 Alright, well I think the end of the music means that we can begin so I had a fun time during my break reading some of your comments which I can't read the longer ones as they're happening, but I appreciate so much that you are engaging there. I did see several concerns about those who are who struggle with technology and I hope we can get to i'm going to take just a moment, this is not what I plan, but I want to say a couple things about that. In my both and webinar which your conference has hosted in the past, we talked about and actually I have another one called telling the old story a new time. we've talked about how to do worship in a way that, even if you don't have internet in the building. You can still do hybrid worship by pre recording or recording the worship that you do. And then editing it after the fact and then uploading it after worship is over, so there are options for people who don't have internet or who aren't tech savvy. Also, I just think it's so important that we keep in mind that our oldest population tends to be the one that struggles most with technology. They are the population that have had the most risk in this last year and a half of contracting and having the worst effects from coven. And so we can't forget them in the season where we've taken worship out of the building, so I actually talk about four different types of worship that we might do. Really worship slash ministry, because I think that Bible study and discipleship groups and all those sorts of things matter, but let me just real quick. The first way some of you probably have done this already is drive in worship. So you have people come to your parking lot you use a bullhorn you use a speaker system or you get a. An RF transmitter and you can have people brought or you know tune into a certain station that allows you to do none. It allows you to do physically distance to worship but still have people together there are some who still you know, especially with this delta variant aren't ready to come right back to church yet. The pastor I mentioned to you a moment ago at the African American church told me that they only have 20% of their congregation in person and 80% online. The really interesting thing is I thought this was just so so fascinating, he said that their offering has gone up and their missional participation has gone up they're supporting more things than they ever have before. And they've got more people coming to Bible study and classes online then came in the physical building, which I thought was interesting this pastor said I've decided, at least in my head. That I have an online worship with an in person option versus all in person worship with an online option, he said I've really shifted my thinking on that to do it in that way. So parking lot is one option, the second one of course is streaming and there are three ways you can stream you can stream. Where you pre record and you put it online, and so you don't even have to have internet you're building you record it, you know the day before. couple day whenever it makes the most sense upload and then you do live in the room. The second way is that you do it in real time so you're streaming in the moment, but there are some considerations, I don't have time to get into all of that in this particular conversation. And then the third option is what I call post both and worship is the idea of doing worship or both in the room and at home. And that's where you'd have cameras that record my favorite church to talk about that is doing this is here in Ohio. Their name tells you everything you need to know about them and probably yourself if you're trying to do this they're called farmersville United Methodist Church. And that's a very descriptive name because they're out in the middle of nowhere they don't have fast internet they don't have a big budget they don't have a lot of technology. But they record their worship at 9am. goes from nine to about 945 950 at the end of that worship they quickly take the sermon a couple songs off of that they put it into a video editor where they've already got a couple of announcements ready to go and a couple other things. And then they dry I think they have to drive it into the city and upload it and so you can either attend their 9am worship live in the room it's not streamed or you can attend their 11 o'clock service which they upload immediately after it's done. And you might think well that sounds like a you know fancy church well. To be really honest with you they don't they they're not real fancy they just said this is how we're going to do this because we can't do it live in the moment. The third option I talk about is what I call telephonic worship and that's the idea that you might use a service like free conference call calm or even zoom has a call in option. Where you can do a multiple hybrid kind of situation, so I can preach to the room, I can preach to the camera and I can have a lapel Mike clipped. To my collar that is dialed up on a phone and people can call in and listen to the sermon they won't be able to see it, but they can call in and listen if they're not technically savvy. there's a church here in Ohio that I coach that the pastor said she's got a very elderly congregation she said I needed to make it possible for them to experience the sermon. So she actually recorded her sermon to the answering machine and she did a 10 minute version of the sermon they have four four lines, I think at the church. And she said she reserved three of those four lines you could be put on hold and listen to the sermon, so that was a way to make it possible for people who don't know how to use technology. One more thing with the telephone my my mom retired last year she's 67 she was a nursing home nurse and coven was so stressful for her she got she she was going to go a little longer, but it was just too much. And so my wife said to her early in the pandemic Karen are you watching worship online my mom said I don't know how to do that. My mom has an iPhone we bought it for her she has the technology to do it she just doesn't know how to use it, so my wife started texting her each week. Karen here's the my mom knows how to text she just doesn't know how to use the browser on her phone very well. So my wife started texting her the link to the worship service every week, and so my mom would watch worship that way. Friends, one of the greatest opportunities in this season we're in is that we can help young tech savvy people. build relationships with those who are not as technically savvy and foster relationships that matter and really make those people feel very cared for in this time, I had a pastor in Florida tell me that. He has a very elderly he works in a retirement community, so as a very elderly congregation that struggled to get online, so he said what I did is I actually said one Sunday in worship. If you're tech savvy at all, if you know how to use any of this technology, would you please come to the church on Tuesday night. So I said I got four people to show up and what we did together was we figured out what the four or five steps are we made up these cards, we set up. A list where people could have us come to their homes and so we organize and went all throughout our congregation to people's homes masked up socially distanced and. He said our congregation felt so cared for it like revolutionized our church in some ways, and so they basically taught people how to do it and they built meaningful relationships in the process. The fourth type of worship that I talk about again, I think that it matters so much that we do worship in a way that those who are not technically savvy can still be a part of it. I call it analog worship and that's the idea that you might burn an old find an old CD burner and burn an audio version of your message or find a DVD burner. And you'd have to find the software to do it, but but actually make physical media or print out your sermon and drop it off at at homes or put it in the mail. But we cannot forget people in this season where we have to be socially distanced. So I just want you to keep in mind all of those options exist for our congregations and they they they need you, they need you in this season. So churches left the building, not just digitally over the telephone over snail mail and and whatever else so friends, I hope you'll consider those things I was not going to go there, but I. I saw your comments and thought that would be helpful to talk about so for about the last year and a half a little over now. I have been doing a training online for churches who are trying to figure out how to navigate this space and so I did two different trainings, one called telling the old story. In a new time all about worship that is not in the building and then for the last six months or so i've been doing a training called both and that is really about how to do what I would call truly hybrid worship sorry I don't know gotta. I was driving me crazy there. So, but true why I say truly hybrid worship because. Some of us just stuck a camera in the back of the room and went about business as usual, I think I said that a moment ago, but we really have to reimagine what worship looks like, so that it appeals and transcends the technology. here's the reality for people who are online prior to the pandemic, even people who are doing it really well. It often look like this, we would say to the room we weren't looking at the camera good morning and welcome to worship we're so glad you're here it's good to have you in worship with us today, and then we give a nod to the camera and we say. And if you're worshiping with us online thanks for coming today we're glad you're here to and then we kind of go back to talking to the room. And we've never really talked to the camera again now pre pandemic that was perfectly acceptable because we didn't have any other models, I liked being able to worship from vacation or wherever I was at it was nice to be able to worship digitally. And then, when the pandemic hit for those who are already online they went from talking to the room to talking directly to the camera. And they started planning worship knowing there were people on the other side of that camera so that they would feel connected and it was a wonderful thing it's been a wonderful thing. Those of you who went online during the pandemic you've spent almost the entire time you've been doing online ministry talking directly to the camera. So I think we face a really critical moment right now in the life of the church because so many of us have have really expanded our reach, whether you are someone that teaches classes or works with children. or you're a lay speaker or whatever I think it's important that we recognize if I did this training today like this and I talked to the room. you'd feel pretty disconnected, you know I very intentionally look at the camera throughout a training like this and when I do this training or. My both and work in a room full of people, I have to split my attention from talking out here to talking directly to the camera here's the critical moment friends. If we're not careful, we will turn the people into in the room into the studio audience for the people at home, if we only look at the camera. Because we've been doing that for so long, we might be tempted to do that we don't want the people at home to feel like they're the studio or people in the room to feel like they're studio the studio audience. And here's I don't think that's as likely to happen here's the the real danger in the next season of ministry that we're in. If you're a leader in worship. If you're not careful, you will talk only to the people and then what happens is you make the people at home feel like they're observers or spectators of something they're not really a part of. And so, like I said before, we don't rank our congregation by where they said it's not that the people in the room are more important than the people at home. It is that they're all important, so we've got to begin to shift the way that we do this a bit. Some of you may already be there. As I said, I've been hearing the question a lot here lately. Can we stop doing this, I was. Consulting at a church a couple months ago in Wisconsin and I let a full day training on both and for this church and during one of the breaks a very well intentioned gentleman came to me and said Jason. Can we can we stop doing this now like 90% of our people are back and I said no you can't stop doing that and I gave him some reasons and I share those reasons with you in just a moment. And he said well okay if you say so, but it just seems to me like since most of our people are back, we shouldn't have to keep doing this and I said well don't those 10% of the people that aren't here matter. Well yeah and then something very interesting happened Sunday morning I was secret worshiping which basically means i'm just taking notes and i'm giving. Some feedback to the church and and helping them with their strategies and so on. And throughout worship I take notes in a notebook and at the end of worship a woman sitting next to me leaned over and she said are you a blogger or something. And I said well no I said i'm actually doing a consultation for your church on their online and in person worship she's like. Oh, will you tell them they're doing a great job, she said, we are brand new to this church, in fact, we found them on good Friday because they were the only church we could find to have an online good Friday service and we loved it so much. That we started worshiping online every week with them and then when they started in person a couple weeks ago, we came and we've been here every week since you tell them we're so grateful that they did online because we never would have found them. Otherwise, so I shared that the next day to that gentleman and he's like okay i'm convinced now. Friends there are so many wonderful opportunities that now that we've taken church outside of the building now. Most of us did not have a lot of time to strategize about this, I know some of you were online before. But some of you said you went online when this all began and we rushed into really the how to do it. And the what we needed to do, but we haven't spent probably enough time on the why the why really does matter, it makes all the difference in the world, and i'm going to let comedian Michael junior illustrate this for you, put a fine point on it, because the why will change everything about your strategy, check it out and you'll see what i'm talking about. How do I know a lot of people when they think of the phrase how do I know they always want to put the what behind it, how do I know what i'm supposed to do. The question that you really should ask is how do I know why i'm here, because when you know your why your what becomes more clear and more impactful. If you know, like, for instance, people know that I do comedy, but that's what I do my why is to inspire people to walk in purpose, so I can do comedy. I can write books, I can be in a movie because all of it is motivated by my why. In fact, I have a new a new web series out called Michael junior break time. We probably just did the sixth episode it's on YouTube so every single Wednesday at three o'clock we drop a new episode on YouTube of Michael junior break time. What it is is it's me I travel around the country and I do stand up comedy because you know, and in the middle of my comedy set sometime I'll stop and just talk to my audience. And we've been filming this and it's, you know, it's it's pretty cool. So we're in Winston Salem I'm going to show you a clip from Winston Salem. And I'm just talking to this guy in the audience and he tells me that he's a musical instructor at a school. So I was like all right you're a musical instructor, you know, can you sing let me hear you sing a song so this is what happened at the last episode of Michael junior break time. So musical director. Yes, sir. All right, so let me get a couple let me get a couple bars of like amazing grace can you do the first part of that. Go ahead. Amazing grace. How sweet the sound. That's saved the rest, like me. That bro can sing. All right. Now, what you give me the version is if your uncle just got out of jail, you got shot in the back when you as a kid. I'm just saying let me see the hood version real quick if you know it's heard about just see if that exists. Let me see what you got. Sweet. Here's what I want you to catch the first time I asked him to sing he knew what he was doing. The second time he knew why he was doing it. When you know your why your what becomes more impactful because you're walking towards or in your purpose. So friends, I can't say it better than that. I think what you just saw there is the difference that why makes. And so many of us had to jump into this church outside the building thing without time to really strategize about it, and it's never too late to figure out your why. So I want to encourage you to begin to think about that we're going to spend the next half hour or so really talking about the why. What I want you to consider is that we have had centuries, centuries to develop our theology, our methodology our polity for our online expressions of our in person expressions of worship we know how to do that really well. We've only had about 18 months to figure out what online worship looks like, and not everything translates one to one not everything we do in the room works at home in the same way. So today is really an invitation for you to think about what are the rights and rituals for the ministry that we do online. I don't think we've discovered quite yet what the rights and rituals are. And so I want to give you, I'm going to give you 13 different reasons here to to continue this idea that we should do ministry outside of the building through online in a hybrid way I think it should also come. You know we need to keep doing what we're doing in the building I do not think that online is a replacement for what happens in the building but if we do both and some really incredible things can happen. Let me talk you through some of these things 13 different reasons and and then we're going to get into some nitty gritty specifics on a few of these. The first thing is that one of the beauties of this last 18 months is that we have people that have left the church. They left our church they left the big C church, maybe they didn't like a sermon you preach to maybe they like the last pastor better you know whatever it is. I've been hearing pastors tell me that in the last few months they've been seeing people they haven't seen in a long time, because, because they got re engaged in in worship in a much less vulnerable way by attending worship online. I also want you to consider that there are three audiences that we need to give some attention to. And that is the committed. Those are the people that are already with us. We've got the disconnected those are the people I'm kind of talking about and then there's a third group that we probably don't give enough attention to and that is those who are seeking God in this crazy world that we're living in where we're worried about as divided as we've ever been as a nation, even in our church world with politics with coven there's just so much that's happening right now. And people turn to God in moments like that. I always think about 911 when 911 hit I was actually living in Grand Prairie Texas I was not too far from where some of you are. I remember the Sunday after those towers fell driving to church and we had to park in the field next to the church because so many people are in church. If coven hadn't kept us out of church, and there was this pandemic I think people would have responded by looking to faith for answers. So what does this have to do with anything well what it has to do with the way that we conduct our ministry is that we've got to be careful about our language we say things sometimes with an expectation that people just know what we mean when we say sacrament or Eucharist or, you know, there's just lots of there's lots of doxology there's all these words benediction. Connect card, you know, all of these are words that we know, but outsiders do not know so be careful about your language. The second group I want you to consider are those who have been shunned, or have felt turned away by the church, they feel safe again because of what's happened with online worship. I heard a story about a young man who went to church all the way up through confirmation, and then some lifestyle issues in his life meant that the church, he was no longer welcome there. He hadn't gone to church in 10 or 15 years. And then when the pandemic hit he started worshiping online again, because no one was there to judge him and he started worshiping at the church that he grew up in, and got really kind of hooked back in and then when he went home to see his mother for Easter this year, actually went to church with her for the very first time in 10 or 15 years. They felt shunned because their hair was too long or they had tattoos or whatever the issue might be, have the opportunity now to worship with us in a way that's less vulnerable. I want you to also consider that this is the best worship our shut ins have ever experienced since they became shut ins. It's not just a CD in the mail or whatever they have actually been able to participate in the chat they've been able to really engage with us in worship I know some churches that have actually set up relationships with nursing homes. I know some churches this isn't the same kind of shut in, but that are streaming in prisons. There's just this wonderful opportunity now to share worship share the gospel, not just worship. I know some of you are probably not involved in worship but Bible study asynchronous learning where we can gather together and meaningful ways online so these are a couple of the reasons behind the why this worship outside the building needs to continue. Now here's here's one that I think we have a growing number of people who are vacationers who are business travelers who have busy family lives. Do you remember, I'm just going to make sure you're all still with me I haven't seen anything in the chat from you remember when Sunday used to be a sacred day anybody remember that like they didn't schedule soccer games and gymnastics tournaments and football and the blue laws thank you Holly for for saying that you all remember that right Sunday is no longer a sacred day anymore in our culture. You know, things get scheduled and the beauty of this season that we're in is that we have the opportunity now to let people attend worship even when they're on vacation, even when they're at the soccer game and all of those other things. I really love this one and this one is almost mind blowing at this point for me and that is that those who didn't make it on Sunday get to worship with us. Think about this it's almost crazy to think that we used to put all of this effort and attention in Sunday morning. And when Sunday morning was over the only people that got to benefit from Sunday morning were the people that came on Sunday morning so you might have 50 people that show up and that's really the extent of who gets to benefit. Now that we're recording our worship and archiving it we have this wonderful opportunity for it to live on beyond the moment. Let me ask in the chat how many of you have noticed that you're on demand or on delay numbers have risen. And your live numbers have dropped a little bit how many of you are noticing that people are starting to watch Sunday afternoon or Monday or Tuesday or whatever. I'm seeing some of you are saying that yes, think about it we live in the Disney plus Netflix Amazon Prime video culture where people want to watch when it's convenient for them. This one's hard for us to hear but we also have people who want to fast forward past the parts they don't really like so they watch on delay you know with with Tivo and and DVR. We discovered that years ago like in my household there was a practice often where we'd wait 15 minutes to start watching the show. So we could fast forward past the commercials. What does that mean for how we plan worship and make the experience really connect all throughout I think we've got to start thinking about that. But friends I want to give you one thing to consider and that is our worship now because it lives on we've got to be careful even about our language with worship. You might say as a standard thing. Good morning welcome to worship I hope you're having a wonderful Sunday. Now what happens if I decide I'm going to watch your worship on Wednesday afternoon during my lunch break. I know it's not live but there is a little bit of a disconnect you could very easily adjust your language to say welcome to worship. We're so glad you're here hope you're having a great day. And without using that temporal language it becomes a little bit more engaging. Here's the other thing I want you to consider. Don't name your church's service. You know January 23 2021 First United Methodist Church. Don't call the title of your YouTube video the date and the name of your church. Why not Jason because no one's searching for that. They're searching for sermon topics and titles and things like that be creative with your titles. And the last thing I'll say is just give some context for posterity sake capture what's happening on the day that you're doing it back in. In February I did my both and training for the central Texas conference which I know we have some folks on today hello central Texas glad you're here. And the day that I did it was the day that that horrible ice storm happened and there was a huge accident on on the road but a church was telling me in a follow up conversation that they realize this evergreen stuff they said we didn't quite get it when you said but now we understand that day their pipes burst and flooded their building. And of course in Texas you know you get some ice and I know when I lived there there were some icy days. You know it's not common that you get that kind of frigid temperatures where it would freeze your pipes and break them. They said we just kept referring to the flood the flood the flood all throughout our worship. And we realized that somebody watched it six months later was not going to have any idea they were probably thinking we're preaching about Noah or something, because we didn't really give context. The people in the room don't need to know there's a flood they knew it because they walked they drove through that weather to get there they walked past the slippery one wet signs. So all I'm saying friends is just to say hey today, we've had some unusual weather here in Texas that we don't often have our pipes burst. We've got a flooded building so you may hear us refer to that today that captures for posterity sake what happened in that moment and people will be able to connect with you later. So be evergreen. Here's one that I really love a lot that apparently I didn't insert my graphic for or maybe it's here. No, that's not the one. All right, sorry, I'm going to say this one apparently I didn't insert my graphic. But that is that visitors now can check us out without really any vulnerability involved. I have been saying more recently that worship online is like the taster spoon for worship in person. One thing by that is that you don't have to buy the whole ice cream cone you can try, you know, two or three flavors before you decide which one you want to go to. I don't know about you and your church but I've been having more and more pastors tell me they have visitors coming who have been worshiping online throughout worship throughout this last few few weeks. One pastor said I had a really funny moment where I walked up to a couple and I said, good morning welcome to worship I'm Matt I'm pastor Adam, and they looked at him like, uh huh, yeah we know. And he said I recognize we all realize that that moment that they had been watching me preach from home for weeks is just the first time we ever met in person. So that's another reason that this worship should continue geography doesn't matter anymore. I've had so many churches tell me they have people worshiping from all sorts of different states, people have moved away. I've had people tell me that they didn't lose their snowbirds this year that their snowbirds left and went to warmer weather but still continued to be in worship. And then I had somebody tell me in Charlotte, North Carolina the other day that they had somebody from Florida, take their vacation drove up to Charlotte, so they could join the church, but they're driving back to Florida where they live and they're going to participate from where they live so geography is another reason that we should keep doing this and what why we need to keep doing it. And this one affects my family. I have a special needs child. And I'll tell you that when my son was younger, going to church was sometimes stressful. It sure is nice to have a respite, the ability to worship from home on those days where it's really really hard. As a special needs parent. Sometimes you feel like everybody's looking at you in worship and that can be very uncomfortable. My favorite thing of all about this particular worship is now we can dialogue with people, and they can help us shape the, the services that we're doing if we do it in real time. So, I mentioned my friend George Ashford in Columbia, South Carolina, they actually have a section at the front of their church they call the amen section. They have three high top tables and computers there, and people chat all throughout worship. And so the amen section will actually yell out some of those amens. So, you know, somebody at that section might for on force behalf in the room say, we have folks from Germany and Mexico, and the African American tradition there's this feeling of call and response. That's a that's a part of that narrative and so they still can do that even though people are at home. They have people dedicated to that back and forth which I think is pretty cool. And so to have social anxiety, my wife is an introvert. She said to me at the beginning of this pandemic I've been preparing my whole life for this. She was ready for it. In fact, my wife is such an introvert if we had one of these at my church she'd sit here every week. Not that she's unfriendly, but she is just an introvert. I think about the fact that for folks that that suffer from those things. I'm sorry my jokes have not gotten any better and you, you're not even groaning at them so that's that's a bad sign. I just had someone share this one with me two days ago, and that is that those in their church who have hearing and vision difficulties have really appreciated the online worship they said sometimes I come to worship and I sit and I can't hear anything or I can't see anything. So I'm able to go home and watch the service again and hear it and turn it up really loud or worship from home and be able to fully listen as well. And then the last one that I want to share with you here is that it ain't over till it's over. And friends, I just want to say that this pandemic, we're all seeing it. The Delta variant is serious. I've had five in person events cancel. I'm going to do them online now, but it's not over. I just saw this a couple days ago that the viruses is up ticking everywhere. What we don't want to do is lose all of the skills that we've developed and put our cameras away and stop doing it. You know, and then we have to do things like this again. Although I don't know anybody that really did that but someone sent me that picture and I thought that was pretty, pretty funny. I guess that's a socially distanced choir. So you all really are a tough crowd today. None of my typical jokes are hitting today. It's that's tough. They probably are hot. They just lather up and shower right there in the church too, I think. Moving on friends, one of the questions, did I skip number 11? No, that's introverts. Did I skip one? Let's see. Dialogue that talk about dialogue, special needs families, I think, oh evangelism. Yes, thank you. How did you know I skipped that? I can't see you smiling. That's true. I'm dealing with what you all deal with. You know, you like being able to see your church. So yes, I missed evangelism. It's never been so easy to share our church with others. Hold on, let me see if I can get that slide up. Yeah, there we go. Thank you. Evangelism has never been so easy. I know people who would never feel comfortable asking a co-worker to come to church or a friend or whatever. But they can post a link on their website or on their YouTube, not YouTube, on their Facebook page or on Twitter and invite people to church. So it's a really wonderful way to engage people who are not part of it. Now, one of the questions I keep getting. What if they don't come to the building though, Jason? What if they don't come to the building? Well, I mean, I think it would be great if they all came to the building. But I still think that an experience of worship that is transcendent, that makes a big difference in the life of someone who is attending, matters. I wrote it this way. I am a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe over there on the right. I've seen every movie I bought Disney Plus so I can watch every series. I have a few t-shirts. I've invested some money in Marvel. But you know what? I haven't bought a comic book, a Marvel comic book since I was in high school. Now, does that mean it doesn't count that I'm not really a Marvel fan or that I haven't really experienced those stories? No, I think it still matters. It's a little different than the stories that are in the book. But friends, if we are creating transcendent experiences of worship and other ministry, not just worship, children's ministry, Bible study, UMW, you know, men's ministry, if we can create both and opportunities, people are still experiencing the gospel in important ways. Now, I think it's really important that we make some intentional decisions about who we're trying to reach. If you don't make an intentional decision, you will default to just talking to the people in the room. A few weeks ago when I was in North Carolina, I conducted a poll during a training all for churches who were doing hybrid ministry. They brought me out. I'm on retainer with their conference. I'm doing a bunch of coaching. These people got equipment, so they were all already bought in. And so I conducted this poll and I want to show you the results and I want you to be mindful of where you would be on this particular poll. I'm going to read it to you so that it's probably a little small. Option A said, our priority is on the people in the room. We stream, but our focus is really on creating an experience for the people in the room. Over half the people said that's what they're doing. So basically, they're creating worship for people in the room and people at home can watch if they want to. The second group, which I hope more people would be here, we intentionally create an experience for people both in the room and online. We've adapted our practices and worship so that people at home and in person feel like an equal priority. Less than half of the people are, that's their priority right now. The next one is basically that we are creating worship for people online. We don't really care about people in the room. I didn't expect anyone to say that. And the last one there is just about people who are doing online only. Friends, if you don't make an intentional decision about who you're trying to reach, you will default to the room and you'll make observers of people at home and I don't think we want to do that. There are two words that I think we need to eliminate from our vocabulary when we think about worship. The first word is watching. We don't want watchers of worship at home. We want worshipers from home. Second word is viewers. We do not want viewers of worship at home. We want participants in worship at home. So friends, the only way we can kind of go from viewers to participants and watchers to worshipers is to reimagine how we do worship. So I want to give you a little tip, something to think about at your church. And that is creating what I call a both and think tank. A both and think tank is a group of people that will come together and really start to brainstorm about how you're going to make an experience that is for people both in the room and online. And so these are just a few things to keep in mind as you're thinking about this. I'm sorry we don't have a handbook, but if you want to, this will be recorded. And you can also take a screen capture, take a photo with your phone if you want. Let's just talk about a couple of these things. Number one, I think it's important that we start with the why. We already talked about the importance of the why. You do better work when you know why. The second thing is that we have to build meaningful relationships with in that think tank. I'm not talking about the people at home we need to do that too, but do some work together on the team. The third thing is to have fun together as you're brainstorming about what the next iteration of worship looks like in my other training that I do. I'm going to talk about, I show some clips from the tonight show Jimmy found and we see how he is iterated all throughout worship, or not worship the pandemic. And, and I think we have to do the same and so how can we have fun and do that. The next thing is to have a process. Sometimes you get a bunch of people to brainstorm together, and you don't ever actually get any traction with it. You have to have people coven it together in this work, so that you don't have a naysayer that doesn't like where you're trying to take your new expression of worship, and go around and tell everybody in the church. Well, I didn't like that idea we had a better idea you have to covenant to say whatever we walk out of this conversation this think tank conversation with. We all have to support it and be on board with it. Mutual respect is so important I sometimes see egos pop up at church and we don't listen to each other as much as we wait for our turn to talk. And I've even seen creative bullies who won't let things go and so whoever you're going to have on your think tank they've got to be able to commit to having mutual respect. I think the idea is flowing. No idea is a bad idea so as your brainstorming think about lots of different opportunities for how you create an experience that's for people at home and in the room, and then determine a goal so that you actually have measure bowls what is what are we actually going when do we want to implement this new idea when are we going to live into it. I want to share a couple of other priorities I know, I think we've got about seven or so minutes left before we're officially into q amp a time so I want to honor that. But let me give you what I consider the top five priorities to doing worship outside the building where online is concerned. The first thing is to create an intimate experience of worship. This technology, all the production value in the world cannot overcome a situation where I'm talking to the room and making you feel like you're just watching what they're doing. So, intentionally talking to the camera, getting the camera close enough friends if you cannot make out facial features, the camera is too far away. The majority of your shots need to be head to toe. So, weird things like this can happen. I'm just gonna let you stare at that for a second. It's a really strange optical illusion isn't it. First I thought the guy was sitting down with the shorts on but that's the person right behind him. That was supposed to be funny but nobody is laughing so I'm sorry, but that that is a real not doctored photo I thought that was pretty fun. But here's a $8.99 investment I would encourage you all to make. And that is to go out and buy one of those little dry erase boards that you write your grocery list on and a big thick dry erase marker. What I want you to do is to consider if you're a lay speaker when you're preaching, if you're a musician, if you're a children's ministry worker, whatever your role is in your church, write the number down of the people that are sitting there, whether you're worshiping live in the moment or write down the number of the people that are watching that week and put that whiteboard somewhere near the camera so that when you look out you recognize that that camera is not a camera. It's 34 people sitting there. In the same way that you'd look at the people in the balcony and over here and in the back. Those people at home matter as well. And also say that you should create, hold on, let me, let me get to my slide here. I think every church who's doing hybrid worship needs an online advocate. You need to assign one somebody who is actually watching the worship that you do, not in the room. Have them on Sunday morning be somewhere else in the building and watch worship. That's going to help you figure out if the sound isn't very good if person's never looking at the camera if there's no interaction somebody has to come and say hey, we're leaving people out at home somebody's got to care most about that I think that's an excellent job for lady. And so, oh, thank you. I'm reading your comments now thank you I I wasn't sure what Hitler was so I was I was getting nervous there for just a second. So make sure you have somebody that's got their eyes on it for the outsider. The next one then friends is to continue to iterate. Keep trying new things don't get settled. Matt said this in his opening devotion. And I actually pulled this quote and after I heard him say it. Carrie Newhoff who's a great author and blogger and leader had this to say about innovation in the church he said too many leaders will step backwards, basically they'll step back into the past. The moment they step into their buildings. And I think that is really true for us as well so we've got to be careful with how we are doing things for that online crowd. But quickly we have forgotten. You know the thing about it is that it was not that long ago that the only way we could experience worship was through that camera now we've kind of gotten back into the room and we want to let go of that, or get it out of the way or or not have it present engage people online I saw one of the comments in the chat earlier about how do you get people to engage in the moment. Let me give you a couple tips here and we may we may just slide our break by five minutes and then and then do our Q&A. A couple of things to consider chat strategy your chat is like your digital Narthex or your welcome center or wherever you connect with people. So I want to encourage you to do a couple of different things. Let's get rethink church I remember rethink church, a couple things. Number one, welcome people as they come into the chat, each time a person comes in, say by name, hey, Don it's good to see you Cynthia great to have you with us. Lonnie awesome that you're here today David I'm so glad you're in worship, make them feel acknowledged. The second thing to consider is I'm leaving this up a longer than I typically would but I want you to be able to write it down. Take questions. Some people don't know what some of the words we use mean they don't understand what joys and concerns are. We all know what that means but an outsider might not know. I actually know one church that is actually posting each movement of worship they post a little paragraph about what's happening in that moment on purpose for the outsider so they understand what's happening. Hopefully that was up long enough. What was the other ones reinforce everything you're saying so I like to encourage churches to prepare documents so every time a sermon point is shared, put it in the chat. When you share the offering put it in the chat someone's birthday today put it in the chat. If the pastor has a really excellent quote put it in the chat. Just use that in the same way those of you who have screens in your worship you use it to reinforce the message. Use the chat to reinforce. Also keep in mind that some people watch on a smart TV at home. So you might still encourage them to engage in the chat there's a little this is really technical for some of you but there's a little thing called a QR code. You can put on the screen they can raise their device put the camera app and it will open the chat so they can participate. Post all the links if you're trying if you're doing announcements if you're trying to get them to sign up for things if you want them to participate in your church, put those links in the chat. Foster relationships. So, it asks people if they have prayer, one of my favorite stories was from a worship pastor online friend of mine they record their worship ahead of time so they pre record but he always monitors the chat live as it's being premiered for the first time. He said, does he has everybody doing today, someone in the chest and not very good it's been a bad week. I'm so sorry to hear that. Can I pray for you today. And he said, sure. And he said well if you'd like to pray I'm going to put my zoom link in the chat and after worship I'll keep it open for 10 minutes, you're welcome to pray if you'd like to. So 10 minutes after worship or worship ends. He's got it open for 10 minutes. He pops in says, Andy, thank you so much for praying with me today. And he told him whatever was happening in his life and he said I'm so sorry to hear that let me pray for you so he prays for this gentleman. And at the end he says, I don't know that I recognize you have we met before. And he said no I've never actually been to your physical church. I've only ever attended online, and I consider you to be my online pastor thank you so much for praying with me you'll see, you'll see more of me. And I believe in the relationship that built all digitally, and, and I believe that that person is still involved at the church so invite follow up digital connect card, a way for new people and, and regular people to be able to register their attendance. We don't want our online worship to be a big revolving door for people on the outside. Yeah, let me move on to the next one here I do want to honor our break time so we're, there was, there are five of them and we're getting to number five now. And that is to keep casting vision. People are tired of the pandemic. They are tired of masks they're tired of hearing about vaccines they are tired of social distancing. We've got to keep casting vision. We've got to keep people aware of all those 1213 groups that I shared with you friends again as lay people we are like the cheerleaders, we are the support we are the priesthood of all believers. So it's not all on your pastor's shoulders to bear that burden. We're a part of it so we're part of that movement we are dominoes in the rally that I think can make a difference. I'm going to just share two final things with you here before we do q amp a over the break. And that is that there are four audiences that we need to keep thinking about as we do worship. Number one is the people that are in our physical space and they're the ones that we think about the most. The second audience I want you to consider is that some of our people are worshiping at home. We know they're at we know them they're at home, they're not with us. So we've got to keep them in mind I'm going to talk about how we keep them in mind in just a moment. We've got visitors or guests who are worshiping with us online for the first time, or who are in the room for the first time. And then lastly we've got a growing number of people who now watch on delay. So that's great. Oh, sorry, that's not the right camera there. So what does that have to do with anything Jason how's that helpful. I want you to consider that sometimes we only think about the people in the room at the moment we're not thinking about the rest. If you're doing interactive things. Palm Sunday, you hand out branches to people when they come in the building on Palm Sunday in the room. You know, some people are at home. So send ahead a kit to them that has a palm branch in it. During lent or during advent if we find ourselves in limited in person again for advent you might create an advent wreath with candles. You know it can be very simple I heard about churches doing this last year. You know some of those people then the third group is the people that we don't know the newbies who are worshiping with us online or in the room in the room it's easier you give them the same thing the palm branch or whatever but at home. If it's Palm Sunday you could put a PDF file of a palm branch in the chat that they can download and PDF file that they can cut out and participate fully at home it's going to have a craft project today in addition to. And then the last group those who watch on delay you can put that same file on the archive of your worship so they can download it and participate as well. The final thing I'm going to give you here in the last minute I have before our break is I created this tool that I call the both and audit. Again I realize we are largely laity here today I think they're a few clergy on but friends again I just think you are so important in helping us, helping the church be effective in in this season so here's the both and audit. I first mentioned assigning advocates I think somebody's got to advocate for the people at home and in the room and seven questions you might ask as your planning worship what is the purpose of whatever aspect of worship you're planning and does it translate to both audiences. And it doesn't matter if I'm going to leave this up for a second. It doesn't matter if you are doing traditional worship or non traditional worship or today or camp classics, this applies to any kind of worship. The question is, does this moment belong in both experiences, not everything does belong and online that does in the room and vice versa. Is there a participatory or interactive way of doing what we're talking about. I'm going to say it again we will always have watchers, we will always have viewers, if we don't do interactivity and participation. The next is, is this too short or too long for either audience. We don't have as long attention to spans at home as we do in the room so we want to be careful about the length of what we're doing online. How does this translate at home and doing an alternate moment I didn't get to talk to you about alternate moments. If there's time at the end I will. I just need any additional contextualization for either audience. And so, remember in the room, there's field of view of everything that's happening online. It's only with the camera see so you may need to give more context. And then finally how a first time viewer or in person guest receive what we're talking about. All right friends I'm sure you feel like you've been drinking from the fire hose I know I've given you a lot. Thank you for letting me adjust a little on schedule. I'm going to take a, you want to do 10 minutes Susan.