Modern Church Leader
Hear pastors share what's working in their churches. Welcome to Modern Church Leader, a show for church leaders to learn business strategies, leadership skills, church tech tips, and generosity. Tune in for powerful interviews to help you grow your church to be more effective, efficient, and powerful for the kingdom of God. For more information, visit https://www.mclconference.com/
Modern Church Leader
Leading Creative Church Teams w/ Phil Cooke
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All right, hey guys. Frank here with another episode of Modern Church Leader. I am here with Phil Cook, coming all the way from Nashville. Phil, it's great to have you on the show today.
Speaker 1:Hey, I'm thrilled to be here. Sorry for my glamorous background, but I'm on the road we just got into Nashville, so it's the best I could do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all good, we can hear you well, you know the mic's picking up and we're good, so you just made the move, though you were saying you moved from kind of the Southern California, our company Cook Media Group, we decided to have a presence in Nashville.
Speaker 1:Obviously it's a growing market and things in media are happening there. We'll keep our presence in Los Angeles, but we're spread out and we love it. So I decided my wife and I decided we're going to move to Nashville. Help start the presence here, get it launched and get things going, yeah, and we'll see what happens. But it's a great town. Plus, it doesn't hurt that our grandkids are here.
Speaker 2:So we're having fun. That's the win. I feel like you've moved for life, unless they go somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, possibly.
Speaker 2:My in-laws live pretty close. They don't live in San Diego where I'm at, but they live about two hours from us, so they're here all the time. It's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's good. I'll be in LA a lot. You know I don't know about you, but I travel about a quarter of a million miles a year. I had a really a breakdown about five or six years ago and I thought, if I have to get on another airplane, I'm going to kill myself.
Speaker 1:And it was like God spoke to me very clearly and said but you have no other skills, this is all you're good at. We're filming all over the world. We shot in about 70 countries, so it's an interesting thing. But yeah, I live out of suitcases and airline lounges. That's about where I spend most of my time.
Speaker 2:I want to get into what you do and making sure our audience kind of know who you are. But what's your airline?
Speaker 1:American Well being in LA and Burbank before and now being in Nashville, american, I was a Delta guy for a long time and then I switched to American and it's been good so far.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I have a good buddy. He was a captain for American. He just retired this year. He was there for a long time, so American's his thing.
Speaker 1:You know you fly a lot. When I walked up to the ticket counter at LAX you know, the fourth largest busiest airport in the world Massive and as I'm walking up to the ticket counter the lady said oh, mr Cook, welcome back. So nice to see you. And I thought, if that lady knows my name, I'm here way too much.
Speaker 2:You're like processing how to feel about that particular thing, You're like I don't know about that. Totally, totally Well, man, you're quite the guy. You've had quite the career and still going strong. Tell us about you and what you do in Cook Media Group.
Speaker 1:Well, we launched Cook Media Group in 91. I've always been a film and video guy. We've shot Super Bowl commercials, we produce Super Bowl commercials. We've, as I said, shot in about 70 countries around the world. We're leaving next week for Ghana. We're doing a week-long teaching session, a media training session for about 200 filmmakers and media professionals from all over Africa. So yeah, we do a lot. We work with churches, ministry organizations. We've done a lot of big secular projects. I spent the vast majority of my career in Hollywood, but I really want to focus on churches and ministry organizations. I think we live in a media-driven culture and unless we can master the media for our faith and use it to reach the world, we're not going to make much of an impact.
Speaker 1:One study in Britain says the average person sees about 10,000 media messages every single day and in that world if we don't speak that language, we're never going to break through. So I just have a passion to help Christian leaders and churches and ministry organizations and we've worked with the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC, the Salvation Army I mean just a wide range of organizations and churches and I just am passionate about using our skills to focus on helping the church get that message out there, because I think the church is the hope of the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen. Well, yeah, that's our audiences, mostly church leaders of some sort, whether they're volunteers or senior pastors, and we serve churches of all kinds of shapes and sizes all over the world and man churches getting kind of the media side of things. Churches are amazing. They get up every week and produce tons of content, but taking that and like getting into like digital media that spreads is somehow like tricky. It's like not what churches are born to do. You know what I'm saying, it's like a skill set.
Speaker 1:It is, and sometimes when people ask us what we do for a living, we jokingly say we help Christians not suck at the media, and if you've seen much Christian television or many Christian movies, you'll know we'll be busy for the rest of our life. There's much work to be done, but it's true. It's true Pastors they go to Bible school or seminary and they learn to get the message right, but they don't learn how to share that message in the digital culture that we live in today, and so I think my calling is to go out and help them do that more effectively. So it's great. I get to work with some wonderful leaders out there and it's really quite fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what kind of? I mean, give us a little insight into the kind of projects you guys have worked on for churches or ministries or you know anybody in kind of the Christian space like. Give us some highlights.
Speaker 1:We've been doing it for a long time. I have one one of the biggest, one of the most interesting, I'll say, projects we ever did was about 20 years ago, oddly enough, with Billy Graham, and they came to us and said we'd like to make a one-hour television special that somebody who'd never in a million years would watch a Billy Graham show would actually watch. And so we took them at their word and we opened it with a guy committing suicide in his car a late one night and it was like MTV meets Billy Graham. It was just a wild, wild one-hour special and when we showed the rough cut to the ministry, they hated it. The leadership hated it. They said this will never air. This is not what we're about, no way.
Speaker 1:And one of the leaders it was very interesting. One of the leaders this is back when screeners were on VHS tape and one of the leaders left the screener on his coffee table after watching it and he was just furious. He hated it so much. His wife came in later and, not knowing what it was, she put it in the vcr and watched the show and one of their guys told me that with tears in her eyes she said honey, I don't know what this is, but people should see this, and so they put it on the air, aired it on one of their global specials, and um actually had a. They put a spokesperson on the front end saying now people, what you're about to see is really weird, so I just want you to be ready, which was just awful, but they aired it, and the Los Angeles Times reported that it generated a million calls for salvation.
Speaker 1:Wow, so that one television special generated a million calls from people around the world for salvation, which means my father, who was a pastor, spent his whole life in the ministry. That one hour special reached more people than he reached in his entire lifetime. So you know, it's obviously different. You know my dad was a pastor and he was there with people constantly. However, to not understand the power of television, it's just a huge mistake, I think. So we live in a digital age today and short videos and YouTube and social media have come into play as well. But I still believe in the power of TV and I would love to see more churches and ministry organizations use those and get the word out there that you know, make Jesus famous as it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's pretty cool. I mean thank god for that wife.
Speaker 1:you know that well, it's amazing how these things work. It's amazing. But we've had, you know, we've had the opportunity to shoot stuff all over the world. We shot in moldova, where the number one, the number one export of the country of moldova is women. Uh, you know, sex trafficking. There is just a global phenomenon. It's just unbelievable.
Speaker 1:And we worked with an organization that takes girls out of orphanages. You know, at 16 years old girls are aged out. You know these giant ex-Soviet orphanages. In the Soviet era they thought they could raise children better than families could. So they just people, would send their kids to these giant orphanages and when they're 16, they're aged out and they're given 30, the equivalent of $30 and a bus ticket to their hometown, whether they have family there or not. And so these sex traffickers will meet them outside the gates and say, look, we have jobs in England and Europe and France, and you know nannies and housekeepers and all kinds of things and housekeepers and all kinds of things. They pick them up and these girls are never heard from again. And so we did an interesting documentary on that, and I love doing documentary films because they're a powerful way to tell stories of what's happening out there.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, absolutely, man, it sounds like you do some incredible work. How are you? What's your take? I guess you're a creative guy and it sounds like that's your. That's what you've done. Um, I guess, taking it into like the actual church and helping church leaders with like creativity, like what's your take on that? I would just love your perspective on creatives working inside churches and how they can be more effective or have a bigger voice in their church or bring some of these kind of thoughts whether it's TV or social media type of video but helping them make the case for why this is important and why churches should be good at it.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because we live in this media-driven culture Churches today. They're going to have a social media person. They're going to have a marketing person or a creative designer. They're going to have, maybe, a video person. They're going to have a, you know, a marketing person or a creative designer. They're going to have, you know, maybe, a video person they're going to have, you know, if it's a big church, they're going to have staff people.
Speaker 1:And yet what's interesting to me is there's a ton of leadership resources out there. You know, john Maxwell really is one of the key people that opened that door in a big way, and today we have some amazing resources for leaders, but there's incredibly little on leading creative people. And as you know, frank, creative people are a little different. We're different from most people, and so there is an art form to leading creative people and, having shot in 70 countries around the world, I've met film crews from Russia, china, africa, india. We've worked together all over the world. I've met film crews from Russia, china, africa, india. We've worked together all over the world and it's interesting seeing the differences in leading creative people in different parts of the world.
Speaker 1:So a couple of years ago I wrote a book called Ideas on a Deadline how to Be Creative when the Clock is Ticking, because my whole career has been up against broadcast television deadlines. I discovered years ago that they're not going to move the date of the Super Bowl because I can't come up with a creative idea for a commercial and we have to hit deadlines in the television world. And yet I've discovered that there are brilliantly creative people who are paralyzed at the idea of a deadline. They really struggle with it, and it's not just for creative people. All of us have to have a report due on Tuesday or we have to do a presentation in a week and we have to face deadlines.
Speaker 1:So I wrote the book Ideas on a Deadline to really equip people for how to come up with brilliant ideas when the pressure is on. And I've learned that you know, forget the pressure, it doesn't matter. If you have to have an idea by Wednesday, you can do it. You don't necessarily. You know. So many people say, well, yeah, I could come up with something great, but I'll need a couple more weeks. No, no, no, you can do it when you need to do it. It's been proven over and over. And so I really took a deep dive into research about creativity under stress and it was remarkable what I discovered from and I interviewed Madison Avenue copywriters for big agencies in New York. I interviewed Hollywood screenwriters and directors people at the top of their creative game and it was just interesting to see how that works. No-transcript, really leading, the art of leading creative people is absolutely critical in this day and age we live in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, uh, side side note, I think you know tithely is a tech company, so we have creative people. Uh, I also think engineers actually live in that creative space. They're they're writing code, but they're very much creatives, uh like in terms of like how they. They may not be doing graphics or videos or whatever, but like there's a creative element of what they do and like having deadlines is an interesting thing to work within, right, like being creative and having deadlines mixing.
Speaker 1:So I, I love the, the idea of the book, um, and I guess, frank, I've gotten to the point where I won't even accept a project unless it has a deadline Right, you know, because I tend to just put it off, and put it off, and put it off, and when I see it, in fact, I jokingly say that I don't even start a project till I see the deadline approaching in the distance. There's a joke in the creative world that I love. I love deadlines, I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. But the truth is, deadlines help me back time the project, help me map it out. I know when I have to do my research, I know when I have to deliver and do the hardcore writing or thinking, and so deadlines could be a real tool to help people be amazingly creative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do church leaders lead creative people?
Speaker 1:well, Well, there's a number of things. I think one of the key things is balancing challenge and stability. You know, some leaders think we need to challenge my creative team. I need to make them think if they don't design a great logo, we'll go out of business. Others think I should leave them alone and not mess with them and let them do their thing. You know there's a real balance there.
Speaker 1:I think you want to give them a challenge. You want to get them out on the edge, push them outside their comfort zone. However, if they're worried, you know that if they fail, they'll lose their job. They're not going to come up with a very creative idea Right. So they need that. They need the stability of knowing that, look, this, this organization is going to be here. We're here for you. We believe in you. We're going to work through this and, at the same time, push them outside the comfort zone, give them that little edge. But I know leaders that will yell at their creative team. I know leaders that will, you know, say everything's over. If this is not going to be a good video, we're done. That does not inspire creativity.
Speaker 1:So, that balance between stability and creativity is incredibly important and along that line, I also think we need to make the creative person say we need to protect them from excessive criticism.
Speaker 2:You know.
Speaker 1:Very often there's, as I'm sure you've seen, in a lot of companies. Everybody's a critic, but nobody's going to be that creative person that comes up with the idea, and so that's a valuable person. I think one of the reasons I get hired as much as I do is I can start with a blank page.
Speaker 1:I can start with nothing and come up with a great idea, and that's a real skill and that's something that you know is in demand. However, I've worked in ministry organizations and churches where you know six or eight people from the creative or from the leadership team. They're going to criticize everything I come up with. Right right, because they can.
Speaker 1:And so they don't understand how hard it is. So, as a leader, it's your job to protect your team, and I'll tell you if you could protect your creative team from it. Doesn't mean they can't be criticized. We want to kick around and have a healthy discussion about ideas, but excessive criticism we need to protect them from that, and if you do that, your creative team will walk through a fire for you. It's amazing how they'll respond if you really help them. Keep the critics at bay long enough for them to come up with something brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, totally. How do you keep creative folks energized If you're in the church setting where you're doing the same thing every week? I guess it's less monotonous to an extent. How do those folks get energy and continue to be creative in that environment?
Speaker 1:One of the challenges I face is I want to find out what lights up every creative person I work with. So if I'm on a film crew, I may be with 12 or 15 people and I want to find out what. What lights up every creative person I work with. So if I'm on a film crew, I may be with 12 or 15 people and I want to know the people that enjoy being pushed, and I'll push them and I want to enjoy the people that don't want to be pushed, and I'll I'll leave them alone. I want to know the people that would rather have time off, because that that inspires them. I want to know the people that like working late, because that inspires them. So part of this is kind of knowing what that magic key is that really sparks the creativity in your team, and everybody's different. You know it's funny.
Speaker 1:I don't think we put enough thought into the time of day we're most creative. I'm. You know we all live by circadian rhythm. You know we have ups and downs all day long, as you see. You know You're having your coffee now, because you're probably hitting a slump, and what I've discovered is I'm insanely creative between six in the morning and noon. I mean, I can write like a madman, I can focus like a madman, I can really do amazing work in the morning, in the afternoon and evening. Forget it, there's no way, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:My wife, on the other hand, Kathleen. She lights up at night, she becomes super creative and wants to work after dinner. I don't understand that, and there's a what's funny is there's a small sliver of people that are their creative best in the afternoon. I totally don't get that Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So part of this is knowing when you're at your best, even when some of us work at full time jobs and we can't just block that time Right. But I remember when I started my career I learned this and I was working full time with an organization and I couldn't block that time. However, when I discovered that I was at my best early, I would come in in the morning at 6 am, two hours before anybody else early. I would come in in the morning at 6 am, two hours before anybody else, and I wrote my first two books in those two-hour blocks because I realized I was more creative. I could accomplish more in two hours at my best than I could at six or eight hours the rest of the day.
Speaker 1:The rest of the day, yeah. So understanding the times of day that you're best and trying to focus as much as possible on that. And the other thing I don't want to preach here, but the other thing is knowing where you're at your best. For me, a bank vault would probably be the most creative place I can imagine. I cannot be distracted, I don't want to. I shut my windows, I shut my drapes. I don't want to have the TV on, the radio on, I can't have music on. I want total silence. Other people there's one study that indicates there's a certain number of people that are inspired by the dull roar of coffee shop conversation which is probably why you see people at Starbucks with their laptops.
Speaker 1:So everybody find out. I encourage people to find out where you're most creative and try to focus your best time of day in those places and you'll see I mean, I'm not kidding You'll see a dramatic breakthrough in the quality of work that you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I imagine carving that time out is like tricky. Like I find, you know, like you're doing all the things. You got meetings like just in my own life, right, you got meetings. You're on Zoom, bouncing around between things. So for me it's almost like you know, like last night I take one of my kids to basketball practice and for that like hour and a half like I can sit in my car on my laptop and like crush, like crank stuff out because there's like no, it's good, it's your point. Like there's no distractions. There's also like there's no meetings for whatever reason, like my mind can like stop being on on all the other stuff and then like focus on getting whatever stuff I need actually like deep work done, you know. So finding those moments, sometimes for me it's just like being out somewhere, like getting away from the desk, getting away from your normal environment.
Speaker 1:Well you're. You're right about distraction. There's not one study that I've ever I've ever encountered that indicates multitasking helps. So the idea that we can watch TV, work on our report, have the radio on or other stuff going on, check email every once in a while, is a total myth. We can do that, but it lowers your IQ a significant amount. I mean, one study indicates that when you're multitasking you lower your IQ to the level as if you were smoking weed. So if that's the kind of work you want to do, great. But if you're trying to excel and do amazing creative work, you need to focus, focus, focus, focus yeah and you know that it makes a big difference yeah, totally what.
Speaker 2:what have you seen, uh, in, you know, in your journeys, uh around, like the church and creativity over the years, like I'm just you know, like you've been doing you referenced the TV thing you did for Billy Graham 10 years ago. You've been at this for a while. Have you seen just creativity continue to get better inside churches, or is it not good, or I don't know what's your take on it?
Speaker 1:It's exponentially better. It's amazing today, in fact. Uh, you know, the, I, the. I wonder sometimes that the we used to say uh, at the Grammy awards we'd often hear people accept a Grammy and say you know, I got my start singing in church, right, and I'm expecting any any year. Here we're going to see someone win an Oscar and say I got my start running video at church. I can name you a number of A-list commercial directors that are doing amazing work who got started as church media guys. So it's gone up. I mean the church didn't appreciate creativity when I started. I remember working for a client one time that he actually had cards printed that he put on every computer in the building that said just follow my instructions. I mean he didn't want creative thinking, he didn't want anybody thinking on their own, he just you do what I tell you to do and shut up, and I thought you know.
Speaker 1:I shook hands with him and walked away. I wasn't about to work with that guy, but over the years it's evolved in a wonderful way and people today pastors get it. They understand creativity. Because here's the thing it's really not about the creativity, it's about creating a space where people will want to hear your message. I say a lot of times perception in this culture that we live in, where I said you know people see 10,000 media messages a day. If they don't have a good feeling about you or your church, they're never going to walk in.
Speaker 2:They're never going to come check it out.
Speaker 1:So creativity is a way to help people have that good feeling. You know, everything they see about it can be positive and inspirational and they're thinking, well, maybe I could go hear that, go check that church out or go hear that pastor. And I just look at creativity as a way to open doors for people to hear the ultimate message.
Speaker 2:Right yeah, what about getting things online nowadays, like with social media and shorts, specifically like do you think much about that stuff or have you done any work in that category around just short form video and we've done hundreds and hundreds of short form videos for all kinds of situations fundraising, marketing, awareness.
Speaker 1:We did all of the video for the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC, from before the groundbreaking all the way through to the launch, and we photographed their collection and we did hundreds of videos with them alone Just short little videos to inform donors of what's going on, to let the public see what's happening, and they made a huge impact out there. And short videos one study indicates that short videos are the number one marketing tool in America right now, and I'll sit on a plane regularly next to people that just have their phone and they're just flipping through one short video Just flipping through shorts right For hours, hours, yeah, yeah, and so and I'm talking two to four minute videos, for the most part, in fact.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you something interesting, frank we've done a lot of fundraising videos for events like a big church anniversary or something, or a celebration kind of a thing, and we used to do a 10, 15 minute video that you know told the story of the church.
Speaker 1:That would inspire everybody. Now we're doing maybe four or five two to four minute videos instead and playing those throughout the evening. We've discovered, rather than force people to sit through a 10 minute video once, they really enjoy seeing a two to four minute video placed strategically throughout the evening. So short videos have really impacted the way we do a lot of things out there and it's crazy.
Speaker 2:My, my kids are like you know. They're middle schoolers. Yep, they have their iPads at the house. We're not going phones yet. I don't know when I'll give them phones, but they got the iPads in the house and like YouTube shorts. They don't. They don't really watch like reg, they don't really watch even regular YouTube videos. It's like they just watch the shorts. It's crazy. My mother-in-law comes over oh yeah, instagram and YouTube shorts. She's telling me about some recipe or some health thing or whatever that she found on YouTube shorts.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you this. One study indicates the 55 and older crowd watches the same number of short videos as the 20-something crowd. I believe it.
Speaker 2:I 100% believe it.
Speaker 1:It's a tool for everybody in your church to use to promote what you're doing. By the way, you mentioned your phone with your kids. It's interesting to me that the founders of the tech world Silicon Valley, the Microsofts, the Apples, the founders of that never let their kids have phones for a long time and they obviously know something that a lot of us don't, and it's sad. My 10-year-old granddaughter she'll have friends come over and they all have phones and there's no way she's getting one, not for a long time.
Speaker 2:And it's just really sad. I tell my kids all the time it's a a different, it's a different age. Every time they ask me, I'm like oh it's going to be 26 or 45. Oh, you're going to be 32. Like I'm always changing, it's something way out. You know, that's true. That's true, I don't know, dude, it's not going to be for a while.
Speaker 2:No man, it's a different world. Yeah, it totally is. You're, uh, this is like it's super fun. We could sit, I could just sit there and pick your brain. But you're coming to our conference. It's our first ever kind of big users conference. Uh, in dallas in october you're teaching a workshop, so I, I mean, it's still a ways out, the deadline is there. But you're, you know, maybe you haven't started working, but any preview on what you might be sharing?
Speaker 1:No, I'm actually going to talk about the secrets of leading creative people.
Speaker 1:I think it's so important that people understand this, and so what better place than a church you know the modern church leaders leader conference to talk about leading creative people, and so it'll be the I'm the only one I of my kind there that's going to be doing it, and so I'm going to have a really interesting talk and and I think and here's the thing people listening to this or watching you may be a graphic designer or a video person or whatever, but one day you're going to step up and be leading other graphic designers.
Speaker 1:And so you need to understand now how to lead, inspire and motivate creative people. And certainly if you're a church pastor, if you're a leader at a church, you definitely need to understand how to lead and inspire creative people, because you know what you preach to the people in the room on Sunday, but your creative team is the key to getting that message to potentially millions of people beyond the walls of your church. So the more you can inspire and motivate them, the better off you'll be. So I would encourage people check out the workshop, because it's gonna have some really amazing techniques, secrets and ideas that will help take your leadership to a whole nother level.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, no, you are one of one at the conference. It's gonna be fun. There's a lot, I mean, I think, going back to what you're saying earlier, like creativity is uh, I mean I think I've seen it too like the creatives in the church, uh, though you know it's not the sort of pastoral roles, but like I think over the last 10 years maybe more creativity in the church has exploded and uh, but still underserved, you know, to your point around like there's tons on leadership, not a lot on leading creatives or being creative in a church and whatnot. So I'm excited about the session, um, it'll be fun what about between now and then?
Speaker 2:where can folks go to like learn a little bit about you or any resources you recommend for creatives in the church?
Speaker 1:my. My hub is philcookcom. I'm cook with an e, so easy h-H-I-L-C-O-O-K-Ecom Everything. My blog is there and I'm writing on these issues all the time, so I'd encourage people to go there. Our company site is cookmediagroupcom, but yeah, I'd encourage people to go check out my book. You know Ideas on a Deadline, how to Be Creative when the clock is ticking, because really, if you you know sundays come with relentless regularity, oh yeah, constantly.
Speaker 1:They show up every week and we got to be prepared for that with new ideas and new brilliant thoughts and projects, and so if there's anything creative people need, it's an injection of how to deal with deadlines more effectively, and so I'd encourage people to check that out. And then the book has got a huge bibliography and a resource of other creative stuff. That would be remarkable for people Can they get that at, like philcookcom.
Speaker 2:Oh, you can get it at philcookcom.
Speaker 1:You can get it on Amazon.
Speaker 2:Barnes Noble any place you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:Hey, one quick final question. Sure, and it may be off on a tangent In the creative space, especially when we're talking about content and getting it out into the world. Are there any tools that you've seen cropping up for creatives to help do this better? Anything in the AI space that you've been messing around with? How's the tech side of things hit your world?
Speaker 1:You know it's funny. Ai is an interesting thing. I really strongly encourage creative people to explore AI. But be cautious. I did an interesting thing the other day. I went on AI and I said what are the top 10 biggest criticisms of Phil Cook? And so it thought for a second and spit them out.
Speaker 1:And they were amazing. They were totally believable, you know, totally believable and remarkable actually. And so then I said, okay, what kind of people are making these criticisms? And they said you know rival producers, critics, you know some ministry leaders that don't like what you do. It was very legit. But then I asked it okay, tell me the names of the people that have said these things. And it said it came back with well, nobody's actually said those things, but I'm programmed to give you an answer to every question you ask. And so it essentially made it up, and so we have to be really careful. So AI will just make stuff up that it doesn't know.
Speaker 2:That is crazy.
Speaker 1:I just thought that was fascinating, yeah, and so I don't want to let that list get out, because it was a pretty legit list of problems, but it's a great example of how, when we explore new technology, we just need to be sensitive and careful. You know and be aware of its strengths, its weaknesses, its limitations, and use it accordingly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, amen to that, no doubt. Well, phil, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's been fun.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, absolutely Looking forward to seeing you at the conference. In the meantime, guys, go check out the book. Go to philcookcom, like the easiest place to go find the book and just learn more about Phil uh and the cook media group man. You guys are up to good work. I love it. Um well, guys, thanks for joining, excited for, uh, our conference coming up. We'll see you guys next week on another episode of modern church leader and uh, phil, thanks again and we'll see you guys next week. Bye.