EP036 - Evan Connelly - Redefining Chat Hosts & Community

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So it's confession hour here for episode 36 of The Church Digital podcast, and I'm going to confess something right here for you guys. For many years of my online ministry life, I never really saw the purpose and the point to chat hosts. Yes, I've told many of you that I felt it was necessary and that to model the behavior, and it takes time, and only 10% of people engage in chat, but maybe while it was right years ago, maybe that was, or maybe I was wrong all along. I really don't know. But in today's day and age, I'm discovering more and more the necessity of having chat hosts engaging in these conversations. And my culture shift, my paradigm shift in view has really come from conversations like this that you're about to experience with Evan Conley.

So Evan is a combination of IT and online ministry over with Lighthouse Church, but he has a phenomenal viewpoint and strategy when it comes to doing chat hosts and how that's the front door really to engaging in online community. And so I talked with him on the phone about the Church IT Conference maybe a couple months ago, and was blown away by the strategies that he had had in place and got with him. And I was like, hey, let's do a podcast on this. But even in addition to the podcast, let's share some of the resources that you're talking about that you're using at your church, and let's get it out there for others. And he happily obliged to that. And so also, in addition to listening to this podcast, be sure to check out the show notes, because a lot of the policies and process and strategies that he has in place at Lighthouse for his church, he's got written up and we're making it available on the show notes for you right now.

So for this conversation, I am bringing in Evan Conley, IT and online ministry over at Lighthouse Church, as well as Ray DeArmis, who's the online pastor at Christ Fellowship Miami, and myself, Jeff in the Church Digital, for a conversation on fine tuning chat hosts and community. Hey, everybody, here you go. So we have two different roles with online chat. We have one person who is operating under our brand, essentially. So they're going to be commenting as Lighthouse Church with our logo on them on Facebook, YouTube, that kind of thing. And they're going to be doing bigger questions, pulling from a preset list of questions. So things like where are you watching from? How can we pray for you?

Let's take a poll. How many people attend in person versus online? How many people have watched before? How many people is this the first time watching? Just things that get people pulled in. We do a lot with emojis in that one. So like using emojis to kind of vote and say like, you know, this message is speaking to you, put your hand up and you'll see little emoji hands pop up, which is really cool. And even with altar calls. So if we have an altar call in person, we do an altar call online. And so that person in that role is going to post a question saying, if you just decided to follow Jesus for the first time today, raise your hand or comment yes. And I remember the first time we did that, I was just blown away when I was staring at the screen and I saw these little emoji hands go out.

I think it was like three or four the first time. And I just beautiful, I think I almost cried. I was just like, I can't believe this is working. People just got saved online and they raised little emoji hands to show that they got saved. It's good. So that's what that role does. And then we also have an online engagement team. So this is the team that's more open. Obviously with our team, if you're serving under our logo, that's a pretty selective team. We're going to have to know you for a while. And as far as volunteers who serve in that role, there's not a whole lot of people who are going to do that. But then we have online engagement, which is a much wider team and not just in who can do it, but from where.

So we have a volunteer in Texas. We have a volunteer in Florida because you can do this one from anywhere. And so that role, they're commenting under their own names. They don't currently do anything to kind of designate themselves as volunteers, which I prefer because it just feels like, Hey, I'm going to have a person watching this service with you. And so whenever they're answering the questions, responding to the prompts that we're posting under our main account, or maybe they're posting something on their own, just like, Hey, you know, this point here that really hit home with me. And then obviously with prayer as well, they do a lot of that. So if we'd see a prayer request pop in part of their thought process and what they've been instructed to do is try to really make a point of praying for any of those requests that they see come in.

That's good. Evan, are you guys leveraging shop as your primary tool or are you guys leveraging other networks for your, for your hosts, like Facebook live or anything else like that? Yeah, sure. So we are using shop, but that's actually new. We started it entirely on Facebook and YouTube. And then just in the last few months, we decided to add in shop, which we like, and I think we're still figuring out the best ways to use, but I would say the majority, definitely the majority of our viewers are still coming from Facebook and YouTube. And I like that we started with those platforms first because it really let us build those platforms. And on YouTube, for example, we went from around a thousand subscribers to a little over 4,000 now, and it's about a year, year and a half from constantly pushing people to that network.

Right. So we've had great results there. And the chat features, especially with Facebook are amazing. Facebook by far is the best at integrating a chat with a live video. Easy for you to uninterrupted to just watch, especially on mobile. And so honestly, in my opinion, when it comes to live chat, while watching the message, the best way to do that would be on Facebook. And so we see the most interactive chat on Facebook. And then Facebook or YouTube and chop are probably evenly split between the discussion we see there. If anything, we probably see more of a discussion on YouTube, but part of that's probably because chops still new. Right. That's good. That's real good. And, you know, keeping in line with that.

So the prayer requests that come in, do your hosts document them? Like, how does that get back to you guys so that it doesn't just die there in the chat so that the church can be made aware of some of this stuff? Yeah. So that depends on how it comes in. Usually that's going to be from the person who's working off of the brand account. And so we have a prayer team that, not just even for online, but a team that's praying for any requests that come in throughout the week. And so if it's a really serious request, especially that's something that we'll forward on to that team. I try to make a point of going through all the chat logs, whether it's CHOP or Facebook or YouTube, and if there's anything that hadn't already been prayed for, if it's, you know, just it really depends on the severity of it.

If it's already had a few people comment on it and pray for it, sometimes it might not warrant anything else after that. If it's a really serious situation, maybe that requires a follow-up or passing it on to our prayer team to have people continue to pray for that throughout the week. And something new I'm looking at, I haven't started it just quite yet, but actually going through and grabbing pretty much all of those requests. And then we have a Facebook group for our online chat team and posting those in there so that throughout the week they can take part in something, not just on Sunday, but part of that role can also be throughout the week to be praying for requests that come up on the weekend.

That's good. That's good. How do you guys continue in community with folks? How do you guys keep walking with them with that, with your chat volunteers? Do your chat volunteers also lead online communities like small groups? You would definitely push online small groups for them. And then that Facebook group is a big way. I'm still trying to work out the best ways to use that and learning a lot about Facebook groups and how to keep a discussion going. It started off really strong. And then the last few months it's been dying down a little bit. So I'm trying new strategies there, trying to figure out the best way to pick that back up. But the Facebook group would probably be the biggest way that we stay in touch.

And really the thought process with that is just to be able to have a place to share the wins. Because I think when you're talking about like what you each individually saw as you're serving, that's a real good way to show the value in what's happening here, how it's bigger than just that individual time slot that you're serving at, but how it's connecting to the bigger picture in the mission. So you've got a Facebook, you've got one Facebook group that basically is for your entire online environment. Yeah, for that team. So that's not like an online campus wide one, but just for those who are serving. Yeah, just for that volunteer team. That's good. So keeping that in mind, how do you keep chat engaged?

Do you have two chat hosts at the same service just to make sure that things don't die down? Or do you have one person, you know, even if things are dying down, they're still throwing positivity out there or questions to try and get people engaged? Like what's the strategy there? Yeah, sure. So we have a lot of prompts that we're posting, like I talked about from our brand account. And those are going to be a lot of discussion starters. So like, where are you watching from is one of the first ones we do. And we've found that that's a great icebreaker because people love, or even if they're just across the street, it's really easy, low barrier to entry. It's not too personal. So we see a lot of people do that.

And then we've found that once they comment once, it seems like they tend to comment more. So once you break the ice that first time and get them in the chat, they're much more likely to continue. So we try to start off with easy questions like that, where it's just super easy to make that first comment and break the ice. And then throughout the service, we'll do things like I talked about with, you know, if this message is speaking to you, let us know that or let's take a poll, maybe something like how often do you watch? Do you normally watch at one of our in-person campuses? Or do you watch primarily on that line? Things like that. And then depending on the message too, like maybe we'll say, you know, the pastor just made this point, hey, who can relate, put your hands up and you can relate to what you just said, that kind of thing.

And so a lot of that's coming from the brand account. But then we also do have those individuals who will also do things on their own. Very similar to that, really. Like, you know, if there's a point that just hit home with them, they'll say, man, that just really stuck out to me. Who else here feels like that? Or definitely with prayer, praying for other people. And that naturally keeps the chat going. That too has been really cool, not just with our team, but we've seen with these prayer requests to come in. A lot of times we'll get like five plus people who join and praying for someone who aren't on our team. Just they see, oh, hey, you know what? I see someone praying for this person. I can do that too.

And now you've got someone who would have just been watching. But because we have that chat that's active and you've got a few people who are breaking the ice and that barrier of entry there, now they see that I can do this too. And not only did they just watch service, but they just joined someone in prayer from wherever they're watching from. It's good. How are you guys recruiting folks for this? And I know you said that it's kind of a select group that comes into this, but where are you pulling from? You're pulling from within the chat. Like, hey, this person's real active. They could be a potential volunteer or what's going on there? That's definitely one way. We have had that where we see someone is pretty much already on the team in a way and that they're doing everything that we ask someone who's on the team.

And so it's like, hey, do you want to just keep doing what you're doing? And also maybe talk to us a little bit more throughout the week. And that's actually a great way to find people because naturally you do get some people like that who are just really interested in being a part of the chat and they're going to do it regardless. Might as well coach them up and pull them into that kind of thing. And that's been one way. The biggest way has been our online connect card. So in person, we have volunteer opportunities and you can check that you want to serve when you fill out a connect card. And we didn't have that option for online before we had this role. That just felt like a real loss to me.

And it was really the reason that this team came about was I was thinking, like, how can we create a way for people who are outside, especially outside of our physical community and too far away to serve in person? Like, how can they serve here? I didn't want it to just be a role for the sake of having a role so they can feel like they're on the team. But I wanted them to have a real purpose and to really be able to be part of our mission. And so that's good. The chat host just seemed like the right way to do that. And that's how that came about there. So the online connect card, I would say, is the biggest way that we get people for that role in particular. It's actually pretty wide net. Anyone can do that.

You get a decent number of signups from people who fill out the online connect cards. The brand account would be the more selective one. And we don't give out any sort of password or access to that. So you're going to be in person doing that on a church device. But that's good. Overall is pretty wide. That's good. And it's encouraging that you guys would at least be willing to empower people on the brand account because that for a lot of folks would be, and I understand you guys are very protective of the keys, but even to kind of exit outside of yourselves, there's still a little tension and a little fear there. Totally. Yeah. And that, honestly, that came about really out of just a need. So I was traveling, I forget where it might've been to a conference.

And at the time, we didn't really have anyone else on staff. We were especially back then a little smaller on staff. So we didn't have someone else on staff who could fill in for me and do what I was doing. So I realized I had to appoint a volunteer who at the time, we have a number role, which is broadcast operator. It's just getting stuff started on the different networks, making sure the string's running, talking to audio if there's an issue. So that's more of a technical role. But we had one person in particular who I knew could do more. And so I trained that person over the course of a couple of weeks and got them to cover for me while I was away. And that just led to discovery, hey, you can empower other people and they don't even have to be on staff necessarily, as long as you've had some time to know them, train them.

And so that's how that came about. How do you guys, well, how do you guys manage the tension of the connect card? Because obviously it takes them out of the chat. And so how and when do you introduce that in the service? Because if you're going to throw a new link in a Facebook live, or if you're going to throw a new link in a YouTube live, obviously it's going to exit them out of the experience for the moment. Is it distracting? And I know you found some success with that, but then kind of walk us through that as far as their engagement, their continual engagement. Sure. Yeah, we don't necessarily even put that in the chat every week. But what we do is it's in the video description on Facebook and YouTube.

It's the first link they see towards the top of the description of that video. So before or after they watch, it's pretty visible that it's there. And now they're getting to it in a time that is not pulling them outside of the chat. Now we do have other links we post occasionally. If we're doing a communion service, we post a link to instructions on how you can do communion in your home. We post links to small group signups when they open so that you can see what groups we have in person and online, that kind of thing. So we do post them occasionally. But I would say we don't do them that often. Even some weeks, we probably don't post a link that takes you outside of the video. You mentioned Florida.

I think you mentioned Texas. So other states. How do you vet? How do you verify? How do you train? So like some person in a different time zone wants to serve at your church. What do you do to verify that they're legit and that they're okay? Like what does that process look for you? So right now, because they're doing this under their own name, they're not even getting into it. I mean, especially on Facebook and YouTube, it's pretty hard to give them any sort of like identifier. I know it's a little easier with CHOP that they're volunteers. So they're pretty much under their own name. And so we don't feel like we have to be incredibly restrictive. It's not like a small group leader where we're going to do a background check or anything like that.

There's an initial discussion, just like any of our serve teams, just over email, or maybe a phone call or text, depending on their preference. But when you first sign up for a team, just like, hey, this is what we do. Tell me a little bit about yourself. What's your background? Does it seem like a good fit? And that naturally has a little bit of a discussion that goes about to get to know them. And I have a training document that I put together. It's pretty simple, but it just walks them through what the role looks like, different ways that they can get involved, some suggestions on how they can comment and wording and that kind of thing for different parts of the service. And we make it real clear in that too, that as you're doing this, you're just talking to them as another person who's in this service.

You're not representing the brand. So you're not saying like, hey, welcome. We're so glad you're here. It's like, hey, I'm so glad you're here. That kind of thing where it's not on the brand, but they're just doing this personally under their own name. That's good. And has that been well-received? Are they okay doing that where somebody in Texas is speaking for themselves and not on the brand? Do they struggle with that? How has that been received? As far as I can tell, it's been received well. I've yet to have someone say that they were uncomfortable with that or that they didn't want to do that. So as far as the people who've said that they want to be a part of this team, everyone seems to be perfectly comfortable with that.

I think they enjoy it. I think when I'm talking to people who are new, I compare it to in person. We have greeters, we have a response team that stands in front of the stage for prayer after service, that kind of thing. And so it's very similar to that where you're kind of in your own skin, they see who you are, and you're just doing that under your own name and your own identity, a lot like you would be doing in person. How are you helping chat hosts navigate their online persona? Because obviously being in Facebook Live and all this stuff, they're not just connected on Sundays during the service. Hey, man, when I post my thoughts on Johnny's Pizza Place, it's all out there. And some of those folks may interact.

In fact, Johnny may have attended service and he didn't like your post. So how does all that work out? So we talk to all of our volunteers in person online. We talk about, among other things, social media and how you should be representing your testimony in a way that you interact online so that you don't want to be posting things that are negative or critical or that just come across the wrong way on social media. Yeah, that's just something with any of our teams. Even if you don't serve online, we just want to make sure that you know you're reflecting your testimony online and you need to be very careful about what you post and how that might come across to people. Yeah, I mean, and this is always a tough attention to navigate because, you know, and especially when it's not, quote unquote, staff, like staff, you know, we feel, I don't know, a little more ease to like lean in on a lot of that stuff.

The volunteer, they understand, but they don't completely understand. Not a lot of that. I'm sure that's just got to be a challenge. Man, do you have an example of, man, we definitely had to like step in and we had to help this person navigate that kind of tension. I've yet to have to do that with something outside of the Sunday chat, although it's fairly normal when people are new to the team to have to just chat a little bit about the type of comments that they're using during the chat. And, you know, it'd be helpful if you talk about it this way and not want to say that, or maybe avoid this verbiage and not say that kind of thing. It's good. It's pretty normal to have coaching with that. But thankfully, I've yet to have a situation where I see someone who's posting something and I'm like, that's not representing us well.

Sorry, not to say that that won't happen, but just thank you so far it hasn't. With your church, how your church is structured with church online, the chat host, what's the goal of the chat host? To get the person to stay connected to the service for the entire service, to invite them back to next week, to get them connected into a small group. Like, when you empower a chat host to do something, what's a successful, what's a win for a chat host, for a volunteer chat host? So ultimately, what they're trying to do is to create a sense of community. And so what a win would look like, a few of the things that you just listed. We have small groups. And so sometimes they'll just post a link to a small group if they see that someone's going through something.

Like, just this past weekend, we had someone who just said that they felt really lonely. And so someone shared how much that a small group would help them and shared a link to small groups and just said that that could be something that would help that person through what they're going through. So connecting them in small groups would be an option. Praying for people is huge. I've been blown away recently, just in person and online, seeing how it moves people to have someone pray for you. I think there's a lot of people who aren't used to people praying for them. If you're not inside of the church world, which I think you get a lot of online, people who don't normally come to church, people aren't used to having someone pray for you.

And when you share a prayer request and someone actually takes the time to pray for you, I think that really touches people. And so that seems like it really pulls them into the service and makes them want to come back because they see that sense of community as people that care about them that would take the time to pray for them. And then just other next steps, like our connect card, that's not something the engagement team would necessarily do, but questions would be a good one too. Whether they're creating their own kind of question that gets a discussion going or being one of the first people to respond to a church question, so that kind of breaks that ice there too and they see there's people commenting.

Because sometimes, just like in an in-person discussion, no one wants to be the first one to speak. So when you see someone else breaking that ice, then you're more likely to share as well. So it just all comes together to create community. You know, and I'm actually going to quote Ray's boss here, which is awesome. We had Ben Stapley on the podcast and we were talking about chat hosts with him on. And one thing that he said that I loved, and it's, you have to model what you want to see. And he was talking about, you know, almost having like ringers in the room, often engaging and talking. And so you'd have volunteer A talking and just even positioning volunteer B and C, just talking like normal people, responding and engaging.

And it's because, to your point, no, and he even said it, a very eloquent story. And so a lot of times, if you want to create that culture, create that environment, you have to show the people what it looks like and how to respond. And then it carries on from there. And so, you know, I love that idea. Have you gone through model seasons like that where you've had to model what it looks like? How have you done things like that? Yeah, I think that's definitely one of the things that this team has brought about. And I think, you know, like you were saying, this is something other people do. I don't think it's even specific to online. I know Eldation, I've heard they ask their staff to sit in the front in the sanctuary, especially at their broadcast location, because they want to know that people who are that visible, people who are pulled into the service, who are engaging with the service, who are going to be standing up, who are going to have their hands up and clapping.

And I think it's very similar with online. You want to have some people that you know are going to model that behavior. And so that's part of that training for that team is just responding to that message, whether it's a question that the church posted or they hear a point that the pastor made and they're just like, amen, that really hit home with me. Those kind of things where you're showing other people who are new, there's an active chat going on here. This is what it looks like to be involved in a part of that. And I think that just creates a sense that something's happening there. Whereas if you just have a video feed without that chat, I really feel like there's a different feel there. I feel like you don't have that sense of community without seeing those individual names and people and the stories they share and the prayer requests.

That doesn't, to me, I would say that that online chat makes it feel more like church, seeing the different people there. That's kind of like your foyer. You can't do it exactly in the same way unless you're like a church home and you build that custom app where you can have a lobby before service. But for the most part, with a lot of the existing technology like Facebook or YouTube, you don't have much of a lobby before and after service. I don't think that happens naturally during your chat. So how are you guys dealing with the trolls, however they may come in in terms of the chat? It doesn't matter if it's shop. You have people find their way to your site. And definitely on Facebook and YouTube Live, you'll occasionally get somebody to pop in who has an agenda.

Totally. Yeah, and that has happened. First of all, though, I would say, especially to a church that might be considering doing more enabling live chat, that it's probably not as bad as you think it is. Right. I've heard a lot of questions, especially some of the different conferences I've been seeing. They'll have a Q&A time and they'll hear, well, what about this? Or what happens if someone says this or you get this one person who's doing that? I'll say, at least from my experience and what I've heard from other people who've shared about doing online chat, I don't think it's really as common as a lot of people would expect it to be. We do have trolls on the internet. We have run into them, but they're far and few between.

With two or so years of doing online chat, I can only think of a handful of instances where that's happened. And even fewer times where I've actually had to block someone. So we try to give people a chance. If they're not totally out of line, if they're not using foul language, if they're being a little critical, but not to the point where they're attacking individuals or tearing anyone apart, we'll try to give them a chance. Because sometimes they're just hurting and they need to be there just as much as anyone else. And we don't want to drive them away. So we'll try to give them a chance. And it just depends on the severity. If you only think of one time where we've had to block someone outright, for the most part, it looks like.

Giving them a couple chances or strikes before we go ahead and block them. We might hide their messages. And it varies platform to platform. Like Facebook is great because you can hide their message and they don't even know that you did it. And so they're just going along ranting, but they don't know that their comment's gone. Whereas YouTube, I think it notifies them. It's more clear that that happened. And so you might have to address that a little differently. And then CHOP has a direct message feature, which I really like. I used that just a couple weeks ago. We had someone who was being a little critical about the message, but not terribly so. And so I wanted to have a conversation with that person and just walk through.

Hey, I'd love to talk through any feedback you have on this message. And I tried to sort it out with that person. I'd love to say that we came to a resolution and that person decided to stay. But that person made a couple more public comments and that person did have to be blocked. But that was rare. That doesn't happen most weekends. I wouldn't even say that happens once a month where we have to block someone or hide comments. And the other thing we've noticed is that we have a very positive online community. And I don't know if we've done anything to build this or if it just naturally came about. But when we have a negative comment come in, for any one negative comment, we'll probably have three, five people who come back positively and say, well, you know, defensively or just to count it out with positivity.

And that kind of brings the discussion back. Sometimes you have to throw that too, because if it gets too defensive and not just positive, then now it becomes a distraction. And then we're going to try to hide all that and take that offline so that it doesn't come about that and stays on the message. But a lot of times they just come back with positivity, not even directed at exactly what that person said. And then that just brings the discussion back. And it's interesting too, we've found among the different platforms. So starting with Facebook and YouTube and now CHOP, the more anonymous you can get. So obviously YouTube is somewhat in between. They're starting to push real names. Facebook is entirely real names.

They'll probably block you if you don't have a real name. And then CHOP is totally anonymous. Like you just enter a nickname. It's incredibly rare to have to block somewhere to hide something on Facebook. It's a little more common on YouTube. And then in a few months we've been doing CHOP, we've found that's the most common there. So I think the more anonymous that people can get, the more that they can open up and good things as well. Because I've seen prayer requests on CHOP that no one would probably ever share on Facebook. But you also, I think the more anonymous your platform is, the more likely you're going to see a troll. It's fair. Your broadcasts, we've talked about this before through the podcast, but there's basically there's three different types of people that watch online services.

So your first is the front door. These are people who are watching your online service and they will eventually visit for the first time one of your physical campuses. Second is types of person is a side door. This is somebody who is already active in your church. They're just traveling. And so they may not be available or maybe they just want to stay at home one Sunday. They may not like, they're engaged in your church, already part of it. They're just attending the online service in order to stay in touch. And then the third service would be, third type of person, would be someone who basically it's the digital door. It's the only door. They're never setting foot in a physical campus. They're not engaged, nor will they be because it's somebody in Florida or in Texas.

Somebody who, for whatever reason, they're engaging with you spiritually, looking for spiritual guidance, but not necessarily wanting to do it in a physical environment. Sure. Do you know with your online audience, would you rank those three, like front door, side door, digital door, which ones is more active than the other with your broadcast? Yeah. So we don't have really detailed metrics on that. We don't have a good way to capture that right now. But based off of what I see weekly with the chat, especially getting to see people check in with their locations and how they're watching, we see a pretty good mix. I would say it's probably close to evenly split among all three of those. We get people who normally attend in line and they'll say, I'm on vacation in Puerto Rico, so I'm tuning in from vacation.

We get people who are local and say they're sick. We get people, I've seen comments that, you know, I live out of state, but we're going to be moving here. So we've been watching for a few weeks now and we can't wait to move down there and watch in person for the first time. Or I haven't attended church in a long time and I'm really loving this message. I live locally. I'm thinking about coming next week. And then we see other people who just live an extended distance away. And a lot of times I see those same people checking on a frequent basis and they're definitely doing church with us. I just kicked off an online small group this small group semester and we've got someone in our group from Virginia Beach who originally lived here and now is part of our online community and watches pretty regularly and is taking part in an online group.

So we definitely have people in all those categories. And just based on the feel I have for it from our online chat, I'd say it's fairly evenly split among all those. That's really good. It's tough to navigate that sense of community. And it's really hard to navigate how a lot of people are going to engage in some of these different platforms. Those are things that we've talked about with some other folks. So tell us, how else is the ability to be known or the ability to stay unknown impacting the way that people are interacting with, not just with the chat, but with your church in general? Yeah. So this is coming from an online small group, this previous meeting, but I think it, we see the same thing with online too.

So we had someone who started off camera off, wasn't really talking. And then in this, I've seen this transformed through an entire semester, but with this person it was all at once and throughout the course of one meeting. And then as we got into our discussion, the camera came on for like a minute and then turned back off. And then the camera came on for a few more minutes and turned off. And then towards the end of the group, the camera stayed on and this person opened up and shared that they're dealing with so much anxiety right now. But they were just so thankful for this online group because it got them to take part in something they probably wouldn't have normally done. And I just shared how powerful it was to be meeting with these other people online right now and to be part of this.

And so throughout the course of that one meeting time, that person went from, you know, kind of hiding in a sense with the camera off to feeling comfortable enough for a minute to turn it on, to leaving it on, and then to even speaking and joining the discussion. And I think we see the same thing with the chat where people probably are watching for a few weeks before they take part in the chat at all. And then they start commenting a little bit. And then I have noticed that you see people who occasionally comment and then I'll start to recognize those names and all of a sudden this person's commenting a lot and they just become more part of that community. I think for some people, it's just a natural progression that happens.

And I agree. I think it's difficult in church in general, as far as folks wanting to go from being unknown to known, especially in a megachurch, which is, you know, many of the environments that we're operating in, in terms of folks want to come into a service either because they've been burnt at another church or coming in and they're fresh and they just want to sit down and just be for a moment. They don't really want to connect yet. They don't want to be part of the community yet. They just want to kind of soak in. Totally. And especially in the online environment. I mean, they're trying before they buy, right? Like they're there to engage in that kind of experience before they really partake in the community because they're still trying to build trust.

Right. Yep. And I think online can meet them where they're at in a really good way in both of those, because if they want to be anonymous, you can't be more anonymous than on your computer without taking part in the chat. Like you can literally just watch that video and no one's going to know you're there. So if that's what you want right now, where you just want to hear that message, but you're not ready to be known, then online does that really well. But I think online you can be known better than in person in a way when it comes to a larger venue, because if you've got 1000 people in a room, you might not notice that new person. You can certainly greet them and say hi to them, but you don't, you can't ask someone when you've got 1000 people in a room, is this your first time?

Because that can come across wrong to someone who's been there for a year. Whereas online, I think it's a lot easier to have those discussions and to get to know people in the chat because you can talk to all those people individually if they choose to start commenting and I think you get to know them better than you might in an in-person service, because you don't have that kind of interaction generally in a larger environment. You know, one thing that I've seen several churches start to experiment and start to move well as like a next step beyond that service broadcast that the chat host can push to is is a churchwide Facebook group. Yeah, you know, talking about having like anonymity. It's a softer cell.

It's it's less intimidating. They're coming in as their person. It's not they're not hiding behind a nickname or something or, you know, invisible with with YouTube or chop. And so but it's it's there's hundreds of people in this group and you're you to hunt maybe thousands of people in this group. But you're utilizing the group to ask questions, to push ideas, to meet people, to engage with people and to route them into into a small group and so or into a community or whatever your next step is. And so it's it's really seems the churches that have done it well. You know, it was L Elevation, I think it talked a lot about that, about how they had had a huge success with that Facebook group and pushing it over there designed for the online campus and and then using that to route people effectively down the road to really get to know them.

And the thing that I love about it is it's it's not tied to that one hour on Sunday. You can have a conversation with them on Tuesday or Wednesday. You get to know people in that space and engage with them on a on a regular basis. It's it's not just when that service is being broadcast and even ask your chat host to help engage the community in that space where they're not just doing that one hour on Sunday, but they're actively meeting and talking with people in that in that Facebook group as well. Like there's there I think there's an opportunity there for for churches to really use. You mentioned before there's no lobby and that's been like the biggest problem, I think, with church online is you get people connected to ministry into those next steps in the lobbies of our physical buildings.

We don't have a physical building online. And for some churches that are experimenting with it, that that Facebook group for the entire online service really does become the lobby of the church. So, man, I would check that out. I'd kick those tires. Ray, you guys you guys have experimented a little bit with the Facebook group for the entire church, right? How'd that work for you? We are. And, you know, it's one of those things where it's it's doing good. It's not as good as I would want it to be because it's not something we promote very heavily outside of CF online. And I think we will continue to as we find more power here, especially as Facebook favors algorithmically the groups, right? Like they're putting more of an emphasis on community.

So Nona Jones, I was talking about how Facebook is favoring community and favoring groups and how we want to put more of an emphasis on that. But then Brady Shearer came up with a great strategy that that was like, hey, listen, even just kind of posing a question a day to just keep people engaged on the Facebook on the Facebook group or, you know, and that's the strategy just to get them. And it's been a good way to kind of get the ball rolling in terms of getting people involved, getting people praying for one another, finding different ways to have them connect, creating that lobby experience, because there's got to be some kind of strategy behind it. We can't just have a Facebook group for the sake of having a group, but really trying to continue exactly what Evan's doing, trying to continue that conversation.

Yeah, it's funny you guys bring that up because just an hour or so ago before this, I was talking to our arts director about our strategy of online groups or Facebook groups and what we're thinking about how we're going to roll that out. So that's something we're not doing currently, but we're talking through our process and looking to roll that out fairly soon. We want to have an online one like you guys are talking about. We also want to do that for our in-person campuses to create those people to stay in touch throughout the week. And even some other groups like that, we're trying to figure out how we can do that to tie them into small groups and maybe link them to individual small groups that are going on.

Right. That's something that we're looking at as well. And I'm part of a few online groups from other churches. I'm on the Elevation one, Life Church, I think Rock Church. I've been blown away by the amount of community that I see happen in these groups. It's just like you said, those questions, like you see a question like that get posted and so many people will open up about that. Or I love it when you see someone ask a personal question, like they're trying to work through something or I'm not really clear on this text. What do you think this guy, this means? And you have people who just, just like church, I mean, they're coming together and they're wrestling through that together. They're praying for one and ever.

I think you really see a lot of church happen in those groups. We do have a Facebook group for our men's ministry right now. And I see a lot of that happening there where people open up about what they're going through. They have a question and you just naturally see that community created. They do church with one another in a Facebook group. Ray, you ready for my hot take? Here's a hot take. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say this before. It's coming right here. I think I would rather somebody join a Facebook group, a private Facebook, a campus Facebook group. I would rather someone join a Facebook campus group than fill out a connection card. I could see that. Because if they're in the group, I now have a relational connection to get whatever information I want out of them in a one-on-one engagement.

So I would rather them identify themselves as part of a Facebook group, giving me an opportunity to dialogue rather than them filling out a card, feeling like that I'm coldly trying to peel information out of them that I'm going to utilize in some other way. I think Facebook needs to offer more tools to help integrate people into groups. Because for instance, whenever we're doing live chat on Facebook Live and when we've pushed the group, whenever we copy the link over, it's this massive, disgusting link that gets dropped in the middle of the chat as opposed to having a button or something a little more simple that's attached. It should be integrated well into Facebook. And so I know that Zuckerberg is listening to this podcast.

And so if you're listening, Mark, you know, go ahead and get on that. But in the meantime, you know, it is, Jeff, it is proving to be one of the best things to get people to do because they're going to engage in it on a regular basis. It does provide opportunity in a more expressive place. You know, they could drop GIFs into it. They can drop a whole bunch of things into it that you can get some fun responses and keep people engaged in the fun side of the community of Facebook, which is what it originally was before it became ads and all this other stuff. And so, and it's so niche and internal in that, you know, you have people who are there who want to be there. They weren't advertised into it.

It wasn't anything else. You have people who are part of your community that want to be there, that want to take part in community. I agree with you 100%. I think more and more there needs to be ways to connect with people through your Facebook group and not just in some, in some kind of way and just receiving data. Yeah. I'm in agreement with you, Jeff. I mean, it just, it seems like it's so much more relational. When you fill out a connect card, especially at a larger church, like what does that process usually look like? You might get like a generic template email, which I think more and more people are starting to recognize that. Even if you auto fill their name in there, they can kind of tell, okay, this is the exact same email everybody else gets.

Maybe you even send them a letter in the mail, but it's probably just going to be something pre-printed, like not super personal. If you're at a larger size where you probably can't handwrite a card for each person, but if they, you know, when you join a Facebook group, like it tells you that you're new, you can see who's new. And if you have a one-to-one chat with them there, that's very specific. It's very personal way that I don't think you can really do with more traditional new guest processes. That's good. Well, and relational really is the answer to online ministry, right? Because, and especially as cold and as distant as technology is, we're trying to prevent people from not doing church in isolation.

And years of my life, I honestly, just transparently, I didn't understand this, which is one of the reasons why I've been so distant on chat hosts. Because chat hosts is really the vehicle that you get people to not watch church in isolation, to not experience that. They're that front line. I used to equate them to guest services and I'm like, eh, who cares about guest services? You don't need them. But, but it's, it's, it's more than that because you've got people who are watching on devices not engaging in an effective chat host ministry is really going to engage that and get them connected into a more relational thing with a Facebook group or, or into a, into a small group or something like that.

And you're starting to build this discipleship pathway. And, and the, as much as probably earlier in my online ministry years, I was really, um, not neg, okay, negative. I was more negative on the chat host. And I was like, it's not, it's not really necessary in the grand scheme of things today. It's, it's vital. It's essential towards that because it's the first line of defense from discovering front first line of defense to discover who these people are. Um, and so, and, and Evan, man, you've, you've done a great job of putting together a program and, and talking through not only, you know, discovering these people who they are, building these relationships, funneling them into, um, you, some sort of a community to engage in, uh, man, I'm excited to see, uh, what else is going on down the road with, uh, with Lighthouse and, and how this, this continues to, to grow.

Hey, okay. So let's, let's land the plane here. Uh, it's been great, but, but let's, let's call it a day. So Ray, what do you got? Anything to land? Evan, great job. Um, talking through and helping guiding us through as far as some of the chat stuff. Um, uh, man, I hope to learn from some of the things that you guys have done. And, uh, man, if you guys have any, anything, any kind of resources that we could throw in the show notes just to help some of our listeners, that'd be great too. Just because I know that for us, and we're still experimenting, we're still working with us here at Chrysler Ship Miami, where I'm at, um, chat hosts have definitely improved the community of where it's been. And like you said, it's definitely helped people take that next step.

And so for everybody who's listening to the podcast today, that's just kind of, if you're just broadcasting your online service, but not necessarily creating community around it, let me encourage you to take that next step. Even if it's you yourself as a staff member, find a way to create community around getting a conversation started during the service. I just want to have resources that people can steal and make their own. Um, I know as we've been growing, that's been really helpful for us to be able to find people who are already doing something and just be able to learn from that and grab some of what they're doing and apply it to what we're doing. So I intend to have some resources that are just easy to take hold of and make your own.

And so I can definitely get those to you guys by the time this goes public. Yeah. So we'll, we'll put it, we'll put that on, on the show notes, um, as well. We'll link to it, make, make it public to everybody. So I know that'll be a huge asset. So man, Evan, for you, as we're landing the plane, anything, um, anything specific? I just want to thank you guys. It's been great to talk through this. Um, I've listened to several of your episodes now. I love what you're doing in the podcast and I just really think it's a great resource for church leaders, especially in the online space. So I'm just thankful for what you guys are doing. That's good, Evan, because it's you, my mom and Jeff's mom, they're listening to the podcast and we're fired up just to know, man.

It's good. Your mom still listens? I don't, uh, what I, I'm kidding. I mean, it's the only podcast she knows about. So she can't, just to get her to open Apple music on her phone is a win. You know what I'm saying? So it's, it certainly has been fun. And, and, you know, having conversations like this, like yours, Evan, guys who are doing a piece of church online and maybe experimenting with things one way or another way, or even being willing to experiment, nobody really has the answer to church online yet. There's not a solid answer and how elevation or how Saddleback or how North Point's going going to execute church online is going to look different than how Lighthouse in Maryland is going to execute church online, which is going to look different than the church plant that's going to do church online.

And so how we all can utilize this online tool to not only broadcast services, but to engage with people and to create disciples. That's really the answer to this in the heart behind everything that we're doing here. And, and chat hosts I'm learning is a, is a essential part of that. And, and it's something that, that we as the church need to engage with specifically in the online environment. So man, Evan, thanks for the time here, jumping on this and, and Ray, once again, it's always great to hang out with you, but I am Jeff with the church digital. We're going to wrap here. This has been great and hope to see you next time. Thanks for joining in. Bye.