Phil Cooke / PhD. Strategic Advisor. Cultural Influence & Crisis Leadership

Your church is competing in the most distracted culture in human history — and most ministry leaders don't even know it.

Phil Cooke, Ph.D. — Hollywood producer, strategic media advisor, and author — has spent decades helping churches, nonprofits, and ministry leaders cut through the noise and get their story out to the world. 

In this conversation, Phil and Paul pull back the curtain on why the church keeps fumbling its message, what healthy culture actually looks like inside a ministry, and why attention has become the most valuable currency of this generation.

From parking lot volunteers to leadership team alignment to the shocking biblical literacy statistics hiding in your own pews, this episode is a candid, practical wake-up call for every pastor, leader, and communicator who wants to make a real impact in today's culture.

GUEST BIO:

Phil Cooke, Ph.D., is one of the rare voices operating at the intersection of Hollywood production, Christian leadership, and strategic communications. Called "one of the most innovative communicators of our generation," Cooke is the founder of Cooke Media Group, with offices in Los Angeles and Nashville, and has produced film and television programming in more than 60 countries. His client list spans major studios and networks including Walt Disney and USA Network, as well as leading Christian organizations such as Voice of the Martyrs, the Museum of the Bible, the Salvation Army, and the YouVersion Bible app. He holds a Ph.D. in Theology from Regent University and is the author of multiple books, including the Washington Post Top Five Business Book for 2012, "One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do," the widely cited "The Way Back: How Christians Blew Our Credibility and How We Win it Back," and his most recent release, "Church on Trial: How to Protect Your Congregation, Mission, and Reputation During a Crisis." Phil also co-founded The Influence Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to training pastors and Christian communicators around the world in media and digital strategy. He speaks at major conferences globally and writes prolifically at PhilCooke.com, where his blog serves as a go-to resource for ministry leaders navigating the challenges of modern communication and culture.

Link: https://www.philcooke.com/

Paul Povolni (Voppa) is the founder of Voppa Creative and a creative leader with over 30 years of experience in brand strategy and design. Based in Jackson, Mississippi, he has worked with clients internationally, leading teams in award-winning branding while serving as a coach and speaker. Paul delivers workshops and keynotes on brand strategy, creative thinking, and organizational culture, and hosts The Headsmack Podcast: Conversations with Misfits. His work centers on helping organizations lead with Clarity, Creativity, and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Voppa Creative Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (03:08.438)
Hey, welcome to the Headsmack podcast. My name is Paul Povolni and I am excited to have another mystery with me. have Phil Cooke.

Paul Povolni (03:32.074)
Phil Cooke is a strategic advisor to church nonprofit and media leaders navigating crisis credibility and cultural influence in a rapid changing digital world Founder of the cook media group in Los Angeles and Nashville He has worked with senior leadership teams globally to strengthen reputation and clarify mission He is the author of church on trial and several other books on leadership and creativity and has produced media projects seen worldwide Phil. How do you do man?

Phil Cooke (04:00.51)
I'm doing great, Paul. I'm thrilled to be on here. This is going to be fun.

Paul Povolni (04:03.822)
This is going to be a lot of fun, a lot of what you do, a lot of what you talk about, a lot of what you're passionate about. I'm also passionate about. so keeping this all within an hour and getting it all in is going to be a challenge today. And I think we're going to have a great conversation. I've been following your adventures. I've got your books. And so I'm looking forward to talking about all the great things that you're involved with.

Phil Cooke (04:28.1)
Let's do it. Let's do it.

Paul Povolni (04:29.312)
Let's do it. So what I like to do, as you can see behind me, I have superhero stuff up. love origin stories. I love to hear about people, where they came from and what they're doing. So I'd love to hear a little bit about your origin story for those that might not know you or might not have heard the whole story. Tell me a little bit about your origin story and you can go as far back as you want to go.

Phil Cooke (04:49.424)
Well, I'm a preacher's kid. grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and my dad was a pastor. And of course, the job description for being a pastor's kid back in those days was playing the piano. And I played the piano growing up and also mowed the cemetery. We had a hundred year old cemetery behind our house, behind the church. And it was interesting back in those days, a hundred years ago, from when I was a kid,

people were buried in wooden coffins and over a hundred years ago, those things rot. And so there are multiple times when I'd be riding the lawnmower or pushing the lawnmower over a grave and it would just collapse. you know, I was a 10, 12 year old kid. You see stuff you probably shouldn't see at that age. so growing up in outside Charlotte in a really essentially a country church was a real experience. I went to college thinking I would probably major in music because it's all I knew. I didn't really

Paul Povolni (05:30.136)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (05:43.544)
have any other options. but one weird thing is when I was in high school, I had a group of buddies and we would make movies. And we, back in those days, my dad had a super eight film camera. may remember those three minute reels of super eight film. And we would make these short films on everything, mafia, Star Trek, you know, war, all kind of stuff. And, we made.

Paul Povolni (05:55.979)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Phil Cooke (06:08.857)
tons of movies and I thought, well, when I go to college, maybe I'll take the camera and my films. Maybe I'll find somebody there that wants to do it. Never crossed my mind that you could do this for a living. I just see it was fun. So that literally the first day of college, I'm unpacking my suitcase and some of my films fell out and a guy across the hall, Rod Carlson said, hey, I'm taking a film class. I can show you how to edit those. I had no idea you could even edit film. That's how ignorant I was. So I went down. We went down to the film department that night and we're working till after midnight.

Paul Povolni (06:18.339)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (06:32.504)
Wow.

Phil Cooke (06:38.583)
And without my knowledge, the professor was there. He'd been in the back working on a project of his own. And on his way out, he stopped, he introduced himself and said, you know, I've been looking at your little film out of the corner of my eye. And he said, I've got students who have been taking film classes for three years that don't do this well. He said, would you mind if I showed your film in my class tomorrow? I thought, well, if I can sit in, sure. So the next day I went to the class, threaded the projector, sat on the back row.

Paul Povolni (06:58.926)
Wow.

Phil Cooke (07:05.635)
They played my film and believe me, it was nothing to scream about. It was no great, great work of art. But after it played, they discussed it. They talked about it. And I'd never experienced that before. This thought hit me probably the most crystal clear moment of revelation I've had before since that if I could do something with a camera that makes people talk like this, this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. And I literally changed my major that day from music to film and television.

Paul Povolni (07:08.526)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (07:28.558)
Wow.

Phil Cooke (07:33.107)
And I've never looked back. since that time we've, well, we've produced footage, we've shot in about 70 countries, a little more than 70 countries around the world. We've done everything from Superbowl commercials to prime time television programming to documentaries of all kinds. Nowadays, I work mostly with nonprofit organizations, churches, ministries, trying to help them tell their story out there. We live in a very, very...

distracted digital culture and it's more difficult than ever for people to get their story out there. So I feel like if I can use my skill to help people tell their story, that's going to be really the focus of my life. And so that's what we've been doing for, I won't say the number of years, it'll make me quite old, but there you go.

Paul Povolni (08:15.438)
So how did your family or, you know, coming from a preacher's home, how did they feel about your fascination with film?

Phil Cooke (08:21.795)
You know, my family is interesting. My family was very, very open to whatever I wanted to do. I never felt pressure to go into ministry. I never felt pressure to do any particular thing. But I have to say to my father's dying day, he never really figured out what I do for a living. And he just, he could never wrap his head around this, this filmmaking thing. he, so my parents just never really understood, but they supported me. They were very supportive and they were

Paul Povolni (08:42.189)
Yeah, yeah.

Phil Cooke (08:51.171)
They were great and I was very fortunate to have a set of parents like that. And so it was quite interesting.

Paul Povolni (08:57.132)
That's awesome. And so as you started venturing into film, what was some of your first projects that you actually did that you felt like, wow, I could actually make a living from this.

Phil Cooke (09:07.823)
Yeah, that took a while. But I mean, when I was young, I did everything. I would shoot everything that moves, super, you know, hot tub commercials, you know, whatever you needed. I did it. I did a bunch of those infomercials. Remember those 30 minute television commercials back in the day? So I have to I'm always embarrassed to admit it, but hey, we had to make a living. And but I got a reputation early on that I could help people tell their story well. And I think that's why I gravitated toward working with

Paul Povolni (09:10.38)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (09:21.435)
yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:27.383)
Right.

Phil Cooke (09:36.79)
nonprofits, religious organizations, because I just had a knack for helping, you know, figuring out what their story was and how to get it out there in a very compelling way. And, you know, it's funny, video, I tell people today that print is about facts and video is about emotion. You know, if you, if you have facts you want to share, great, but put it in a brochure or put it on the website. Video or film should be about emotion and you want to move people. And that's, that's why it's so powerful today.

Paul Povolni (09:54.463)
well,

Phil Cooke (10:05.263)
And we see it with Instagram, TikTok, know, platforms for people to scroll through a hundred short videos, you know, an hour. I sit on airplanes all the time. I fly more than most normal human beings should. And I just sit next to people that spend a four hour flight just scrolling through, watching little short videos. So it's probably the most powerful storytelling device we have today.

Paul Povolni (10:22.808)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (10:28.556)
Yeah. Yeah. I remember when Vine first came out and how powerful that was, you know, for people to create interesting bits. And I think it was like a 62nd. That was all you could do. And I remember how creative some people were being with telling a story within 60 seconds. And even for some, you know, it used to be with Vine that you had to do everything sequentially. couldn't stop and start, you know, you couldn't do it.

Phil Cooke (10:31.951)
Yeah!

Phil Cooke (10:40.973)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (10:54.552)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (10:55.51)
you know, come back to it some other time, you had to do it all in one shot. And people were incredibly creative with telling stories and creating video content because of that limitation.

Phil Cooke (11:04.365)
tell you, that's an interesting point, Paul. During the time of my career, when I started, there were three television networks. You could do a local, I mean, just a normal weekly television program, and it would be seen by tens of millions of people. It was unbelievable how big the audiences were. Today, but there were gatekeepers, and you had to have your show approved by the network. You had to have it approved by a studio or somebody really powerful. Today, anybody can make a program. I mean, anybody can create stuff. The problem is,

Paul Povolni (11:28.119)
Right, right.

Phil Cooke (11:33.551)
There's millions and millions and millions of channels. So when you think about all the social media channels, YouTube, I think I saw the other day that 60 to 100 hours of video are uploaded every minute to YouTube. So we're literally being overwhelmed. So everybody gets a chance nowadays, but finding it is more difficult than ever.

Paul Povolni (11:38.209)
Right.

Paul Povolni (11:46.338)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (11:54.817)
Right, right. Now, when it comes to storytelling, you've mentioned it a couple of times and you've worked in both what would be called secular or commercial areas and you've also probably worked in Christian areas. Christian media and Christian entertainment seems to have taken a turn recently from what it used to be. At least that's what I feel. What are your thoughts on when it comes to Christian entertainment?

Phil Cooke (12:05.027)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (12:20.674)
where it has been, what were the problems with where it was and do feel that there's been a pivot and what has that pivot been?

Phil Cooke (12:26.976)
Yeah, it's a great point. you're exactly right. It's interesting. When I started out, it was mostly driven by pastors, people, preachers, evangelists, people who had a mission and they felt called to get a message out there. It wasn't driven by the producers, the creative people. And the pastors and the preachers had the message down, but they had no idea how to deliver it. So that's why in the early days of Christian radio, television, film,

You saw such cheesy stuff. Billy Graham, I remember Billy Graham used to produce movies on a regular basis, but no matter how terrible the hero his life was, he had to, at the end of the film, every film, he had to stumble, bruised and bleeding into a Billy Graham crusade where he could accept Christ. And there were just rules that they had that made no sense storytelling wise, but they were there. But today we've seen a transition where

Paul Povolni (13:11.576)
Yeah, yeah.

Phil Cooke (13:17.718)
a much younger and creative generation of filmmakers is coming along who are Christians who want to tell that story. And so we're seeing, you know, the House of David making a $200 million deal with Amazon. That's really remarkable. We're seeing more and more films that I talked to the vice president of Angel Studios just the other day who has a remarkable funding and distribution model they set up there. And so I think when it went from the pastors

Paul Povolni (13:29.142)
Yeah, yeah.

Phil Cooke (13:46.127)
to the filmmakers, it made a dramatic change. And still there's a lot of problems out there. There's plenty of duds. Of course, there's plenty of duds in Hollywood every year. But I think that we're seeing better films, better storytelling, more skill coming up than we've ever seen before, which I think is a great thing.

Paul Povolni (13:55.114)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (14:04.559)
Do think part of the problem has been the church's relationship with creatives?

Phil Cooke (14:10.914)
I think it is, I think it is. You know, for a long time we forgot that the very, you know, God has a lot of attributes, but he chose to introduce himself in the very first verse of the Bible as a creator. And we are made in his image. And so the bar is pretty high and we've really dropped that ball a lot and over the years. so church, I think most churches for a long time just didn't know what to do with creative people. They had no idea.

It was confusing and difficult. If you could play an instrument, that was okay. That helped. But any other kind of creativity was out of the question. And we've slowly seen another generation of pastors come along who really value creativity, understand the power of creativity in reaching this generation. And so we're seeing it adopted much more in churches around the country. It's kind of interesting.

Paul Povolni (14:58.319)
Which yeah, it is very interesting because I feel that creatives in some way were either abused or ignored because they pushed against the norm, the rules. They pushed people beyond what's comfortable and therefore they're either used in ways that, we're just going to overuse you and use you so much and not value you a whole lot and kind of...

Phil Cooke (15:11.832)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:25.945)
You're just a creative, you just draw pictures or whatever, or they just didn't listen to them at all and ignored them totally.

Phil Cooke (15:31.724)
Yeah. Well, I spent most of my career in LA working in the context of Hollywood. And during that time, I saw a lot of incredibly creative Christians who came to Hollywood because their church wasn't interested in their ability, their skill, and their pastor didn't have any concept of how to use it. And so they came to Hollywood where they could really find, they may be working on shows they hated or films they hated.

but at least they were getting a chance to do what God called them to do, and that's be creative in some way. And so it's really good to see that change because I think the church actually drove a lot of creative people away, not necessarily intentionally, but pastors, I'll put it this way, pastors and ministry leaders, when they go to Bible college or seminary, nobody teaches them how to deal with creativity. Nobody teaches them how to use social media or how to use film or video. They don't learn this stuff. So...

Paul Povolni (16:08.495)
Ryan.

Phil Cooke (16:27.874)
When creative people go to pastors, very often they need to understand that I need to help educate him, help show him or her what I'm capable of and how I can help get their story out there in a bigger way. So I think that's a real key thing.

Paul Povolni (16:42.177)
Yeah, and I think the creatives are the kingdom misfits. know, they kind of, they don't quite fit in normally. They can't be pasted like normal. But I think that probably some of the most valuable people you'll have, because if I remember right, the Bible, the first group of people that were anointed were the craftsmen, the artisans. And so they're pretty valuable. And like you said, the first few words of the Bible itself say, in the beginning, God created.

Phil Cooke (17:00.876)
Yes!

Paul Povolni (17:08.629)
And so I think creativity in the church is so valuable because it's the creatives that can, and they always did. You look at the Renaissance, look at, know, you know, times when, illiteracy was, was big, that it was the creatives that's translated the complex into easy ways to understand it. And so you have stained glass that translates doctrines and tell stories and all of that. You know, it was a creatives that translated the complex into an understandable way through song and things like that.

Phil Cooke (17:08.835)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (17:18.284)
Yes.

Phil Cooke (17:31.821)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (17:38.457)
And think the church really falters and fails when it doesn't figure out how to utilize them.

Phil Cooke (17:44.866)
You know, it's interesting that that's a great point. And the Bible itself isn't just a book of facts. It's not just, you know, the facts about where we came from, where we're going, what our life should be. It's a book of poetry. It's books of poetry. It's books of history. It's books, you know, it's songs. The Bible is an incredibly artistic collection of writing. And so every aspect of the Christian faith is bound up in creativity. And we just forget that. We don't realize that.

Paul Povolni (18:12.302)
Right.

Phil Cooke (18:13.928)
And I just happen to believe that every person could be more creative in what they do. You know, don't have to be a professional creative like you are. You could just be more creative in your daily life. I think living a creative life is incredibly fulfilling and exciting. And so I just think we ought to tilt towards creativity more than ever because it's such an important part of our faith.

Paul Povolni (18:37.999)
Well, and think in a district and you mentioned this earlier, we live in a very distracted generation. And so if we're doing what we've always done in ways that always worked in this new culture that we're now in, we're not going to be able to reach the same people. We're not going to be able to reach the people without trying to figure out how to get their attention. Right.

Phil Cooke (18:44.236)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (19:00.386)
Yeah, you're exactly right. And that's the key, how to get people's attention. I would go far as to say, attention is the currency of this generation. know, Wall Street Journal, a number of years ago, did a study that we've become so distracted, it's changed our behavior. So that when we meet somebody for the first time, we actually decide what we think of that person in the first four to eight seconds. Now, you know, think about that. We haven't had time to meet them, get to know them, hear their story.

Paul Povolni (19:09.315)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (19:15.961)
Right.

Paul Povolni (19:21.764)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (19:26.178)
But hey, we got things to do, man. I got text messages to answer. I got phone calls to make. I got emails to send. And so we've started actually making judgments about things we don't even know about. And so, and I've discovered that it's true of experiences and products as well. You've probably seen it in the advertising world, but I tell pastors, I'm glad your sermon's anointed. I'm glad your worship is fantastic. But in an eight second world, what's your parking experience like?

What's your lobby look like? Who's the first person a new visitor meets when they walk in the door? Because most people in this generation today will decide what they think of your church before they ever get to their chair. So that initial first few moments, that per se, you know, your mom used to say first impressions matter. Well, as always, mom was right. It's even more correct today because it's so critical.

Paul Povolni (19:53.071)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (20:03.438)
Right.

Paul Povolni (20:14.489)
Well, and we're competing with so many different things for attention and for brand building. And I think churches don't think of themselves as a brand, but you know, a brand is basically what people think and feel about what you say and do. At least that's my working definition right now. It's what people think and feel about what you say and do. It's not just what you say and it's not just what you do. It's what those two things are combined. And like you mentioned, it starts from the parking lot, but I think it even starts before that when they, when they check on you.

Phil Cooke (20:27.893)
Yes.

Phil Cooke (20:32.503)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (20:42.475)
Yep.

Paul Povolni (20:42.595)
When they research you, they try and figure out who you are and they go online and check out websites and they check out Facebook and all of that stuff, when they're doing the background check on you, that's where it all starts on their perception of who you are and what you're about.

Phil Cooke (21:00.973)
That's really good actually, because I tell pastors a lot that, you know, this is a generation, as you just said, this is a generation that wants to check you out online before they ever come and visit. So in that world, why is your website so lame? You know, if your website is the thing that tilts them over to make the decision to come and visit your church, in many ways, it ought to be the best thing you do. Your social media presence should be remarkable, because it's so critical today to get people to decide whether they're going to visit. we just...

Paul Povolni (21:09.849)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:13.55)
Right.

Paul Povolni (21:21.336)
Right?

Phil Cooke (21:30.082)
You know, ministry leaders don't think so much about the impact of the digital world and it is pretty amazing.

Paul Povolni (21:36.431)
Well, and I think the thing that the world right now is selling and is probably the billion dollar product is attention. You know, we think, we think Facebook is for us to post our dog and cat photos and what we're eating and you know, that's why Facebook exists and that's what Facebook's mission is. No, Facebook's mission is to capture attention and keep attention and the algorithm works towards that.

Phil Cooke (21:46.092)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (22:01.047)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (22:04.023)
And I think we've got to be more mindful of the things that we're putting out there when it comes to getting attention, especially as a church trying to reach the world, right?

Phil Cooke (22:13.259)
That's true. Absolutely true. Absolutely true. That's good stuff. We're hitting on something here. I hope somebody's listening.

Paul Povolni (22:18.191)
So what are some other areas, you know, we've kind of, you know, talking about culture, we're talking about the church and, you work with a lot of churches, you speak at events that talk to pastors. What are some of the cultural shifts that you're seeing when it comes to the church? And we've talked about some of them, but what are some other things that you're seeing that the church needs to be really thinking about if it's going to be successful in what it's called to do?

Phil Cooke (22:44.397)
Well, how we communicate our message is so very, important. know, churches have, often have an attorney on retainer or a CPA on retainer for their finances. They don't think about having a communications guy on retainer or a communications person, a media director, communications director, either on staff or on purpose or on retainer. And I think communication in many ways is the most, probably the second most influential thing at a church.

I just think that how we communicate that message is so critical because a communication director or a media director will help get your message outside the four walls of the church. And without it, you're stuck with the people in the room. And that's great. And you're called the disciple and raise up those people. However, your message could be so much bigger. And I think that we just have tools today that enable us to share our message with the world that we didn't have 10, 20, 30 years ago. And so I think that's, that's important. think

One of the biggest challenges that I face is really educating pastors in and how to do that. Why books matter, why social media matters. And by the way, let me say this, I would tell churches today, one of the big things is stop using social media as a mega, just a megaphone and start using it to actually minister to people. So often most churches use social media for, here's how great we are. Here's the things we're doing and here's the impact we're making in people's lives. Talking about themselves.

Paul Povolni (23:59.951)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (24:09.197)
But what if we actually reached out to people? I have a friend who's a social media guy at a big church on the East Coast. he, years ago, he started thinking, you know, along this line and he thought, I'm to do a search in my area, geographic area for hashtags like hashtag moving day or hashtag new in town. And he would reach out to those people and say, Hey, if you're moving, we'll get a truck. I'll get some guys from the church to come over and help.

And he just started reaching out to these people, welcoming into the town, just being nice. And he said, now 10 years later, he said, Phil, you have no idea how many people are members of this church because I first reached out to them on social media. And I wasn't just using social media to brag about us as a church. I was using it to actually minister to people, to help people. And in fact, he said one guy even lost his dog. And my friend used the church social media platform to...

Paul Povolni (24:50.775)
Wow.

Phil Cooke (25:04.812)
help this guy find his dog, put a picture on there and the pastor got mad at him because he didn't think that was appropriate. But then the next week, the guy found his dog and did this big shout out, hey, this is the greatest church ever. They helped me find my dog. And so just little things like that can make a dramatic difference in the way you're perceived. As you said, your brand, I always say, what do people think of when they think of you? And whatever we can do to help shape that is really, really important.

Paul Povolni (25:06.607)
That's awesome.

Paul Povolni (25:17.837)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:26.381)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:30.047)
Right, right. Yeah, because your brand is what people think and feel about what you're saying do. And branding is everything you say and do in today's culture. Like everything you say and do is branding. And so most people don't think about that. Like you mentioned, you know, it starts with, you know, they drive up to the to the building. They look at the grounds. They look at the exterior. You know, is there mold everywhere or is it clean? Is there leaves everywhere? Is it, you know, they care about all those things that kind of build.

Phil Cooke (25:33.568)
Yep.

Phil Cooke (25:40.46)
True.

Paul Povolni (25:57.987)
who you are and what your priorities are in their mind based on their experience as they do it. And without even saying a word, without even talking to the pastor or talking to somebody, wave it a sign.

Phil Cooke (26:05.92)
Yeah.

A number of years ago, I was asked to speak at a funeral for a friend in Houston, very close family friend. And when I went to that church for the funeral, I was absolutely blown away by how awesome that church was. They treated people so well. They had a place for the family. They had a place for friends who would come from out of town. They served lunch afterwards. And I thought,

you know, it's not about handing out brochures or marketing materials or promoting yourself. It's just about being amazing. And I thought when I was there, I thought, man, if I had ever lived in Houston, I don't want to come to this church. This is an amazing church. And I thought, you know, there are people that show up for weddings and funerals that would never darken the door of your church otherwise. What a great opportunity to show them the kind of people you have and the kind of mission that you have and the kind of church you have. So there's so many things we don't think about where that brand story could be shared.

Paul Povolni (26:45.113)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:03.116)
Ryan.

Phil Cooke (27:03.174)
and i'd stick we need to focus more on that

Paul Povolni (27:06.489)
Well, and you look at the life of Jesus, I mean, he spent time with his disciples and with people daily, like waking to bedtime. And so they, he was a part of their, every, every part of their life. You know, it wasn't just, he would pop up and preach a sermon and then he would disappear. mean, he would do that occasionally because he just did so much of it. But for the most part, it was him being there daily all the time with them, with every part of their life. And I think that makes a difference is when.

Phil Cooke (27:12.001)
True.

Phil Cooke (27:23.137)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:34.595)
You're plugged into more than just the Sunday's morning service and that's it.

Phil Cooke (27:39.444)
That's good. That's good stuff. I agree. Could not, you know, in most churches shy away from the word branding, but the truth is branding is just shaping that perception people have of you. you know, earlier years ago, they used to shy away from marketing, but marketing is simply getting your message or your product in front of as many people as possible, which is exactly what we're called to do. So I think we need to embrace those terms and really explore how they can help us get our message out there.

Paul Povolni (27:49.868)
Right.

Paul Povolni (27:59.64)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:06.571)
Yeah. Well, and like you said, think churches are branding, whether they like it or not, you know, whether you're doing it with intention or inattention, you're, still branding. You're just not doing it on purpose.

Phil Cooke (28:11.276)
That's true, that's true.

Phil Cooke (28:19.808)
Yeah, I tell people very often that in this day and age, everything communicates. Everything communicates. Even when you're not communicating a message, that communicates a message. So, you know, and tell leaders what I'm... I spent a lot of time recently helping creative leaders, really leaders of creative people. You know, very often we may be a graphic designer or filmmaker or video guy or sound person.

But eventually in your career, very often, you're going to be the head of the department or you're going to be leading a team of creative people. And there's a lot of leadership material out there. John Maxwell and others have written some amazing stuff on leadership, but there's just not much out there on how to lead creative people. And so I started focusing on that more and more. doing that really helps me see how to raise up a generation of creative people and how to teach them to

Paul Povolni (29:02.017)
Ryan.

Phil Cooke (29:15.013)
lead other creatives. So anyway, I got off on a tangent there. I didn't mean to, but it's a real focus.

Paul Povolni (29:19.017)
That's good. That's good. I want to talk a little bit about that too. But before we venture there, you know, what are some of the things that when you go in and you audit a ministry or whatever, what are some of the first questions you start asking them or having them self-examine about?

Phil Cooke (29:36.396)
One of the things I try to do, first of all, is we can't really amplify your story or your message until we figure out what that story or message is. And so it's funny how churches don't think this way. And certainly we're all called to the Great Commission. We're called to evangelize the world, know, reach the nations as it were. But we're not called to do it the same way. And I think that I want to sit down with a church and look at the vision and the mission of the pastor.

I want to look at the gifts and talents of the leadership team. I want to look at the demographics of the congregation. I want to look at where they're located and who are the people they feel called to serve. And once you look at all those things and really identify them, you could start figuring out the unique role your church plays. know, every church is different, which I think is fantastic. You may be in a rural area and that's going to be different than if you're in the inner city. I've been on the board. My wife and I both have been on boards of the Salvation Army.

Paul Povolni (30:25.624)
Right.

Phil Cooke (30:34.367)
And they plant churches in really tough places, in hard places, in the inner city very often. And so, you know, getting those churches to grow is really difficult, but they serve an incredibly important purpose. So helping them understand what that is really matters. And so you may be a big church, you may be a small church, but figuring out your unique purpose and calling, I think, is the most important thing I can do. And those are kind of some of the elements that we start with. And once we figure those out, I'm not one...

Paul Povolni (30:50.766)
Right.

Phil Cooke (31:03.315)
somebody that says we need to be on Facebook, we need to be on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, I want to figure out what your story is first. And that will tell us really how to get the message out there and what method would be the most productive.

Paul Povolni (31:09.099)
Right, right, right. That's so good.

Paul Povolni (31:15.649)
Yeah, starting with your identity. mean, that's the whole thing is starting with who you are, what you're about, what matters to you, what are your priorities, what is your purpose, what is your calling, what are your giftings is who you are, your identity and identity is so often talked about in the Bible. And I think it was Craig Rochelle that even said that once you know who you are, you know what to do. And I think for a lot of people, they need to kind of start there. And so, you know what I've seen too, and maybe you've seen this as well, maybe

Phil Cooke (31:18.015)
Hell yeah.

Phil Cooke (31:37.109)
True.

Paul Povolni (31:45.155)
more than I have is a lot of churches seem to talk to other church people or they talk about themselves just for the church people, but they miss the mark when it comes to reaching those that they're called to reach, right? Or am I totally off on that?

Phil Cooke (31:55.146)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (32:01.3)
No, no, not at all. mean, I think we do have a responsibility to disciple the people that are in the room and raise them up, which is super important. But we often forget, one of my pet peeves, it's good you brought this up. One of my pet peeves is we forget how often there's going to be somebody there on Sunday morning or at some other service that doesn't know anything about what's going on here. And I tell pastors, when was the last time you talked about the Bible and why this book matters and why we read from it?

and how it got here and is it dependable? We forget to talk about why we sing in church. Why is there a worship leader up there and why are we singing music at church? What's that about? We have a thing in advertising, I'm sure Paul, you're familiar with it, called the curse of knowledge. And the curse of knowledge happens when, you know, if we're going to do a car commercial, we want to study about that car and we learn everything we can about that car and we do the research and we go through everything. But then when we write the commercial or the ad,

Paul Povolni (32:31.629)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (32:46.169)
Right.

Phil Cooke (32:58.121)
We forget that the people out there, they don't know everything we know. And we often leave stuff out because we just assume they know this stuff. But I'll tell you, the church really suffers from that. And we forget the basics. Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers football coach, began every season with his world championship team by holding up a football and saying, gentlemen, this is a football. I mean, he went right back to the basics. And I just think that I would love for pastors to be more...

Paul Povolni (33:04.749)
Right, right, right.

Phil Cooke (33:24.619)
get back to the basics more often because people just don't really get it. I wrote a book called The Way Back, How Christians Blew Our Credibility and How We Get It Back a number of years ago, and I discovered in that book that 40 % of Christians in church pews, not just people who call themselves Christians, but people in church pews read the Bible once a month, rarely or never. That's almost half the people in church in America today read the Bible once a month, rarely or never. We wonder why we're not making a bigger impact in the culture.

Paul Povolni (33:46.605)
Wow. Wow.

Phil Cooke (33:54.176)
But it goes back to the fact that I think pastors aren't teaching about that and they're not going back to the fundamentals. And so if I was to get any message out there right now, it would be remind people, teach them, train them on what this is all about because you'd be amazed at how few people really know. And so that goes to your point of we forget about the people that don't know, that don't come to church regularly. So that's critical.

Paul Povolni (33:57.912)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (34:14.922)
Right. Right.

Well, and I think it's so critical even for people that have been going to church for a long time, need to either be reminded of the basics or maybe they never fully understood the basics. They just made a commitment to Jesus. They had an experience and you know, they're in church, but they're also facing a world with lots of messages coming at them from every single direction that's contrary to the Christian faith. so, but they don't have the tools in their mind and in their heart to battle that.

Phil Cooke (34:27.7)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (34:46.499)
And so I think when a church assumes that people just know it, then I think they're failing to really train up and help people to become ministers as the Bible talks about.

Phil Cooke (35:00.341)
That's really, that's really, you nailed it. And I was reading about false prophets just this morning in the Bible. They're out there and they're people that look normal, that look like they're trustworthy, that seem right on, but they're not. But we have to be able to discern that. And the only way to do that is understand what the Bible says about false prophets and what it says about real, the real biblical doctrine, biblical teaching. So those things are important. We only get that by studying.

Paul Povolni (35:07.629)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (35:13.965)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (35:28.075)
Right, right. And I think we do need to have that mindset sometimes of, you know, training people up and not just assuming that they already know the stuff. As you talked about, you know, the Bible and why we can trust the Bible and why the Bible is not just a good book, you know, a little bit of the history of it's coming together. And it was written, you know, multiple languages over multiple generations, over multiple continents, you know, by multiple authors from multiple stations of life.

Phil Cooke (35:37.418)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (35:48.873)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (35:54.457)
You know, yet it all syncs up and it's all, you know, unified and in its message and talking about controversial topics and it's all unified and why you can trust in. And most people don't, don't hear that kind of a message. And so when somebody online says something contrary to the Bible, well, how can you trust the Bible? It's just a good book. It was written by men. They don't have the tools to in their mind. They don't have to argue about it. They don't have to get online and start an online war, but, in their heart, they don't have the tools.

Phil Cooke (35:58.283)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (36:06.091)
That's right.

Phil Cooke (36:19.627)
True.

Paul Povolni (36:21.635)
They don't have the tools to fight that. And so it creates this, creates this doubt in their heart that that isn't healthy.

Phil Cooke (36:29.163)
That's good, man. That'll preach. You should start a church tomorrow. That's as good. I like it. I like it.

Paul Povolni (36:31.503)
Yeah, well, it is very true because, know, I teach on Monday nights, I teach a class for our church called Following Jesus. And that's one of the things that I talk about is the Bible and how you can trust the Bible. It's not just a good book. And there are people there that are new believers. There are some people that have moved from other churches. There are some that have been, you know, part of the church for a while. And they say, I've never heard this before. You know, I've never heard teaching about the Bible and how we can trust it.

Phil Cooke (36:57.451)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:01.455)
And so that's why I'm passionate about it because I feel we miss so much in serving the church saints that are already in the church by not going sometimes back to the basics. We just assume that they will get it.

Phil Cooke (37:13.887)
Yeah. Well, when I wrote the book and I realized 40 % of people in church read the Bible once a month, rarely or never, the thought occurred to me that I would never take my car to a mechanic that never read the manuals. I would never have brain surgery with a doctor who didn't have time for medical school. We wonder why we're so ineffective. It's like going to Coke headquarters and everybody there is drinking Pepsi. We don't have a marketing problem in the church today. We have a sales force problem.

Paul Povolni (37:32.185)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (37:43.627)
We don't believe in what we're selling. We don't believe in the message we're sharing. so, yeah, that I'll tell you another one that killed me was we did a study. We found out that 63 percent of people in church on a Sunday believe prayer is effective. And I thought, OK, there's a win, 63 percent. But then it hit me that the flip side of that means 37 percent, more than a third of the people in church on a Sunday don't believe prayer is effective. And so, you know, it goes back to

Paul Povolni (37:47.972)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (38:12.393)
We wonder why we're not making a greater impact in the culture. We've become, in many ways, Christians have become the fat guy in the gym that lectures everybody else about health, you know, that guy. And, you know, we're happy to tell the world where they're going wrong, but we're not living the life God's called us to live. And as many people have said, you know, people watch how we live, you know, they read us, they don't, before they read the book, they'll read us in our lives. And if we're not living that kind of life, they're not going to be interested at all.

Paul Povolni (38:20.471)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:33.356)
Right.

Paul Povolni (38:41.453)
That is so good. It's kind of like the McDonald's CEO taking a bite of a hamburger, right? We want you to eat this, but we're just going to nibble on it. know, we're just... Well, and so I think, you know, I love what we've talked about and such good stuff. You know, so we've talked about the saints in the church and think the visitors of the church to the church, I think we sometimes do them a disservice as well.

Phil Cooke (38:46.054)
Yes!

Phil Cooke (38:50.314)
That's true. That's true.

Paul Povolni (39:09.427)
What are some of the things that you talk about with churches on how to do better? And we've talked about some of this, but specifically, how do you teach them or talk to them about doing a better job of welcoming those that are unchurched?

Phil Cooke (39:22.472)
Yeah. Well, we have to be intentional. I mean, you have no idea how many churches I've visited and not a single person said anything to me, know, introduced themselves, said, hello. I go to, I'm at churches a lot because we work with so many and I'll very often on Sunday just go quietly visit. Nobody knows who I am in the congregation and nobody engages with me. And by contrast, I went to a, there's a church in LA, very successful church in LA that my wife and I visited a couple of years ago and

Paul Povolni (39:31.332)
Wow.

Phil Cooke (39:52.277)
From the moment we drove in the parking lot, parking lot guys started talking to us. The first guy we encountered was, you know, pointing where to go. And he said, hey, man, I'm so glad you're here this Sunday. Pastor's starting a new series. It's going to be amazing. Man, this is a perfect day for you to visit. And so I go to the next guy and he waves me into a slot to park. And he said, I'm thrilled you're here today. What a great day this is. This is going to be a new series with the pastor. And we're just really thrilled that you came to visit. And I met two more people on the way in that were the same way.

Paul Povolni (40:19.106)
Wow.

Phil Cooke (40:22.088)
Then when the service was over, as we walked out, we hit the same people going out saying, hey, we'd love to see you here next week. Thanks so much for coming. We hope the church was a great experience for you. I'll tell you, I walked out of that experience feeling like a million bucks. I just was super excited to get in there and hear the message and then super excited when I left about coming back the next week. So it's really about being intentional, not about being fake. You know, it's not about coming up with a strategy to do something that we're not comfortable with. But at the same time,

Paul Povolni (40:36.429)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (40:46.393)
Right.

Phil Cooke (40:51.538)
Somebody took the time to come and visit your church. And we need to be really intentional. Now, I do think some churches go over the top. I don't like churches that, you know, form a tunnel and applaud for every new visitor that walks in the door. That's a little much. But at the same time, just being friendly. As we said, if people decide what they think in the first four to eight seconds, that first visitor they meet, the first person, a visitor meets when they walk in the door, maybe the decision point for that person, whether to

decide to keep coming back. So all those things really matter. Little, we very often forget in this digital generation, so many little things matter. Like I said, the lobby matters, the sanctuary matters, little things like that. And so I just, I encourage churches to raise up a team to be intentional about engaging with visitors, not bugging them, not driving them nuts, but just being so welcoming when they walk in the door. Otherwise,

Paul Povolni (41:22.359)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (41:31.148)
Absolutely, yeah.

Phil Cooke (41:48.104)
Visiting a church is no different than visiting the shopping mall. If you're not going to have a better encounter than that, why even go? So I think the first thing I would say is just be really intentional about it.

Paul Povolni (41:51.021)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (41:59.477)
Right, right. Well, and even it comes down to the wayfinding, you know, if, if coming into a church building, you know, we kind of assume that everybody knows kids go this way, young people go that way. You know, we make assumptions and, some churches, it's hard to even tell what the front door to the sanctuary is. Like there's so many things going on and it's like, you know, we don't, think wayfinding even within the church, we sometimes forget that a new person might not get it. Especially if they've never been to the church. I mean, if they're a church person, they might.

Phil Cooke (42:03.89)
Yes!

Phil Cooke (42:08.648)
Yes, true.

Paul Povolni (42:29.103)
you know, if they're transferring or they've moved into town. But I think if somebody has never been to church, I think we make some assumptions that they'll just figure out how to, what to do with their kids and where they should go.

Phil Cooke (42:38.698)
Yeah. That's why it's so important for a communication team to really train church members and particularly volunteers. I was at a church in Oklahoma a few years ago that their tagline for their church was, belong here. And they painted it, covered a wall in it. So when you walk in the front door, the first thing you see is this giant, you belong here sign. Well, one of the volunteers,

wasn't thinking and he decided that's where the trash can needs to be. So he pulled over a trash can. So right above the trash can is this giant sign, you belong here. It's the first thing visitors saw when they walked in the door. so just, you know, we have to, people don't think about that stuff. And it's our job as professional communicators to help them understand why that matters and the impact it makes.

Paul Povolni (43:08.655)
No.

Paul Povolni (43:25.449)
Right, right. And that's hilarious. Yeah, sometimes we don't think about looking through fresh eyes of somebody that's not familiar with it. And so one of the things that you talked about, I think it comes down to also the kind of culture you have in your church. And you've talked about culture, you talk about culture, talk about building culture within the church. What does that look like? Where do you start?

Phil Cooke (43:28.074)
Let's.

Phil Cooke (43:44.522)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (43:47.974)
You know, culture is, I've always said culture is more important than vision. I've met pastors that have enormous vision, have an amazing vision, but you walk on their campus or their church or their ministry and it's oppressive. know, people are talking about each other behind their backs. People are being critical. They're not getting along with each other. The culture is just horrible. And I can tell you that no matter how visionary that pastor is, it's never going to happen with a culture like that. I would much rather have no vision.

Paul Povolni (44:14.723)
Right, right.

Phil Cooke (44:16.616)
in a really creative, inspiring, loving culture, because something will come out of that, believe me. And so we can't underestimate the power of culture in a church, in a business, in any organization. And that starts with people, valuing people, elevating people, being very clear. think clarity is so very, very important. Very often people just don't know what to do. And so I think it starts at the top and trickles down. I think the...

Paul Povolni (44:38.519)
Yeah, yeah.

Phil Cooke (44:44.967)
the man or woman at the top of the organization needs to understand the importance of culture and really look in all the ways that culture can matter with people. so whether it's social things, whether it's, you know, the breakdown, you know, we've tried a lot of things. I remember when open offices were the rage and everybody, there was no walls, no private rooms. was just giant open rooms, long tables and stuff. Well, that lasted about 20 minutes. And then we decided

Paul Povolni (44:54.894)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (45:07.383)
Right, right, right.

Yeah.

Phil Cooke (45:14.973)
Hey, you got no privacy. can't talk to anybody on the phone. I can't have a private conversation. And I know a company in New York City that's making millions and millions of dollars building walls and all these buildings that had open office policies. so understanding how people work and what inspires them and motivates them, one of the things that I'm a big believer in, I think it was again, Wall Street Journal that did a study that the person you're working next to has an enormous impact.

Paul Povolni (45:26.169)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (45:43.265)
on your career, your productivity, your wellbeing. So are you working next to a guy who's a, you know, a blood sucking vampire that sucks the very life out of you? Or are you working next to somebody who inspires and motivates you and makes you thrilled to come into work every day? Those little things matter. And we often forget just how important that is. And that's all a part of culture, company culture. And so that's why I'm such a strong believer that it's much more important than vision.

Paul Povolni (45:52.769)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (46:02.186)
Right, right, right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Cooke (46:11.818)
It's much more important than your tagline. It's much more important than your advertising. Culture overcomes almost everything.

Paul Povolni (46:18.127)
Yeah. Yeah. And going back to even your example of the words on the wall, uh, that said, you belong here. Um, if, if that's not part of the culture, uh, it doesn't matter what you put on your wall. doesn't matter what you put in your tagline. It doesn't matter what you write on your website. If it's not actually part of the culture, then people will see it. They'll see, they'll see, you know, I don't belong here. I feel out of place. Nobody's welcoming me. Nobody said hello. Everybody's, you know, taken their own time to fellowship and they're not really seeing.

Phil Cooke (46:24.435)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (46:29.905)
Yes.

Phil Cooke (46:40.327)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (46:46.317)
these new people come through the doors. And so it's not a you belong here.

Phil Cooke (46:50.087)
You know, one thing along that line that just dawned on me that, that I talk about frequently is making sure your leadership team is on the same page. I gave you an example. I got a call from a pastor one time that we'd done some work with the church. Got a call from a pastor and they wanted to do an anniversary video, like a 10 or 15 minute video about the history of their church and celebrate a big anniversary. It was cool. And so the pastor downloaded everything. He told me what he wanted and what he was thinking about. I gave him some ideas. Well, about.

Paul Povolni (46:59.816)
Yeah, yeah.

Phil Cooke (47:19.089)
An hour and a half later, I get a call and it's from the worship leader. And the worship leader said, well, you know what? All the stuff the pastor told you, that's really not what we need to do. Let me tell you what we need to do. So he downloaded all his ideas about it. Then about two hours later, I get a call from the youth director at the church saying, you know what? Those guys are thinking about, that's not what the church really needs. Let me explain what the church needs. And it ended up the next day, I even got a call from the executive pastor, downloaded his ideas. So.

Paul Povolni (47:28.568)
while.

Paul Povolni (47:35.951)
no.

wow.

Phil Cooke (47:47.109)
One of the, I'm a big believer in make sure your leadership team is on the same page first, if your culture is going to be healthy and your culture is going to, if the ship is going to go in the same direction. So that's again, it's being intentional, making sure all the leaders. know a pastor in Texas that's so amazing when he has a leadership team meeting, they'll, they'll be there for an hour or whatever, going through stuff. And at the end of the meeting, when they've made decisions about things, he will literally go around the room pointing at

Paul Povolni (47:52.484)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (47:57.56)
Right.

Phil Cooke (48:15.366)
every person individually and say, do you agree or you disagree? And if they agree, great, he moves on. If you disagree, that's okay, but we need to talk about it now because he doesn't want people leaving that room and go out and criticize or talk, bind people's backs. He wants to make sure everybody's in alignment on that team. And so it's not that, you know, if you disagree, that's okay, but let's talk about it now. Let's figure it out. And I just, I'm so, and I have such admiration for that guy because

Paul Povolni (48:22.777)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (48:37.772)
Right, right.

Phil Cooke (48:42.791)
That's the way to do it. It makes your leadership team is aligned and moving in the same direction.

Paul Povolni (48:48.333)
That is so good. That is so good. One of the things that I talk about often is that culture is cultivated. You know, you've it's, what you cultivate. It's what you either nurture or neglect is the culture that you have. And so if you're not very strategic about it and intentional about it, then you will get a culture by neglect and it might not be the culture that you want. And so as you talked about, you know, it's a talking to your team, it's making sure that they understand clearly the vision and

Phil Cooke (48:50.302)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (49:09.097)
That's good.

Paul Povolni (49:15.969)
And sometimes like you talked about sitting next to that unhealthy employee, sometimes it might be even you've got to actually do some pruning. That's why culture is cultivated, you know, and sometimes people that are unhealthy for a culture, we keep them on way longer than we should. And they actually start poisoning the rest of the culture and you end up with a culture that you didn't intend on having.

Phil Cooke (49:20.168)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (49:24.279)
yeah.

Phil Cooke (49:38.129)
Well, Paul,

Paul Povolni (49:43.181)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (50:02.478)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (50:05.617)
And very often Bob will get on staff and be a bottleneck or a problem and he's incapable of doing it or whatever. But the pastor just can't bring himself to letting Bob go. And I've seen situations where the employee, you know, the pastor would tell me, yeah, I know Bob's a problem, but nobody realizes it and it's going to be okay. And I said, no, no, no, everybody realizes it. Everybody realizes that Bob is holding things up, that he's damaging everybody's work. I worked with a big ministry one time and actually,

Paul Povolni (50:14.723)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (50:32.035)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (50:35.078)
The ministry leader would not let this problem employee go. And I said, look, if you can't let him go, send him home at full salary, just get him out of the office. Just pay him, pay his salary, just send him home. And so he did. And within a week, productivity had just gone through the roof. Everything changed. The culture changed. The temperature changed in the room. Everybody was firing on all cylinders because we got that guy out.

Paul Povolni (50:45.92)
Yeah, wow.

Phil Cooke (51:00.098)
and the ministry leader realized it and went ahead and cut the guy loose. So it doesn't mean you kick them to the curb. Let's help them get plugged into a place where they can perform and they can do what they feel called to do, but we need to get them out. mean, the stakes are high these days. We're trying to reach people with the gospel of the kingdom and we just don't have room to fool around. think more than ever, we need to take this seriously and try to get the best team we can possibly get and, you know,

Paul Povolni (51:00.132)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:13.508)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (51:26.66)
to loose the people that can't and help them get plugged into some other place where they can do their thing. think that's a controversial conversation, but it's really important.

Paul Povolni (51:30.735)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:34.317)
Yeah. Well, and managing their influence, you know, if, for some reason you can't let them go is, is manage their influence and, and how much they have, influence over the other people that they're around. Because if they, if you're working on them, I mean, you know, obviously a church is for broken people and hurting people and not perfect people, but find a way to manage them that doesn't give them influence while they're being worked on. Right. as you talked about.

Phil Cooke (51:37.884)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (51:59.923)
Yeah. There's always that joke that the worst singer in the choir is the one that shows up for every rehearsal, never misses, you know? And so yeah, it's hard because very often we're moving from a mom and pop operation, you know, a small church, and we're growing and, you know, we're raising the bar and our effectiveness and what we're trying to accomplish. And it's a challenge, but we need to deal with it.

Paul Povolni (52:06.543)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (52:26.223)
Right, right. Well, and I think some people think that culture is, hey, let's have ping pong tables and let's have fun, you know, events and let's do all these things that are not necessarily culture building. You know, I was familiar, there's one publisher that I know of that had fired like 10 % of their workforce. You know, then they said nobody else is going to be fired. And then they fired another 5 % of their workforce. And suddenly the culture of that entire

Phil Cooke (52:39.804)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:54.689)
organization changed because they could no longer trust leadership. Well, what leadership decided to do is put in a little mini golf course on one of the floors, you know, of the building, you know, thinking that they can bring back the culture, but culture had already been affected because suddenly the leadership became untrustworthy. So culture isn't about the things you do. It's, what you actually reward and what you actually punish and what you stay true to.

Phil Cooke (52:58.706)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (53:08.782)
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Cooke (53:18.024)
That's good. Yeah, ping pong table is not going to fix your bad culture. That's for sure. It's really true.

Paul Povolni (53:24.045)
Right. Right. There's a quote. Now we are, man, this is probably the fastest one hour conversation I've ever had in my life. it has gone by so quickly. Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. and maybe we'll save the conversation about managing creatives for another time, because that maybe that's a little longer, a little longer of a conversation because I've done it. I've, I've, I've worked in agencies where I've had to manage creatives and it is a different challenge than just.

Phil Cooke (53:35.034)
We need to do this again. This has really been fun.

Phil Cooke (53:43.815)
I'd love that. That'd be fun to do.

Phil Cooke (53:52.135)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (53:53.271)
managing normal people, you know? And so I think that's a great conversation we can have at some point. As we wrap this up, I do want to make sure that I ask the question that I like to ask guests is what's a head smack that you wish I'd asked you about or a question that I'd asked you about that you want to wrap up with?

Phil Cooke (53:56.69)
Ha ha!

Phil Cooke (54:13.865)
Well, oddly enough, it's probably the leading creative people question. And I agree with you that we need to hold that off on another episode because it can go into great length because there's such a need out there for that. Church, I work with Churches for a Living and they have great people on their team, but they don't know how to lead creative people. So they've got graphic designers or video people or editors or whatever, writers, and they just are clueless about how to inspire and motivate them. And so I think, boy, I'll tell you,

Paul Povolni (54:17.518)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (54:24.089)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (54:41.416)
If people are listening or watching this episode, stay tuned because in the future we need to come back and talk about this because it's one of the critical needs of the church and how to lead a creative team. Because I'll tell you, you know what? Creative people are amazing. And if you can motivate and inspire a creative team, there's no telling what you can accomplish. So I'm a big believer in that.

Paul Povolni (54:47.332)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (55:02.371)
Right. And I think they're so critical for the culture that we're in right now, probably more than ever, is getting the message, getting the attention, what you're about and who you serve and what your mission is and all of that. I think the creatives are the ones that are going to help you get that out. And it's probably more critical than ever to find a way to utilize them. So it is a big discussion and we'll have that again at some point. How do people get a hold of you?

Phil Cooke (55:17.319)
Yeah.

Phil Cooke (55:28.658)
We'll do it.

Paul Povolni (55:31.695)
you know, on several platforms, prolific writer, you have a blog. So what's the best way to get a hold of you?

Phil Cooke (55:36.06)
Well, can probably the central place is my blog at PhilCook.com. Cooke with an E. So it's P-H-I-L-C-O-O-K-E.com. You can get to my books from there, my social media platforms. And of course, my blog is probably the focal point of what I do. But our company site, Cooke Media Group, you can get there from my blog. So I'd encourage people to go there and check out some of the books that I've done. And that's kind of the home base for everything I do.

Paul Povolni (56:03.631)
Yeah, I do encourage you. I'll put the link in the show notes as well. Check out Phil's blog, you know, writes, seems like almost daily on there. And then you post a lot of stuff on social media. It's a great way to stay in touch with what's going on with church, with culture, with creative thinking, with, and man, we didn't even touch on creative thinking and how to think creatively, even if you're not creative. Man, we've got to do a couple more of these. But thank you so much, Phil, for coming on. This has been amazing.

Phil Cooke (56:25.745)
Yeah.

All right, sounds good. Thank you, Paul.

Paul Povolni (56:33.187)
And we've talked about a lot of very important stuff and I pray that, you know, pastor or a leader or a leadership team that might listen to this would be encouraged. Not discouraged, but encouraged because there's a lot of things that if you were to implement them, the things that Phil has shared today, it'll radically change what you're doing and how effective you are. Thank you, Phil.

Phil Cooke (56:54.02)
Awesome. Awesome. Thank you.