EP097: Craig Dockery & Crossroads Creative Church Services Online

Episode 97 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered once again by Stadia Church Planning. Jeff here. Episode 100 is just around the corner and it's going to be a doozy. I'm not even going to tell you about all the stuff we've got coming up in episode 100. I'm just going to tell you, you want to stay tuned. It's going to be an incredible episode. We got enough excitement to talk about today. We don't even need to get into what episode 100 is going to look like coming very soon because here's where we are with episode 97. He said, "Hey, you know what? I don't even get into episode 97 yet. There's something really cool before we even get there."

The Church Digital here with this podcast, the Church Digital Podcast, we do a lot of deep, heady interviews. Ask a lot of questions. Talk a lot about future stuff, philosophical. Yeah, I mean, that's just kind of my groove. That's where I like to write. And so we do a lot of that here on the podcast. But I hear you, listening audience. "Hey, Jeff, like, can any of this be practical? Hey, Jeff, like, I love where you're going, but that's not where we are today. Can you help me where we are today?" And so we're doing something new. We're beta-ing something new. We're trying something out. We're firing that BB before a bullet, before we get to the cannonball, because we want to see what it looks like for us to do something a little more practical here at the Church Digital.

So we are launching a new show and it's going to be called Beta, because why not? We're experimenting with something and we want to help churches like you learn how to experiment and learn how to iterate. We want to answer the questions that you're asking right now in this season today and give you practical steps, practical guidance, practical solutions to help your church not get stuck in this COVID season. We'll talk philosophical in the podcast, but in this new show, Beta, we want to answer your questions. And I mean that quite literally. Like, I want you to tell me your question.

So here's what we're doing. Go to—and you know what, it's not even a website. That's funny. I just automatically went into that. I want you to text me. Here's what I've got. The number is 484-324-8724. Now, if you speak phone alphabet, that's literally "number four the church." Yes, my phone number is "number four the church." Thank God for Google Voice because I have no idea how I got that number. Google Voice helps me get it. Number four the church: 484-324-8724. Text me your questions. Where are you stuck as a church? What are you wrestling with? What are the questions leadership's asking of you that you don't know the answer to? What are the questions you're asking leadership and leadership's giving you just the blank stare, trying to figure out where you are? What questions, what struggles, what issues, what challenges are you, the church, facing in this mid, maybe post-COVID season that we're in? Where are you at? I want to help you.

And so we're doing a weekly show. It's going to roll out on Wednesday nights at thechurch.digital. We're going to roll it out on social media. Podcast is going to launch on Thursday with it, called the Church Digital Beta. More information on it soon. Check social media on that. But we're going to launch this thing literally on Wednesday. So just in a mere couple days from when this episode launches, you will see Beta happening in real time on Thursday, October 1st, and Wednesday, September 30th, on social media. So check it out there: the Church Digital Beta.

I told you I'm excited. That was a long talk about Beta, but let's move on here to episode 97.

So we're going back to the buildings. We're starting to get back into this groove. We're now wrestling with, "Oh my gosh, how do we be physical and digital? How do we be super creative in executing the physical environment when we've been pouring all those physical resources into the digital to make it excellent? But now the resources are going back to physical. How do I still do excellence digitally? Why should I even do excellence digitally? Is there a reason behind me doing a digital exclusive, a digital service? Or should we focus that online? Is there a way that the two can work together?"

These are really the questions that we wrestled with here at the Church Digital Podcast in episode 97, having a conversation with Craig Dockery. Now, Craig is like the weekend experience guy for the church. He's the lead creative responsible for the physical as well as the digital types of environments there for Crossroads. Crossroads, by the way, we'll put a link in the show notes. If you've not watched their online services, arguably at this point I would say it's one of the most, if not the most creative service that's executed here online. Like, I'm not saying—I talk about this in the podcast and it still blows my mind. This example: I'm literally watching their lead pastor Brian Tome preach a sermon while wakeboarding behind the boat. Like, the camera's following him. You can see the boom mic on the boat trying to get the audio. It's just crazy, some of the creative aspects they're putting in.

But more than just some of these crazy aspects, man, they're really rethinking the liturgy, the flow, the execution of this. Do we need to have a 30-minute sermon or is it better to have four seven-minute sermons? Let's ask that question and figure it out. And so like, you're really starting to see Crossroads start to pull the thread on some really interesting conversations about what a creative service looks like.

So let's listen to this. Let's dive in. Churches, like, first and foremost, like, Crossroads has a ton of resources. And it's very easy to listen to this conversation and get church lust, to think, "Oh my gosh, I wish I had that. Oh my gosh, I wish I had this time, those resources, that finance, that budget, that Red camera, whatever it is." Like, don't get lost in that world, church. Get lost in this idea of intentionality and rethinking what digital looks like and how what we're doing digitally cannot just exist in the digital space, but how it can coexist in physical and how the digital service can maybe make our physical service better. That's the wins of this conversation.

And so I'm bringing in once again Craig Dockery from Crossroads. I'm bringing in Radio Armist, digital pastor from Christ Fellowship Miami, co-host once again myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning, in a conversation that I'm calling "Crossroads Creative Online Services."

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Well, hey, you know, even just to kind of open it up here a little bit, tell us, tell us your ministry story. How you ended up at Crossroads, how you ended up in the role that you're in. You know, what does that path look like for you?

Well, um, I'll try and give you the short version, but it started with me being in elementary school, being the kid who could draw and play piano. I played in bands and also did graphic design for the first part of my career and worked at different design agencies and kind of business consulting kind of groups. And in between doing little tours with bands and all that, my twenties were pretty dead spiritually. And I found my way to Crossroads and just sat in the back because I was frustrated with everything with just the church. And kind of healed there for a couple years. And then started volunteering on the weekends, playing music. And then I started to meet these friends who were super talented and kind and loved Jesus. And I was like, "I didn't even know these people existed," you know?

And then one thing led to another. I keep meeting folks. I would go on like mission trips and volunteer events and do things like that. And the next thing you know, my buddy Matt, my friend now Matt, said, "Would you ever want to work at Crossroads?" And I was like, "No, you know?" And then like six months later, I couldn't get it out of my head. And I said, "Yeah, okay, I'll do it." And so that was almost ten years ago. And I started off more on like the design communication side of things. And I've slowly kind of flowed over to the experience side of what we do.

Awesome, awesome. And so like, just specifically, tell me about your role. Um, what are you currently doing in context of Crossroads?

So I currently lead kind of our centralized creative team, which consists of a video team, a music and worship team—or two kind of two teams—and then creative directors and producers. So we have a team of those that will work hand in hand to lead every project. And then we still interface a ton. We work a lot with the sites and the folks that support that and our marketing team and the folks who do the branding and series brands and all that kind of thing. So it's a lot of weekend service related content, yeah, stuff even beyond that.

Like, what specifics? Like, some practical, what are the things that you're doing? The kinds of work that we would do, that the folks on my team would do, are basically all of the online weekend stuff. Oversee whatever a series brand or creative direction for any that would be under the music team. We have all of our Crossroads music, which is, um, just, you know, a Spotify artist or whatever, you know, that we're promoting, doing a ton of songwriting and putting, you know, building up that whole thing. Um, and then we will help out on all different kinds of things like that will spread out to sites whenever there's, you know, services at sites. And we do some ministry support. But as we've grown, um, most of the ministry support would come through a weekend experience where it's like, "Oh, you guys have a thing coming up. We'll make an ad for it and put it in here and do it in there." But basically, the vast majority of our work is making the weekend happen.

Yeah, I've been so impressed with Crossroads in this season, watching. And I don't—not on a regular basis, not on a weekly basis, but you know, one of those churches I'll just kind of flip around and be like, "Hey, let me check out the service. Let's see what's happening." And the creative resources that are getting put into these services, the unique approach that you guys are doing in creating these services, are really phenomenal. Like, just the difference between the approach to not looking—you know, the average church service in this COVID season—forgive me, churches that are out there—it's the physical church model that's done online. Yeah, maybe some of the churches are literally recording like the worship and the teaching on stage. And if you're doing that, that's great. Or you're kind of taking that model and you're doing things in a living room or a different thing, but you're still kind of like following that same template, that can't say mold of what church is. And it feels like with you guys, man, you've really kind of flipped the script here and have taken a much different approach to how your online services go. Like, maybe speak a little bit to that. Like, what has that process been for you in discovery of how to do a unique approach to a digital service?

Been a really long process, I would say. So this started all the way back in 2014 with us saying, "What if we did like video teaching for the first for Easter?" You know, and 2014, that was great. And we went to Brian, our senior pastor. He taught in a barn and a junkyard and in a room full of lanterns or something like that, you know? And it's like, "Oh, that's kind of interesting. It's a different take on things." And then in 2015, we went over and we did Easter in Israel. And so we spent a whole week filming there, filming a band on location and all that. And it just grew and grew and grew until in 2018, we said, "We're going to try and do 20 weekends that are screened first because we are seeing the same trend of people are consuming church in a different way," you know, for the kind of church, the big attractional kind of ginormous.

Church that we are, you know, it used to be trying to get people to come and sit in the back row. Well, the new back row is the website or the screen or the Apple TV app or whatever it is, you know. So thinking about if we're trying to reach new people, the place they get introduced to us is digitally, and so let's start there. And, you know, it kind of came down to the insight of people don't just like to watch cooking shows anymore. They watch Chef's Table, you know. That the chef is in this amazing immersive environment. Or even you go back to the 90s and people consume Jerry Seinfeld not just on a stage but through his show that just, you know, embraces the medium that where people are, you know. And so that's what we started doing. And so we've had a bunch of wins and some failures and all this, but you know, like we've learned a lot along the way to the point that when we went digital first, this or digital only, you know, online only, um, and I guess it was like early March this year, we'd done thirty of these already, you know. So we already had some reps and we're like, well, okay, now how do we do it? What if we had to do this every week? Ah, you know. And so, um, quickly made some pivots, but we had enough in our back pocket and ways that we had, you know, we'd learned some stuff already, so it was great. It's good. And so I, you know, obviously COVID hits everybody, makes a shift. Um, early on, I mean, a lot of us paid the dumb tax and some different stuff. What were some things that you saw when you made that transition, even though you had already kind of dabbled in this stuff? What were some things that you saw early on were going to be some challenges, I guess you could say, because most churches aren't even close to where you guys even were back then?

Uh, I think it had as much to do with how do we make a cohesive experience. So, you know, a lot of times when you're filming, you're filming a piece at a time, you know, and you then you glue it all together. And the one of the things that we had to learn pretty early on was we need to add these host segments that like connect people from the beginning to the end. And then figure out, well, where do you, where do you put, does worship go up front or at the end? Or does their offering, you know, like how does all that go? And so we started having to go back and we'd redo more reshoots, you know, to try and figure out how do we make this thing flow from beginning to end? And then we even have figured out, you know, with all these different locations, like we might shoot worship here and, uh, teaching here and the host segment here, and then there's another little ad that we make for a thing coming up. How do we visually tie that all together? And so we've had a lot of bouncing back and forth, and that's just the beginning of it. Let alone how to make teaching compelling, you know. So that element there on the teaching, like what were some things that you found there to make it that much more compelling for an online environment?

Well, it, we're still learning how to do it, you know, because we're continuing to do this every week. And you know, one of the hallmarks of our culture, I think, is that we're never like, we never put it on autopilot. We just, I don't know, it's just a bunch of people that are wired not to do that, you know. And so we're always pushing like, what can we do to make it better? How can we make it different? And it's funny, some of this stuff just comes down to process as well as what's the great big creative idea. So, you know, we just finished, we just filmed yesterday, and uh, the teaching for the first week in October, and our senior pastor Brian had been feeling a lot of frustration about like, we we started off like filming in scenes, like we would do three or four chunks of things. And for a teacher to try and get continuity with that, it's just hard. So we always have a director and a content person to be like, just more brains to make sure that this point is getting made or, man, you were shouting the whole time, or you know, like, because they don't get that natural rise and fall of what a teaching is. And so with this last one, what we did yesterday, we did way more like a single take, and we adjusted the way that we approached the creative for that. And like, went back and he's telling a story about being in a hospital waiting room, and we filmed it in a place that looks almost like a hospital waiting room because actually getting in one to film is impossible right now. But you know, we would still creatively like fill his narrative with some slow-mo B-roll of him kind of reenacting like listening to music as he's worshiping, as he's, as he's waiting for, you know, the diagnosis or whatever. So, um, still finding creative ways to tell it, but trying to get to like, you know, it's kind of like teaching it. It's like that. Like for an actor, this is the whole switch from like plays to film, right? So an actor who is a stage actor has to act a totally different way. It's like the whole body acts, right? And then on film, it's just like the face that acts, you know. And so you have to learn all these new things. And you learn versus like, how do you do the whole play versus how do you get the scene exactly right? And there's a lot of trust that has to happen from the director or whoever that has the big picture, you know. So anyway, we're dancing with all that stuff and trying to figure that out. And we have four teachers each that will teach the weekends to different varying degrees. And some teach really great in the chopped up ones, and Brian is like, you just gotta let me, like, I gotta burn for something and you gotta let me get moving on. And so we're constantly tweaking how to do all that stuff. But I think it's kind of the analog of from the stage to the screen, back, which we did like the turn of last century, you know. People have done this before, and it's hard. It's difficult. Some people are better at one than the other, you know.

Yeah, I was recently talking with a church that was wrestling with some of this digital first mentality. And the thing, like, even the video producer in this with this church was wrestling with, no, well, like, and he was the guy who was actually quoting like the liturgy and the way that the church service is done, doing it digitally, like represented on the stage and not really seeing the opportunity to think outside of it. And really, the illustration that kind of got him to shift was actually like back in the day in the early twenties, like how they were making films a hundred years ago. Yeah, they were filming these stage performances totally. And as it shifted, it moved away from filming a stage performance. Instead of, and then it went to, hey, let's film a film, get the shots that are necessary for that and edit it together. And it was funny, like, even just watching his brain start to shift away from an old way of thinking to a new way of thinking. And over the course of like an hour-long conversation, he's like, that's it. Yeah, I'm sold. This is it. It makes total sense because it's just a natural progression of how we're moving away from just a stage expression to this more creative, more engaging conversation. And it's engaging, by the way. Like, I was watching one of your services, and I'm watching your lead pastor Brian preach while he's on a wakeboard. Like, he's in a bathing suit, we're wearing a life jacket on a boat. And I'm like, hey, this is this is kind of cool. This is setting the stage. Well, and he goes over and picks up the wakeboard, and I'm like, hey, what? He's still preaching. What's he, why is he got that wakeboard? Is that like a prop later on? A couple minutes later, he's literally getting dragged behind a boat. I'm seeing a boom mic kind of in the shot as you're trying to get the audio. But I'm watching him preach. Like, he keeps looking down at his feet. I'm wondering if his script's at his feet or if he's just trying to get comfortable on the wakeboard. But he's preaching the sermon while getting dragged behind a boat at X number of miles per hour.

Yeah, I mean, that's crazy. And it's engaging to a digital audience. Sometimes it starts really strategically, like, this is the topic we need to hit, and therefore what's the thing that's actually going to do it? And then other times it's like, well, we're talking about adventure. What sounds awesome, you know? And then Brian, you know, that's Brian's boat and his wake circle, his wakeboard, and all that kind of stuff. So, and I mean, he's just, that's one of the things that he's into. He's like, oh, I could totally preach doing that. We're like, heck yeah, good. That'd be awesome. So then we wrapped the whole thing around it. If you watch the whole thing though, what's interesting is it's a series on adventure, which is we believe that faith is an adventurous life. And that doesn't mean the easy life or you're always just aiming for the mountaintops, but an adventure is like saying yes to the hard thing that's in front of you. And the pro, and we, so we use the wakesurfing as, at first we started was like, that'll be sweet. But where do we fit it in? Because then you have to have the, watch out of, well, there's a bunch of people that are like, well, yeah, that's the stereotypical adventure, but that's not what we're talking about. And so we had to set it up as, this is what people think of as adventure, but then if you watch to the very end, then it's really like the real adventure that you have is at this dinner table with your spouse having a conversation about how you're going to keep your marriage together or how you're going to get out of debt or you know what you really believe about God or all those kinds of things. And so it's, uh, I don't know, it's funny, like the stuff just keeps flowing, you know. Early on we said, what happens if we run out of ideas? And I'm like, listen, guys, the Holy Spirit's the best creative director out there, and I gotta trust that he wants us to come up with more stuff, you know. So we just gotta, gotta get, take one idea at a time, and all that. And it's just the ideas come from all over the place. I'd say the, if there's one contributing factor, uh, besides the Holy Spirit being a great creative director, is, um, we have a great team and we do everything in team. That's why I wanted to have my colleague Paula on there, but she's on a shoot. There's this nineteen seventy-five Volkswagen minibus that we're filming for the next thing, and it died, and she's at AutoZone trying to figure out if it's the battery or something more sinister, you know. So she couldn't be here. But every, like, everything we do, it's never, there's never a lone wolf or the single mad genius. It's like everything gets run through this whole team of really, like, really talented people that are really trusting of each other too. So even more than the talent is the trust, I think, is the key.

Yeah, I'm just curious. You've even setting the stage here, describe like that team. Staff, volunteers, you know, we've got varying churches, big churches, small churches. But having that creative team as opposed to one person kind of driving vision down, but having that team approach, I'm just curious, like, describe that team. Who's got a seat at the table?

We have a pretty, so it's a decently sized team. So what I would say is don't listen to the number, the sheer head count, but think about the roles that are involved, right? So, uh, there's the teacher, and we have a whole content team that that kind of lays out, assists the teachers, and saying these are the topics, and there's a handful of folks on on this team that kind of say, what do we think God's saying to our church? What do we want to do? So there's always a content, just on a shoot, there's a content rep who's saying these are the points you gotta hit. They're walking along. We've kind of graduated to using teleprompters way more often, so they're managing that and managing the script to say like these are the bullet points or whatever. And then there's the director. And there's, so there's like two.

Or three people that can be a content person and then there's about four of us that can be directors and so we're making sure from, you know, it looks right, the whole story kind of pulls together. You know, a lot of times a director would kind of be content and directing, you know, in a regular film or whatever, but just because of the teaching and because it's like every week and there's a new, there's always a new idea, you know, it's great to have a brain just focused on that. So it's, you know, tying together the emotional, like the performance so to speak of the teacher, like how are you emotively, you know, teaching and expressing yourself here? Um, and then we have a whole production crew that will typically be one or two camera guys, and then if there's two camera guys, then there will be a director of photography that's making sure everything is working, and they also kind of work with lighting and all that. So they'll be rigging up lights and doing all kinds of stuff. Then there's an audio guy doing there, and usually there's like an, and those are all everyone there so far is typically staff. Occasionally we have some like really talented creatives that will step in and direct, you know, on a high-powered volunteer thing, or we might contract them occasionally. And then we, um, usually have an A-grip or two that's just lugging around stuff. Like one of the big things is you just don't have time. So on a video shoot, you know, time is of the essence. It's like it's like a game, right? It's like a football game. So there's only so much time to get it done. So you do all the prep before, you can do all the debriefs after, but the more hands you have, the better. So there will be a couple grips there, and uh, in the best, in the best cases we have a makeup person. Just we always forget it because it's just a bunch of like scraggly looking guys making this thing, and then, and then Brian, our teacher, you know, main teacher, is like, how do I look? And I'm like, fine. And he's like, you need, we need another set of opinions, you know, you look like yourself, whatever. So um, we have that. So that's usually kind of the bare bones crew. And then there will be a day-of producer for the video team who's just making sure that like everything runs according to schedule, like all the stuff, all the props are on the set, all, you know, we're getting fed, all of that kind of thing. And so that's kind of the core crew. And then ahead of that, the creative director or the director and the content person and the teacher and the overall experience producer for the whole series will work together and kind of come up with a plan, work through that with the video team. Then we have to shoot, and then there's a team of editors that usually there's like one editor that pulls it together with the help of a couple others because it's the weekend teaching, and then we also have the worship stuff, and we're kind of running that parallel concurrently. So that's a whole different setup. That's, it's actually a lot more people because we have more cameras at once that we're filming with.

How far out are you guys? Just because I mean, all this storyboarding and and just kind of thinking through the visuals and connecting visuals and all that stuff, I can only imagine it's a lot. I mean, I'd heard you mentioned earlier that you guys already filmed October, which, you know, for those of you listening, like we're kind of two weeks out from that. So at the time of this recording, so what are you thinking? Uh, in terms of, hey, I, not just ideally, but on the norm, we're normally, well, right here for a creative, there's nothing like a deadline to actually get work done, you know? So the real deadline that we had when we went into lockdown in March was we started putting stuff on TV, and that all had an episode or a service. We'd just call them episodes because that's really, they're more like, they could be spiritual episodes, right? So um, an episode had to be done by the Wednesday before it was shown on that Sunday. And so we were in a bunch of different local markets where I've actually switched our TV strategy a little bit. We're going to be on TBN for um, ongoing or whatever, but uh, for a long, and it's a whole, that's a whole other way of thinking. But if we had to be done with everything the Wednesday before, then that meant our first review of the video was the wins, like two Wednesdays before, which meant we needed another week to edit it from shooting. And so it really, what it came down to is it takes about a month of time to put the whole thing together. So we're thinking you're concepting four weeks out, filming three weeks out, editing two weeks out, and then finishing and posting the week of. And it was hard to get to that place, and we're, but we're finally in a rhythm where it's still tough because it's just a huge amount of work. But um, but we have the expectations set, you know, now of all the creative ideas that kind of you generated at this point four weeks out. Like if you're executing at that, like you don't have a lot of buffer or variance for, well, that's not gonna work, you know? Let's come up with, let's iterate and do uh, another thing. So there's a lot of pressure. TBN television broadcast as well. It's getting more and more complex for you. How do you know if an idea is gonna work?

You never do. You never know if it's going to work. I mean, because it's so many things coming together. It's just one, it's the idea that just, just talk about the medium. Video is the most collaborative art form. So you got to get the right performance. You got to get the camera done well. If it's trying, if you're trying to be funny, it actually has to be funny, you know? The timing has to be right, and the whole thing has to come together. And yeah, you just never know. But I, it's that that old adage like the harder you work, the luckier you get. So the more, the more reps you get on something, the more likely you are to to hit it every now and again, you know? So I mean, yeah, you never know if it's going to work, and a lot of times the, I think one of the hardest things for us is we get an idea for something like, oh, that'd be cool, like two, two locations that we really struggled with. Three, three, one was we're talking about God as judge. Well, what's the sweetest place to do that? In a courtroom. Great. Oh, well, it's covered. They're all closed. And then like the day before the shoot, you know, I mean, you just start praying. And it's funny, God, I think God cares about video locations. And a place opened up, right? Um, the, you know, we were just trying to do the waiting room. Um, and we barely got into that, you know, just in time. Uh, we just filmed, we filmed all of our music sets for an entire series at one time, and we were in this giant airplane hangar that we were able to get a hold of where the guy was like, um, well, if it rains, I don't have to move the planes in. And we're like, that's where we're gonna be. And so it was just all sketchy. It was like, I hope it doesn't rain Tuesday and Wednesday because we're loading in and doing all this stuff. And so it really, I don't know, I think that's kind of like, there's no atheist in a foxhole. There's no, no atheist on a video shoot, you know, just because there's so many factors that you just don't have control over.

You know, what's been the craziest idea you guys have come up with that's like, no, that's, that's, that's too crazy? What, what's like, I mean, you had somebody preaching. Brian's preaching while he's wakeboarding. That to me, yeah, I, it's crazy. Tell me the thing that you're like, no, we're going to bank that one. We'll do it.

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think some of it comes down to it. It's not crazy if everybody's excited about it, you know? So it's really less about how how aggressive is it, and it's more like, is everybody kind of, can we get everybody pumped about this? Because, you know, the video guys have, they work a ton of time, and there's, and they're super creative but also super technical. And like, we're gonna, how are we gonna rig the lighting up to make this whole thing work? Or how are we gonna make it so you can actually hear the guy or whatever? But if they're, if they're pumped about the concept as much as you are, and if the teacher is, then they'll do anything.

One thing we tried to do that didn't work well, we pitched it. We were trying to get Chuck, one of our other teachers, to uh, teach like upside down for like five minutes, and like have the camera upside down, and then it, it's like, you, you turn the camera, and you're like, oh, he's been upside down the whole time. It's this like old Penn and Teller SNL skit from the eighties that's really great. And like, it took us like four days. Like, he wouldn't email us back, and then he's finally like, I, I don't want to do that, you know? So I mean, you just got to keep pushing, you know, and whatever works, works, you know?

So like, what, what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing, and by the way, you said this earlier, but there's all sorts of links in the show notes, the services and some of the things that they're doing as a team. So if you're listening on audio on podcast, you need to go like click over and kind of check the way that this church operates in their services. They're thinking outside of the box. Um, how did you, how did you get there? Like, even the idea of, uh, okay, yeah, the guy said no to hanging upside down like a bat. Okay, that that's pretty radical. I've seen a lot of radical things that have been accepted. So like, what's the DNA journey, the path you've been involved with the church for for a while? It seems so, how did this environment come in place? You know, you don't see this in a lot of churches.

Well, I think, you know, some of it is uh, a bunch of people that are just really wired to push themselves, right? Like I was saying, and get bored with doing the same thing over and over again. And uh, and it's a dynamic like our leadership is the same kind of thing where they're, they're more aggressive than than we are in a lot of cases. Like a lot of times I've presented an idea to a group of the like that the leadership or the board at our church, and they're like, cool, here's four times that. Now go make it better. And and like, get four times the return, you know? So uh, we really have a culture of entrepreneurship and doing, you know, trying new things. And it's just an awareness of like, it's not just because of, I don't know, because it sounds fun or that would be that would be neat. It's because the general church is in decline, and church work is like, it's just harder than, I mean, I've worked outside, you know, like in agencies and all that kind of thing, you know, for half of my career. And it's just harder inside because the church is in decline. Less and less people are just even open to it. And so if you really believe that this is um, this is what we're called to do, and that this is um, this is, you know, people are separated from God. They need to know God. Then wouldn't you do everything you possibly could to do it? And so that's that's the kind of mindset that we have, you know? It's um, yeah, it's just the video shoot, but man, someone could meet Jesus this weekend because of that. And and it's a little harder every week just because culture is shifting the exact other way or um, sentiment or any of that kind of stuff, you know? It's just so we're we're like salmon swimming against the tide, you know? Um, and so anyway, there, there's so there's already that recognized that you, they already recognized that, right? But then it's still a huge process. I mean, you've talked with Matt Welty and him talking about all the digital products and the stuff we make. I'm sure talking about the app and all that kind of thing. And I mean, that's been a five, six year journey as well, you know? So it starts with like little nuggets. And and I appreciate the pushback that leadership has initially because it's like they have a lot at stake. They have a lot of people they're caring for, and as well as like limited resources to do like everything that we're doing looks kind of like.

A big deal, but we're always just trying to squeeze the most we can out of it. If we have a ten thousand dollar budget, let's make it look like it's a thirty thousand dollar budget, right? So we're always pushing, always trying to do that. And you know, scarce resources no matter where you are, and I appreciate them pushing back. So it's just been taking time to like build trust and get little wins. Like that's why I said like it's like our 35th episode that we jumped into when at the beginning of COVID because we had some reps and it wasn't like guys, what if we did this crazy thing? It's like, hey, remember the thing we've been doing? What if we just kept doing that, you know? So everything is an incremental step. You know, like the version of the app that Matt is working on is like version 50 of it, I don't know, you know? And so it just keeps getting better and better. There's no such thing as the overnight success. I remember seeing some artists win a Grammy of the year or like best new artist for, uh, the best and hardest Grammy for her seventh album or something like that, and that's just kind of how it works, you know? You just gotta keep plugging away.

So kind of take us into the nuggets that you're kind of thinking through as far as like what's next. And you don't have to give us like the full painted future, but there's obviously some things in the hopper that you're like, all right, this is where we're going next based off of what we've seen in this season. Because reopening will happen, all sorts of things, and so I can only imagine just kind of what's baking in there coming up.

Yeah, well, a couple of the things on our minds or reopening is definitely one. So October 4th we are going to go back to a limited reopening with some of our sites. And so there's big implications with that, you know? We've been pulling site resources to do the extra work that we've been doing, and so it's not all just like what creatively what's going to happen, but it's more like logistically what can happen, you know? And so we're thinking now about still creating the online experience that we do, and rather than going the, you know, what we used to do is we were a physical church that had an online presence. And now it's really thinking more like we make online experiences and then also have live expressions of that. So we make the online one first because of the timeline for it, you know? And so thinking about when we come back, we're gonna obviously the same content online and live, but really splitting the teams, uh, more and splitting the kinds of experiences. Even though you would hopefully get the same biblical truth out of it, maybe even sing one of the same songs or something, but it's got to be an experience that's made for that environment, which actually is really great. It's more work, but it's freeing, you know? I mean, I was looking, you know, some of the questions you guys were asking up front like how do you even get started with this? And I think the key is it's so simple it's stupid simple. The key is always like, who's your audience and what's your objective? And the more specific you can get with both of those, the more chance you have of succeeding, right? So if you, and then when you have when you have two audiences and two objectives, then suddenly you're trying to make this like I don't know, like some amphibious car that's just a crappy boat and a crappy car, you know? And so the getting the clarity right now that we have like we are making a digital thing and we are making a live thing, and they're both, they both have a really strong suits in these areas. And let's hit those versus trying to make something that works for everybody.

Yeah, you just said something I wasn't aware of. So let's back up and we'll get back to that. You guys were kind of clear, you're one of the front runners, um, back in I don't know June, July, August, North Point announced, hey, we're done for 2020, pick it up in 2021, see how it's at. You guys kind of like the next week, as I recall, hey, we're done for 2020 as well. And so now, you know, I don't want to say you're backtracking because it's 2020, you're allowed to experiment.

Yeah, I can't tell you how many churches have said something and then had to take it back.

Yeah, like walk me through some of the mentality because a lot of churches were like, yeah, they're not, they're not doing anything, but you guys are starting to meet. So like, what's the framework, the mental mindset with where you guys are?

I think the mental mindset is our main goal is to minister to people, and there are more and more people that are just hurting for their church. And I know that a week in service is not the full expression of church, but that's a cadence in a year that has lost all cadence that they miss. And so thinking about how can we help, um, help them, you know? How can I, you know, one of the things we talk about is when Sunday comes we get to be water to people. They're dry. Their whole week it just sucks. The guys, the random guy, his marriage is in trouble, his kids hate him, he doesn't like his job. Like he's just gotten the crap beat out of him all week. We get to like be this guy to the Holy Spirit and to Jesus and like God the Father of like that he's not going to get anywhere else. That's amazing, that's wonderful. So getting to be water, um, the more water we can be the better, you know? And I mean, even to that point, you were talking about, um, or well, we're, I was talking about cadence, you know? Uh, that's one of the tough things about the digital thing is that there's, it's I don't know, today is just day I don't know what day even is it, you know? So we've struggled to like push, uh, like promote the weekends and do all that because I think people's rhythms have started to fall off a little bit. And so just like I said, like church work is always hard. It's just like it's always everything's falling away like and you gotta put extra effort to help maintain it, you know? And so that's one of the things we've had to do is like figure out new ways to promote it, whether it's on our social or whatever, just remind people like stay in the cadence, you know? This is this is good, this is, um, it's a great thing. But anyway, that's that's ministering to people. That's mainly the reason.

So you've got this right, this wrestle of thinking, uh, screen first, digital first is some of the language we've used on the podcast, continuing that, and now you're feeling or you will be feeling the pain point of oh man, I got to do a live as well as a digital where if you're like the typical church right now in America that is meeting, 30 percent of the people are coming back to the building. Seems to be the average, 70 percent are not engaging physically. They're still digital for whatever reason. If they're still engaged or maybe we as the church we've lost them, it's it's hard to tell statistically speaking right now. But I'm just curious like, you know, I'm watching a service uh right now kind of in the screen going on the side. I'm watching Brian, uh, lead pastor, walking around what it seems to be like a high school football locker room. And he's doing that expression. He's actually doing communion right now that's in a very, um, old kind of chapel church. There's stained glass in there. And so you've created these beautiful digital expressions now. How much of those digital expressions are going to be seen in the physical location? Like what's what's the balance? Is it entirely live and you're creating two completely separate experiences? Is there any bleed over? Kind of what's the relationship between the live and the physical? At least where you think you're going to be here in October?

Well, we talked about that and kind of came up with four options. There's the two extremes that are play the video in the room, great, it's fine, uh, or have the guy teach live or the woman teach live. And then there's a couple different hybrids. One that could be play the video but have the site pastor, the campus pastor, introduce it or add their tag on the end or personalize it in some way so there's still a live only in this room kind of thing that you get. And then, uh, another one would be have have the teacher teach live but use any portion that you're like, oh man, you're not going to get that on the stage, you know, and show that like for example the wake surfing, right? So like maybe show that as the intro. You can even put that in a different spot in the service is like a teaser into the rest of the rest of the teaching. So we, you know, we debated all this stuff and like, you know, we got these options. Let's try it a different way each week and and play with it and so that's really where we're, um, where we're going, uh, is is just continuing to experiment with it and see see what works and and how people respond to it, you know?

So speaking of the fact that I'm watching a service in real time, I I wanted to ask this and I've been, I've seen it before, but why do you put the capo guitar patterns on the screen? Is is the goal during worship? Is the goal for people to like play along at home? And so you're incorporating kind of a physical as well as video worship experience?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I, I don't think we've, uh, we've 100 percent cracked the code on what is online worship music look like? I think we're doing as well as anybody is out there. It's not so much that we're not doing everything that we can. It's just I think it as much has to do with the fact that culture never sings, you know? You might sing at a concert. You might sing at church, but historically humanity sings together. You go to a bar and you sing or the pub or whatever. You sing before battle and we just don't have that. So people aren't conditioned to sit in front of the TV and watch it. So trying to do everything that we can to engage people and you know, give them give them a reason to pick up their guitar because that can be a whole, you know, that could be, I know me personally being a musician, I connect musically in a whole different way if I have a you know a piano or a guitar or something with me. And so I think it also takes a little bit more out of performancy mode, which can be the downfall of a lot of uh modern worship stuff, even if it's well intentioned. People just look at it and they're like, oh, those guys look like rock stars or whatever. So the more the more we can indicate like this is meant to be a communal thing like let's all do this together, the better.

Yeah, I love that. I've never never thought of it, but even as you're doing micro locations, this house church and you're trying to incorporate live environments along with with the digital and create, we use the term digital a lot here on the podcast, physical plus digital combining of it, like you know, creating that that that expression that environments is is beautiful. Have you guys toyed with creatively, you know, I mean, biblically, biblically worship is just musical worship is just one method of worship. Have you toyed with do you kind of pull the thread and explore you know some of some of the others? Maybe what is that other methods of creative worship, quote unquote? What does that look like for for Crossroads? You mean like like sacrificing a goat or whatever or what exactly what exactly are you thinking about?

Spoken word, testimonies, uh, career moments.

Yeah, I mean, sure, if you've got a good goat story I'm willing, but there's plenty of other references. There might be some blowback for that, you know? So one of the things that we're constantly adjusting with uh the service mix or the service, the liturgy you might say, is what are the elements that we put into it? And the the big limit that we had early on was that we were first making it for TV because that was the hardest constraint. So we had 28 minutes and 30 seconds.

To get in and get out, and so that we had to cut stuff. And then we had like a longer online version. But now that we've kind of flipped it and we say our online version, the thing on crossroads.net, the thing on all our Apple TV app, all the like are on the phone app or any of that stuff is the first. Is what we have now. We have me about 45 minutes. And so that gives us more space. And you'll so you'll start to see trickling in over the next month or so back to the stuff that we've done before like stories or like a performance song or more like a um you know like a immersive prayer moment that we might do. And you know we like I said we haven't fully figured out the medium but we're just taking continual steps in that way.

You know one of the things we did like imaginative prayer. I don't know if you guys have ever done any of that kind of thing. You know you're like you imagine that God's in the room or you're talking to Jesus and do all that. We did that during one of the weeks of the series way back like in April. Um and so we've incorporated some of that stuff but we've been kind of bare bones worship and teaching with that time constraint. So now we're starting to expand it a little bit more but definitely more stories more. And you know another thing I'd say about worship is it's uh you know it can be expressed by. I think if there's a defining thing about Crossroads even more than just kind of creativity about you know within the orthodoxy of this is a Jesus believing church, what's the unique thing about it is our ability to mobilize. You know and so when we do these recap videos of this group of people that made 3,000 masks in a day or um you know us going and serving the hospital staff you know in the midst of the very beginning of lockdown or you know us serving cops and protesters in the midst of some of the things going on around here um that that's as much worship as anything you know and that's that's really beautiful and it's like boots on the ground worship you know. So I we always like that being a component of what we you know what we present a Crossroads weekend to look like.

One of the things that I I love all of that by the way it was beautiful and and not a goat story to be heard. So we're heading in the right. Not yet but maybe you guys was a too crazy of a story. Check back with me. Yeah there's something back in there we'll have to come back to it. I'll email you when I come up with something. We'll experiment with with you.

Hey um like one of the things that that of the services that I've seen they seem to be very focused on and and I hesitate to use the word call to action because I don't want to make this a marketing thing but they're they seem to be focused towards driving people to a to a place. Like I've seen you know vision videos kind of at the beginning of the service. Your your positioning teaching for the most part it seems to be teachings more up at the front, worship on the back side. And and even with the teaching there seems to be like a focused torch of teaching that follows with a connect to the guides to get connected into the discipleship. There there is intentionality with how you are crafting the services where all the things seem to drive towards that call to action where you're trying to get people to take next steps. Yeah does that is that come intentional? Is that is it intentional where like that's the beginning of the conversation or is the service crafted and kind of the call to action is the the last step? Okay what can we kind of squeeze in here maybe talk about that level of crafting leading towards the call to action?

Yeah it depends on the week and it depends on the time of year. Uh we we've put a rough schedule together for the whole year to say we know that in January or February and then once again in September and October those are our group seasons. And understanding that you know getting in community is a first step towards true discipleship. You know and in a big church where it's really easy just to sit and watch the stream or sit in the back row or whatever, what's the next step? And so that's where a lot of that stuff starts to come in. And occasionally there might be something like uh a challenge for giving or you know like we have a 90-day tithe test thing that we do um that's you know 90 days of God blessing your life or your money back kind of thing. And it's it's actually worked out really well as we teach the principle of tithing. You know and so sometimes it's that's the we need to make sure that we're getting people to like sign up for a group or sign up for the journey or sign up for a guide. And most of the time that stuff is purely for their benefit, you know purely for the sake of their growth. Um well I guess it always should be you know occasionally there's like well we're trying to hit a strategic thing or whatever you know but um but it's always to you know to help people. And a lot of times with like additional burden to us the more they do like the guide thing. You know you mentioned the whole spiritual outfitter idea. Um we recently went through this whole rebrand exercise where we just thought like how can we reframe who Crossroads is what we are what we do and that's where the spiritual outfitter came came from. And one of the one of the big components about that is the concept of guides which is it's not necessarily like a full-on discipling relationship but it's just the idea that at a big church it's easy to be like where do I even begin you know and so we thought the easiest way is just to connect people with actual humans who can be like how are you doing let's check in every month and I have a general idea of what's going on here so I can show you kind of these are the tools that we have in our tool belt for you to grow closer to God. And so um that's the kind of thing. It's like the more people who do guides the more work it is for us you know but it's good. But so when we're not doing those I just think like I said mobilization. We have a bent towards like cool nice service. What does it mean on Tuesday for you? You know like get people to actually put their faith into action and so some of that's just in the DNA of always having have trying to have some call to action no matter what it is to put your faith into action or test it.

I love that and we're going to be kind of scratching the surface the guides that that you guys. I've I've heard um Greg Ackerman uh in separate conversations gone into great detail. Uh Greg's been on the podcast uh here as well. Uh recently I don't know how recently maybe within the past in the combat season it was on talking about some things and uh we're actually gonna have uh Joey Santos who's up in your area our Christ Church over in Mason Ohio. Okay um is is gonna be they're doing some interesting things on the guides and so a similar concept to what you guys are doing with the guide. So we'll dig more into that in in a future podcast but I'm curious with this even just as we're we're landing the plane here um tips um tricks hey like there are advice feedback consulting. There are churches out there that are thinking hey we need to be more creative. Um senior leadership's not feeling this. Senior leadership's not seeing this. Uh our our pastor there is no way he's going to get on a wakeboard and preach a sermon while the boat's going 20 miles an hour. Like how do I get started? What what are some some basic steps? How do I kind of break the mold uh while still working with leadership and feeling you know by we're all respecting them and and their their approach. So give some advices for somebody that kind of wants to take some some next steps. How can they get started um on this?

Yeah I I mean all mine are pretty they're pretty vague. It's not like you need to buy this camera you know um although you know we have we have some nice cameras. I think it really it's all about the mindset right because if you have the right mindset then you'll figure out the the how right. So you know I think it starts like I was saying with target and objective. Like who's your audience and what's your objective? What are you trying to do? And I I think people just aren't honest enough about it. I mean a random church that's like we're just here to minister to people and do that. Okay cool. Now get more specific with it. Challenge yourself. What's the specific change in what type of person? You know so for us it's like you know we call it like a a we have a kind of a persona named Wayne who's a uh young starting his career seeker which means he's open to spiritual stuff. He's not necessarily part of the church um or have has church history but more likely than not he does. And this is all based on research that we did. And so you don't always have to do that but just get a clear idea of who it is you're going for and build some real empathy for them you know. And then suddenly you might get some insight on like oh you know what the thing I just did is super boring to the person I'm trying to reach or it's offensive to them or whatever. Like I mean I think it's really brutal honesty. It's really worth it's worth knowing that that people aren't nearly as interested in what you're making as you are you know. And if you start with that assumption then you'll work harder to make what you're doing really good because they don't care if you're a church or some other thing. They're comparing you with whatever else is in their life you know. And and you have to work as hard as you can and rely on God's grace and mercy to to approach that in a way that like your work isn't so bad it's distracting. So like having just that brutal honesty. I I just having been around churches a lot I would say I've just seen way too many churches really proud of themselves versus saying are we really reaching people? You know and it's I think it's just it's true humility is not caring not thinking less of yourself but thinking yourself less you know you're thinking about that person that you're trying to reach. Um and then I and then it comes down to like well what do you uniquely have? You know you might you know are you're into collecting yeah I don't know like old GI Joes or something like that. Well maybe that's not wakeboarding but that's what you honestly have. And if you can honestly be yourself and be excited about it then sure somebody's gonna find something interesting in that. There's always a way to like people are just interested in passionate people you know. And I don't know anyway I'd say like find the unique thing. Don't try and copycat a another another person that inspires you but just because what they're doing is they're finding their voice and how do you find your voice? And also connect your voice to what that that your target is is going after. Everything else starts to fall into place I think.

Did you say earlier like the first one of the first creative services that you you guys had did online was like an Easter service or a hollow? What was that? It was like even just wrapping up like what was what what did that first service look like? What were some elements that you did that were digital only versus stage or kind of well it was it was really it wasn't even digital. It was just video. So it was still made for live experience but it was using incorporating video. And then it kind of grew because we had a handful of sites at the time. And so it was like how can we scale the preaching so it's digital but live right? And so uh it was it was an Easter service. So rather than it just being like three songs and then announcements and then a message it was a whole experience that we tied together. And so there was you know a song up front that was moody and had some you know led.

Background kind of stuff or whatever, and then Brian came up and taught from one of his kind of metaphor locations, and then we'd move back and forth through it. So it was kind of like teaching five minutes of five minutes of teaching, song, five minutes teaching, song, and then, and then I think we did a whole like this like long scripture reading of the Easter story with all these kind of rhythmic like, uh, like the horse, you know, he the hor, the on Palm Sunday the horse coming in and you can hear the stuff going, but it's all like it's more like stomp than like a like a Warner Brothers cartoon, you know, but it's more like this rhythmic thing that all builds this beautiful like song base and then gets to like, were you there when they crucified my Lord, and it's just this beautiful emotional retelling of it. And then Brian comes back and so there are all these cool creative elements to it that um that were meant to be like, okay, this is the person in the seat who we know is probably here for the one time this year, and how can we get them to like experience it when they just think Easter is like it just kind of goes right past them. So um yeah, I don't know, it's probably four teaching segments of five minutes each and then a whole bunch of songs and I don't know, probably communion at the end. I don't know, it's a long time ago, but you know, even something like like taking one of those services and doing something creative with it, just a small step, even to do it, you know, on a weekend like I would in another one of my churches that I've worked with in my life that was we we did a similar thing where it was three seven minute sermons. Um and we just, hey, one Sunday we're going to experiment. Yeah, it could be awesome, it could be a flop, but we're going to give it a shot. We're going to see what would happen. I think that's right. The super practical thing is even if you can't make your whole experience for this new digital target kind of person that you're trying to reach, make one segment for them and and then test it and be really real with yourself and say, and you know, seek feedback and say, did it work? And yeah, do little bits at a time. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm watching you know service number three that's rolled on my screen while this is going in the background. I'm not watching uh I just blanked on the last name, but you're the the female communicator. Yeah, yeah, so Patterson, she's she's literally preaching in a graveyard like that's right, like tombstone markers in the background, and I can guarantee you like that imagery carries more power than Ali being being on stage with that. So this this is this is just beautiful. I love love the creativity of what you're doing, the thinking outside the box. Churches, check out some of their services at Crossroads. Not it's never a comparison, it's not copy, carbon copy, clone exactly what they're doing, but start to figure out the parts that that can work for you uh and and experiment. For all that's good in the world, experiment, because what we used to know, thank you COVID, we no longer know. So we need to learn more to be more effective in the days to come. And I guarantee no playbook written pre-2020 can be effective for where we are now. And so with this experiment, with learning lessons from one another, this is where we can start to be more effective in the days to come. So hey, I want to thank you very much for the time. This has been golden. Hey Ray, just as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts on your end? Absolutely, Craig. As I was digesting everything you were saying, cause there's just so many things to unearth, there are so many things that I'm going to go back and like reevaluate some of the stuff that we're doing and asking, are we really considering the person that's receiving this, like the one audience member? Because I I think so much of it, you, what you were talking about comes down to that in terms of what you're coming to play with. And I wish even more churches and more pastors in particular, as they're preparing their messages, thought about that one person before they opened up the creative stuff, before they thought about some of the other things they were going to do. Because that right there might unearth and unlock and maybe even unhinge us from some of our past traditions and have us start thinking about, okay, but what's really going to reach this person? And thinking through how we can, how we can focus on that one person who's coming in for the first time, because that's going to change so much of what we do. And then on top of that, if we can educate our regular comers, hey, look, we understand that you're here, but the person that we're thinking about is that friend that you're bringing with you who doesn't know Jesus. This way, some of the creative elements don't offend them. They encourage them, and they're even more encouraged to bring their friend to come to know Jesus because of it. Amen. Love that. You know, using this this creativity to create that shareable resource that connect uh people with their ones uh definitely love kind of that that path and that that idea. We talk a lot about that here. Hey Craig, uh as we're landing the plane uh man, this has been awesome, but any closing thoughts? Here's what I would say to anybody that's listening to this. My hope is that you you take something away here that encourages you, maybe it challenges you, but that ultimately you come away with more ideas and you don't come away with, I don't know, it's easy to, it's easy for us to compare. I say that as a creative person who, like, artists are the most arrogant, insecure people that I've ever met, you know, and it's because we're always comparing ourselves. Do I measure up? So my my hope and my prayer for everybody who's listening to this is that they feel uh that there's some bit of inspiration that's coming out of this, and and I would say that that's God speaking to you because he's given you a unique voice to speak to the unique people that he's given you to minister to. And you gotta run that down and find out what is your version of of ministry. And and hopefully some of this is helpful and practical for people, but um we're all assigned to reach somebody that nobody else is assigned to, you know what I mean? And so it's uh we we do our best and uh and and God will be there and he'll fill in all those gaps because at least that's what he's done with me so far, you know? Andy Mage has been on the podcast, you know, I think last week, but and he rewrote a blog in the middle of COVID season. Fours over at the Church Digital. Comparison is the thief of joy. And so so often as as creatives, as as people who exude our gifts spiritually, it's very easy to get discouraged when you look at what somebody else is doing. I mean, even as a pastor, it's it's troublesome sometimes to, well, that church is bigger than mine, and so it's more successful. And and there are lessons that we all can learn. A small church from a big church and probably a big church from us to a small church. There are lessons uh maybe there's opportunities to to improve in some area, but it's it's never about the the comparison of it. There's lots of things that are exciting even from the outside that I can see um from from Crossroads uh but as as good as your your services are, honestly, I'm more excited about the lessons to learn from the guides than even the creative aspects of it. And so it's taking these lessons and and applying it to our churches that can help us improve, not to try to keep up with the Joneses, but to be more effective to reach the ones. It's these are all just tools to the end of that disciple making, of that evangelism, so that we can be more effective at a church to create those disciple makers who can go and reach others. And so uh Craig, very much, thank you for jumping on this conversation, on this. Absolutely, this has been great. Love love the time, and uh and we're gonna wrap. For Ray, for Craig, this is Jeff with the Church Digital. Thanks for joining us here today. We'll see you next time here on the pod. You have a good day.