. And really the challenge kind of moving forward that we've been talking to a lot of folks and a lot of churches is what to keep and what to go and how a lot of that's gonna work out. But it sounds like you guys are wrestling with a lot of the right questions. Now, mind you, I know not everybody, but every church is excited about these digital processes and these digital tools. I've dealt with a lot of pastors who are a little bit antagonistic towards it. How are you guys handling getting people to those next steps? Because that's what I keep telling them. Like, part of the reason why you're antagonistic is because you're not thinking about people taking their next step beyond the broadcast. Mm-hmm. And so how have you guys done that? Because for her, it would have been great on its own in terms of content, but you guys stepped it up another level by creating the community around it. So how are you guys bridging that gap between content and community and getting people there, man? That's a great question. What do you think? I feel like there's so much. It's such a like an interweaving of different things and a lot of collaboration between teams. I think it's always so we have like even a Care Connection card. Let's say or a connection card that we do. But you know, like the regular connection card that you do on Sunday mornings, usually that we have like a digital version of that. And beyond that, we have a care version of that. So we create these forms, these cards that people can fill out. And that just doesn't go into outer space. Like that goes to a person that reads through them and then makes contact with them, whether that's email or phone or a Zoom call. And so we are still trying to like we respond to every email. You respond to every phone call. I know that like unfortunately there's some churches that are not that way. Like someone sends an email, just goes somewhere, and then people ignore it. But we don't do that. Like we really care that we really respond to every single email, you know. And so I think that's a huge part. And I think even when it comes to social media, because I'm really involved with our social media as well, I'm very passionate about responding to every comment, every message, every DM that we get. Because I want them to know that we are there, that we are a family, that we are here for you. We're not just wanting you to consume content. We want to help you in your discipleship process or in your life. That's helpful because a lot of people, especially people who are obviously connecting with you guys online, they're if they're connecting to you, it's because they are longing for that piece of community, right? They're not connecting simply because they dig your podcast or they dig Derwin or they dig Vicki and the stuff that you guys are doing. But it goes a step beyond that. Transformation, mind you, I know that Transformation tried multi-site and that didn't work out. I know we talked about that in the past, just privately. But in the future, you guys have really exploded online. How do you see online kind of taking a greater emphasis as things move forward? Oh man, it's just it's like it's everything. Um, we're trying. I think one of our biggest rallies right now is that we're seeing ourselves as an online church. Huh? Not as like a church that has a broadcast online, like we are an online church right now. And yes, we have a building that we will go someday. That's a huge shift from conversations that you and I have even had in the past in regarding TC. That's a big cousin. Why we're charged, you know, in the Carolinas. We're an online church. Like that's all your job. I think just seeing the impact, like seeing the numbers of people who are watching our broadcast online every single Sunday, I'm watching our midweek services, who are like even our follows on Instagram and Facebook have grown so much. And we see where people are watching from. And it's just amazing. Like we just understand now the impact that we can have, not only in North Carolina, South Carolina, but beyond. And recently, even on our Instagram, we shared a story about a woman who lives in Maryland, I believe, and she watches Faith. Like she's a Transformer. So she does not live in North or South Carolina, yet she's a part of our family. And so we wanted to feature that story to show people like, you see, like it doesn't matter where you live, you can be part of our RTC family. Yeah, no, yes, it's true. Because my mother-in-law is now a self-proclaimed Transformer in Miami. I'm like, yeah, girl, we're gonna do. We're gonna do on my Tia Miami campus. TC Miami, you know. I like that. The first one is show up for sure. There's no, but that that is the power that you guys have created this great community. I mean, granted, it did start with phenomenal content. There's no question about it. It's great content, you know. But then there's the community that's created around the content that really makes it more than, you know. Yeah, for sure. I think showing people that you, when you show people that you care and you show people that you're willing to walk with them and willing, like, you know, if someone messages us about, you know, I'm struggling with this or that, we don't just say, okay, we're praying for you. We say, okay, please, you know, thought this connection card, someone from our team is gonna be in contact with you. And then they are the email number. They call them. And then we set up a Zoom care meeting with one of our care shepherds. Like me, walk them through it, you know. We don't just abandon people. It's like, oh, did you watch Sunday? Okay, cool. See you next week. Like we want to see people all throughout the week. That's awesome. That's really good. How else are you guys keeping that contact throughout the week? Because that's a challenge for a lot of folks. Mm-hmm. I mean, I think that's always social media where we update every day and we encourage people to interact on their the for her group has shown us that it doesn't have to be just a for her group. We can have groups about anything and everything. And so I think that's probably a move that will make more Facebook groups because there's more engaging within groups than on pages. Talk about that. Talk about that. I agree. Okay, well, this is something that I learned from Nona Jones, who works at Facebook. She's like their faith initiative person, partnership person. Anyways, she's a genius. And I've listened to a lot of her talks. And she always says how Facebook pages are more like a drive-by. Like it's like your front door, and people just kind of like see what this is. All this is transmission insurance. Oh, okay, that's okay. Cool. See you later. But groups are where people get into community and get connected. And so it's just it's just easier. It's it can be smaller. You can just you're gonna receive more engagement within a group than with on a page. And so and you can, I know it's just if there's just something about a group, it feels safer. It feels more intimate, feels closer than a page. A page is more public. Then a group is. Yeah, the thing I've noticed about groups within this is the users' ability to add content to it, which is good and bad, like it, depending, right? Yes. I mean, I've seen some some weird, horrific content that as an admin I've had to like, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that here. We're not promoting that. Or no, you cannot promote your multi-level marketing scheme right on our Facebook group. But but it's definitely been an opportunity though for people to drive content and even to give feedback in a good way, you know? Like a lot of people take feedback as, oh, they're gonna do they're gonna do the negative thing. They're gonna say, well, why doesn't our church do this? What do you guys do that? I've not seen any of that. What I have seen more, man, I love this week's message. Hey, how can I pray for some of the different people at our church? That's been pretty powerful in transforming seeing a group versus just a brand page where it's just us talking at people. Yeah, I think that's good. I think that's a really good point. Because even it was in our for her page, we see women saying, hey, I was reading this devotion this morning. I was reading the Bible and I saw this and it reminded me of something Vicki said, or you know, and then it's encouraging means what it is. It encourages people within their own spiritual habits, within their own spiritual walks. And it's good because it feels like you're doing it together. It's good. That's real good. So now, I mean, obviously, as you talked about like the Good Life book and all this stuff, is for her done? Or is for her relaunching in the fall? Or what's next for that? No, I I mean, I don't think it's done at all. This is something like I said that we were planning even before all of this happened. And this is something we have a vision and a passion for. And so it's definitely not done and it will keep going. Like right now, it's gonna look differently than how it did while we're doing our Esther study. Now it's more at the Good Life and it's more us as a church, you know, coming alongside Pastor Derwin as he's releasing this book that we all like loved and believed in. And then from the fall, and we'll see, you know, where it goes from there. That's really good. And something that I'm hoping to see, I'm hoping to see, mind you, she's being really humble. I'm hoping to see Crystal start teaching it for her online. I'm really looking forward to that kind of stuff. I know she's not gonna tell her own content, but I'm telling you right now, she's a beautiful teacher, and I think she would do a phenomenal job of it. That's just me. Hey, look, I got a long history with Crystal, and I'm very, very happy to see you leading people here online and to really be driving this transformation. Because what I've seen a lot of in the past, and this isn't a critique, it was just an observation, was just some hesitancy because there had always been this ability to have this kind of influence online from Transformation. And now that I see them embracing it, I just love it. Yeah, yeah, I think I believe that tonight. And I'm and I'm so thankful to see, you know, my husband Alex also works at TC in the communications. He's so gifted at storytelling through video and photos and all of that. And so he's also very passionate about this, like me. We have to do things online. We have to like tell these stories of what's happening and put it out there. And so having him, having our communications director who also who called 2020 the year digital before COVID even happened, yeah, having our digital strike where God is building this team, like God knew what was happening even before we knew what was happening. And he was already putting people in the right places. And it's just like our eyes were all opened. And everyone's eyes were open to like, okay, this is happening. And we're seeing so many more opportunities come because we.

We have started opening up the ideas of like what does it mean to be an online church, what does it mean to go digital, and so we just see so many opportunities coming and we know that's God doing his work. So anyways, now to land the plane, Crystal, you know, if you have any closing thoughts as to how you would encourage churches to move in digital strategy and digital discipleship in this kind of direction as to what you guys have done for women, I mean it's powerful. It can feel overwhelming, especially if you're not well versed in digital and online and all of that.

It can definitely feel overwhelming, but there are so many people within your church who know how to do this. Like they're younger people or maybe even like moms, and moms are amazing on Facebook. Like you don't even know, there's so many mom Facebook groups. They know how to run it like better than anyone else. I know there's like younger people who just have like a knack for it, you know. There are people within your church, you know, even if you don't know how to do it, there's somebody in your church who knows how to navigate online spaces very well. So it's time to tap them on the shoulder and say please help me. Like show some humility and be like, okay, I don't know what I'm doing, please help me with this, and they'll do it. They'll be so excited and they'll love to help navigate this new arena for you. I think that's like step number one. And if not, then ask God, you know, pray and ask him to show you who that is or to bring that person to your church because I promise you there are so many people out there who know what they're doing when it comes to this.

That's so good, that's so powerful, and I agree. You know, if you're out here listening and you're thinking to yourself, well, this is great, but I don't have a dynamic speaker or I don't have the kind of personality that Transformation has on either the men or women side, under what can I get started? The reality is your willingness is kind of the first place to start. And if you're a regular listener on the Church Digital, we talk about this all the time. It's okay to fail. Like it's okay to mess up in this space in the sense of yeah, I tried something and it didn't work out, but get back up and try again. Because as we're seeing here and what's happening at Transformation, this wasn't planned. Nobody went into this saying hey, this is gonna be a sensation, we're gonna get 800 women into a Facebook group and over 250 women involvement in small groups in four weeks. There was no plan that kind of went into this emotion, but there was the willingness to say yes to God. And even when the plan on Zoom fell apart, there was the willingness to get up.

Yeah, and that wasn't even the last fail because we had other fails after that and we had to regroup. And everything like, I think the very first week that we had the video teaching, we said we're gonna do individual watch parties and all of the different small groups. That was a fail because so many people were like, how do I do this? Where do I go? I don't understand. And so we had to just simplify like one watch party in the large group, then go to your small groups, you know. So you something happens and you have to rethink your whole strategy. It's a sudden change, so you just move and just do it, you know. So that's what we had to do.

That sounds good, and that kind of I think exemplifies maybe church ministry in general, but definitely church online is sudden change is just part of the norm, and it's tough to embrace, but it's definitely something that needs to be embraced, especially when we're in the business of faith and working for God, because every hero I've ever had in the Bible has had to deal with sudden change.

Oh yeah, yep. Very cool. Well, Crystal, thanks so much for taking the time to join us on the Church Digital podcast. Look forward to having you again because I definitely want to talk about the future as to after you've opened and what's happening in terms of Transformation Church being an online church first. That's that, I'm sure it's gonna take on a whole lot of other meanings come to fall and come on into 2021. So look forward to hearing from you guys again.

That'll be great. This podcast and not everything you guys are doing, so thank you. Thank you. And then make sure if you're listening to go pick up a copy of The Good Life when it comes out because it's gonna be awesome.

Very yes, by D'Herblay. Phenomenal pastor has a lot of great things to say and definitely is very engaging online. And then follow at Crystal Ace. She's a great follow. Make sure I'm plugged in with her. All right, that sums it up here. My name is Ray. I'm here for the Church Digital. We'll see next time.