Audience Mapping: Tracking Spiritual Thresholds Online - Cheryl Boyd

Nice one. Yes. Shut up. All right. Hey everybody. I know um it's it's uh taking a five minute break is is quick.

Uh we're a little bit more behind schedule than I thought. Uh but man, I hope this conference has been good. It's it's been meaningful and and and it's been impactful for you.

I I know listening to uh Jeff Vanderstelt uh you know starting J Mo Jeff Anderelt hearing about maybe recognizing the different cultures the different opportunities digitally uh to to maybe share from uh from uh JMO moving over to Jeff Vanderel talking about what conversations look like digitally and it's it's not just based on conversion my bad uh but move more how to how to move people along the journey uh to get closer to a discovering God and growing closer to God wherever they are in that process.

I mean that that's the goal. That's impressive. And so very excited about those two conversations. And it's true Jeff Vanderstelt set up this next presentation so well when he was talking about the idea of that process of that journey and what it looks like and recognizing different people have different places where where they are in that. And so for this conversation we're we're bringing on Cheryl Boyd who's talking about audience mapping. Now, now this is a unique concept.

Let's let's back up here a little bit. Some some of you know all know um Wes uh who hangs out with us um in the uh in the conversation.

Wes Brooks, he hangs out with us in FAM in in the church digital. Uh he's he's a dev. He's working on some AI. Wes and actually his his wife uh Leah did a a breakout.

Maybe it didn't happen. I think it's at the next one. And so talking about Hello Venture uh venture AI and so Hey Wes. Hey Wes.

Wes is in there saying hey y'all. Wes's wife Leah created this idea when she was working with crew around this idea of audience mapping recognizing that people in in different places of their journey.

Well, if they're at a certain place they don't they don't as you know they don't eat the full buffet meal as as Jeff was saying earlier.

They eat a snack and they go a different step in a different place. And and it's it's a it's it's a much more um achievable, recognizable path once you you see what's what's going on.

So you're not trying to force feed somebody like they're at Texas Day Brazil. I don't know if you have Texas Day Brazil or whatever it is.

Uh whatever the other ones are where it's like the all you can eat places. I started to say Sizzler, but they don't have those anymore.

Look, it's all about, you know, can I say um I don't even want to say that Cracker Barrel because you know that that may be I don't want to get canceled because I say Cracker Barrel coming back.

Stop being American, Jeff. Sorry. My fault. Look, it's recognizing where people are and and and how to help them take the next steps. And your people in your context digitally, well, that may be different than other people.

And so Cheryl here is going to talk about how to create a personal audience map for you and building on this lessons that Leah uh Brooks built when she was there.

Wes and Leah at crew, but Cheryl is is going to be stepping in and and doing this. Cheryl was not able to join us live uh but was nice enough to send a video recording so that we can send live and share with that.

But after this, there's going to be some practical insights on how to apply this to your ministry to help you recognize the next steps that people need to go through as you're interfacing with him digitally.

And so, hey, Andy, let's go ahead and uh fire uh I sorry, say fire Cheryl. Let's not do that. Let's play Cheryl's video.

Hi there. I'm here to share with you about a resource called the audience map. And really, it's helping you to understand the spiritual stages of people online.

It's based on research and it's just a tool to help us understand people better so that we can love them where they are in the work that we do digitally online.

So, let's dive in. First, I'm want to introduce myself. Uh my name is Cheryl Boyd and I am the global vice president for digital strategies for Campus Crusade for Christ International.

And uh so one of the things that we do is we come alongside our national ministries around the world to help them with this kind of work digitally.

And one of the questions we love to ask people to get started is who is your audience? So I would love for you to take some time right now just to think about that.

Maybe even uh have that audience in your mind, that persona. Uh conjure that up. Bring that up and think about them. Who are they?

How who are they? And how would you describe them? Then think about how God burdened your heart for them. How did he call you to focus on them and reach them?

And what are your prayers for them? Really, it's in that heart and posture that I want to share with you today. What I the tool that I have to share with you and our perspective on how we engage people digitally based on where they are.

Uh really because we really do want the love of Christ to be what compels us in all of the work that we do. It is the love of Christ and his love for the people that he's called us to reach.

And we want that same love to be what they experience from us when we engage with them through anything digital. We know that behind every screen is a person and every person has a story and every story matters to God.

We've all heard that. But how can we with our digital approaches and strategies and platforms remember the people behind the screens? How can we continue to not just do the work that God's called us to do, but keep in focus the people he's called us to reach?

So, I want to start with a story. I served for many years uh with our organization in a campus ministry in another country. And in that country, we really had um an interesting time with the audience we were trying to reach.

It was college students. And the very first time we would ever meet with them in however we got to know them. Oftentimes that first appointment would last three or four hours and it would be a deep conversation about Jesus and about the gospel.

The first couple of times we all thought this is amazing and if appointment number one lasts three hours, how much time will I need for the next appointment?

But the reality was surprising to us because even though people had been very vulnerable and very open and curious about Jesus in that first appointment and really sincerely curious um when we would ask for a second appointment often times they weren't interested at all.

Our challenge became how do we get a second appointment? So, one of our um staff there was telling us how she was gifted in evangelism.

And when I hear that, I am not gifted in evangelism. I do it and I believe in it deeply, but I have to work at it.

It doesn't always come naturally to me. And so, I reached out to this staff woman and I said, "Will you model to me? Can I go with you uh to share our faith together so that I can learn from someone who's gifted and so I can hone my skills and maybe be more effective at reaching people?" And she said, "Sure, come on with me." So, where we were was very, very cold. It was a very, very cold day.

And so, no one wants to be outside. So, we found some students hanging out in a McDonald's. So, we went inside the McDonald's and we quickly found a student who was sitting by herself.

We sat right down and introduced ourselves. And the next thing I know, my friend who's gifted in evangelism pulls out the four spiritual laws, which is the gospel track.

It makes the gospel super clear. And our organization is trained in it to help make the gospel super clear for anybody that wants to know how they can have a faith in Jesus and how they can walk with Jesus.

And so after just first thing after introductions that's what she did was she pulled it out and the first question on the front page is have you ever heard of the four spiritual laws which is what she asked and this young woman's reaction was this.

She turned her head completely away from us and the conversation. And for the entirety of the reading through the booklet, which my friend read through the entire booklet, she stayed that way with her head facing us.

What she was telling us with her body language is this is not for me. I do not want to be here. I do not want to be taking in what you are trying to share with me.

And afterwards, I talked to my friend because as soon as the booklet was done, that woman ran back out into the freezing cold temperatures as fast as she could.

And I asked my friend, "How do you think that went?" And my friend said, "Great." And I said, "Really? Do you think that that woman experienced the love of Jesus?" And my friend said, "I don't know.

I loved her." And I truly believe sincerely she was compelled by love. But I said, "What did her body language tell you about how she was feeling?" And she said, "Well, that's not up to me.

I did my job." And so I just want to call us back to that. I think it's a very stark example. And I'm sure you're sitting there thinking, "Oh my goodness, I would never do that." Um, but how often do our digital approaches do just that?

We take something that we think is super important and we create a campaign or a strategy or an event that communicates in ways that make sense to us and express our heart clearly to an audience.

And that audience is saying, "This is not for me." And they click away as soon as the content is started. as soon as they see what it is, they communicate quickly, this is not for me.

So, how can we avoid that? I think these two circles, if you're at all familiar with our classic tool, the four spiritual laws, it comes to two circles.

And normally in that, the circles represent a life that has a saving faith in Jesus and then one that doesn't. The these two circles are for our digital strategies.

So the one on the left is some is a person who is centering themselves and trying to check their boxes and do a good job.

Like my friend, she was motivated. She wanted to do a good job. She was going to do it even if the response was rejection.

She was going to be faithful and do it because it was about her. She was trying to do what she was supposed to do.

And I would call us to the circle on the right. What does it look like for us to be compelled by our love for Jesus and our love for the people that he's called us to reach in such a way that we express our love to them in a way that they can receive as love and understand as love? Because the reality is Jesus himself did not take the same approach with every person that he encountered.

He understood his audience. As we read the gospels, we can see every encounter. He met with that person uniquely based on where they were in their journey, the pains and the scars and the struggles, the history they came with.

And he met them uniquely and individually as they were. And he incarnated himself to us on earth. Even in those conversations, he got into their world in places where they felt comfortable, where they were already and he went to them and he understood his audience and he adapted his message to show love.

And we want to do the same thing digitally. One of the ways that we try to do that around the world um is using our tool called called the audience map.

So, I want to tell you a little bit about how we came uh to this tool and how it got to be the way it is now.

Many of you may be familiar with the Engle scale. It's basically the principle that every conversation you have with somebody, especially with evangelism, has the opportunity to move them one step closer to following Jesus.

And so, uh, back a few years ago, we did some user research about barriers to evangelism. And when we did, uh, instead of just having numbers on a scale, we listened to people, not just to label them where we thought they were on this linear scale, but we asked them what they called themselves. And these are the terms that they used to label themselves. That's how they saw themselves. And you can see the groupings in yellow at the bottom.

One of the things that ended up being a limitation to us in this model, though, as helpful as it is—and it is—because we know that every conversation, even, can be successful without getting someone all the way to a decision to follow Jesus. It might move somebody a step closer, and then the next person might have the opportunity to help them move a step closer until they are walking with Jesus.

Um, but the problem we saw with this was that this was a very linear model, and we all know that people's journeys of faith are not linear. In fact, if somebody is a zero, do we really see it as a success? Is it our goal as we have a first conversation with them for them to become hostile? I think if possible, we'd like to skip that phase and go to something else. But this linear approach kind of has some challenges as we started to listen to people and understand how they saw their own journeys.

So where did we go next? Oh, well, we went to this model, which is an XY axis. And again, you'll recognize a simplified version of those terms at the bottom on that expanded angle scale, and then the Y axis going up was the benefit that these people—regardless of where they were on that linear scale—what was the benefit they found from our organization. So we started developing our content and our campaigns based on this XY axis grid, and it was somewhat helpful too. And yet it still gave this linear idea, and it still, um, made it a little bit, um, less human, and it felt a little bit sterile, I would say, in how we're engaging with our audiences. And we thought, I think we can do better, and we continued to do research.

Now, when we did research, we expanded what started as US research, and it became global research. And as we started getting data back from people in this industry standard user research that we were doing, the people we were sampling and getting research from, they didn't know our organization. They didn't know who we were or what we were about. So they weren't trying to answer our questions in ways that they thought we wanted to hear. They were just honestly answering. But we started to synthesize the results, and we saw that it really wasn't linear. It started to look a little bit more like this kind of glom. And we thought, maybe it's a little bit more like a map than a line.

So then we started to see, even as we analyzed the data, there were some challenges that you can see. Like, if you look at the engaged, there's mountains. There's some barriers to overcome to become engaged. And for us, engaged means people are regularly sharing their faith and they're discipling others. So there are some barriers to getting there, right? Um, again, this map, it looks like geography, but it's not a real geographic place. It's kind of like Narnia or Lord of the Rings. It's a symbol, really, of the idea of this data that we were synthesizing and analyzing and understanding people better.

And eventually we got to what we have now, which is the audience map. And I'll orient you a little bit to what this is. The west side of the map is people who do not identify as Christians. Uh, the east side of the map is people who do identify as Christians. Now, we're not saying whether they have a saving faith or not. We're just listening to them. If they were filling out a survey, if they were describing themselves, they might be a cultural Christian who never attends church and never doesn't even own a Bible. But if they identify as Christian, they would belong on the east side of the map.

Everyone is born into that unaware gulf at the bottom. But quickly, depending on their family of origin or their circumstances, they would drop into one of these stages depending on how they were being raised. Um, hostile down there is a little island unto itself, and that's intentional too, because the research shows that people who are hostile rarely leave the hostile space. It is possible, so do not be discouraged. We know that with God all things are possible. But it just prepares us to know we shouldn't necessarily expect in one conversation, right off the bat, somebody who's hostile is going to be likely to trust Christ. If they do, praise God, it can happen. Go as far as you can with a person in every opportunity. I would not pump the brakes because of research or data, but it's also helpful to have your expectations set and to pace yourself and to know where they are and what they might be ready for and the pace of taking steps forward that they might be prepared to take. It's just helpful information.

So, as we did this, we continued to use it in ministry, which is why we want to share it with you today, because we hope that you're going to take away a few things from understanding our approach and the research that we've done that is available to you too. Um, the why—it's a clear grasp of what the audience map is and why it exists. That's what we want you to understand: where it came from, why it exists, and the different stages. We'd like to help you kind of understand what those different stages are. It's the foundations of a persona. It is not a fully built out persona, but it's the foundations upon which you can start to build a persona. And then how you can apply it to your context—possibly. It's our heart and our desire from the very beginning when we took our research and made it available on this website. We really wanted people to see an increase in fruit because they were reaching people more effectively. That is always our prayer: that people will see more fruit because they will be loving people more effectively with their strategies.

It's not theological statements. We want you to know that right off the bat. We're not trying to make a determination of where people are, how mature they are. We're just listening to them and how they talk about themselves, how they see themselves. It's also important for you to know it's global research. That means it's not just from people in America. Oftentimes people are like, "That might not be true in my country." And I want to encourage you and challenge that thought. It is true in your country. We have done research on six continents. So we are pretty confident with our methods that it is most likely true in your context.

Will it be true of every person? Each person is an individual, and with God, as I said, all things are possible. So you can be surprised. But this is global research that reflects how people move and grow spiritually in every country of the world. It can look different. Like I said, it's the basis of a persona. It's not the details of the persona. So, um, that means that somebody who's hostile in a particular country in the Middle East might identify with different characteristics or be hostile for different reasons than a person in Portland, Oregon who's hostile. Those things are different, but the fact that they're hostile and what they're likely to—what steps are likely to help bring them closer to or further away from Christ—are very, very common.

Uh, this research is always changing. We are doing research right now to understand the map and people where they fall on the map and how they move better. We're constantly updating the data on the map to make it relevant and up to date. So you can always check back and see what's been added. We've recently done a deep dive on the professing stage. So we're going to be building that out because it's a really big, broad stage, and there are some subsections that are emerging that we want to share with you. We're excited to give you insight to you.

Lastly, I want to tell you: we do not know what you should do to reach your audience. You are the expert. You know your audience better than we do. We do believe this research can help you know them better and love them more effectively. And that's why we have made it available to you. As you are an expert in your audience, you might understand not just how they behave and what they look like and what conversations are like, but you might be able to understand the deeper motivations behind why they do what they do, why they believe what they believe, and how you might have some pathways and some opportunities to help them move and grow towards knowing and following Jesus.

Again, this is the origin of the audience map: thousands of hours of interviews globally, in-depth interviews and research. Um, we wanted to understand kind of what's below the surface of their behaviors—not just what they do, but why and where they might be open. Um, a lot of data here. There's twelve stages and twenty plus substages as the research, and it's continuing to be developed more and more. It's continuing—we're continuing to test it and shape the tool to help you be as up to date as possible with how people move and grow spiritually.

Here is the QR code. If you want to begin to explore it yourself, you can take a look. This will take you to the introduction landing page. And once you click through to explore the map, you can start to click on the different stages and you'll see what's available there.

I'm going to tell you how we've used it. One of our evangelism tools that we use digitally is called God Tools. If you're not familiar with it, it's available in app form, um, both in the Apple Store and in the Google Store. And it really is created for our audience that we created it for was inexperienced Christians who want to communicate the gospel to a friend or a family member. So many people, if we have the Holy Spirit inside of us, we have a longing for our friends to know Jesus too. And so people have that desire, but they just don't know what to do, how to start a conversation, or what to do next.

Our audience is in that growing stage, and we would love to help them move towards engaged. We would love for them to go from growing to actually sharing their faith and being a little bit more open about their faith and engaging and initiating conversations with their friends.

The problem, and all of this is drawn from that page on the audience map website about growing people. They're receptive to some kinds of evangelism, uh, but they don't love direct evangelism, like door-to-door preaching. That might be what they think of first, like a street preacher or somebody who's super confrontational and direct, and they are out on that. They are not open to that at all. So if you were to mention evangelism with them in various stages of the map, you'll learn that different people understand that word to mean different things. But for the growing, uh, they might be open to some more relational evangelism, but that direct evangelism, they're not excited about it.

So our conclusions from the research was we really wanted to help them have one good evangelistic experience because on the page you'll also see what moves them closer towards following Jesus and walking in his steps and being a part of his mission is, um, they maybe have never tried it. So they might need to just try it or try discipleship. And, um, that's something that could open up the possibility of them becoming engaged, which means they would be willing to do it more and more and use it and have it as a way of life in their life.

So they're not looking for training. So if we were to create on our social medias, on Instagram, if we were to say, "Hey, like, we want to train you to do evangelism," they would say, "That is not for me."

That is not what I want to do. But we might use some different wording that would be like, how would you start a conversation with your friend to introduce the idea that you're a Christian or that you follow Jesus or what he means to you? Or how would you even start any kind of spiritual conversation with a friend or a family member that is much more likely to get engagement than saying we want to train you in evangelism.

Okay, so as we continue to go, we also have an example for you from the uninterested. Now there are many countries of the world where most of their population is uninterested, and for the uninterested, this is an actual quote which you will find these quotes on the audience map. The actual quote says, "I know enough about Christianity and I don't want to know more."

So for us in our organization, our mission is to help people know, come to know Jesus and follow him. What do you do day in and day out if the majority of your population is uninterested? They may have Christian friends. The research shows that they see their faith practices as a way to be a good person, and they've decided it's not for them. They don't see Christianity as necessary to be a good person, but it's one way you can be a good person. Now, that's opposed to, it's contrasted with people in the seeking stage, and they're constantly looking for answers to spiritual questions. Um, and it might even be about something other than Christianity, but they're also interested in exploring answers that come from Christianity and other different belief systems.

So can you start to see how the content, the campaigns, um, the events that you're planning? It's really important to know where your audience is and what they're interested in before you start making assumptions or before you start creating a campaign for where you wish they were. Creating campaigns for where you wish your audience was does not make it so. Um, I can tell you from experience, it does not make it so.

And if we really want to follow the footsteps of Jesus, we will not pressure them or try to impose where we want them to be, but much like Jesus, we will engage them where they are and invite them to their appropriate next step for them.

An example of a country that has been doing a lot of work on this and learning was our organization in the UK, is called Agape. And so they were using this research um for their audience and they describe them as people who are apathetic towards Christianity and religion in general, and they might be dechurched or have walked away from the faith at some point. So the stage they fall under is that uninterested stage.

And what do you do when your mission is the mission that is our mission to help people know Jesus and follow him? If the audience isn't interested in learning more about Christianity or talking to Christians, how do we not give up on them? How do we continue to engage with them in really meaningful ways that um allow them to have the freedom to be where they are and to love them well, but also invites them to something different?

Um, our team in the UK decided that they needed to prioritize creating spaces and opportunities for them to explore Christianity and engage in a community at their own pace. Often times, like knowing that the people they're engaging with are Christians is a great next step. If they can know that they're Christians and begin to trust them, then that could be a really positive thing.

So our team leader there, this is a quote from her. She said, "We realized that we secretly thought and operated like the uninterested were seeking, but they really are uninterested. So it'll take serious effort over time to journey with this audience in the UK."

The reality is um this team, even with all their experience, we did a sprint with them and ran some experiments and they were like, "Ah, our audience is telling us by their reaction to our campaigns. We really are uninterested. Uh, believe us when we tell you that it's not just that we haven't heard the gospel before. We have heard about Jesus and it is not for us."

So they had to rethink their strategies.

I want you to take a look at this uh piece of content. It was created by a library. And if you were to guess, reverse engineer who this is for, who's the audience for this particular post, who would you think it would be for? I bet you would probably assume it might be an older woman who appreciates gardening, maybe is a bird watcher. Uh, might like to meet with her friends over a cup of coffee or tea. Uh, she's probably into the things in life that bring her joy and peace and calm. But then I'm a little bit interrupted, if I'm honest, with the red stamp at the top that doesn't seem to fit the rest of it that's stamped with "adventure." That doesn't seem to fit. But the rest of it, probably I bet you would agree with me about who it's probably for.

Well, let me tell you uh who this was created for. This was a library advertisement for little boys age eight to twelve for a wood shop um workshop to learn how to build a birdhouse. These little boys are going to be learning how to build a birdhouse. And whoever created this thought this would be an effective way to reach these little boys. I guarantee you the little boys that I know in my life, actually showed it to my best friend's son and I said, "Ben, is this for you?" And he said, "Nope." He was not interested at all. And just putting a little adventure stamp up in the corner did not change his mind.

But how often do we do this? How often do we create things that we think are beautiful, we think are really attractive, they look really, really nice, but they're for us. They're not for our audience. So I want you as you think about the audience map to be thinking about your strategies and are they built for the people that God has called you to reach or are you just doing things that look and feel good and natural to you?

Even the channels that you're on, the places that you go, are you meeting them where they are? Are you showing up in places that you feel comfortable with?

So again, we look back at the audience map and the different stages. And I want to highlight in growing. Growing is a big stage too. And it's got some nuances to it, but this is another quote from an actual person in this stage. "Working on their relationship with Jesus, getting to know him better."

So when you think about your ministry, what type of resources and strategies does your ministry have for this stage? I want to tell you, especially when it comes to growing, this relates movement matters. Movement matters.

Oftentimes when we look at the map, if we were to plot people's journeys and honestly if we were to reverse engineer our own content that we create for people, we would assume something like this: that they go from unaware to you share the gospel with them and they make a profession of faith and they start growing and then they become grounded as they grow more and mature more, then they start sharing their faith as they're engaged and then disciple others. But that's not the reality, and I would honestly tell you I've been on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ for over thirty years, that's not been my path either. It's a little messier, probably looks a a little bit more like that.

There are places and times in our honest, authentic journey of faith in Christ where we might have doubts or questions. There are things that Jesus does that surprise us. There are things he doesn't do that surprise us and we wrestle and we might be distracted. We might go through a season of being um disrupted. Our life might be disrupted because of um an illness or a family circumstance or losing a job or an earthquake or a war. There's lots of things that happen in our lives that aren't necessarily a reflection of our faith and our desire to follow Jesus or um if we're backslidden. That's not always true. There's a lot of things that impact our journeys.

So we can't assume that everybody takes what we call that previous ideal path. We call it the happy path. But oftentimes we simplify our content to make assumptions. But people are all over the map. And I'll tell you, even if you've got deep friends who um close friends, family members who were in one of these stages, in grounded or growing or engaged, who maybe are going back to unclear or might even be going back to uninterested, the story is not finished yet.

And how can you and your ministry create, as it were, rest stops along the way to help people when they are ready to be open to take their next step? How can you build trust with them, communicate the love of Jesus to them without coercion, without pressuring them, without guilting them, meeting them where they are and inviting them to take those next steps towards knowing and following Jesus.

So those steps, what could your ministry do in order to reach people who are not on the happy path? How can you avoid the assumption that they are? These are some questions I would love for you to wrestle with.

Pick on that audience map. Where is your audience? Where do they fit? Take a look at the map and I would prayerfully, filled with the Holy Spirit, read through and really look for um ask for the eyes of Jesus and the heart of Jesus to love them and to listen to what they have to say and see those insights and where are the gaps between the work that you're already doing, the great work that you're already doing, and where are the gaps between what they are looking for and what they need versus your plans? And then what are some comments? Human movements. What's the most likely movement for the people you're engaging and how can you innovate and try some experiments to see if there are things you can do?

We have some help. This is where it starts to get practical and I'm going to wrap up my session now, but I want to encourage you. Um, Liz is going to take you a little bit deeper into the practical side of what this looks like and how do you take the insights and the heart and the burden and the knowledge and the listening and how do you actually turn it into actual strategies and help um that you can create content that will serve your audience and help them know, love and follow Jesus much better.

It has been a privilege to join you today. I am uh so glad to be here. I'm excited that you're going to get to hear from my teammate Bele Shenko to talk about leaders and emerging leaders. And I'm excited that you're going to get to engage with um our teammate Justin Sudter. You're going to get the opportunity if you want to learn more about God tools and the evangelism tool that we have to help people take their next steps in sharing the love of Christ.

Thank you so much. I am praying that the tools that we share, the content that you receive from this entire conference will grow your heart for the people God's called you to reach and it will result in more people joining us next year because there are more people who are following Jesus.

Thank you.

Yep. Hey. All right. Thank you uh Cheryl for for talking, we for for this incredible talk. She did a great job. We're gonna have Justin Sudter on just in a second talking about God tools. But let's back up. Let's let's take a moment and and and I want to get into, I want to get into uh audience mapping, but we we got, we got to, we got to, we got to have like a heart conversation here. Let's go ahead and throw this poll up right now. Share and publish right now. What's better, Lord of the Rings or Narnia?

I want to know. Click on the poll right now. What's better, Lord of the Rings or Narnia? I'm not judging you at this moment, but Tolkien versus C.S. Lewis toe-to-toe going at it right now. If any of you are Inklings, you know, fans of back in the day, what's the pub in in Ireland? They used to or in in Britain they used to hang out? Eagle and Child, was it?

Actually, I was a minor. Okay, so I'm a tech guy, right? My minor was 19th century British literature. Honest to God, I was like geeking over all the old stuff.

And so it's fascinating to me. Let's give a shout out. Surprise. Narnia is beating Lord of the Rings. Did not anticipate that at all.

I got to tell you, I'm not a Narnia fan. Lord of the Rings all day long. I know Andy Mage is joining that as well.

Thank you for humoring me as we get into this. Listen, I'm very excited about audience mapping as we're starting. Did you notice the theme on the three keynotes that we've had today?

JBO, hey, let's listen to people in our feeds. Jeff, hey, as we're sharing the gospel, we got to listen to them first before we get into that.

Even today, Cheryl talking about listening as you're recognizing where they're going in that scribble of a spiritual journey. And so listen, we've got Liz, Andreas—I butchered the last name. Andrea Can, is leading a breakout just in a couple minutes that is going to do a practical insight, a practical build for your audience.

What does your audience map look like? You like some of the stuff that Cheryl's talking about. When we break up here in a minute for breakouts, Cheryl is going to be able to lead you through that.

But before we get there, I want to have Justin Sudter come on and talk about God Tools. Excited about what Justin's doing, about what God Tools looks like as a resource for you as digital missionaries.

So Andy, let's go ahead and play that video.

Hey everyone, it's a delight to be with you. My name is Justin. I'm the product leader of God Tools. Um, I am not going to lie to you all. I am devastated that Lord of the Rings did not just win that poll.

That is absolutely astounding to me. But nonetheless, I want to share with you all about God Tools. I feel incredibly set up well here by Cheryl, who, full disclosure, is actually my boss.

So anyway, Cheryl's amazing. But anyway, yeah, share about God Tools. Before we jump into sharing more about God Tools, Jeff has always joked that he's been doing digital ministry since like dialup times.

We haven't been around that long, but it's been a good long while. Since 2010, God Tools has been evolving and now we are at a really awesome, really interesting place.

I'd love to tell you all a little about God Tools in that it is just a really, really simple product. It is an app designed for Christians everywhere to talk about Jesus.

I believe that most of us here are excited and passionate about the idea of making disciples and sharing the good news, doing the great commission, being witnesses unto the end of the earth, right? Like Acts 1:8.

But if you're like me, the idea of sharing your faith sounds good until you think about your mom or sharing with your brother or sharing with that coworker that you're really, really close with.

And it's hard because sometimes our relationships are fragile and there's sometimes like a little bit too much at stake for us to just stumble into sharing the gospel.

I'd love some audience participation. So I guess I can't see your hands, but if there's someone in your life that you are thinking about that you want to share your faith with, but you don't know how or it feels like it's too far, just drop like who are they in the chat.

Like, is it your brother? Is it your mom? Is it your neighbor? Is it maybe your spouse? Maybe it's one of your kids? Because I think in reality that's where many of us find ourselves.

So it's this idea that at the crux of God Tools that we want to imagine if all over the world more Christians shared their faith because they had a clear, simple, and engaging way to have a conversation about Jesus.

Yes, let's help Christians who want to share their faith 20 times a year. I would love to help them turn it into 40 or 50 times a year.

But in reality, where we find ourselves being most helpful to the global body of Christ is helping more Christians go from zero to one.

So the way that we do that is by being really, really simple. And I'm going to sound like a broken record here in just saying it's simple, but these are the four really simple ways that we do that.

One is through tools. Tools are a simple way to get you into a conversation about Jesus. Lessons are a distilled package of biblical principles, practical ideas that are available for you to learn how to do things like share your testimony, ask better questions, listen better in about five minutes.

They teach you those things. We're multilingual. We have 120ish languages. I don't know, it's growing all the time. And then we have screen sharing, so you don't have to just be in person to share the gospel with someone.

You can be across borders, across continents, different time zones. So if you're interested in anything that I've said thus far or you just want to talk about evangelism, I have a breakout right after this and these are some of the questions that we at God Tools and a crew are always wrestling with.

So please come join that. Otherwise, feel free to go to godtoolsapp.com. You're welcome to jump to my sponsor page and you can find more information there.

So that is it for me. Thank you all for leaning in and happy to be here with you guys.

Sorry, I was on a different tab and clicking. So Justin, really excited about the tools that we've got with God Tools and the ability to help people share their faith and talk with anyone about Jesus.

You know, let me throw this up here again. Talk with anyone about Jesus. Check out God Tools. Excited about that. At the same time, kind of toe to toe, you know, we've got the audience mapping that Cheryl was talking about.

And so here's what's going to happen. We're going to breakouts right now. And so you've got an opportunity, you audience out there, we've got a lot of breakouts.

Hey, bye Justin. We've got a lot of breakouts. Number one is going to be Liz Andreasion. Hopefully I said that right. I've been practicing.

Liz, that was like the hardest name for me to say of all of them today. But Kelly Shenko is easy compared to you. I'm just saying.

Liz's breakout, we've got that talking about the audience mapping. And so if you want practical insights on the audience mapping, that's great.

If you want hands-on on what Justin is doing with God Tools, there's a breakout for that. And then there's oh my gosh, so many others.

Dr. Tim Ye talking about soul care for digital missionaries. Love Dr. Tim. We've got Called One on Calling taught by Lucas Pulley over with Underground Network.

Venture AI. We've got Reimagining Ministry Through the Audience Map. Said that. Augmented Reality, Why We All Need Recovery. Stacy's doing that.

Planning Micro Churches, Apest, Micah. Real Faith and Virtual Spaces, Alina talking about VR. Alena's from VR Church. Reaching the One from Tim Celich, by the way, one of my favorite people on the planet, Tim Celich.

And then we've got audience. We've got the God Tools talked about. Look, you've got incredible opportunities for breakouts and I'm going to let you go.

And so here's the deal. We're behind schedule. My fault. 3:20 p.m. Eastern. We're going to give 35 minutes for the breakouts and we're going to get back into session four at 3:20 p.m.

So go to the breakouts now. Breakout tab at the top. Stop at the table. Swing by the sponsors, but start to engage, interact, and you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

All right, get out and get to your breakouts. 3:20 p.m. Eastern. We're back here.