BETA11: Tips for Better Speaking Online

Hey, welcome to the Beta Show. Once again, my name is Jeff Reed with Stadia Church, planning director of digital church planting, and I am excited about the Beta Show. Here we're going to bring in and talk about the topics here in a little bit. But remember, here at the Beta Show we answer online questions by people like you. So if you've got online questions, go ahead and text them in to 484-324-8724, and we will cover them in a future episode of the Beta Show.

We are doing a deep dive here in the Beta Show in the coming weeks, diving into digital Easter. How to have an effective Easter coming up. And so check for a lot of those episodes and more information coming here through the Beta Show.

Also, hey Stadia, we're doing digital learning communities helping churches like yours learn to thrive, grow, and multiply digitally. We had a number of learning communities just open up here in January. We've got more opportunities in February. So for more information on that, seriously, like developing a digital strategy that complements what's happening in the physical space so that your church achieves the goals, the missions that it's called in itself, that God's calling you to do. Like, we want to help you do that digitally, physically and digitally. So check out stadiachurchplanting.org/digital for more information there.

So once again, here for the Beta Show, we're bringing in co-host Ray D'Armis, who's busy texting away on the phone. Thank you for that. I'm ready tweeting the, I'm retweeting this entire deal. I am sharing it right now. I know how it goes out. That, wait, I looked down at the exact wrong time. That was beautiful.

Hey, and I'm excited about today's guest that we're bringing in. We're bringing in Patrick Holden, lead pastor from Nouveau Church. Now, I am super excited about this church plant. It's part of the Stadia family, and this guy is on fire up in the Ohio area. Has been doing phenomenal ministry in this coveted season digitally, and now is moving. They just had their first pop-up service this past weekend. And so maybe, Patrick, you're just maybe ten seconds, twenty seconds, tell us a little bit about yourself, man.

Yeah, so my wife and I, along with eleven other people, including my two college roommates, we all moved to Columbus this past June, planting a church mostly by reaching out to people on Facebook and asking them to be our friend. And so that's how we did it. We bought a launch team by doing that. And like you said, we just started meeting in real life, in person, at a hotel ballroom this past week. It was really great. So everything worked too. Most, most everything production live. So it was fun.

Patrick's no stranger to the church digital or the Stadia. But through the Church Digital, we've done a number of podcasts with him talking about like that engagement strategy, utilizing Facebook Messenger, a number of other. I know we've had John for other topics. I can't remember what the other one was.

Oh, worship. How to have a more dynamic worship service.

So we definitely want to, you know, check out his stuff and what's happening over there. So hey, Ray's having some tech issues. We'll figure it out later. He'll come back around. But for today, the topic that we wanted to hit with the Beta Show here is tips for better speaking online. And so even as one of the things that I love about Patrick is this fresh approach that he takes towards things. And so it's not necessarily repeating what was, and maybe some of the physical practices, but really looking at it from the digital first and carrying it over. And so there's a lot of this that we're really want to get into here with the Beta Show today.

So, Patrick, and as we're bringing back in, but Patrick, maybe just get us started here. What are you thinking?

Well, thanks so much for having me back. It's so much fun, and I love what you guys are doing. We've, our team has been learning from it a ton over the last year, I guess year and a half now. It's been kind of crazy. So we met, and so yeah, I'll tell you the way that some of this content came about, Jeff, is I was driving around one day. And I don't, I mean, I don't want to speak for every speaker that was speaking live before, but you know, in the middle of a pandemic and the way that so many churches had to shift and shift so quickly in the ways that we did it, it was difficult. I don't know that I had recognized how difficult maybe it was for me, even just going like, "Hey, I'm going to be speaking in front of a camera or a lens or an iPhone." Or at one point we lived in Michigan. You'll appreciate this. We had the backdrop for our first service, and then we had this camera that somebody had given us, but the lens didn't zoom. So we could set it outside of the window so that's how we filmed our first message, outside the window, kind of coming in. Church plant life, it's pretty great.

Um, so I just, I just started like going, "Oh, it's kind of difficult to grieve some of that," and then also trying to process through, you know, what are some of the things that I want to make sure that I take away, even as we start doing some live speaking now? And we're going to still be digital at the same time. Now there's two different streams that are flowing in the way that I'm going to communicate now. And as much as I wish that they were exactly the same, they were very different. And so what I was going to do is kind of talk a little bit about some of that and kind of get after that.

So I'll tell you, for me at least, the way that I've been processing this, probably the biggest learning for me when it comes to kind of digital content development and speaking online is really beginning the strategic process of writing a little bit differently first. And so what I did is I put in my notes and said, "This, one of the things that I had to shift away from was just the amount of content that I was communicating at one time," and getting really comfortable getting to the main idea as quick and as concise as I possibly could.

Now, even a year and a half ago, you guys know this. A year and a half ago, people were probably looking at more content that they're probably even looking at now. There was this influx of content on Twitter and YouTube and Facebook. And every church started putting out stuff. And then everybody, you probably remember this. Remember this phase where every pastor also started doing interviews on Instagram? Remember this? And that lasted for about two and a half months, and they kind of fizzled out, you know?

And so there's just this influx of content. And now what you guys are probably seeing this too, now what we're seeing is like really concise, specific main ideas in kind of like a thread-based format. And I think I've been trying to be a student of that approach a lot. There's a guy, a writer named James Clear. You may know this. A lot of people don't know this. What he does is he'll tweet, and a lot of people do this, but I saw it through him. He'll tweet, but he'll tweet in a thread-like format where it'll be kind of one main idea to hook you, and then all the way through there'll be like twenty more. And I think for me what I've been trying to work on is shifting as much as I can towards points or main ideas that are two hundred eighty characters long that I can thread throughout a message and kind of approach it in that way.

And I think if the main idea is really good, then all of a sudden now you have a kind of expound on it throughout the thread. Now, what we used to do, and you guys probably did this too, is, uh, Andy Stanley is communicating for a change. It's a phenomenal book. Like, every pastor should read it if you haven't read it. It's great. But the approach there was, "I'm gonna intro things, and then I'm gonna give you a lot of attention, then I'm gonna solve it with Scripture, give you some application." And I think that really works great for a lot, but now in the age of so much content, we don't get people's attention long enough to create the intro and the tension like we used to. And so I think for me what I've been kind of trying to work on is, "How do I get to the main idea as quick and as concise as possible?" And then if I have more content, how do I make that content three or four or five or six or seven other kind of pieces of things that I can put out?

I think that's a new thing that started over the last year with communicators and content creators is you have these ideas now that you can have so much more life with because you can create so many more things with it. And so that's one of the things I've been kind of processing through is, "How do you get to the main idea as quick and as concise as you possibly can?"

So yeah, that's great. And it's very difficult to do, Patrick. I mean, and you know, I've definitely seen that in your teaching as I've followed some of the stuff that Nouveau's done. And so I think that's amazing.

Um, now, how in the world do you bring about funny into a lot of what you're doing? Like, especially engaging with the screen? And I've talked about this with a lot of communicators. They love the feedback off of the live audience. Even with comedians, this is a hard time because they enjoy, like, I saw Kevin Hart do his special from his house because he was so desperate to have some kind of audience in front of him to feed off of it. Yeah, that he opened up his own home.

So let's go. Yeah, talk to ya.

Well, I laughed too. Uh, so you said Kevin Hart. I saw Nate Bargatsi at a drive-in theater. I don't know if you know Nate. Bargatsi. He's my favorite. Shoe. And so there's like hundreds of cars, and we, you sit outside. It was cold, and we watched it. And I just thought he would make these jokes that were really funny, but there's no crowd to start the laughter. And so nobody was really like, it is a different kind of, uh, kind of flex the way you do it.

Um, so what I'm telling people now, everyone smiling and saying, what I'm trying to tell people now is the more that you can pre-determine the funny moments of your messages or your talks or your content, the better off you're gonna be. And the reason that I would say it that way is because, um, I think it allows you to know that I've got a few things I'm pretty confident they're going to be fighting the message. And then as I'm giving it, as I'm reading off of a prompter, as I'm, you know, kind of given whatever message or talk that I'm going to give, that allows me to actually be more present because I know that I've got a few points somewhere else in the message. You know, like, it feels a lot better to do that.

Now, what you were saying, what a lot of speakers I think struggle with, including me, is I would rather be funny in the moment and play off of the audience. It's different when there's just a camera. But on the flip side of that, the comedians that you and I both love so much, they've pre-planned these jokes and they work them out and they say them in a time fashion kind of moving forward. Comedians get that you can pre-plan funny, right? It's harder for a lot of us who are pastors, you're speaking alive to do that. But I think there is a discipline there that's really important.

The other thing I would say too is it's also important to know that not all funny is the same kind of funny, right? Now, if you watch like an Office episode, I guess we weren't going to make it through this without me referencing the Office, by the way. Like, how could we? When you think about the Office in particular, there's multiple types of funny within it. So I would say like the thing that most people talk about is like the laugh out loud, you know, belly laugh kind of funny. And you need a few of those for sure. But the thing that I'm trying to do more often is, how do I...

Make somebody actually like chuckle, right? How do I get like ten or twelve chuckle laughs throughout the talk? And you can do that through, you know, memes. You can do that through like the Bernie Sanders thing that just happened. I mean, come on, there are so many chuckle laughs that are just floating around in a meme that they might have already seen, but seeing it again is also going to give them kind of a chuckle. I think that's one of the things that if I can bake in as much of that and feel confident as that and then now have a laugh out loud funny as well.

Um, the other part too is, and this is kind of hard to communicate over, you know, like a digital talk, but we all know the guy who sits in the last row and he's sitting like arms crossed in the back, kind of like this, waiting for you to be funny enough for him to care, right? It's a little bit of like the honey badger approach, you know? There's a little bit of that sort of thing going on. I make that reference we just did, and so there's a little bit of that thing. It's live, it's too late now, it's already out there. Honey badger, you're welcome, Cleveland. There you go. Yeah, I'm just kind of laughing like as a communicator, that's who I'm preaching to. That's who I want to talk to. That's who I want to kind of break.

Um, and that guy is still watching, hopefully, even though he might be sitting next to his wife on the couch watching, and he's still probably doing this. There is humor that I think is not even geared towards getting a laugh, but it's specific towards making that person lean in, right? And so I try to put in specific types of humor around the talk that the end goal is just for the person to uncross their arms and kind of do that.

The other night I did like a New Girl joke that I knew twenty of the room would like, eighty of the room either wouldn't like or wouldn't get, but I was really going after the person who was also probably not watching TBN the night before, you know what I'm saying? Like I'm trying to go after that a little bit.

What was the New Girl joke? I am a fan, so I need to know what the New Girl joke was.

So I, okay, so I love, I love New Girl too. I love Schmidt. Uh, Winnie the Bish though, still my favorite.

What I did is there's that scene where he says "I love you," or Nick says "I love you" the first time. Do you remember this?

Yeah, and the yes. And so he says it and he just stares and then she just pulls up the finger guns and they just drive away. And so I was talking about like when Peter speaks up and says like "I'm going to go out on the water towards Jesus," I'm like, as soon as you say that, like you just regret it immediately. Like, why would I say that out loud? And so I played that and then we ended with a frame of Nick's face right after he said it, and it was great, you know? Like people got it enough. So yeah, that's good. That's really good. And like you said, it's niche. It pulls in a certain audience, which I think is tough.

What's the balance when you're doing this? So like you love New Girl. Uh, are you assuming the audience does? And so you're pulling like your type of humor and reflecting it on how much of you are trying to identify like the one, the person in your audience you're reaching? What's that balance when you're coming up with this humor?

So I'll tell you, and I might, I think I might have said a version of this on the last time we talked to. I am a thirty-something white dude in Columbus, Ohio. I don't have any context for African-American women in their fifties. I don't know how to make those, but I have a team of people that I run stuff by, including humor. So I'm mining for that throughout the week and asking people, and I'll ask people that even in conversations seem to be funny in those different demographics. Um, so this sounds really very. There are times I have to study what the reference is enough to be able to make the joke even if I've never seen the thing, you know?

Um, and so so I'm trying to balance this. I would say like the chuckle thing that I would say I'm not trying to get massive laughs throughout whatever I'm doing, but I would I would say I'm trying to make enough to where there's enough people in those categories that would know it. And I don't think there's a better way than just asking people or are they watching what I think is funny? The fact that Ray likes Schmidt, right? I can I'd be like, okay, there, there's me and Ray are very similar. Like we both know if I make a Schmidt reference versus a Winnie the Fish reference, it's going to hit people differently. Sure. And I think I'll, yeah, that's how I do it. But I'm more Parks and Rec. I literally watched an episode this morning. Uh, I had it on in the TV, so like that, that's just more my speed, I guess. But well done here. My wife loved the New Girl. Like that, that's hey, uh, Patrick, what else you got, man? This is great.

So I would say the other thing too that's very unique about digital communication right now is a lot of us have frameworks that we worked in when it comes to live speaking. I referenced Andy's book Communicating for a Change. It's a phenomenal framework, and I think a lot of that still applies. I mean, there's a lot of others, but right now I think there is a framework that would say we're gonna, I think there's an approach with YouTubers in particular. They give away a little bit more information in the beginning to hook you, and then they kind of pull like the thread out a lot longer, and then they solve it in the last five seconds.

And so I saw this quote. I wish I could remember exactly who said it, but it says describe the video's value in the first five seconds. What are you gonna get out of this video in five seconds? And that could be a quick statement, be a quick thing. Describe the video's value in the first five seconds, and then ask a question that you don't fully and finally resolve until the last five seconds.

Now this is most YouTube videos that are kind of going out there in their message in a talk, right? This is kind of saying, hey, if you're gonna listen to me, if you're gonna pull up the screen and you're gonna stay with me throughout this, I need to give you the first five seconds something that's gonna catch your attention, and then I'm gonna keep you with me as long as I can until the last five seconds.

So in terms of that framework, I would say it's adjusting the way that we think about tension and release and tension and resolve to approach it in a little bit way. So I said that I said describe the newest value the first five seconds, create and then resolve smaller tensions throughout the talk, right? Um, so you know when I was kind of coming up through learning how to speak, you know, I would spend ten minutes on just creating tension with people and then resolve that tension and then give advocates. But I think in in a digital world in a way that we format now, I think you're giving tension and release constantly. So it's a lot more work in figuring out how do I, how do I get your attention, resolve it, but not fully resolve it to keep you going with me? And I think that kind of framework, that kind of approach to it, is actually what's going to keep people kind of with you and staying with you throughout the duration of your content.

So that's the way that I'm trying to approach it now. But um, and that's a lot more difficult in some ways.

Real quick, within that, can you talk about content duration? Because that to me is one of the biggest things for online, especially. A lot of people like, I know that YouTube and Facebook favor algorithms that want to keep you trapped in longer, but sometimes for a person that can be really disengaging, whereas a sermon could really just be split up into two and keep me engaged. Like if I'm really that engaged, I'll watch part two right afterwards. Can you talk about how you format some of your content?

That's great. Absolutely. So I think for me, uh, I agree. There, there's content that's longer that you want to see shorter. That's great. Part of it is coming to grips with how interesting are you in front of a camera? Like at the end of the day, there's you just have to be ruthlessly honest about saying I can hold people's attention, and your wife will probably tell you, right? You need somebody that will actually tell you the answer to that question.

So I would say at least for us, we've experimented with a couple of different lengths. So we've done like five-minute segments to see how well those are, and you can actually track those. You guys know that you can track, see how people retain. We'll do the longer service. Typically I'll do about a twenty to twenty-five minute talk there, but that's a lot more graphic heavy than what we would do in five minutes. And so we're kind of approaching those. Those are the two that I think we've probably experimented with the most.

But part of that, I think you just have to figure out how interesting are you? The other part too that you can help with is going, and when I watch a talk online, which is terrible to say out loud, I rarely watch the whole talk. I will scan for the highlighted points. It's like you read a blog. I'm watching a talk like I read a blog. I'm looking for the headlines. I'll scroll through an Andy talk and just find the quotes on the, you know, big TV, you know, whatever that, you know, I want to see that, and then I'll stop and listen if that point is interesting.

So again, I think it gets back to how well are you creating this concise statement to pull people in that helps you, but knowing that very few people are sitting down for twenty, twenty-five, thirty, forty minutes to watch you say words in front of a lens. So I think what do you, what do you think? Do you find that you guys find that thing? For me, and this is this isn't even an ADD thing like a lot of people want to blame this like on ADD or something along those lines, but to me shorter, punchy content like you said that gets directly to the point really hits me a lot better than needing a lot of flower to speak to even get there.

It's one of the things that I've appreciated from communicators like you mentioned Andy, that he's giving you the tension right up front. He's giving you the topic, and he's even giving he's even giving you like a piece of the answer, but then he's giving you like a solid breakdown and leading you down a path to the ultimate revelation of the full answer. That that to me is a lot better in terms of keeping me engaged. But even then, if I can get there in five to ten minutes, I'll prefer that over twenty-five to thirty minutes, even in a biblical lesson.

It's one of the things I love the most about the Bible Project. If you think about it, the Bible Project, they're crafting these airtight videos. I mean, they're airtight, but giving you a lot of theology but keeping you engaged the entire time. It's one of the things that I come to appreciate going with that type of format, you know? It's where it's a little shorter, some of this punchier stuff. It definitely gives more opportunity to ask engaging questions, you know, almost back to like this master teacher format that was popular a couple decades ago. Hey, let me communicate for three to five minutes with it now, break up and talk about it, and starting to utilize that maybe within chat rooms, maybe within, um, you know, other platforms that allow some of that breakup technology to break up into separate groups, starting to move away from isolation, starting to get people to now dialogue, not just sit and stare at a screen or sit and stare at a person, exude their spiritual gifts but own it by talking through it.

So definitely love some of the conversation that that's happening here. So, um, what's next? What what do you have? Another thing I would say about this when it comes to specifically developing content, and I think this is uh something to really remember, especially the punchier that you get and the more concise you get, is how do you make it human, right? You've got to make the message that you're giving as human as possible. It's very easy in a digital world to create something that looks really great. It's easy to

Create things that are punchy and shareable. It's very difficult to actually engage the heart as you're doing that, and so I put—I actually put this question up anytime I'm writing content nowadays. I'm asking a question: how do I make a human connection over the digital medium that I'm trying to engage with? How do I make it as human as possible? Because we have to work to not just be blended in with the screen, right? It can be very easy because, you know, most people, a lot of people are multitasking as they watch you. What's going to draw them into you as a human being?

And kind of put me in that context is you being vulnerable and being open and honest and you being authentic and not just a personality on screen, right? And so I put in my notes I said that we have to work really hard to make the two-dimensional feel like a three-dimensional human experience and kind of working across the table from you as much as I can, right?

So for me, I do that. There's a couple of kind of—now these are a little bit cheesy, so not saying you should do this, this is what I do to help me kind of keep in mind that there are other people inside the screen. There have been times where I will take a picture of a person that I hope watches and put it right next to the window so I can remember that I'm talking to another human on the other side of that lens.

Often times on my notes—I've been doing this for a long time, but especially in this season, or if I'm reading from a prompter—at some point in the prompter, in parentheses or in a different color, something like that, I'll put a name or a set of names or people that I'm hoping to specifically communicate this particular point to. Um, and so I'll actually do that quite a bit. And then for me in my prep and my prayer time is in doing that as well. I pray specific names over this content.

Now again, that might be overboard. You might be better at that than me. I mean, I'm an enneagram eight. I have all the weird mess that comes with that. But I think for me, how do I make sure that I'm not just a good communicator online but I am genuinely making a human connection within schedule?

So yeah, can we actually do a broadcast or have a conversation about church and not talk about the enneagram? Like, is it absolutely possible? It's possible. I was just even earlier today I was like, this is like the—it's almost like borderline cult how much the enneagram idea has come into play.

My dog is jumping into the broadcast in real time. Welcome, audience. Little Ray, yes. Geez, she's really sweet. This probably means that she needs to go out and go to the bathroom. Holy cow, she's tackling me. Hey, as we're moving on, I'm going to jump off screen for a little bit, try to figure out what's up with my dog, um, Ray. And Patrick, you guys run with it and tell us what's next.

Great. We can finally talk more about New Girl. No, all right, Patrick. Um, talk us through the filming process because how involved are you? Because not every communicator wants to be overly involved on the technical side, and then some want to tinker a little too much. So how involved are you? And every creative director is like, "Please don't let them tinker too much," right? Like, there's a little bit of—yeah. So you're an enneagram eight, which means that you like to tinker. You want to control. So tell me about that.

Always, always. So I think what I'm trying—what I'm—I would like to help every communicator and pastor think about right now is how can you kind of function as both a director and an artist at the same time? Or you could say a director and a pastor at the same time. Like, how do you balance those two things?

What I think oftentimes will happen, especially in this world, is there's this strive to get back to in person, what I'm comfortable with, and so the digital thing is kind of a passing moment that we're trying to get through. And we don't necessarily put the effort into thinking about how do we create, you know, craft or create something that's kind of a full package on the communication side.

So, you know, I'm always curious like for pastors, what do your creative meetings actually look like around your talk now? Like, you might have creative meetings around everything else around your talk, but what is the actual creative process like within your talk?

So I would say this: I think every person that's on the screen needs to think like a director and speak like an artist. Now, that doesn't mean you have to have every part of it down. Doesn't mean that you necessarily need to be the director. But the more that you can pre-plan and the better you communicate, the better your message is actually going to be, right?

And so for me, I think about this like if I'm going to reference a picture in a message, I want to know that that picture is going to show up and I want to be able to point to it, right? Now, that's an easy thing. That's like a one percenter. But that actually helps drive engagement. But it takes pre-planning on the front end, right?

I'll jot down the mood or emotion that I'm gonna want to be creating or live within there are different parts of my talk and give that away to people. I know I want people to find that. Um, and so for me, sometimes I even go back and say, "Hey, did we get it right? I want to see that part or listen to that and see if the music actually matches in the way that we want."

So I would just say this: remember that you are the gatekeeper of quality content and the arc of the emotion. That doesn't go away just because you're in front of a lens. That's good.

Real quick, how do you drive to clarity for that? Because sometimes when you say "speak like an artist," that doesn't translate well. Like, "make it more awesome" or "make it more beautiful"—that doesn't always translate so well. Whereas sometimes I prefer you to speak to me like a scientist. Like, no, like timecodes and clarity, like as best as possible. How do you and your team resolve some of that tension?

So let's go. So when I'm saying "speak like an artist," what I'm saying is that there is a blank page and you're painting on it and you're putting your message there. Um, and you're also thinking enough about technical to communicate feelings. So I would say, and if I'm hoping to be viewed, you know, and I was like, "How am I being artist or scientist?" Those kind of things, sure. I think you're having to like figure those things out. But specifically with communicating to your team, what I would say is you're used to doing the artist thing, crafting something. Now also think about it from the seat of the person that's actually producing it. I think you've got to do that part really well. But yeah, for sure, I think you don't always want to be an artist unless you're Erwin McManus and you can get away with it. You know what I'm saying? Like, we're not—there's one Erwin. So I think you got to figure out—you're saying words like "process" and "pre-planning." Like, you're putting a lot of effort up front into that. But you know, let's get real here. Like, life's crazy, ministries crazy. Uh, it's just 167 hours until the next time you've got to speak. And so, you know, how do you kind of work through that and kind of anticipate in a real life scenario? Like, what are those tensions and how do you work through it?

Yeah, well, I would also say we—I have a ridiculous team that helps me do that, and they can ask me anything and push back and tell me no. That's another big thing, you know? Like, they're very involved in that stuff.

I would say for me though, I'm trying—I'm working on multiple talks at a time. I think that's been super helpful if you're going to do this kind of thing at a high level with the way that we're talking about doing it. Um, you're not just working on one thing at a time. And so, and it's not even that I'm like eight weeks planned. It's not even that. Like, I don't have eight talks in the hopper right now, but I would say I have ideas and thoughts and my notes app is kind of full of that. And then once it gets there, then it's in a system, right?

So right now we have a document that actually is gone all the way through Easter, and I have bigger themes that I'm gonna be communicating through. But the difference for me from what I've used to do is I also have a ton of notes around the feel and look and approach that I want in those kind of spaces. That it's kind of is a different column, I guess, than just the content. I think as pastors, especially trying to do this digital media, we got to have both of those.

So yeah, that's good. Yeah, um, the other thing I was gonna put around this too, when it comes to like communicating in front of the camera, is I think we have to create rhythms to be ready. This is one of the things, at least that I've talked to pastors, that has kind of been one of the quickest things to be lost, right? You there used to be a rhythm to Sunday mornings where you get up, whatever you do with your run-through or somebody does your thing. You might go to the green room. You might go somewhere else. You're with people. But you have a rhythm of getting ready to do this, and everything has shifted. It's been hard to refine that rhythm for a lot of people in live spaces.

I put in my notes, and so you probably are somewhere at some point working on the last-minute prep. But now you're walking into a room with maybe three guys or four guys who are filming you, and you don't really get that kind of last-minute sort of moment, or you at least skip on it. And maybe like your mind is in the right space.

So what I would say to communicators all the time is when you're getting into this, you need to figure out what that rhythm is and actually craft it and don't be afraid to hold to it, right? One of the biggest gifts that you can give any team that's going to be filming you is that you are at a right headspace to actually communicate whatever it is you're trying to deliver. So you need to make that playlist. You need to have that playlist that you listened to before—with Bruno Mars playing, I'm just kidding, Hillsong United playing—before you go up and speak in front of the lens, right? Like, you need to have those things kind of ready in your headspace and everything. Or if you're the guy setting up the camera and you're part of that, which I am, like, I do that, then I need a little bit of time to pause and make sure that I get myself in the right space before I walk back in the room.

There's nothing wrong with that. I think that's one of the greatest gifts that you can give your team because it allows you to be fully present at the moment, even if you're sitting in front of a camera. So love, love that.

Hey, we had a question come in from the outside here, mysterious Facebook user. Are there resources you recommend to build storyboards to help with that communication? Maybe to help frame in the tone, message, uh, visuals of that? So what do you recommend? Are there tools that you use?

Yeah, there are. That's great. That's a great question. So uh, we utilize Canva a lot, which is actually like, you can do some of it for free or you can pay like a very minimal amount. It's hilarious how much you can do there. And we have Adobe Suite, but we do a lot with Canva. So I would say in visual process, we're doing that. We're mocking things up there.

When it comes to tone, you know, I use—I'm gonna again, I'm a geek—but I'll use the Apple Pages a lot, and then we'll create columns where I'll respond to each part of it to put tone and notes and all that stuff. And then we use a lot with Google Docs. So everybody on our team has access to my message on Google Docs as we're doing it, and then those chat threads and Google apps. I give you a lot of that.

So um, I think that's how we're doing it. The other thing too, I tell people all the time: if you're new to creative stuff or trying to figure out how to make it look good on a budget—

Envato all day you get enviro elements for like 30 bucks a month and most of the templates are still there and they're just downloading it and just tweaking it or things like Sunday Social, those are all great kind of avenues for that. So that's great, which is a great. And honestly, the last thing I was going to say is really kind of making it visually appealing. And so I would say, um, I would say this is one of the things that again can be easily overlooked, especially depending on what your comfortability is with creativity or, you know, design or that sort of thing. But here's the thing that I wish I could just convince every lead pastor of, no matter how old you are, your age or that sort of thing, is that the people that you're communicating to that are younger are not accustomed to learning in front of a person with a lectern talking them for 30 minutes. Right now they might do that in school still, but when they actually want to learn something, they're going to YouTube and the person teaching them on YouTube has thought about how to visually engage them, right? So I make this reference all the time. I'm going to give you two to think about and then, uh, and then you can kind of process that. The first one is says Salmonage. I believe I talked about this last time. Patriot Act. Now again, we have four million. I mean, some people that we don't have four million dollar budget to put towards that, I get it. Um, but watching how he does humor, watching how he does visuals, watching how that works, that's where your 20-somethings are learning about politics right now. That's where they are. That, that's kind of the level of engagement that they're getting. Um, so another example, this on a completely different side, is a guy named Bruxy who's a pastor. I believe in Canada. He's a candidate. I've come across some of this stuff. Now he'll set up this, let's talk about it. He'll set up a camera. It'll be the three minute, like theological question they'll answer in three minutes. But I laugh like, oh, you don't need production. I'm like, yeah, but he's got a phenomenal camera. That the coloring is right, the audio, audio's really good. And then he has this title package that happens in the middle and you get the lower thirds that look good. But at the end of the day, it's a guy with a massive beard in his early 50s, I assume. Bruxy, if you're watching and you're not, I'm sorry that it's sitting there giving really great theological content, but it is produced. It's still thought through. And so you go to someone else or you can go over here. So I tell people right now, the two big purchases that we made that were really hard for me to make, um, we got the, we got a nice camera right here, the Black Magic 6K with the lens, which isn't crazy expensive. And then the biggest purchase that we got, which is difficult for us even as a church plant in this world, we got a lot donated, which helped us, but we also bought like an LED wall. And here's one and it kind of seems weird is I'm making the assumption whether I can meet live in person or not, we're going to do some version of a studio setup moving forward. I think that's where it's headed. Like there's a studio setups moving forward. And that LED wall is actually a lot more affordable than a lot of you just realized. And we did that early to say no matter if we're digital or for live, we can create really quality visually engaging content and be out in front of communicating to people who are learning that way anyway. So I think you have to make it visually appealing. And if you don't know how to do that, lean to the people who do, you, and they're around you. So yeah, that's good. Um, now it's great to be visually appealing. I love all that. But engaging with the camera and kind of striking towards the heart, how do you do that in turn? And how are you leaning in that way? Because a lot of pastors I've seen, hey, a lot of great churches that have the wall, that have the cameras, but then they don't, they don't know how to kind of like what you looked at earlier. They don't know how to make it human. They don't know how to drive in that way. In terms of, hey, let me grab your eyes here and let, let me be, let me grab your heart. Um, how do you do that? How do you think towards that?

Yeah, you know, again, I think, I think everything that you use visually, every camera thing, every production, right, it's all a tool to help you feel like you're one-on-one with a person. I think C3 NYC is doing this right now. They have the big wall, but he's like drawing on an iPad so it looks like it's handwritten, right? It's that kind of thing. Um, I think it's, it's a lot in studying body language. If you're a pastor, you've never studied body language before, it's, it's really important to do that, especially now, especially when you're being filmed here, you know what I mean? Like there's this, you know, this is important. Knowing how you're coming off and approaching things is really important. And then I know this is really, this is going to be like overly simplistic, but as you're communicating, especially your most important points, if I give anybody a few backgrounds, I'd say you're just, you got to invite people in to it somehow, however you're doing that. You're just, you're working to kind of pull people in with you, invite them in, and really work towards your body language and paying attention to your vocal tone as you move throughout all that's going to play into whether the person's leaning in. Now, having said all that, I wanted to kind of say one last thing on the hard side of it is a lot of us are really excited about moving back towards, you know, in-person environments, and it's great. And I think what I wanted to say is most of us, including us, we're going to rush back. We're getting excited about bigger rooms and we're going to do those things for sure. But the digital thing that we've experienced over the last year and a half, that's not going away. That's here. Most of us, I hope, kind of lean into doing both of those things. We thought about fidgeting both of those things really, really well. But knowing those two things are very different and we have to lean into it. And so what I, I kind of wanted to do, if I could sit down every pastor in the country, which I'll never be able to do, but all of them watch your podcast, Jeff, so maybe we'll get a chance to do it. I'm going to say it. Awesome. I would say this is, as you move back, don't assume, no matter what age you are, that somebody else is going to pick up that ball, right? You have a unique community of people who, especially the people that are younger, who need you to lean into these spaces and do this really, really well. And so don't just rush back to live. Acknowledge the fact there's going to be a lot of people who are now going to be your digital only people, or they're going to come once every eight weeks and watch you online. They would probably do it anyway. You need to lean into those environments to do that really well because if you don't, right, someone else might, but they might not do it in your unique voice, in your unique way, that your people need to hear. So I would just encourage you, please lean into the digital side, even if it means you're learning a new skill for the next year or two years, five years, for most of us 20 or 30 years, right, trying to figure that out. Well, so that's what you're gonna say. Wow, man, some excellent takeaways here. This was solid stuff. Like, uh, and I'm not even talking about Bruxy.com. I'm really like intrigued with this guy. Uh, never heard of him. I'll, I'll be exploring it later. And, and the beard and the hair, it's epic. Very, very jealous. So if no other reason than just the home page landing page, check out the website and dig into it. If he's theologically inaccurate, don't blame me. 100 percent. Patrick Holden, that was a blank, uh, endorsement towards that. But so, you know, I got a sticky here just sometimes that I wrote down describing the video in the first five seconds and then, uh, the next five seconds talking about a question that's not resolved to the end, you know, just kind of baiting the hook on that is, is solid. Body language is, is so important. And, and I love your heart as, as you're talking about just even, hey, you've, you've got this audience, pastor. Nobody's picking it up. Continue to own that, that piece of it, even mid post covetous were coming out of this. So this, this was so good, Ray. Just as we're landing the plane here, man, in any closing thoughts? I love hearing Patrick's heart on it. And, and Patrick, thank you for giving us such a practical breakdown here because, you know what, you and your team have created, even in terms of launching a church, and we've made this reference before in the podcast and other stuff we've done, but if you're not checking out what Nouveau Church is doing, you really need to go see it because that's the only way that you're really going to fully experience some of the things that Patrick is talking about right now because it's one thing to talk about theory. This is a lot of stuff that they've put into practice. He's given you the playbook here. And so I urge you to go see the outcome of it because number one, it was always super impressive, impressive to me as a church plant because we've seen a lot of structures with resources that have already been around for years, you know, make that pivot. But when he's launched this thing and he and his team have launched this thing fully online, but number two, I think you'll be able to compare and contrast what he's saying here and what is actually happening at Nuvo. And I think you're gonna be able to take away a lot of solid stuff. So thank you, Patrick, for joining us and sharing this.

Yeah, this was golden. Uh, yeah, check out Nouveau Church. Definitely towards that. Just even too and endorse a little bit there. Um, not a lot of resources yet. The LED walls crazy. Maybe you can, can work out some other ways around that. But, uh, from a, hey, just it's, it's a digital approach kind of that mindset, even going in reaching that, that type of person. It's always love having these, these conversations with, with Patrick. And of course, you can check out Patrick. I'm sure it is the social media. But Patrick, as we're landing the plane here, in any closing thoughts on your side?

I don't think so. I would say, I think, you know, the last thing, yeah, I would say to every pastor, you're like, am I doing it? Am I doing it well? Am I doing it right? I would just say to you, you're likely doing it a lot better than you feel right now, and you're likely making a bigger impact than you feel right now. So don't be discouraged. Just continue to lean into it.

Awesome. Just even speaking from the heart there. Once again, that, that was so good. Hey, love this time. Uh, lots of conversations happening in social media about it. So hey, uh, and we're gonna wrap because I got a jet to go do something else. So, um, great for, uh, for Ray, uh, for Patrick. This is Jeff of the Church Digital and State of Church Planning. Thanks for jumping here on the Beta Show once again. We'll see you next time, y'all. Good day.