EP089: Steve Fogg & Ministering to People on Google’s Dime

Episode 89 of the Church Digital Podcast powered by Stadia Church Planting. Jeff here. Okay, we did something with this podcast never done before in the history of the Church Digital Podcast. We went multi-continent with this one. That's right. We were having a conversation with the guy literally on the other side of the planet. Australia, in fact. As a matter of fact, it's winter, so it's summer here, July, August, somewhere around that right now, and it's literally like snowing outside where he is.

We're talking with Steve Fogg. Now Steve, maybe familiar with some of you guys. Steve did the Church Online Summit in April, May of 2020. Really the first time that a lot of churches got exposure to how to do church online was this massive conference. Four thousand, forty-five hundred churches. He talks about it in the podcast. Seems a really great guy. Australian. Does a lot of digital communication, digital marketing, that sort of thing. Just really has a passion for church online.

So we were talking recently, just catching up, you know, like I always do with people who are on other continents, and just exploring and talking about what we're learning in church online season. And I realized, hey, we really haven't talked much about really marketing church or church online or how to do effective digital marketing. And a lot of this is so necessary in this COVID season as really things like Facebook and things like YouTube. We talked with Dave Adamson, and also things like Google in general. Really, this is the platform. This is the opportunity for us to connect with new ones that are out there if we utilize it properly.

So one to bring Steve on the podcast, and we're going to talk about like the Google AdWord grants that you can get. Google's literally writing you a check every month for you to promote your church, but also to do ministry, to connect with people and build relationships. And Steve really, just in this podcast, really just scratches the surface of what could be for your church to figure out how to effectively market your church, your services, but really more than that, utilize these techniques to connect with people in a different way.

So I'm bringing into the conversation Ray Diomarcos, of course, Digital Pastor, Christ Fellowship Miami, as well as a regular co-host here on the Church Digital Podcast. Bringing in Steve Fogg, Church Online Summit founder, Australian, great accent, regular marketing guru guy. And I'm bringing it myself, of course, Jeff, with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting, in a conversation that I'm simply calling "Ministering to People on Google's Dime."

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Hey, see, maybe just even to open up, just tell us a little bit about yourself. Um, who you are, literally on another continent, on the other side of the planet from Ray and I here on the East Coast. Tell us your, tell us your ministry story.

Yeah, so, um, my ministry story. Um, so I'm here in Melbourne, Australia. So g'day everybody. Nice to meet you all. We're currently in lockdown stage four. Everything's sharp. We've got nighttime curfews. Our state's a bit of a mess at the moment.

I served on my staff. In fact, rewinding a bit before that, I became a Christian in my late twenties. Um, had no real church upbringing. Got kept by the gospel. Who, my wife, my then girlfriend, my wife introduced me to. I felt a call and quite quickly leading into ministry, passionate, wanted to serve the Lord. Um, thinking I'd be a pastor. So I did an internship at my church. And after that internship was coming to a close, two positions on staff came up in my team, and I thought, well, hello, I'm going to get one of these roles. And my pastor, who led the team, had to bring me aside. I said, "Steve, you're not going to get either of those roles, even though I'd literally been doing them for the last few years. We don't think this is you. We think this is you."

And fast forward six months later, I became the communications director for my church and started off with a half time. Um, half a day a week in graphic design, half a day a week in web support. So those were the two assets I had to work with, plus my graphic design background. And basically from there, grew to a team of seven part-time, full-time staff, including videographers. And all along, this thing called digital was emerging as a concept. And I got captured by the thought of how social media could really accelerate the gospel out there. And that was when Facebook didn't have its kind of, you know, gated approach in terms of its algorithms and all that sort of stuff. So I was fascinated by it and saw the potential.

And I remember one day on Sunday morning, I was actually, as you know, underneath the surface, I'm like any dark, I'm public nightmare, right? Um, I was doing a social media post for our Facebook page back in when we got decent reach. And it was St. Patrick's Day. And I would just remember creating a post. So again, design, I can do something, whip something up pretty quickly. So I just created what I like, a picture post, and just after some St. Patrick's Day and about leprechauns from Korean beer is about one man who is passionate at reaching a whole continent for Jesus. I just posted down our Crossway Facebook page. And by the end of the day, it traveled all the way around the world, reached over a hundred thousand people, gone into Ireland, gone into the United States, and come all the way back again. And it was at that moment where I went, "Oh, this thing's got a chance to really go a lot more than I thought."

And I kind of church online have been kind of in my periphery then. And then a couple of years later, um, I kind of whispered into my into my head, maybe we should do it, Steve. Maybe we should do it. And then I got a bit braver when I actually in this room. So we care for my mother-in-law, and she, this used to be her bedroom, and she could come to our church on our app, but that was it. And I just thought there was something more she needed, that community. And I thought, ah, church online, because you can make those next steps. And we had a short chat, and it was cool when we had thousands of downloads, but it's all quite, you know, kind of like what life is like right now. We've covered it. It's kind of all screens. And, um, anyway, at that moment when I'm sitting there helping her connect to a sermon on her iPad, the Lord just whispered to me, church online. So I went the next day to talk to my pastor and said, "I think we should start a church online campus."

Um, and, um, you know, we've had a couple of chats about it a year or so before that, and he said, "Okay, great. Well, get me a board paper. I'll present to our next board meeting." Workshops are about four thousand people. So going from like a discussion to a board meeting in one conversation, it's quite a big leap. And I was kind of like, "Oh, wow, okay, I really need to get smart on this."

So all of a sudden, I'm contacting all the big churches out there that were doing this. This is six years ago, right? So no one's really doing it here. So all the people I knew, I'm going, "Okay, I need to find out more." I'm madly putting this board paper together with the best of a lot of ignorance. And then I got invited along to the board meeting, presented, and then we hopped onto Life Church's Church Online. And so all these heavyweight corporate types in this board meeting, all of a sudden, seat in front of them. And we jump on the prayer and just ask for prayer. And this person said, "Oh, I'd love to be able to pray for your church board right now." And the person prays for everybody in this room. And all of a sudden, everyone's like, "Oh, okay, we get this now."

So green light, green light, green light. Church online starts. Six months later, we grow to about two and a half thousand people in a couple of years using digital marketing strategies that kind of really were forming in my own mind. I didn't really have any training, but I knew enough about the Google Ad Grant. I knew enough back then in the early, early days of Facebook ads. Um, and just thought about how I'd do a global approach. We were very blessed. We had some, um, kind of gospel sponsors in terms of budgets to do that. And we grew like crazy. We, you know, by the time I stepped off staff, we had like fourteen services on this day, had all of the people who were supporting that, hosting, following up. So I've really built a team quite rapidly when kind of for everybody else, people are still going, "What's church online?"

And then fast forward to this year. I've been out of kind of ministry per se, in terms of a ministry role, for a few years. I'm now in a digital marketing agency. And, um, all of a sudden, COVID hits. And all of a sudden, this February, I get like a Brazilian church just say, "Steve, Steve, hello, I'm not." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, sure, let's have a chat." And just, and I threw up. I set up one of those calendar type things. I just booked a time. Um, and falsely sent it to my email list. Just book a time if you need help. And then three weeks just went back like that. All of a sudden, there are lots of very busy people wanting to contact me. And I just went, "Oh, there's a, there's a real need out here. Um, so how do I, how do I do that?"

And three weeks into having these sorts of conversations, which were great, great, love talking with church leaders, but very one-on-one, and they only got to talk to me, you know, so I wanted other voices to speak into their world. And that's how kind of in Easter this year, on Good Friday, the Church Online Summit was born. Because I got to the end of that three weeks, and I was exhausted because I was doing all my other work as well. I'm like, "Oh, man, like morning and night, morning and night." And of course, you know, they all live where you guys are. Um, so I'm trading both ends of the day, plus my work, plus family.

So the Lord just dropped into my head on Good Friday, "Do your summit, okay?" So just reached out to a few people, said, "Would you be interested in speaking?" And three weeks later, the summit started. Um, we had, I don't know, thirty speakers. We had lots of hugely experienced people like yourselves. And, and, uh, four and a half thousand churches who turned up. And it was awesome. So for me, my heart was full in terms of being able to serve the church around the world. Um, we had churches in Africa come along who are doing church online, which is something new, kind of I tilted my head out and going, "That's not for me." You know, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, um, Southeast Asia, Singapore, the United States, obviously Canada, South America. So from all over. Um, and I learned in three weeks what it means to put on a conference. Um, rather nicely thought, "Oh, this be right, you know, set up a website, put some talks on there. There'll be a few hundred people who'll turn up." And, um, and then just like, woof, that was, that was a fun conference. I, I enjoyed speaking at that one. And yeah, it was literally like three weeks from birth of an idea to, "Hey, you know, the content's got to get. Oh, we're doing it live."

I remember, uh, I remember I'm not going to tell you who, but a couple online pastors we were on a Zoom watching this happen in real time. We're like, "Is he going to make this? I think he's going to make this. I'm not sure he's going to be able to make it in time. Is that website up yet? I haven't seen it." But just even seeing how you had that passion, yet you went for it, and as a result, it came together in literally thousands of churches on multiple continents.

It was so throw and go at the beginning, like just the amount of hours and people asking questions. And I think every online pastor that I know of at the time in that early COVID season was putting in the

18, 20 hour days answering as many help of just churches as possible trying to trying to help as many as they could individually and so you kind of helping to start to gather together to say hey let's let's work together towards this being one of those early voices man that really made a difference in the COVID season it just even to help put a dent in that now we've seen others kind of do the same thing and stadiums going to that approach but man thanks for even just before we get to the podcast thanks for like being the guy to help churches and to realize hey we need to like help others through this and let's work together on different continents to figure out how to help the big C church get through this so and that's the one great thing about digital right like I'm here you're there and we can do it together like the reality is that you know we we all have a gifting in something and yeah and that was kind of what I was concerned of is everyone's just getting my my lens and my particular angle uh but they needed your angle Jet they needed you know the worship guy that does incredible mixing they needed a lot the livestream guys they needed the pastoral part they needed the leadership part and that's where I think that's the beauty of the church right there um and that's what I love is that you know I was talking with a pastor a couple weeks ago on something completely unrelated uh and he goes but I could hear the brain ticking it's just a phone call are you sleepy fog oh yeah yes I attended your church online summit a couple of months ago I'm like okay great was it useful yeah we're still going through it it's awesome and I just thought that's the moment I live for in terms of serving the church because you know this this guy's eight hours drive from where we are in the middle of nowhere but if they can do it anyone can do it and that's that's that's the heart of kind of why we're doing this right now right so you know let's let's see quick churches to to just um there's that phrase when the tide rises all boats rise and that's really that that's what I love is all those boats rising because all those boats are full of people who love Jesus and want to raise the world for Jesus love that so Steven Steve and I were having a conversation uh a couple weeks ago catching up and and Steve you started talking about um this idea of digital missions and really utilizing the Google grant we were talking about that a little earlier as we're getting started but um you know this is a thing that I don't think churches first off I don't think a lot of churches even really understand that it's there um but then really how to like utilize this and the capacity that we have to really look at the mission field in a different way and utilize this to reach a maybe a different type of person so man I just would love to just dialogue through here and start to unpack but even just maybe to start off tell us a little bit about this what's this Google ad grant the AdWord grant what what is this thing really about yeah so um I think it's about 10 years ago now Google in their benevolence when that when they said when they had the old corporate uh phrase do no harm it's something do no evil or something yeah something like that anyway they set up a um uh which is basically a tax write-off for them um so in that influence actually it's also tax write-off but they set up a what an ad grants or a Google for non-profit scheme and that Google for non-profit scheme encompasses a few uh really cool things for eligible non-profits generally so in the United States if you're a 501(c)(3) I think it is um in in Australia you need to be registered with the ACNC full purpose charity and most first world countries are covered and it's all whether you're eligible or not within those countries but basically for churches where churches get the benefit out of it there's something called a Google ad grant and so most people have heard of Google ads right so Google ads are great marketers love them um but you've got to pay for them and you pay per keyword so if someone searches for shoes in your area then you've got to pay for that keyword if they click on your ad and that that range of the value of that ad can cost you anywhere from a couple of dollars up to some ads that I do which are like 50 bucks a click so there's real money that you're paying if you're a commercial organization what Google says is to churches we will give you so imagine they come with a big suitcase pop it on your desk and say here's 10,000 US dollars per month ongoing we will give you this to advertise your church and and so 120 thousand dollars per year 329 dollars per day up to um to advertise your church so that's like a a local council coming to your church and saying we want you to put a big sign outside your church we're going to pay for it and we're going to bring supply all the crew we're going to bring that and all the people that drive by are going to be able to see your church now because you know that little sign you had which was stuck behind the bush which wasn't lit very well no one saw it we're gonna put this great whacking sign out there and when people are searching online for all sorts of different reasons uh it enables your church to be in front of them so what I mean by that is that on let's say someone's searching for a church so this is pre-COVID someone's searching for a church locally for most churches unless you have a geographic naming or title um your you know lots of churches have um you know something point to church for something like that you know um that that that church will not appear high up in the search results so what that means is if you're not in the top three results of any search that takes 90 percent of search traffic so every result after this this is Google's own research every result after those first results on the first page on the second page on the third page they're all collectively fighting for 10 percent of traffic so what that means is that the Google ad grant basically uh enables your church to go from the depths of the jungle on page six up to the top of page one therefore on a local search increasing your visibility therefore more people see it those who are interested will potentially more come along so that's kind of like a localized campaign pre-COVID and if you're locked down obviously it doesn't it's not quite as relevant at the moment for some churches for churches who are doing church online that's another great way to get found so you know I work with churches all over the world and we spend the ad grant on people who are searching searching for churches online and it works and the churches that I'm working with see spectacular success uh with visitor numbers um and that they're curious why Mig well from South America um is visiting their church here in Adelaide um in Australia and and that they're they're now piecing together this concept where the sign isn't just outside that door the sign is on this big search engine called Google uh and there are lots of different types of searches that we set campaigns up for where we're putting these basically these digital signs in front of people who are searching online one of the cool ones I I personally really love is very much have you guys heard of the Alpha course so yeah it's yeah people are finding out about Christianity okay so the Alpha course um asks questions in quite a different way and what most churches do is they ask questions from a Christian point of view whereas most people are asking from a uh a non-believer point of view and that's that they're typing that to Google now so what we do is that we figure out what types of searches are using and we go and answer their questions for those people who are spiritually searching online so this is the concept of digital missions we're not necessarily wanting them to come to our church service but what we wanted to do is answer that question so it you know and there are also ranges of questions that people asking courses like Alpha or exploring Christianity and basically what we do is um we um we'll work with that church from a strategic level and say how do we get you from from here how do we get the church leader or the gifted preacher to answer the question uh and then what steps to that does that person take after that um so that that's really one small um kind of part of digital mission which is very much what they call intent based so what we're trying to do is meet that person as they're driving down that virtual highway they're intending to do something and what we're doing is putting that sign in front of them okay so that's intent based communications most churches aren't conscious of that what they're conscious of doing is reaching their church family and hoping somehow that the message will leak out somehow that's for them what mission is about them word of mouth which is great and the invitation to a church service is great but lots of people aren't ready for that but what they're ready to have is that question answered um where they can look online uh there's no pressure to attend a physical location um but they can get a question answered maybe watch a video and their curiosities spark again and they they start to ask multiple questions about facts so that intent-based type search which is what Google search is great for and then on another channel it's Facebook which is a disruptive type of search where you've got the ability to put your church in front of someone just by the geography so if someone's in your town you can put a message in front of them just because they live in your town now the challenge here most churches want to preach to the gospel writer at that moment that's great and I don't discount preaching the gospel at any time but you know there's a little bit of social or goodness that goes on that right there in that moment when you first meet someone other party you kind of do a nice introduction and you say hey nice to meet you this is who I am you have a kind of a bit of a chitchat interaction that's what social media does that's Facebook so if you're looking to serve um someone on Facebook of an ad don't make it about just coming to an event introduce introduce yourself as a church so you're here to serve and especially during the COVID period so for example with my church we're putting a Facebook ad out right now about if you need uh food hampers if you need help if you need um online counselling we're here for you and all you need to do is click on this button and you can get some free counselling some free help we're here for you so we're serving the community but we're doing it for an ad the community is much more likely to engage with that kind of ad which is ministering to them rather than just an ad that is inviting them along to a service the invites do work I've done invite ads before but they tend to be um less effective um you've got to do a combination of it's not just social media marketing it's social media ministry and yeah so so the two very different channels um and when I talk about channels Facebook's one channel Google's another channel two very different channels about how people interact with those channels and it's just about having the smarts about utilizing those channels in what I call like a emotionally intelligent way um and a smart way to to look at how people use Facebook which is a very visual medium versus looking at people using Google search which is literally you know 60 characters uh in a heading and you've got to try and capture their attention in that in that moment Steve you dropped a lot of knowledge there I mean there was so much that I got to unpack but I'm going to focus just on the last little bit that you kind of dropped there in terms of

Of the difference between dropping an ad for "hey come and check out our service" versus "hey this is a way that we want to help you," what have the results been like for that in terms of the free counseling like some of those other things? Because that to me it shouldn't be innovative, but it seems pretty innovative.

Yeah, look, um, so we're just setting those campaigns up, um, but this, um, the social ministry so the organic posts that are done get huge responses. Um, they're shared by local authorities. So think about that. Counselors are sharing your social media posts. They're shared by the police. The police, uh, beneficiaries of these, um, uh, kind of care packages, uh, and they're actually going out into the neighborhood and passing them on. So there's a, it's not just like a PR stunt. It's like that they want to help the community, and for them it's a community service because they're interacting with those mostly in need on the front line. So we provide the resource for them, but imagine that the police are sharing your content, the local politicians are sharing your content, the councils are sharing your content. All of a sudden there's this emotional intelligence to the content that you're putting out there, which says, "We're here to serve."

Now you can back that up just through paid ads, and you know that's what we're starting to do now. You can back it up through prayer as well. "Hey, we'd love to be able to pray for you." All of a sudden you're creating a relationship with people where before it's been a little bit transactional in terms of "we want you to come to us," only. And I'm not saying that's a bad ad at all because I do that. It's just you've got to think about the whole journey that a person is taking online, and it's like a, it's like a little bit like an ATM, so I don't know if you call them ATM machines where you withdraw money, but, um, you know, you've got to put credit in before you can take credit out.

Yeah, I love that. You're just slowly building the relationship using something as simple as "man, how can I pray for you? How can, as a church, how can we serve you?" Um, the perception is that the church is caring for the individual and wanting to build the relationship, not to get them to a building to consume content, but it's far more relational. That approach, which of course means I, I love it.

Now, one of the things, even in that, that I've, maybe I'm doing it wrong, and because I, I am not the church marketing guy or just marketing in general, it's one of my weak spots. But like, Facebook seems to be overly saturated. Do you have churches that are experiencing, especially in ads, and you know, social media being what it is, everybody's yelling at everybody and blah blah blah? Do you have churches that are really utilizing it well in this season? Is it regionally where, you know, where you are in Australia may be different than a North American experience? Like, how does that actually work?

Yeah, look, um, are you talking just in terms of paid ads?

Yeah.

So, um, so I've helped one church, um, so again, they wouldn't lock down, and um, that they said, "What are the ways that we can work together?" And what one of the things I saw was with their Facebook Live was just even the way the content, where the church service was formatted, it was formatted for, um, the in-person attendance. So they had a ten-minute countdown at the start of that Facebook Live with nothing happening, nothing was happening at all, which is great, right, for the person that attends that church. They're prepared to endure ten minutes of TikTok. But when you're dealing with content that's going out there to the general public, you've got to look at the way you present online differently.

So what, so part of my coaching was, "Hey, why don't you, well you got a countdown, why don't you just put two really fun people on camera and they can have a bit of banter together while the service is counting down, uh, and they can interact with people as they make it more an interactive kind of countdown?" Um, and that works massively because they welcome people as they see people join. "Hey, Jimmy, good to see where you're watching from," and kind of it starts to develop into that real social part of social media, which is all about interaction.

Then what we do behind that is put some paid support behind that content, and we put paid support behind that content because Facebook obviously reduces normally the reach of your posts to ten to twenty percent of the people. So what would you put a bit of paid support behind that with that paid content? Um, they got ten times the reach. So they went from, actually probably more than that, they went from like five hundred views of their Facebook Live through to ten thousand views. Obviously some of that is people checking their church out, so that there are quick, you know, there's a few three-second plays and all that sort of stuff, but quite a lot of them become one-minute plays that become longer than that.

So really the value for churches is looking at the whole. It's not just boosting the post. It's actually looking at the way that the content's put together, make it more engaging, make it more context-specific because the context should determine that communication and the way we communicate. And then how do you support that? Paid ads, basically.

So Facebook makes sense, kind of like promoting, reinforcing kind of that paid service content because it's on the Facebook platform. What types of, if I'm doing Google, which is more search, you know, and I hear we actually had the conversation with, um, uh, YouTube Dave Adamson, what was on from North Point, you know, and he's like, "Nobody's searching for your sermon series," uh, in my YouTube context. Google, same thing. All those creative German series titles that we try to come up with, nobody cares. They're not looking for that on Google. So even as we're like, "What are we even to ask that? What are we really marketing in the Google context?" Are we marketing at the church service? The church overall? The physical locations? In this COVID season, physical is not worth much. So like, where are we investing these dollars in Google, either the grant or paid? Like, what are the things that we should be highlighting as a church?

Yeah, look, I again, Google's different because it's intent-based searches. So what you're joining in with in terms of the ad, if you like, you're joining in with what someone's already doing. So what you have to intercept is what they're already doing with the opportunity. And in that little part of the X which I just drew for listeners, in that center part, um, is where, um, where God is.

So if let's say it's a spiritual searcher campaign, so like Dave would say on YouTube, really, that it's in the title. Um, because, you know, YouTube is basically one big "how-to" platform. Um, so, you know, your obscure random sermon series isn't going to title that well in that sort of a frame of search. So really all you're doing is you're tying in with someone's search. So for a church service online, Google, that you're intersecting where people are searching for that, um, your intersection, intersecting where people are asking the big questions of life, so those Alpha-type questions.

So there are different stages of the funnel. What I call funnel, so listeners aren't aware, every funnel, um, has a wide entry point and it gets narrower and narrower. And the Google ads really can be at the top of the funnel and in the middle of the funnel and at the bottom of the funnel. So the intent-based search of a spiritual searcher is at the top of the funnel where they're just exploring. Um, the church online type ads that we do are at the bottom of the funnel. People are taking action and they're visiting and they're attending and they're engaged and they'll come back.

So there's different levels of the funnel which different ads and opportunities are there for. We run a prayer request campaign for people, for churches. So, you know, it's really interesting. Churches, again, you can do on Facebook, um, with that is, you know, "We'd love to be able to pray for you." You've probably seen those organic posts on Facebook, right? You can do the same on Google in your location because people are Googling "I need prayer," and bang, that's your church. "Oh, we'd love to be able to pray for you." People want that. Just intersecting the need. That's that's kind of the unique opportunity that you've got. Um, and, um, you know, that's really the smarts of digital mission is being where people already are.

Yeah, so Steve, as you walk with churches through this, because I know that this conversation has come up multiple times on our podcast, how do you get them to embrace local versus global in terms of who they're pulling in? Because obviously with search, with ads, with so many different things, how are they embracing that? And how do you help them work through some of those issues?

Yeah, look, it's a really good question, right? I love this question. So if you think of the church growth movement that Peter C. Wagner kind of birthed in the eighties, before that it was local traffic where people would walk to church, right? And then the church growth movement happened. People started to drive to church. Now some people probably were driving to church before that, but then those journeys got longer and longer and it went from a ten-minute car journey to a twenty-minute car journey.

If you think of the same way with church online, it's just a different context where actually the church growth movement said, "Well, you can drive twenty minutes or thirty minutes to church, and we can take a lot of people, but only as many people that can fit in our car lot." You know, um, church online is basically, "Well, you can come from anywhere, and there's no car parking limits in our church. Just come on in."

So it's a different mindset. Um, it's more complex when it comes to ministry administering to people who are in different geographic locations, but let's deal with those complexities separately. If you want to reach someone and they're interested in discovering who Jesus is, are you not going to do it because they live in a separate country? And I'd say most pastors have read Heidi and go, "If people are searching for Jesus, I don't care where they are. We want to introduce them to Jesus, okay? And we want to be able to answer their questions."

Now, does that mean they just attend church online? Not necessarily. But you want to be able to at least answer that question. I don't care where they live in the world, you know? I did, um, some research on one of the search terms that we're doing for one church at the moment, and there's two hundred fifty thousand searches every single month for this search term, which is a pre-Christian type of search term. As a lot of ad grants to spend to reach to answer that question, so you know, I worked it out to be about two hundred ad grants. If every church did it, would probably get all of the search impressions people are doing.

So there's lots of opportunities for churches out there online, and you know, so you just got to change the mindset that, um, some churches I work with just want a national approach, and that's fine. I get that. But really the thing about online is your parish is the globe. Um, and it's just your, I don't doubt every church has the evangelistic heart to do it, but they don't necessarily have the vision to do it. Um, and that's really that the next step for churches where, um, and you'll see some churches who are doing that right now, and they're just going, "Man, the whole earth is there for the Lord to communicate the gospel to, so why don't we just go do that? We'll figure out the complexity of doing that along the way, um, and we'll work that out."

Have you worked with any churches that are doing maybe like a custom landing page designed to meet a particular need? Like a divorce-specific page with divorce-specific content? That's what...

We do, yeah. It's more of an intentional approach. Why don't you just talk a little bit about the intentionality of landing pages coupled with the ad grant?

Yep, so it is, yeah, spot on. So if you've got a question, let's say just "Who is Jesus?" That just that simple question. So the ad has to relate to the page and the page has to relate to the ad. You can't get "Who is Jesus?" going to a sermon series where kind of Jesus is mentioned and it's some obscure sermon title. It's got to relate directly to "So who is Jesus? Get your questions answered. Explore more here." Then it lands on a specific landing page that that page is obviously on the church website, but it doesn't need to be on in the menu system. And it's just a simple title. It says "Who is Jesus?" Question mark. "50 Questions Answered." And it's a video of your pastor where he just introduces who Jesus is, explains the gospel to them, and then gives them an opportunity to respond. So you just set up a simple contact form. It can be as simple or fancy as you want to be, whether it's radio buttons, whether it's a Google form, whatever. And the communication in the video or in even in copywriting leads them to respond. And then they respond on that page, and then that's an opportunity for ministry.

Okay, so if you think back to the telephone ministry of the 1980s where people were calling, doing this is exactly the same thing. It's just answering very specific questions, and the globe is your parish. That's the reality. So whereas, you know, I've seen some people call this number. Now it's like, "Well, you're only going to get a national approach to that in the States because no one's going to call internationally to get that answer." But oh yeah, church could, you could, maybe WhatsApp together or Facebook message. Do a Facebook message. Call. Everyone will do that.

Yeah, I love how with some intentionality, maybe we can redefine what a mission or approach is utilizing digital technology where we can be almost like treating it like it's the mission field, doing a targeted approach or intentionality, intentionally reaching "Who is Jesus?" "How do I pray?" "I'm thinking about getting a divorce." "How do I recover?" "I'm addicted to pornography?" Starting to create some of these pages that, and with marketing, you can fine-tune your church to reach a particular type of person. And through relationships, through the content, and getting them connected into the church overall, it's part of that value that I think really will make a church online succeed and shine. Getting all the way back to the place of you're not inviting them to be part of some service. You're really trying to meet the need of that person and through that need build a relationship.

So Steve, man, I love the time. I know we need to keep it deep and short because of other scheduling things, but man, once again, thanks for jumping on this. If people have questions, if they want to dialogue with you and talk more about, you know, Google or Facebook, Steve, how can they get in touch with you?

You can just email me, Steve at stevefog.com. And yeah, and we can chat. Really, I've got a blog, stevefog.com. Um, so it's F-O double G. Um, but yeah, just just hit me up on email, Facebook me, tweet me. Pretty much it's all the same handles.

Hey, thanks Steve for the conversation. This was great. Ray, thanks for the time as well. Church, we've got an opportunity here to look at it differently. Really, this podcast just scratched the surface of a much deeper conversation that's centered around what ministry looks like digitally. We can promote our church services. We can promote our physical locations. In COVID season, this is really not a great place to go. But what if we could figure out how to create content and market that content that could reach people in a unique way?

We talked about this with Dave Adamson where very few churches were actually creating content for people, even though the people through YouTube are asking questions like "How do I pray?" and churches weren't meeting that need. There's a chance for us. There's an opportunity for us to change the way that we church, that we're thinking, and instead start to create content and position it in a way to meet people where they are. "I'm addicted to pornography. How do I get out of this?" "I'm thinking about getting a divorce. What do I do?" "Who is God?" "Who is Jesus?" "And what does he want with my life?" "I'm thinking about ending my life. How do where should I go?" "I'm depressed. I'm sad. I'm alone. Who can I talk to?" These are the things that people are searching for. And we at church, we have an opportunity to create content. Landing pages is a term we said in the podcast. To create content that's aimed towards that. Now, that's not going to funnel into a church service, and that's not going to redirect into some sermon series, although pieces of the sermon may work for it. But if we start to create content and market content, you know, we'll find we'll be able to reach people who are looking for something. And the something they're looking for probably is not your church. They're looking for help solving the real world problems that they're going through. And utilizing the AdWord grant like we have here, or even some of the Facebook ads, to connect with people in a unique way, just to even ask a simple question like, "Hey, if you need prayer, click on this and let's get you connected to a pastor." There's an opportunity to think differently, to create content that's not going to drive people to experience a church service, but it's going to enable you to shepherd, to pastor, to care for people digitally. It's a completely different viewpoint.

We've got local missions. We've got global missions. At some level, Google opens up an opportunity for you to be digital missions. And that's really the underlying course of what we're even just introducing with this podcast here. So hey, I want to thank Steve for jumping on the podcast once again. This was great, even from Australia time zones, crazy. For Ray, for Steve, this is Jeff with the Church Digital. Thanks for joining on the podcast here, and we'll catch you next time here at the show. All have a good day.