BETA04: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Phygital Christmas

All right, welcome to Beta Show, Episode 4. It's Christmastime here. Jeff here with the Church.Digital and Stadia Church Planning, and joining me today for the show is Reindeer de Armas. Ho, ho, ho! Man, listen, Halloween is past, it's done. It's not even Turkey Day. We don't know who the President of the United States is, at least today when we're doing this broadcast, but I can tell you right now that break out your Spotify playlist, bring out the Christmas movies, put Die Hard on repeat over and over again, and let's embrace this idea of a fidgetal Christmas here on the Beta Show. So once again, here with the Beta Show, we answer your questions, the questions that you guys have in ministry, and so text us your questions, 484-324-8724.

We do this. I feel so silly wearing this hat. I don't think I can wear this hat the entire... I'm going to try to wear it the entire show. We'll see how we get. But text us your questions on online ministry, church online, fidgetal church, online discipleship, whatever that is. Send us those questions. We'll answer them in future episodes here of the Beta Show. And for today, in case you haven't noticed, buy my ridiculous hat or the T-shirt you can't see, which is in fact Darth Vader riding Santa's sleigh with the at-at being the reindeer chasing it, heading into the moonscape of the Death Star. Yeah, I do own that T-shirt. And I wore it for this. And honestly, I wear it regularly throughout the year, not even during Christmas season.

It's just, it's awesome. So we really want to focus on this idea of Christmas and excited to drill into it. You know, even to just get into the holiday spirit, you may be thinking to yourself, it's beginning to look a lot like Fidgetal Christmas. You know, you can hear that, that Christmas song just resonating out there. I'll be home for Christmas, assuming my Zoom account works. You know, this may be the Christmas for you, kind of doing that social distancing thing, even in the home. You're probably sharing that same Zoom account with like four or five other people. So it depends on how that's working out for you, right? Definitely. Hey, one of my favorites is Little Drummer Boy. You remember that time when Little Drummer Boy presented that gift to Jesus of high-speed internet, giving him that extra boost to allow for it.

Still waiting on that gift. Oh my gosh. That's the gift that keeps giving it, even into 2021. Naming and claiming 5G in the name of Jesus. Let's go. I'm dreaming of a Fidgetal Christmas. I mean, there's so much we can really get into. But honestly, I just, I want all spotlights here on my friend Ray as he presents It's the most stressful time of the year. Ray, are you ready for this? Folks, sing along if you know it at home. Here we go. It's the most stressful time of the year. What with COVID still growing, the elections now slowing and doom seems so near. It's the most stressful time of the year. Man, we are really missing out. We should be like marketing that publicly. Like, get Tyler Sansom.

Let's do a cover of that and put it on YouTube and like start bankrolling or something. We're not utilizing all of that. Tyler will get a million streams on Spotify. No problem. Me, five streams. So he's got it. Oh, so cool. Well, hey, for us here, we really wanted to dig into what Christmas looks like. Obviously, Christmas is going to look different here in 2020. You know, Easter was a struggle. Easter was a lesson for all of us as we wrestled with this idea of how to do Easter digital only. And so really, it was like the apex. It was the peak of Church Online where so many people came and viewed an online service. Now, here in December 2020, it's starting to look a little different. It's not like it's all online.

Some of you may be thinking physical. Some of you may be thinking digital. Some of you may be thinking digital. Some of you, okay, maybe not those of you who are up north. Some of you may be thinking outdoor venue again. I know that was kind of the go-to during Easter as a fallback for physical was that outdoor venue. Some of your venues you can use at full capacity. Some you can't. And so, it's really a mixed bag kind of heading into 2020, into this Christmas Eve service season. Ray, any thoughts on this just kind of right at the get-off? Yeah, with so many different options and, you know, we talk about this a lot on our shows. You've got to think through strategy. You've got to think through what's your ultimate goal and then allow the strategy to meet that goal, right?

Don't try to force back into physical just because you have the capability of reopening. I know some churches have already done and you're hoping and praying that we can go to some semblance of last December. But as we're all already identifying, for those of you who've opened, you already recognize us and see this. It's not going to be 2019. And so, we have to prepare and think through how to meet 2020 problems with 2020 solutions. Totally and completely. And recognize what your venues are capable of space-wise and what they're not going to be capable of. having a more distributed approach, either multiple days, multiple services, online and micro and watch parties. And we're going to get into all these different options here in a little bit.

But it obviously is not going to be a carbon copy of what 2019 is. And we need to be comfortable with it even up front that just like the rest of 2020 has been a messy year. I mean, look, I'm wearing a freaking hat with antlers. 2020 has been messy and it's going to continue to get messy even heading into 21. Even questions like, and I know we're all asking these questions, right? Do we do a live broadcast of Christmas Eve? Do we do a pre-recorded of Christmas Eve? And honestly, like just for me, my knee-jerk would be go with what you're comfortable with. If you've never done a live broadcast, let's not use Christmas Eve as the opportunity to do something new. If all you do is live broadcast, then you're not comfortable necessarily with the workflow of doing the pre-recorded service.

So maybe evaluate if it's really worth it. I think the big win of a Christmas like this is to create an experience where you are able to preach to people specifically in the room if they're in the room. And if you're doing it online, you're creating an experience where you're able to preach to people specifically online. There are opportunities where you can look straight into that camera when you're doing the broadcast. But when you're preaching to the room, now you're looking in different directions connecting with people in that way. I see wins like that in this holiday season and how best you can set up that engagement where you're creating the video content that speaks, literally speaks, to the people in the room versus speaking to the people online.

That's right. And it's so important to remember that if you've determined this strategy, that you continue to communicate it clearly. So don't do live broadcasts for the sake of, hey, we're going to have this up Christmas Eve night at 7 o'clock. You'll be able to do it alongside with folks or whatever else. Don't be so consumed by that. Last year, what we did is we took, here at Christ Fellowship, we took our service that was recorded at 7 o'clock and we had a team of editors that we contracted out to make sure that we could get it up online by 9 o'clock. We just capped it beginning and end and we made sure that the in-between was set up in such a format so that it wouldn't look weird and require a whole lot of editing online.

The big thing for us has always been the quality of mix, especially since so many of you are consumed with putting in music experiences that don't always play so well online, right, Jeff? We've talked about that in terms of worship online. Christmas plays off a little bit differently because families just like to get together and sing Christmas songs and so that can work a little bit more in an online experience, but a poorly mixed online experience is a rough one either way, whether it's Christmas, Christmas Eve or not. Definitely. And so wrestle with those ideas and we've created a lot of content and have addressed those questions on how to do the audio mix and solve that problem. If you're still asking those questions, feel free to put it into the comment fields, you know, ask that or reach out to us at the Church Digital and we can kind of help you get pointed in the right direction.

But, you know, more than, you're at Christmas carols, that's a part of doing a Christmas Eve service or a Christmas service. But there's other things that start to get weird, like how do you do a digital candle lighting? Like, candle lighting is a big part, you know, for me growing up, being in churches, you know, my Christmas Eve service had the candle lighting. And so, you know, you do that at the end, you'd raise the light up, you'd see all the hundreds of candles across the room being lit. And, well, dang it, you know, like a digital service doesn't quite have that same effect or can it. You know, a lot of times when we really define the word digital and things like this, it's meant to be, maybe there's an opportunity to draw physical objects into what you're doing online.

Like, I'll be honest, here at my desk, 24 7, I have a fidget cube, that's what you call these things, right? And so, like, for me, this, even when I'm on Zoom meetings or doing broadcasts even naturally, just even as I'm talking with you, I'm interacting with this to keep me grounded, to keep me aware of what's happening physically. And so, during your fidgetal broadcast, during your sermons, maybe start to bring in outside objects that maybe somebody has within the house and use it as part of the storytelling. So, maybe you're inviting people to go get candles and even in advance, hey, we're going to do a fidgetal candle lighting service, get your candles, bring them in. You're not seeing the massive number of people, but people even distributed digitally are connecting with it.

Maybe there's parts of the sermon elements where you're talking about a Christmas ornament or a Christmas gift or things that they would have physically within the room that you can start to connect digitally, this idea of what's in the physical world with what you're teaching digitally. And so, it's a lot of that kind of multi-sensory approach that's really going to tie into this idea of creating a real fidgetal experience. Yeah, you know, and this is difficult. This is going to be hard for so many churches, right? Because part of our metrics when it comes to church online has been in the number of streams or the number of views that we receive on the back end. But the reality with a fidgetal candle lighting experience, if the people that we're going to feel most comfortable with this holiday season and coming around is our family.

And some people may have larger families and other adults that they group up with in the season. If you equip them through digital means to have a candle lighting service where they're at and hey, we'll provide the content, you guys provide the candles and however many of you are on the table, whether it's 12, 15, 20 in your backyard, whatever else, you know, do this along with us and you'd be surprised at what kind of response you might get. Now, will it show up in the stream numbers that 12 or 15 or 20 people were there watching it? No. But if you encourage your folks to, hey, take a photo of it, share it on social media, encourage other folks to do the same, you know, put up a hashtag for it, you know, our church Christmas, you know, whatever it is, you'd be surprised the kind of feedback that you would get for your folks because you equip them to have the service where they're at.

And the other thing is, and this is always a struggle for those of us that hold those services in physical environments is that we feel like we're taking church members away from their families on those days to help enact experiences where we're at, right? Like I know in Miami, Christmas Eve is bigger than Christmas Day. And so whenever we hold a Christmas Eve service, Christmas, you know, we're taking away volunteers from family events where they could be impacting non-believers. This provides an opportunity to equip them to go reach their non-believing friends where they're at to share the gospel with them right at their own family event. It really can be a solid thing that can bring the family together instead of seeing the church as something that takes their family member away.

Yeah, it's a different strategy there, but it's this idea of creating this digital service as the glue to connect families together. It's not a separate event that you're bringing them to, but it's a central piece, a central part of what's happening through the holiday, through the Christmas Eve, the Christmas day, experience celebration that's happening at the house. And so in families, inviting others to come together, neighbors, other family members, whatever social distancing allows, huge evangelical opportunity, huge opportunity for us to reach out to our ones, our individual ones, and start to connect with them in a new way. Well, hey, we reached out, and so we asked some churches in some Facebook groups, hey, what are you guys doing for Christmas?

And got a lot of good feedback, because I mean, listen, 2020 if nothing else is a big giant experiment. And so it's really interesting to see some different approaches out here. Justin Percy from Connection Church, hey, so we're creating a subscription box or crate to make the experience interactive for our families at home, as well as to make it easier for our people to invite friends to. The boxes are printed like presents with do not open till and a QR code for the stream. I love, and they're up in Canada, so they're Connection Church, so they've got all sorts of cold up there. Justin, hope you're staying warm with what you're doing. You're welcome to come down to Miami anytime you want and thaw out, but love this idea.

Subscription, there's pros and cons. Yeah, it can be inward facing, but if you're communicating in advance, almost looking at it like the RSVP for the seats. Towards that, not making the service exclusive to only if you have the box, but as a way to, once again, provide some fidgetal touch points, some physical touch points that tie into the service, I think there's lots of positives with that. Ray, are you thinking anything? Yeah, there's a couple things, right? Like, Insider can actually be so cool that you can make a kind of FOMO to something to where even outsiders will want to be part of it, and they may want a box as well. So I think if you can, Justin, just make sure that you got your boxes ready early enough so that for those who aren't part of the church that want to take part in this experience that may or may not be believers might want to actually get a box and that their friend can hook them up with a box.

Like, man, I can't go over to your house or maybe I don't feel comfortable with that right now, but do you think I could get a box for my family? Absolutely. You know, or even there's just, and we all recognize this, there's a lot of churches that aren't offering any experiences right now. And it's not that you're trying to steal help out a brother in Christ in this season just by providing a digital experience for them and their family at home, why not do it? So kudos to you, Justin. Sounds very creative. Sounds a lot of fun. Love, love that. Love what's happening up at Conexus. Hey, we've got Nathan Martin here. We're doing a totally digital approach. Now, applause with that, just one sentence right there.

A totally digital approach. We're producing a 30-minute Christmas Eve service that will premiere on Facebook and the YouTube page. We're asking our entire congregation to make sure to share the experience with someone in their life. And so very outward-facing, very evangelical with that. We're making it clear that they should not just simply share the link to these people's profiles, but to share the experience with the other person. Now, what you're hearing is like a physical invite, come watch this with me, that type of thing where it's either been doing, it's happening in physical space, let me invite you over to my house, let me invite you into a watch party and do this experience through Facebook or a number of platforms that are doing it at this point.

I love the intentionality, Nathan, towards the evangelism, towards using this digital content to connect with people through the Christmas service season to create an experience to dialogue, to have conversations. And so the ability to not just create that 30-minute piece, but to also maybe have some prep questions, follow-up questions, dialogue questions. Hey, so I just shared this service with my friend, what do I need to talk about afterwards? Do I, as the person who's sharing the service with someone else, am I equipped to kind of even take that next level? Those would be some questions that I would dig into. Don't just create the experience, but help me as the person who's sharing it. Help me with some wisdom to facilitate the conversation towards it.

Wisdom, and I'm wearing an antler hat. Anyway, what do you got, Ray? What are you thinking about? No, I think that's great. Some of the things, and I know we're going to cover this in a little bit, Jeff, but even thinking through, so what is that next step for the person who's watching that isn't so connected to church, right? That's kind of the big thing that I always wonder is, all right, so now how do I interact with you, and what is that going to mean for me as a non-believer if I'm watching your broadcast and I loved it and I want to take that next step? Just making sure that that's very clear, that it's baked into the message, that it's even baked into the hosting ahead of time, having one clear next step for the entire broadcast of, hey, listen, this is your next step.

Go to this website, you know, click on this form, fill it out, let us know that you watched it, let us know what questions you have, et cetera, but give a way to get feedback from those folks, and then encouraging those church members that are going to be sharing this to encourage others to fill out that form. Like, hey, you watched it? Awesome. Did you fill out the form? No, man, here, let me go ahead and send you a link, you know, following up to make sure that that took place, because that next step form, really, it's so much for those of us who do church online. It really is. It's the way that people move from anonymity to being part of the church, and so they have to take that next step.

So if you're designing this, you got, you know, six, seven weeks, right now is the time to make sure that it's baked in as best as possible and have it clear as day. And one, one, please, one next step. Yes, and so a lot of that really comes into, like, just the clarity of the service where there is one thing I want these people to do and try to get that, judge that business term, conversion rate, judge the successfulness off of that one thing. You know, I tell the story of Easter 2020 where a church that's a friend of mine had 500,000 views online and on TV, but they only had 11 connection cards filled out. And some of that really comes down to there's so much others going, other things going on, they didn't clearly communicate the connection card, or it just got lost in the shuffle of everything else, a number of issues.

But for y'all who are starting and doing this out, make sure the connection card is clear, that it's very simple to fill out. It's not overly evasive. And judge the successfulness of the service based on your ability to get people connected into something else. Maybe if it's whatever that next step is for your church and your engagement pathway. Whatever you want to drive them to, I would suggest your Christmas Eve service for 2020 is only successful as whatever it drives those people to at the next level. Right. And then the last thing with that is being realistic about what the expectations are of that. your church is only so large, and especially during the season where so many of us are unsure as far as who's still part of the core, the committed, the congregation, and the crowd, right?

And so make sure that your expectations are right for whatever that experience is going to look like and what next steps that you're communicating towards. Definitely, definitely there. Hey, so even though we're as late in the year as we are, normally, you know, most, some churches will start talking Christmas, like June, July, there were seasons as creative director was like, if I'm not talking about Christmas in August, there's something wrong. Well, 2020 is weird. Like, we know that coming in. And I guarantee you probably weren't talking about it in August. But even as late as we are in the year, there's still time to plan and prepare for something to be done creative in this holiday season heading into Christmas to connect with it.

So take the time, talk with your teams, develop a strategy that envelops, I mean, all the things that we talked about, how to be digital, how to reach out and really utilize this as an opportunity to connect with ones and create a very powerful evangelical tool for your people and make sure that they understand how to do these things. So lots of wisdom here in this broadcast. And oh, by the way, don't forget about December 26th and 27th, that literal next week. You know, I know Ray, Christ Fellowship Miami, like you guys aren't doing any physical services that week. You're shutting down and only doing online. You want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, much like other churches have done in the past.

I mean, we learned a whole lot from COVID and especially in a year where our max capacity right now down here in South Florida is 25% of our physical venues. That's the maximum amount of people that we're allowed to hit. And so the reality of it is, is many of our staff are going to be putting in a lot of work that week, Christmas week, even leading into the 24th. We're going to do a physical experience on Christmas Eve, but because of that, because of there's so much expectation, we want them to give as much as they can to those services, but also understanding that staff, volunteer staff and volunteers are going to have a weekend where they can spend time with their families and especially Christmas day.

You know, we don't want them worrying about Christmas that weekend in the sense of church. We want them experiencing it and then also sharing that experience, that special online digital experience, sharing that with their unbelieving friends, you know, or experiencing it together with them after they've unwrapped their PlayStation 5. why not stop by CF Miami.org and that terrible Sony web browser and watch a service, you know? So if they have the case, we don't have a PS5 app yet. You guys, we're not that cool. So anyways, you know, if they've got the capability of doing that, then why not leveraging that weekend, especially a weekend which typically pre-COVID was a poorly attended weekend for us.

We can leverage it as an opportunity to maximize our results on digital. And when I say poorly attended, I meant physically, digitally, it's always been off the charts. So. Yeah. So there's an opportunity here to rethink some things, you know, like evaluate how those services post Christmas works. Is it worth the effort? Is it worth the stress that it puts on the staff? And so wrestle with some of these things where you may not have considered digital being an option 2018, 2019. Digital certainly is an option in 2020. To help maybe spread the stress or put it more on the Christmas instead of what's happening there the week after. So, hey, love conversations like this and love what we're doing here with beta helping churches like yours answer some of these questions.

Once again, text your questions that you have to for the church, 44-324-8724. And we'll most likely address them in a future episode here at the beta show with the church digital. And, hey, we're going to wrap with this. We may talk about Christmas again. We may, we've got other questions that we want to hit that are getting texted in as well. So text us your stuff. And thanks for jumping on here with the beta show. For Ray, this is, excuse me, for Reindeer Day Armas, this is Jeff, who's evidently lighting up the holiday with the church.digital and Stated Church Planning. Thanks for being here for the show. We'll see you next time here at beta. Y'all have a good day.