EP074: Scot Mendenhall - Gaining & Using Influence on YouTube

Episode 74 of the Church Digital Podcast, once again powered by Stadia Church Planting. Jeff here. I am excited about this episode. I feel like I should have met this guy years ago, and for whatever reason, even though we've lived in the same city, even though we've had a number of mutual friends that interconnect on a regular basis, I just never met this guy: Scott Mendenhall.

So here's his story. Scott is currently a lead pastor at a church up in Minnesota. It's called Unlocked Church, and the church is great. Scott's ministry through the physical church is great. It has absolutely nothing to do—maybe it doesn't have anything to do—but it's not really the core of why I wanted to introduce Scott to you all. You see, Scott also has a pretty vibrant YouTube channel, and his target has been centered around this vehicle. Maybe you know what these are called. It's a one wheel. It's kind of like a motorized scooter without the handlebars with one wheel. I don't know, Google it. Hey, go on YouTube and you can find it. It's incredible. You can see Scott. You can see Scott's six, seven kids riding them. You can see Scott's wife riding them. And so somehow Scott has this switch that's flipped in his head. It's like, "Hey, I'm gonna create content, and then I'm gonna involve my family in this content, and we're gonna focus on one wheels and the digital community on YouTube that's surrounding one wheel."

Now, what's really fascinating is that Scott, through the content, is actually building effective relationships that's allowing Scott the opportunity to connect them to Christ, to share the gospel—not like from a platform or a podium preaching, but relationally connecting with people through the digital technology and then relationally pointing these people to Christ. It's a phenomenal story of how he's been able to gain influence but at the same time leverage that influence for the kingdom of God in great ways, centered around Minneapolis, Minnesota, across the country, and initially here through some of these stories, literally around the world. And so how he's able to leverage that YouTube platform, arguably, is different than anything else that I've heard the church doing today, which is why you, the Church Digital audience, why you need to hear it.

So here's what I'm doing. I'm bringing him in for a conversation. Scott Mendenhall, lead pastor at Unlocked Church, as well as the curator of this YouTube channel, as well as Reid Armas from Christ Fellowship, the digital pastor over there, myself Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting, in a conversation that I'm calling "Gaining and Using Influence on YouTube."

Okay, everybody, here you go. You go out and you answer, and you come in, and so how was it today? And you go, you just give a report. "It was amazing." But had they sat out there for the five hours while you're out there, they would have a totally different interpretation, because you paddle out past the break, which is a lot of work. You sit on your board waiting for the white right wave to come, and you're just sitting there. You're just sitting there. And then you go for a wave and you fall, and all of a sudden, out of five hours, you rode like one epic wave. It's like, "Whoa, that was amazing." And when you get into the beach, you tell people it's a great day because you were so stoked about the one ride you had, but it was surrounded by five hours of paddling, not trying to drown, just sitting on your board.

And so as I begin to tell our story with YouTube and success that we're seeing there, was a lot of paddling involved. There was a lot of us sitting around scratching our head going, "Why aren't we getting traction?" and things of that nature. I'm about to give the highlight of the five hours. Does that make sense?

We started a YouTube channel where we vlog about our family. We had at the time six kids, and it's like, "This is a unique deal. You have six kids, you're starting a church. Let's see if people would attach to our stories." Over a couple years, we've logged strictly about our family. If you go on our YouTube channel and dig down far enough, you'll get to see the birth of two of our children. I had videos going in the room with my wife, and we—if it's real tasteful, it's not like, "Whoa," but too much, you know? It's done. Yeah, it's not a National Geographic worthy. Yeah, it's not. Where it's done very, very tasteful. Even guys would watch it and go, "Oh, wow." Just, and we're not just putting videos out on YouTube that are just videos, right? There's a style to it. There's filters. There's audio. Like, we are taking time to build all those things.

And then about what is two years ago, then—so we've been at it for four years. Two years into it, I got a hold of a device called a one wheel, and I was like, "Dang, this thing's awesome." And then I start realizing that there's this community around one wheels, and it's like, "What? There are Harley-Davidson riders. Are one wheelers, right? It's like this community of people." And we just started leveraging one wheels to gain a bigger audience because on YouTube, you've got to be searchable. People were not searching "pastor raising large family and church planting." That's just not what they're searching. So people are searching one wheels, and so we just started creating content all around one wheels, and we just have seen this explosion of authentic relationships through a digital space through YouTube because they can see me. We can engage in chats below, leaving comments and things of that nature. And now we're well into it. We have steps to move people along so that it's not just entertainment. It's like we're leveraging this to ultimately spread the gospel. We just don't put that out on the channel because, again, you would lose the audience that you ought to reach.

Oh, are you trying to get—you and I love that you're being so honest about the story, and I think the metaphor fits perfectly because, especially right now in the midst of COVID, I'm sure you've had a bunch of churches, bunch of church leaders approach you saying, "Hey, Scott, like, you know, I know that I'm supposed to go digital, but I feel like I'm trying stuff. I tried one thing and it didn't go so well, and now I'm wondering if I should completely bail on it," which I love. How did you—because I think it's so great that you honed in on this specific subculture—how did you start to foster that community there, being that you were so new to it?

I think in all the experiences that you go through, right, like we've got something drop in your heart. We automatically think, "Oh, well, tomorrow I'm gonna be successful. I'm gonna have the audience." And it was God just saying, "No, I want you to start with the vlog so you can learn how to tell stories." And so we began to be able to tell great stories. And so now when we move intentionally to one wheels, we're still going, "Okay, stories. King. What's the story we're telling today?" If we're going to do a product review, what's the story? We don't want to just do product review. How do we keep telling the story? And for us, the story that is always driving everything is that we want to be hope dealers, faith spreaders, and love givers. And so that's, "Okay, how in this video are we going to spread some hope? How are we going to deal some hope? How are we gonna spread love?" And all those—how are we gonna do that in a way that comes across authentic, not fake? I guess that's the same work, but it is reaching through a screen to them.

And so every time it's, "What's the story? The story's king." And then we just tell the story as best as we can. And we often say we'll wrap up every video, "Uh, our hope here is to always be hope dealers, faith spreaders, and love givers." So we don't hide that, but that's a catch for a lot of people, right? Like, I can get into that. That's not a turn-off for them. And then we often hear a lot in the comments, "Man, you guys are so positive. How is it that you guys are so positive all the time?" And it's not, again, it's not us putting on a show. It's just who we are. Go back to the vlogs where we're capturing raw life. I mean, raw life, okay? In those vlogs, they weren't set-up moments. We're just laughing. It's tough, and I mean, we have a vlog where we have seven kids in the middle of Canada, and our boat starts to sink in the middle of nowhere. Like, we have no cell signal. We have nothing. We are bailing out water. We are laughing our heads off at the experience where most people would be freaked out, right? Because you have seven kids in a tiny boat and it's sinking. You were just like, "Well, if you find this video footage, we didn't make it," and we're just laughing at it. But then there's just us, you know? And into that credit, it's not because we have some personality. It's because we genuinely, at the core of who we are, our trust is in Jesus. And we're just like, "Hey, we're not the story here. We're part of this story. Jesus is the story. We're a part of it. And how are we telling that story?"

Let's back up because you said something that's fascinating. Nobody's searching for "pastor," and in the majority of things probably that we are, where we the church are putting on YouTube. I mean, these are things, yeah, people may be searching for "how to pray" or something like that, but as a general rule, like, churches aren't getting a lot of traction on YouTube because we're not creating the right content or we're not positioning ourselves in a way to be useful. Now you're an influencer, and at least I would consider you that way, and you have an audience that's building. Your audience is centered around a mobile vehicle—I mean, literally a one wheel. How did you choose to be an influencer in this area? Like, of all the different things you—you're a surfer. You use that analogy earlier on. There may be some parallels, but there's other things. Six, seven, eight, twenty-nine kids, whatever you're up to at this point. Why one wheel? Like, help me understand that again.

I think, going back to trying to be as real as we can, we want—it's something we absolutely love and enjoy, and so it's just something that was natural. It's not forced. I think, again, not knowing the audience is going to listen to this, but you know, I've always adopted the verse that Apostle Paul writes where he says, "I become all things to all people." Why? To reach everybody. And so for us, it's just like, "Hey, this is where there's an audience. Let's go there, and we'll become experts in this field to reach as many as possible." I guarantee you in a couple years it won't be one wheels. Then it'll be there, and the stories won't do, but we'll move. We'll stay where we're keeping an audience to keep reaching as many as possible with the gospel, the good news of who Jesus is dying on the cross and rising again, right? We will move. We're not married to this idea. We're dating it. We will drop it whenever we feel we need to move. So that's our take on it.

Oh, it always is to not marry—you marry the story of Jesus dying on the cross and rising, and married to it. Never. That's not going anywhere. Not changing it. But how we do it, we will change that all the time. And if you ride a one wheel, I think you also get your answer. You'll get on it and you'll be like, "Oh my gosh, easing." And then also the company—they, for whatever reason, it's a bit where God's opened doors. We are we have favor with the company. There are great guys out there. Are they followers of Jesus? Nope. But they have the same personalities we do. This laid-back vibe, the idea that people matter more than the product. You get that from one wheel. It's not about the product. It's about the experience we're creating for people. And so we just jive in that, and so it makes it really fun. A lot of people think I work for one wheel.

I like them like Greg that just helps us because I think it validates what we're doing. That's cool. How do you guys decide the length of time that you're doing some of your videos? Because I see that some of them are just like, I'm looking at a thirty-two minute video here on your page. I'm like, wow, that's a lot of content, man. For sure. And I know it's not all of them, but you know, fifteen, eight minutes, there's different varying content links and YouTube to me seems to be like a great place for long-form content. But then, you know, we worried about losing that retention in terms of audience. So what are your thoughts there? To geek out a little bit on a little bit of the algorithm stuff. I know YouTube still, learn, and that's probably our weakest is figuring out the computer that you have to get along with, that they would show your things. Is that used? They matter, but it's the length of you. And so you'll see when you go through our channel, we'll have a two-minute video, we'll have a ten-minute video, we'll put a thirty-minute video out there because at the end, it's playing with the algorithm. And there are people that like the thirty-minute video. The we've recently posted a couple thirty-minute rides on just one goes for whatever reason. People like to watch people's feet on one wheels. I don't, I don't get it all the time, but they do. And so we just go out with my six kids that have one wheels and we just go on a long, you know, ten-mile ride, record it, put it on there. And then I do a voice over and we just sit here and we just talk about what we, you know, the wheels were riding. And then we shift to asking the question, where's your hope right now in COVID? How are you handling this? And obviously it's a one-way conversation until they drop comments. And then oftentimes what happens is they drop their comments, we move them to DMs on Instagram or on Facebook so that we can add some deeper conversations because they don't, they don't want to have air all of their business in a very public place.

And so he's playing with algorithms and knowing that, hey, our audience loves it. And to be honest with you, sometimes we'll just take those long ride videos and we'll put them up in our office here and just let them play so it creates a vibe. You don't, you don't put the sound on. You just have this one-wheel ride going on and on the screens and it's just a cool hub. So you guys are leveraging that with next steps to help create a conversation that leads people to the gospel? Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, it's, it's, it's all intentional. And if I can go back, the question is are stated something or said a statement of like church is trying to jump on YouTube. And you know, you go on YouTube and pastors have great teachings on there and in some really well-known pastors have great material on YouTube, but it's for Christians for the most part because unchurched people aren't searching those topics. And even if somebody might search how to pray, but that's not necessarily gonna be an unchurched person. And so you've got to be able to go to the unchurched people, use the right bait. If, because you know, Jesus says the fisher of men. I love to fish here in Minnesota. It's very popular to fish. We did a video recently where the kids and I went one-wheeling with our fishing poles and hit lakes all over here and we just fished and it was hilarious and people loved it. And what I've learned with fishing is you gotta have the right bait. Are you gonna catch nothing? And same with, if you want an audience of unchurched people, you've got to be bringing to them something that they're going to be lured in with, right? And so even down to the way we're dressing, I mean, for me it's all natural, right? I wear Vans, clothes, long hair, have tattoos. That's all natural, okay? So for me it's really easy. But when we have guests, people in videos, we have conversations on what are you wearing? What, what are you going? You know, you just paint this picture that, hey, there is a vibe and we're looking for in these videos. If we want to make it look like we've never done any of that, but we're trying to create this draw. And then title it where people will search it. And you get the unchurched people. They drop comments down below. And if it gets pretty deep, we move it into these DM areas where we can have deep conversations. You find out where they live. If they're local, because obviously in the algorithms and in the tags, we're posting one-wheel Minnesota because we're here. So why not? If they're local and close enough to come to Sunday service, we invite them on Sunday, which we've had, I don't know, a dozen families that have found us through YouTube and jumped into our church here. And they were lovers of Jesus. And though they are, you know, I started because of an electronic device that you write. So it's, it's for us, I don't know if we have it roped down anywhere, but we all talk in the office that the if it's a funnel, the we want the biggest funnel possible. We're funneling people in to get them in a relationship with Jesus. And then we're disciplining them. And we do figure out how do we disciple? I'm so glad that you guys figured out a way to do this. This is missions, essentially, that you're doing, but through digital means. You've rehab people group. So in church on Sundays, we talk about this is our digital missions now. If we aren't in the digital mission field, then we're missing it in this day and age. And so that's how we label it is we go local, global, and digital. And this is our digital missions. And so when we had a switch for COVID, actually, it probably forced us into some things that we really stumbled on was like this Sunday at ten a.m., we're gonna do a premiere on my YouTube channel. It'll be a race between our staff members here and we all have these great outgoing personalities and it's where we just work well. And we just race on one wheel doing all kinds of ridiculous things, shenanigans. And then at the end of that, we go, okay, we're gonna go to another YouTube channel. We're gonna have a conversation. And we set up the conversation in a way that would be compelling to someone that's unchurched. And then go, if you want, click this link and we'll have the conversation. And in that, we have now watched people go from the entertainment, which we labeled behind the scenes. This is our lobby experience on Sunday is the one-wheel race where we can talk, hey, are you still sending your pajamas? Did you brush your teeth today? How are your kids? Lobby experience, right? You got your coffee? Awesome. Then if they click the link, they've gone into the main auditorium where we're now gonna have our official welcome. We're gonna have the a song of some sort. And then we're going to have the teaching and then giving. That's main auditorium stuff. We're then the conversation in the chat room shift from our you and your pajamas to, oh man, that song, I love the line in that song, to the teaching. That's a great point. Or just all different stuff. It shifts because we know as a staff, a team, this is the main auditorium. So he tells us how we need to be communicating, behaving. And then you have the dismissal. Goodbye. Hey, and we'll see you on Tuesday if you're in the one wheels on our YouTube channel where we'll drop another video. So then you have them coming back. Hmm, what's that? That's awesome. By the way, just how you're utilizing this on your own channels to funnel in, to create the funnel that's pulling people in, feeding them into discipleship. And I think you said there's twelve, twelve people that have connected to your physical church there in Minnesota through this. What, what does that look like? What is your funnel look like for people that aren't in the physical location? How are you driving them into the funnel of discipleship? What, what does that process or pathway look like for people that aren't physically near you?

Yeah, so I think it is DMs where you're keeping it digital, digital. Be honest to you, but where you're just typing and you don't get to see their face. And then we, we have at noon on Wednesdays, it's just a one-wheel Zoom meeting or a GoToMeeting. And it's we put the link in my profile on Instagram. We talked about it in our videos. And then people are popping in there. And that's where you're really, right? That's where I get sped up quick. And we're early on in that stage that it's not heavy Jesus at the moment. It's just so on pepper at the moment because, man, we want real relationships. We want them to know first that we love them. And that when we talk about Jesus, it's not to have a checkmark. Oh, look, we just got that person. That person just got saved. And, oh, look at we're doing so well. I don't want that impression. We're feeling it doesn't to me. Numbers is in the thing in a sense. It's really about, hey, one matters. One absolutely matters to me. And we're fortunate to now be edited long enough that it's, you know, it's not just one anymore. It's more. It's, it's being faithful with a few. God brings increase when we show that we'll be faithful with the one person in a digital capacity. God will continue to bring us more. And sometimes that faithful bit isn't just sticking around. It's upgrading the quality of video, upgrading the audio, upgrading the look. That's being faithful in what you're doing. And so to see everyone beginning final watch a video, step two, three, there's no steps. It's just come in any way you can. You might go from watching video, jump into the Zoom meeting, or you might stay in DM. I don't really care as long as that you have a point where we are pointing them to Jesus and they get to make the decision. Am I gonna be a follower of Jesus or not? And so those Wednesday meetings have been really crucial for us, been a lot of fun. About twenty, some people have been in there on average. But we're rotating who is from over the world. Like it's not Minnesotans and it's not just United States. It's Europe. It's Africa. It's, it's crazy. It's crazy. I totally appreciate your heart of, hey, you know what? We want to be authentic. We're building relationships with this. We see a potential towards us. And we see God's leading towards things towards doing ministry. But we want to be authentic and relational in that. It's not about numbers. I'm just wondering, kind of as you're looking at the potential of what's here, when you're looking down the road, what, what's your vision in this area? You've got a physical church. You're funneling the physical people through. You've got an opportunity to connect with people on it, on a digital landscape where people are your description, multiple continents are now engaging with you. So you've got what's the start of influence across multiple continents through a one-wheel YouTube channel. Like, what, what would you see happening in those areas as you're planning or praying or even thinking? Like, what, what does this look like down the road? What, where are you taking this?

So this was sound like I'm kind of digging myself because numbers don't matter, but we want massive influence in social media. It's funny you said earlier you're such an influence there. I don't say that. Yeah, like I'm so, I'm so wired that that I'm always thinking to the future and not in the presence in the in the sense. Like, so I would say I'm an influencer until we have at least twenty thousand subscribers, you know? So that's how I look at that. But and that's the more we get, the more opportunities we get to shine the light of Jesus. And so we're not sitting around just going, oh, this is our pie. We know we're gonna become better at what we're doing to tell a better stories. I mean, the long-term, and I hope that I don't know how to say it other than we're the poster example of how to do ministry on YouTube, that what are the pioneers of it, that we're figuring it out in that is, you know, no one's asked this question yet.

But I'll throw it in there for how much hate we get from other pastors for what we're doing. Oh God, I would love for them to jump on here and go, "Oh, I see it," because I just think that we, as pastors, sometimes I'm embarrassed to call myself a pastor because it means too much to too many people. That it's about butts in seats and bucks in a bucket. It's nothing like pastor is my job. What you're hearing me talk about on YouTube is me being a follower of Jesus. It's not because I'm a pastor. And so this isn't about somebody having a titled pastor get a YouTube channel. No, if somebody's listening to this and they are a human and you have a passion about something, create content on it with the heart of leading people to Christ. Look at what's in your hand and do something with it. Stop with what's in everybody else's hands and wish you had what they had. No, you have stuff in your hand now. Go do something with it. And so that's really the result of what we're doing. We had technology, ability to edit video, so we went get something with it. And so I don't know if that's too harsh, but it's like, man, if everybody we're doing this, you just would make an impact. And so long-term, I don't know how to label it in any way other than we want to have massive influence on YouTube. And we've always said it this way: we would love to build a building one day funded by YouTube. And so if you put the math together, that means we're here for a long time and we're going to. We want to be very successful what we're doing because I don't want to ever have to do a giving campaign ever in the history of Unlock Church. And so we have decided to figure about revenue in other places other than constantly berating our people in, "Hey, give us more money." If they're obedient as a follower of Jesus, they're going to give. You just will tap their heart. Come on, hey, you have excess of resources, give more. That's not my job. That's Jesus's job between people and now.

If I stepped on some people, tell us. You might be deleting this part. The reason I would call you an influencer is because you're utilizing. There are probably churches that have more YouTube followers. There are definitely people that have more YouTube followers. But the reason I consider you an influencer is because you're doing something to reach people that aren't church people, and you've been successful doing it. The average church is gonna say, "Oh hey, let's attack YouTube. We won. So hey, let's put our sermons up. Let's chop our sermons up into smaller, more digestible pieces. Let's try to do something with content that they already have because they're hoping that they don't have to put more work into making YouTube happen." And to this point, and I don't want to overstate here, but it's not necessarily as successful as to your point. Let's put in the work. Let's go paddle around. We're gonna get some success eventually, but it's going to take you five hours worth of paddling to get to one wave to see it, see the success. And so the fact that you're creating new content, the fact that you're targeting a one, an individual, you're leaving the ninety-nine sheep to go after the one sheep, and that's multiplying in context of digital like this. This to me is exciting because you're looking at YouTube as a community, not as a tool to funnel people into a physical community. And you're targeting people around the country. Targeting may even be a strong word. You are reaching people of the Onewheel community that way.

Let me ask this: like, what would be next? Because you said something earlier. You were like, "Hey, so we're gonna do this. We're doing this Onewheel thing for a while, but at some point, you know, it may be Onewheel and something and something." And you know, is it like stickers on a NASCAR where you're just kind of looking for different things? Or would you keep with the same kind of one? Like, who's your one with? With Onewheel, let me start with that. Who are you going after? And then what would maybe be some other ways that you're thinking about reaching that one?

Well, I think if you watch the content, you can see that we keep our family involved in the background on different things that we're trying to. At the same time of talking about a product, we're also trying to be an example on what does it look like to be a family that it's not dad's hobby here. It's this is an entire family that surrounded this. Like a week ago, we just built a berm in the backyard, and it was all hands on deck. We filmed it. The kids are carrying lumber, and then we go and ride it, and it's so much fun. Last night we're up, I think till 10:30, the entire family just riding a berm all night, laughing, and there's no video cameras going. It's genuinely what we were doing as a family. But what we try to do is put that into videos that we can help families become better families. Like we've seen that as well in the videos going, "Oh man, I never thought about riding with my kid, or I never thought my kid at that age was capable of handling machines like what we were doing or building things." And so we always are intentional what we're doing. It will always look like we're not, but we try to think through everything. How are we inspiring not just the person that rides? Whoa, how do we help the families be better families and serve them in what we're doing visually? How is this? I think a couple wins we've had recently is that families are now watching our content together. And so to see that a dad, he was right, "Oh my, my kids love watching your content." The problem is is that they now want a Onewheel. And so to me, I think that's a huge win that we're creating content for the whole family. It's safe, it's healthy, and we're inspiring the next generation as well.

And then when you're asking what's next, I don't have that written down somewhere. I think for me it has always been for the life of me being a follower of Jesus, paying attention, wearing caught wears culture headed in, trying to be ahead of culture instead of catching up to culture. I think the church is guilty of that all the time of catching up to culture instead of being in where culture is right. It's a step behind. I mean, it's just embarrassing. And so like for us being four years into YouTube, we didn't want to catch up to it, right? Though and I want people to jump in and do YouTube channels and stuff, but it's like you're catching up. It's like if you haven't started thinking about what you're gonna do on TikTok, you're trouble, right? We're already sitting here going, "How are we leverage TikTok? What are we gonna do with it?" And we won't get on there and really go after TikTok till we know what we're gonna do there. And so it's just paying attention where's culture going in, paying attention, how can we be the salt of the earth that Jesus has called us to be inside culture? We are to keep it salty. And so we'll often say that in our videos, "Hey, we're just trying to keep it salty." And those are followers of Jesus will know exactly what we're talking about. What those that don't, don't get it until they become a follower of Jesus. And like, I get it. Recently, we got a young guy from England that just became a follower of Jesus through all of this, through the COVID experience. He's in England. He loves Onewheel. His wife is a little bit messy. And he's now, "My life is totally different. I've never known a group of people like this." And he started talking about some things in the chat room on Sunday during service. And to watch our community of people here at Unlock Church jump in, you start loving on him. He's like, "I've never experienced that. Jesus is real." It's just, it's cool. It's really cool.

That's awesome. How are you? Because I know that YouTube has put in like certain things for content for kids. I imagine with your kids on Onewheel, this is kind of I can only see it as being explosive in terms of reaching children because my kids love watching other kids do things on YouTube. Like, that's a huge factor for them. How are the different graphics in terms of the age range of people that are watching you? Because I imagine a lot of kids. I imagine my kids would totally be into this.

Yeah, so with in January, YouTube shifted a lot of things. They got a lot of trouble with advertising and marketing to young kids, and so they changed a lot of their stuff. And so when that happened, we really changed as well where the kids are more in the background of what we're doing. They're not the focal point. And then everything we're putting out is marked as not made for kids. So when you watch our recent stuff, you can't really tell it is not for kids, but kids love it. That's the funny thing about like even what YouTube's trying to do. It's like not made for kids, but kids are entertained by it.

Okay, so when we look at our demographics, we're worried. Love, because the algorithm tells you everything. I mean, it's kind of scary when you know, I mean, I can tell you how many women watched and men watched. I can tell you what their age groups are. And if the fun bit is we don't leave really heavy anywhere. We have from the ages of, because on YouTube you can't legally have an account before thirteen, right? So it all starts at thirteen and above. But most of ours are in the age bracket eighteen to fifty-five, I think. And when you look at the videos, it's almost even across the board on that, which I like. That's what we want because if we were just getting people that were my age, and that's not healthy. I mean, that's just average leadership. You just subtract your own. Write your own major. That's you don't have to try. But to get across the board and get other age groups, that's work and intentionality, which we have put in to make sure we're reaching those. And when you look at, we have Lilly and Kristen, are two Onewheel riders with us that aren't staff here, and we put them in almost all of our videos. Why? Because it drives the women to our videos that were. It's complete. It's not just section to men. We are going, "No, we want women riders. We want to be able to have a voice into their life as well." Same with my wife being on the videos because when my wife's in here, then the moms, they're thinking about, "Hey, can I ride?" Well, yeah, here you go. The algorithm, you know, and in learning that on YouTube, honestly, that's that's the one piece of this that I've just even started starting. I don't know that I've really spent time going into that.

And another thing that I'm learning a lot in this season, ironically, is TikTok. And you know, just just a couple minutes ago, ironically, and the reason this is ironic is I'm like number one on Google right now for TikTok in church for some reason. The Google search thing, and it'd be couple articles that we have. I get hundreds of viral hits a day from people searching whether their church should be on TikTok. And I'm actually pro because I feel like we should be connecting via whatever methods possible. And in the grand scheme, people are upset at Jeff because of something that's high on the list because people think that we should not be on TikTok. These are also the same people that said we shouldn't be broadcasting church services online. But hey, COVID happened and everything's crazy. So what I want to hear from you is what are you seeing and how is that paying off as you're engaging with people from this authentic ministry stance that you're looking for? How is TikTok paying off for you and how are you utilizing it?

Well, I just think any new platform, okay, not just TikTok, whatever the thing is next, why should the church be theirs? Because people are there. Like, if you don't show up, who's bringing the light? Who's bringing the salt? Are we supposed to bring that? Like, I sort of like for those that would say we aren't to be there, I mean, they're not reading the gospel that I'm reading. And that's to me it's a problem, right? Because if we're not...

Coming in there and bringing the good news, who's going to? And if we're not presenting the message of Jesus as good news, we're telling the wrong story because the angels introduce Jesus, right? The gospel has the good news said to the shepherds: "I bring you good news." But we start bringing shackles and chains and going, "You can't and you shouldn't," and all these things. Hold up, it started as good news. Maybe we go back to that and take that into TikTok and YouTube and Twitter and Instagram and whatever is next. Get in it, get on there. You know, it's just, I just, yeah, I mean, I also, I'm gonna just like that and leave it. It's like it's silly to me. I want more people being that are authentic followers of Jesus where they're listening what Jesus has to say and that they love people. I want them in those platforms because somebody's got to be in there. I mean, if not, all the skins spread is pornography and lies and fear and in too much other things. Just go, if we're not there, who's going to?

It's from Ezekiel chapter 22, maybe, where God says, "I'm looking for somebody to stand in the gap," and there was nobody. We long ago say, "I'm gonna stand in the gap for the unchurched people and their little play them on YouTube." I mean, I think what probably keeps people wanting to go there is that, yeah, there's a lot of darkness in Twitter and a lot of darkness on YouTube and stuff. I mean, somebody posted a link on one of our videos just the other day that linked to pornography. Well, do I want to see that? No. Oh my gosh, you know, did it disgust me? Yeah. So I have to manage my comment section. I have, I report those that do it because I can't. But then again, I sit there, I'm kind of like, "Hey, we're reaching the right audience. They don't know Jesus. They would do that, but they listened. And you have no idea what Jesus will do with just simple acts of love." And they might act out of hatred or disrespect. That's not to me, and I wasn't offended by that individual. I was just like, "Hey, what do we expect? We are in a world where there is unchurched people. They're going to behave like unchurched people." That's great, and that's who we want to reach.

I just wanted to commend you because I think it's amazing that you've identified a subculture that's unique to something if you already are, and that you've leveraged it for the sake of the gospel. Can you think of any other subcultures do you think that pastors would find interest in outside of like Bible stuff? Right, because once again, that's not what people are searching on YouTube. And so I think a lot of pastors, you're thinking, "Well, yeah, you know, Scott, I got like, I got likes and interest and I got things that I'm into, but where would I start?" I'm trying to answer in two ways, right? Because some of it will be technology. People will say, "I got something I'm into, but I don't have lights and cameras." But everyone has a cell phone with pretty high quality camera these days. And so you already have what God is giving you the equipment to use video to spread good news. And then it's really, what are your hobbies? If if pastors' only hobby is the Bible, that's good, what I've done, but they've got to have other ones, right? Like, come on, stop telling me that all I do is read the Bible and pray. I'm sure there are those people, but there, if you're into food, teach people to make food. If you're into fitness, give workouts once a week, whatever you're into, leverage those things that you might be able to teach people and help people.

I think great communicators do this every Sunday from a platform. They tell a story that what draws people in so they can give the message. And so we're trying to tell the story of how to make something work out, knit something, plant something, to then illustrate the message. And the message doesn't have to be in every video. It's periodically. And on our YouTube channel, we leverage Christmas and Easter where we put the gospel very heavy. We saturate it on our channel. Those are some of the longer ones. Like this past Christmas, we flew out to LA and we met up with the creators of OneWheel and created content with them, and then we aired it on Christmas morning. And we, five thousand people watched it on Christmas morning. Wow. We had the gospel message in it, and it was us, you know, we had races involved in it. It was just, it was a lot of fun as well.

What helps us with partnering with OneWheel is that we, if we do it right, OneWheel will post some of our things on their Instagram and YouTube account, which they have thirty-five thousand followers on Instagram and more. I haven't looked recently, but every time they post something of ours, we gain twenty, thirty, a hundred new followers. And so it's advantageous to work with somebody that can help you with the mission. And they know what we're doing. We've not hid it from them. They know exactly what we're doing.

We're doing a camp this summer, and in a couple weeks, it's Camp in a Box. And OneWheel is sending us OneWheels that's gonna go to every camper. Hmm, come on. Yeah, it's gonna cost us a lot of money, but we're giving it free. And then we're gonna be on YouTube doing a live broadcast TV show, in a sense, on YouTube with a chatroom. And we're gonna have craft time with kids, and one of the crafts is developing or taking your OneWheel and designing it how you want, and then text us a picture and we'll put it on our screens. And so it's not just helping us with our YouTube channel, it's helping us spread the gospel because all of a sudden you're doing this camp and there getting OneWheels. Mm-hmm. And it's a free camp, but yet you just got something that if you went on OneWheel's website is twelve dollars. You just gave me a twelve dollar thing. We're giving three hundred. I'm away as we're have three hundred people doing a digital camp. Sounds like we need to me, right? No, that's brilliant.

I feel like you have found a way, and I'd say this with the utmost respect, I'm like you guys have found a way to leverage this partnership with a company that essentially doesn't share the same faith values that you share. They might share like similar values and family and friendship and and fun and, you know, safety with OneWheel and all that stuff, but in terms of the gospel, they're not there. But they're okay with you leveraging your platform for sharing your message, and it's a flourishing partnership here. You know, somebody checks our YouTube channel, you want to guys set it, we are not. There are millions of more people out there for us to get subscribers. So we're just starting at the race. We need as many people subscribing and watching. The more views you get and the more subscribers you get, the more the algorithm presents this stuff in front of people.

And what we've learned on YouTube, it doesn't matter how good our content is if our title sucks and our thumbnail sucks, no one's clicking it. We have got to have a good title and we learned early on you can't do bait and switch or clickbait, right? People get mad at you, and I think that's the opposite of spreading hope. We just lied to them, right? And so we've got to have a compelling title that's truthful and a picture that someone goes, "I want to click that." And so we're just stumbled on in the last probably six months doing better at those things, which is helping us grow quicker. But ultimately comes down to people wanting to watch our content, watching it longer. Like when we do those thirty-minute videos, if if somebody watches fifteen minutes of it, well, that's fifty percent of the video, and that's kind of a threshold you want. You want fifty percent. You want fifty percent of your videos to be watched because then YouTube goes, "Okay, it's being watched fifty percent of the time on this. We're sending it to more people and more people," and then it just takes off and it snowballs on its own. And you just, you know, I wake up and just comment back to everybody that summer morning. Starts, I sit down, I comment back to the several hundred comments we have on our videos, and then I check my email and then create more content.

You've inspired me. Well, I'm interested in doing this. Help me get started. My hobby in my life, the thing that I would say, yeah, I'm probably interested in this, yes. I spend a lot of time doing this anyway. There may be a market. Well, there may be an audience. It's Jeeps. I love Jeeps, driving around the Jeep wave, trying to mod out the Jeep, always doing something. I never worked in the garage. Never. It was like wasted space for years until I bought the Jeep, and now I'm in the garage as much as possible, even in this COVID season. It was funny. I was driving around this morning. I don't do a lot of driving 'cause of COVID, and in a Jeep, a guy waved at me as I was driving down Old Color Road here in Miami, and I just had this like warm feeling inside. It's like, "Yes, the Jeep Wave. I'm back with my people." So I'm thinking about doing this Jeep thing. Like, give me some practical insight. How? Give me three steps. How do I start with this thing? I've got a hobby. I've got an idea. What's next?

Okay, so you've identified your niche, right? It's Jeep. Second is, what's the story of your first video? What's the story you're gonna tell? And it could be you've got a new mod you're putting on there, and that's the story that day. Alright, I got this Jeep Wrangler. I'm putting a new bumper on, and as you install the bumper, you're telling the other stories of what you've done to your Jeep. So that's it. Identify the story and what are you gonna do to it? And then what is your end result? Like, every video, like, what's what are you gonna say? These like, what we say, "Hope, your faith, rather love, giver." That sums up everything. So we'll be your, what would be the mantra that someone would go, "Okay, Jeff likes Jeeps. I like his content, but what's he, what's he, what's driving all this?" And you sum it up with this. Boom. Well, they'll click and subscribe, and then, "Hey, next week we have this. We're so, what's the tactic? Make him come back." That you're going to regularly post. If you don't regularly post, if you don't have a schedule, it's hard for people to buy into it because they don't know when you're gonna post next. There's no, it's not a real authentic relationship because they don't. They don't know. I'm so like, for us, when we're posting right now during COVID, we've been posting, I think, five times a week. And so that's a lot of content, yeah, be creating. I mean, that's that's burning the midnight oil at times. But the reason we've grown by thousands in the last week or so is because of the consistency that people can turn on their computer the next morning and there we are. Yeah. So so once a week is is that a reasonable? Twice a week? Like, what I'm doing enough to get noticed but not so little that no mom forgotten about? Yeah, once a week is great because it allows you as a content creator to have enough time to give a thought for the next one. And as you create your channel, you know, put that, it's the banner or channel art. They would say who you are and what you're about. You don't have a picture there with your Jeep and post like, I post every Monday at eight o'clock or whatever day you're choosing. And then you posted all the time. We we used to do every Wednesday, and everybody would thank us for being consistent, no matter what it was. Whatever Wednesday, well, it's like Christmas this year, I think, fell on Wednesday. One of the holidays did, and we posted our video, and everyone's like, "I didn't think we'd get one, but we did. What a great treat to have." And so on YouTube, you can you can schedule things out, right? Sometimes we post videos and they're sitting there and they just know to go live, and I don't click it. And so, but let me ask, is I am a fellow Jeep owner. What Jeep do you own? Yes, so I've got a JK Jeep Wrangler, a 2015, its anvil gray, four-door. So I normally this time of year I would have the lid off and just the.

Roof off. I've got a hydraulic system in a garage. It lifts it off, you know, break it down. I've got to take the doors off and I've got the kind of the fabric mesh doors on because of COVID. I'm just I'm out of kilter a little bit and I don't normally do what I'm doing with it, but yeah, like I love it. I just put new tires on, probably a little more street than I wanted to do.

I have been the guy, by the way, and you can go on my Instagram channel to see this. I am the guy who's gotten stuck in the Jeep. My best Jeep story is that I was in Ocala National Park and got stuck in the mud out there in Ocala National Park. Used to be a missile testing, rocket missile testing facility, and there's hundreds of miles of dirt roads that all intertwine and they're awesome. And so we got stuck in the mud, just me, my wife, my two kids, the dog. We were driving back from vacation from North Carolina to Miami. There was no cell signal and there was probably not a person around for three or four miles, and it was like eleven o'clock in the day. And so I literally jumped out of the Jeep and took off running for probably an hour trying to find cell signal. I knew roughly the map of where I was supposed to go to find help to get us unstuck. And I got like this tweet. My phone vibrated because it came in as I all thank God, there's cell signal. So I called to get somebody to come, you know, tow us out.

So like I've just I've had it. I've loved the Jeep. I've had it for maybe three years. And so I could see doing something like that. But the thing that's interesting is that like for me, I don't consider myself a Jeep guy. Like if the idea of hey, let me highlight this and become an influencer in this area, I'm honestly I'm a church online guy. That's what I'm passionate about. And so when I've done that kind of in, but you know, the majority of people don't care about church online, okay? The listening audience cares about church online, but my next-door neighbor doesn't care about church online. You know, the next-door neighbor doesn't care that I'm a pastor. The next-door neighbor doesn't care about those things. He probably cares about I'm a Jeep guy because his son drives a Jeep and I actually I talked with his son, you know, sometimes about the Jeep. And so having that as a connection point and creating content, like I never thought of myself being that type of guy, but all of a sudden I'm starting to put things together in my head that's like, could I really utilize the Jeep and my passion for the Jeep and doing things to build relationships with people I could lead to the kingdom? I just I've never put that in my head together until this conversation.

And you know, for me, I need to make sure I say this because I modeled this all from Jesus's encounter with the woman at the well. He knew everything about her and how jacked up she was, but he didn't go there yet. He talked about something they could all relate with, and that was the well that they were sitting around. They had a quick conversation about the well. He then morphs it into, I can actually hook you up with water, never thirst again. She's like, what? And then all of a sudden calls her out on her sin, and then she finds Jesus, runs into the city and says, okay, I got this guy. You guys don't gotta meet there. That's the equation on YouTube. What is in common with the people that you can draw their attention to? How can you then turn it to point to Jesus? Point out there that they're sinners and then that they ask forgiveness? Every penny and Jesus becomes part of their life and then they tell other people, right? It's the woman at the well experience. And I'm just trying to live it out over years. I'm not Jesus, so I can't do it within a few sentences. It takes patience, but that's really how I've modeled all of it, all the way through student ministry down in Florida. We partnered with Red Bull. We were as I was a sponsored communicator by Red Bull and a local surf shop. They sent me their clothes and Red Bull sent me their hats to wear, and Red Bull would come out on our Wednesday night meetings. It was just leveraging someone to get their influence so that I might point other people to Jesus. It's so we've been doing it for a long time, and I think we're just getting started. I'm excited about where Jesus is going to take this thing. And if it stays put where it is, hey, we're gonna be faithful with who we got and keep seeing people find Jesus.

I love this. It's utilizing influence that you have, passions that you have, finding ways to get it online to more influence others with the purpose of pointing them towards the kingdom relationally. Like this is so good. And this is really the way that YouTube or even some of the stuff that I'm calling digital church, like this is the way that a digital-only model of church would work. It's empowering individuals with the gospel and utilizing their circle of influence, expanding their influence in your context with YouTube, and then unleashing them with the gospel relationally to connect over. Like this is so good, man. Scott, I want to keep having conversations and dive in and learn more about this, but we have to do it for another podcast. We'll have to bring you back. So I want to see how this thing continues to grow and develop in this season.

So hey, Ray, as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts? Scott, you've done such a phenomenal job of identifying a community that needs to be reached and then looking for ways to reach them in a way that's completely authentic to who you and your family are. I just think it's so wonderful. And I hope not just pastors, I hope that more believers kind of understand and grasp this fact that God's given us these tools. God's given us your interest, your passion, whatever it is, and you can leverage it for the sake of reaching people for Christ. I just think that's so wonderful. And it's funny because it's so simple and yet it's so powerful in the way that God is using it.

Yeah, even that you're involving the kids, you know, and letting them be in the whole we're out on the boat, we're bailing out, somebody grab a camera and film this because this is just funny. Like we're somebody, if you find the camera, like kind of Blair Witch a little bit there, if you find the camera, you know, hope it was a good story. But in some kid out there is like, what's Blair Witch? And that's a completely separate conversation.

So hey, Scott, as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts on your side?

I just again, I said it before, and you know, everybody whoever's listened to this, look at what's in your hands and go do something with it. That's it. I mean, everybody's been prepared to do something with what's in their hand. It's just now we got to go do it. That's a lot of work. I mean, it really is, but to reach people, I think is way worth it. And so I hope this inspires some other people. And if people want to subscribe to our channel, Marillion, leave a comment on our latest video that you are from this podcast. I hope you enjoy the journey.

Yeah, hey, so Scott, if people want to find you on YouTube, if they want to find you on social media, like what's the best way for people to track you?

Yeah, just my name. I'm one of those guys that long ago said I'm gonna do everything in my name. So it's just Scott Mendenhall. But the trick is I only have one T. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for messing up my social media game because when people put in Scott, they'll put two T's and they'll never find me. But so just Scott Mendenhall, Scott with one T. I'm fortunate enough to have enough influence now on YouTube that I think Scott with double T's I ranked in the top thirty percent, which is okay to me. I want to be number one on that. But yeah, there are a lot of Jeff Reads in the world. Most of them are not nice people. Some of them are okay people, but there's some not nice Jeff Reads out there. So I often get confused with the Jeff Reads that you know I don't want to be confused with. So enjoy your one T because that's worth it.

Yeah, I'll make you special. Scott dot com. That's not a large domain unless you're Scottish. Maybe let's like some Scott. You know, I own Scott Mendenhall dot com. I just have not done anything with it. One day, one day. I own a lot of websites. I'm gonna see if that's available and I just purchased it. Like I can't believe like when we moved to Minnesota, I bought I Heart Minnesota dot com. It's like how has no one bought that?

Yeah, or I Heart the Twin Cities. I own all of those because one day we're gonna do something with those. They like yeah, or else I think they would, you know, they're worth a bit of money at the moment.

Yeah, awesome. All right, hey, so this is we're gonna wrap on I Heart Twin Cities dot com. Let that be the walk away. Hey, you're welcome, Minnesota, for this. Hey, yeah, so anybody in Minnesota who's cold, you're welcome down here in Miami to thaw out. And just you know, watch out for the COVID part that I knew from Miami to Minnesota. And so I would say that I would, Scott, when you moved, I never felt more for someone hustling backwards, bro. I always like, no, oh, it's so cold. But here's the deal, to be honest, we wouldn't, I wouldn't be, if I stayed, we wouldn't be having this conversation because the move set us up to be able to run after some of those dreams that I've had that you could go after. And so we wouldn't be, you know, I mean, and I love, I love my time there. And if it wasn't God calling me here, I'd still be at Potential Church. Love that church. Love Tory Grambling and all of those things. But the move has allowed us to pursue those. I wonder if this could work. It's funny sometimes you got to let go what you have to really grasp hold of what God has for you. So yeah, love that. And despite the fact that it's like negative thirty degrees at Christmas, hey, good luck with. And if you, you can tell I'm passionate about this. I can talk all day. And I hope we've inspired people, man, to do this. It's not just for a select few. Everyone can do this.

Love it. Hey, so thanks for the time, Scott, with all of his passions centered around one wheels, YouTube, one wheel, excuse me, YouTube, and looking forward to see what's next there. We'll put all his info in the show notes. But for Scott, for Ray, this is Jeff with the Church Digital. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next time here on the podcast. Y'all have a good day.