Well, hey everybody, thanks for joining us for the podcast. I am really glad that uh I get to introduce you to my friend Jay Cranda. You know, I do like to have people in the studio every now and then, but Jay's an online campus pastor, and so he I don't even know if he's real. He might just be in the cloud. But uh you need to know him. Meeting him over this method is probably the best. Jay, thanks for joining us today. Really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me on. I know I might be one of those like AI generated uh people. Have you seen those things where you can now pay AI companies to do faces and stuff for ad reads?
SPEAKER_01It's crazy. Yes. Well, it's gonna be really interesting. You know, church, you start thinking about uh how does this work with church when uh you you've got a couple that's in marital trouble because one of them has an AI date, you know, like that no, I'm serious. That's where it's going. That is going to be in pastors' offices. Like it is it's going, you know, it's just really interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's there was just a story a couple days ago where some teenager fell in love with an AI bot and unfortunately ended up taking his life over this connection. It was kind of this crazy, and everybody told the stories. But the thing is, is that you know, these technologies and these things bring up so many questions, and and and again, the church leader might go, Oh, that that's fairy tale, that's forever in the future. I go, No, the technology's changing so quick that we're being introduced to so many weird questions, and it it's just this is what's gonna happen the next 10 years. And I think it will only accelerate, really.
SPEAKER_01You know, I told so we'll get to the topic in a minute, but this is interesting. I was at a a gathering of uh church leaders this past week in Atlanta, kind of a low-key thing. We all got together and just sort of networked and shared and everything. And uh several people that are pretty well versed in AI were there, and I missed what one of the guys' talks, and I said, What I missed. He said, I'm gonna give you one thing to take home. I said, What's that? And he said, You and Adrian need a safety word. I'm like, dude, that's I'm not saying that to my wife. He said, No, no, no. I said, What are you talking about? You know, and he's he said, uh, well, you know, so uh the way you're nodding, uh I guess now it it only takes like seven seconds of your voice recorded, fed into the right bot that people can then and then Adrian gets a call from something that sounds like me saying, Hey babe, I I'm I need cash and I can't remember the code for the debit card. What is it? And you go, oh wow. So you need a uh safety word. Like I'm not gonna tell you what ours is, but whatever it is. So it it's changing fast.
SPEAKER_00It's it's the amount of um I mean they they they've had this on like you know, ad, you know, ad companies now or like you know, Meta or something are struggling with this because people are creating ads off of AI voices and likeness of like a Joe Rogan podcast, and they're trying to sell something and Joe Rogan doesn't endorse it. And this is a this is a real thing. And and I'm always I just I like a lot of people, you get these emails sometimes of people trying to log into your accounts and you're making sure you're clicking on the right emails. That's something that we've all had to get a lot better at. Now the next level is that we're like, yeah, I'm gonna get a wife from I'm gonna get a call from my wife, and she's gonna be asking me for something, and I I'm might default to saying yes to it. And I think the safety words and and asking real questions, and it's it's hard. And and this is where I I really feel bad for the average church leader because it's like they're just trying to shepherd their community, and it's like, what do we do with all this?
SPEAKER_01Well, and you've been on the front end of it. So for people that don't know, you're currently uh I'll get the title wrong, but I'll take a guess, you change it. Uh, online pastor for Saddleback Church, right?
SPEAKER_00Correct, yeah. I'm the online pastor at Saddleback Church. Have been full-time since 2013, so kind of before you know COVID happened, and so yeah.
SPEAKER_01When 2013 you took that job, how many people like you were there?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I I think there may have been five or so. There's a couple maybe part-time that maybe did it, but no, there weren't there weren't a lot of us, and and um yeah, it it totally changed during COVID and post-COVID for sure. Tell me more about that. Yeah, I mean, I I think, you know, I I would say prior to 2013, one of the things most people don't realize is it cost a lot to stream your services and do stuff online. You know, it was a bandwidth thing. You know, I I I tell a story actually in our in in my book around how uh Pastor Rick did it we started streaming our services in 2004, 2003. And one of the reasons why we didn't really promote it was it it would cost us thousands of dollars every month just to stream services. And one of the big game changers was when uh Facebook introduced live streaming um for free. And you know, you can say whatever you want about Zuck and and different feelings you might have, but when he did that for free, that was a huge game changer for churches. Now they could just offer this service that cost us. I think during one point we were spending eight thousand dollars a month to provide uh streaming because it was costly. And and so then all of a sudden now churches just started to do it. And it's a it's a con, it's a positive because it's a free thing. But I don't think most churches coming out of that and coming out of COVID ever thought about streaming. You know, like, should we do it? What does this do? How do we leverage it right? And so sometimes when you offer something free, you don't think about the consequences. And sometimes that payment is actually a gate to see is it worth it and does it does it um does it actually add value? How should we do it? Like a lot of churches now are I don't think churches should stream everything. Maybe you just stream one thing, maybe does it need to be a stream? Could it be a podcast? Maybe if you do streaming, like you do it strategically, and these are the things that I think coming out of COVID now, as stuff is settling, I think some people are now revisiting.
SPEAKER_01That's good. Well, the the pandemic certainly accelerated, particularly churches, accelerated churches' willingness to try something new.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01Like my my mother is in a great little church in the literally the woods of North Carolina, nice little town of you know, a couple hundred people, white columns, red carpet, the whole thing, you can picture it, right? And they had to start, they had a new young pastor, and he started streaming during the lockdown. He got like his 10-year-old and a phone, and the 10-year-old stood up and taped him, and that was it. And, you know, had he tried to get that through the committees and the board and all that before, it would never have happened, ever, ever, ever. I don't know if they're still doing it now, but there was just a it happened with us. Uh, you know, when we started doing searches for churches, it was a new idea. And people are like, is that even of God? Is that the devil? Is it too corporate or whatever? And I thought I'd spend my whole career just making it normal. That'd be the end of my career, is that if it's finally a normal idea to get some help, and uh we're there. Like we people are okay, we'll do that now.
SPEAKER_00They it just COVID accelerated church's willingness to try new things, and so I can see how your world Yeah, the amount of times that prior to COVID that I had to explain if what I was doing was biblical or how do you think about this? Satanic or it's say but it it's it's and again I understood the argument because you know, I I would always say, like, hey, like I think in-person community is the best experience. And to say digital somehow replaces that I I think is naive. So like I I use an example constantly around I think the way you use digital best is how you might use it in a marriage or in a relationship. So my wife and I are texting, sending each other random reels that we think are funny, but we still come home to each other. And to think I'm ever going to replace my relationship with my wife with some kind of digital only experience is I think ridiculous. And and and I think churches should think of digital and technology that way. It should amplify what you're doing. At the same time, for me to be naive to think digital or technology couldn't get in the way of my relationship, that's naive because I know that there are ways that digital could get in the way. I could send the wrong text, I could look at the wrong thing that leads me down a trail. I mean, there's so many things that I could be super aware of. So I think churches should be aware, like digital is this tremendous tool that we get to leverage, but it also, I mean, again, like a fire, you know, it could burn my house down or it could get, you know, cook me a good cup of coffee. We we got to be aware of this. And this is one of those things that coming out of COVID, I think there's a lot of things churches said yes to, and then like they never thought about it again, or now like this could be like something that could get in the way. I was actually just listening to a pod from um from Howard Schultz where he was talking on the acquired podcast about their mobile app, you know, now 33 he he hates it, he hates it, but he also understands 33% of the skills.
SPEAKER_01I was fascinated with that, with that one thing because he was trying to build the third space. Correct now, people just order online and walk in and walk out, and there's no community. And what happened? And I'm like, every pastor in America is asking that question.
SPEAKER_00I love that you you you heard this too, but it's something it's it's hey, it's this great thing, but it also creates all these new problems that's a negative because I know you know I've read the Onward book, and I know he's so big on the experience, and I think that's how pastors should think about all this stuff. Like, digital isn't digital technology is not the savior, it's it's not, it's it should be used for your objective. And so understand so like I love this because what I love about that conversation is church's great one of the greatest strengths, I mean, outside of the gospel and communion with God, those things are automatic. I think it's the community you experience. And so to think again, this is why I always thought the problem, the the the dilemma of like turning on the stream is gonna prevent people from coming to church. I would go like, wait, is content the reason why people show up every week? Like, I don't think I don't and and if that is like your like that's keeping people from coming, then I would go, you need to reevaluate what happens in the okay.
SPEAKER_01Can we do true confessions? Yeah, and I confess it's good for the soul, right? I was talking to somebody the other night and they said, Where do you go to church? I go to church right back there, that steeple whack in the back. And oh, it's over that shoulder, right there. Anyway, great church, and they're like, Why do you go? Well, I'm a recovering preacher, so I know what the answer should be. It should be the white hot vision, it should be the transformative preaching or the worship takes me to another place or whatever. The reality is my kid likes the student ministry, our friends go there, and it's not far from my house. Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah. So sorry, everybody who thought I was going, and sorry, Pastor, if you're listening, I really do like you. It's not but uh you know, it's just the older I get, the more I realize it's the incarnational part of the church that leaves the deepest impression on me. So I just thought, hey, audience, why are we talking to Jay? Because Jay's the online pastor, he's supposed to be the totally geeked out dork that wants everything online. Like that I remember 15 years ago sitting on a forum with somebody who was talking about doing virtual reality church with the goggles and the and so that's what an online pastor should look like. Like the, you know, and here's Jay, and he wrote a book for us. So, what does the online church pastor write for everybody to Saddleback's probably the biggest one out there? His book title is online church is not the answer. So I I don't know if you're trying to like get fired or what, but why write that?
SPEAKER_00I will I will say jokingly, I had I've had a couple friends of mine who are online pastors. I feel like they don't text me back as quick. Um and so but but but it I I think the so the my subtitle is Beyond Just Streaming to Hybrid Disciple Making. And and really what I'm trying to say is that a lot of people, you know, there's there's tremendous tools, and some of you that are maybe new in this space you don't realize, but like there's tools like the church online platform that Life Church and a lot of large churches built. Um, and then there's a lot of other tools that have been built, and people started to stream stuff and upload stuff, but that's the limit of how they think about digital technology. See, and I know for for your company, Vanderblumen, some of the best tech you use is really boring. And and and the reality though is like like if if you kind of peel back the like there's something called a CRM that most pastors don't think about. It's it might be their database. That that tool solves a very specific problem. And and I want to encourage pastors to go, what is your objective? And and this is where I would push, where I would go, your objective isn't to fill a room, your objective is is to produce spiritual fruit. And so what I'm trying to get there is okay, can digital or technology aid you in that objective? So there are things that still need to happen in the room, like will always happen in the room. There's again, I go back to there's a reason why I come home every night to my wife and my family. Uh, but to me to think that I can't use my phone to stay connected to my wife and amplify our relationship, I think is counterintuitive. And so I I kind of push this conversation into again, I don't think, like, I don't think churches need an online pastor. Like, I don't we have an online pastor because we're one of the largest churches in the world. Like, and we have unique benefits. You're but let's think about digital in a way that aids in what you're trying to do. And I think digital actually in technology, anytime there's, and you've probably been you've been probably through more of these seasons than me, where like everybody talks about you gotta be on this, you gotta be on this, you gotta be on this. And really the question is do you need to be on it considering your objective, the people you're trying to reach? That's right. And this is where you need this is the lens, this is what I unpack in my book. Like, I believe in online, I believe even even with digital ministry. Our church has a vr VR ministry, but to think that every church needs to do that, like that's where I go, no, no, no. There's things we do because of our objectives.
SPEAKER_01But let me push back a little, Jay, because I'm thinking of my mom's church, right? I'm thinking of this little church, and they could easily hear that and say, Well, we're not one of the largest, so we don't need to do that or whatever. But uh, when I was pastor, the last church I served, first presentry in Houston, we were on television back when that was a thing. Yeah, right? So it was on Sundays and blah, blah, blah. And I and it was the very first church in Texas to be on uh television. It's like you know, something they'd done forever. The whole thing started when television broadcasting was now an option for local entities, and a family gave a bunch of money so that the pastor could be on TV so that the shut-ins could see the church. That was the only reason we did it. And we happened to grow and have people come because of it. But that was not a reach more people thing, it was a pastoral moment thing, and I think there's still some fruit there because you don't the amount of money we had to raise every year to go to state reaching those shut ins was really, really high, and it's not now. So maybe there are digital pieces that can connect those who are unable. You and your wife, when you're across the country doing something, you FaceTime instead of right? Yep. So I I don't know if that's what you're driving at, but but I think I think that if every church thinks hard, they'll think of a way to leverage things to do more effective ministry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and I think there's there's this exaggeration of, hey, online, like there used to be a saying like early on in the like two when I first got engaged in this, 2009, 2010, people say like, uh, you know, watch church in your pajamas and stuff. And I I would always throw up at that. I was like, please let's not let's not use this phrase anymore. It's very it's like it's like calling it IChurch now, like everything had to have an I, a lowercase I. I go, the reality is that that's true. Like there, like I talk about there's like three S's, like people dealing with sickness, there's security issues where somebody may not feel comfortable, like because of something you're going through, or different seasons of life, like where like you might have just delivered, like you just had your first kid and you're just working like crazy, and you can't really like I go, there's there's all sorts of reasons. The other thing, the reality is that there's just this tension, and we got to manage it where like people are just coming to church less physically. And and what I mean by that is I'm not trying to replace something. Like I'm saying that the average churchgoer is still going, maybe going, they're going two times a month. Well, guess what? Like they can listen to a pod on the way to work, or they watch something on YouTube, and they can stay engaged.
SPEAKER_01Like I'm and I'm I'm getting jaded as I get older. I am uh pretty fed up with people saying, well, people aren't coming to church as much. The church must be dying in America, we're becoming like Europe. No, no back to your Howard Schultz, uh the up where I play golf, a little north of the city, there's a Chick-fil-A on the way there. They tore it down in May, completely got rid of it, didn't reopen until a week or two ago. We're recording this in November. So they lost six months of revenue, and they sunk new construction costs in the new one they built where the old one was. And what did they build? Six drive-thru lanes, no parking lot, no dining. Wow. Oh. That's where the world is going. That's not people aren't going to church because Christianity's irrelevant. It's not. It's just so in that economy, I think a book like yours probably helps people figure out well, what should be digital, what should not. Because they are coming back, they're not coming back. Like they'll come, but it's it's how many people are coming, different people are coming every month, not every week attendance.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one of the things that I I think is a big thing we have to think through as church leaders is I think there's something about meeting people where they're at, like Kate, you know, it's the women at the well, like we're going where people are, but also introducing strategic friction. So I think this is where like a lot of church leaders just don't have the experience. So, for example, like Vanderblumen, you provide tons of free resources, but there's also strategic friction in maybe a payment. And that's because obviously there's structure and operating costs, like you have to do that as a company. A church leader, I don't know if they've really thought about friction. Like they just serve people, serve people. And so, for example, and like churches go through denominations go through this, like, oh, we we need to just serve people in the community, and then they just become like long-term, like there's different ministries that just become you know public service and they're not even doing gospel stuff anymore because they drift too far. I think with this, like, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or you or people forget time is money, and they pour I remember running a uh a fundraiser, it was a 5k road race while I was in seminary at Princeton. And uh I think I probably put two literally two weeks of work into the thing, and we raised two or three thousand dollars. It's like dang, I could have worked for two weeks and earned that and just not had to deal with it. But uh, you know, it's churches are forever continuing to serve without realizing time is an investment. If I could put one plug-in in front of everybody, maybe you guys have already found it, but Google has a fairly new plug-in, assuming you use Gmail and Google Calendar and all that, where uh if you're the HR director, you can plug in everybody's salary. So when you're having a meeting, there's a clock that says this meeting is costing us, and it just creates well, it's so smart. That's awesome. Let's not talk about this anymore. Let's get something done because look what we just spent.
SPEAKER_00That's a great, I did not, I'm gonna totally find that. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01It's just a Google plugin, but it it's it's back to the question of digital. Just because it's digital doesn't mean it's fruitful. Yep. Yep. That's what I hear you saying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, and and this is where like, and I and again, and part of it too is introducing friction sometimes is painful. But like, this is where like practically like I would say, like, I think that there are things that you can decentralize, meaning like doesn't have to happen in the room. So like you might have a membership class or some kind of training, like Zoom and YouTube can be great at content consumption, but maybe you might go, hey, we're gonna put this class or this training on Zoom in a format because we want discussion, or maybe a podcast. But then you gate it where you go, hey, like, and I'll I'll take a very generic example to help people listening. Is you might have membership at your church, whatever that means. Maybe they can consume content part, like the hour or two-hour part on Zoom, maybe twice a year for people that can't come in person, but still you have an interview before they become an official member. Now, that that's a generic example, but this is where you go just be something could be hybrid. Like, and like this is very popular with doctoral work.
SPEAKER_01Where we where we see it in the the we serve, I mean, we had the joy of serving you guys recently. We we serve a lot, most of the very large churches, but over half of our church work is for churches, the normal church, church of 300, 200, 100. And and where we're seeing this uh more than anything is the stupid monthly finance meeting. Yes, that can happen over Zoom. Like that's where it's really happening.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Correct. And then and then on the I will say on the flip though, like one of the things I've learned running you know thousands of Zoom type of meetings is you have to be really deliberate to make Zoom even compelling. So, like we've we've learned a lot around, like we we do, we do a lot of trainings on Zoom that are a couple hours, and at the front, I'll start and I'll say, Hey guys, welcome to Zoom and like this thing, whatever. I go, Hey, in five minutes, I'm gonna throw you into a breakout room. Introduce yourself, say where you're. From and I and we have to plan for breakout rooms, discussions to even make it like round tables. And I say that I'm not again, Zoom is not the answer in the sense of like the deliverable. Um, I bring it up because it's a standard, but think through like what are you trying to do? And and I think this goes back to churches have to understand that we ask our attenders members to do a lot. Show up on Sunday, serve, be in a group, give. There's a lot. And so be very strategic when something needs to be in person, make sure it adds value because if you say it needs to be in person, and then it's not that like I could have just gotten this on the podcast, then reevaluate. Like people then are gonna stop showing up. And so, like, I think in person is really important. But I also think there's so much that happens digital and technology that are compelling. Well, merge it together considering your audience and your objectives.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, we've we figured, you know, back in 19, we're not a big office. We sort we're an executive search firm that helps people on Team Jesus, right? So that's a pretty tight niche. I think right when the pandemic, right before in 19, we had like 45 full-time employees, something like that. And then the pandemic hits, and I read this uh leading beyond the blizzard article that was very famous for like right now, you need to decide if you own a business, is this a bad storm, a snow in for three days? Is it a blizzard that's gonna be several weeks, or is it a mini ice age that's a year and a half, and then decide how you get it? And I decided on the mini ice age. So, long story short, we had to cut 40% of our overhead in one day, which is people. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible day. It's the only reason, well, it's one of many reasons we got through the pandemic, but but uh we cut down, we were down to like 24 staff. So fast forward to now, we're doing roughly twice the amount of work we were doing in 2019, and we have about 42 or three full-time employees. Wow. So the pandemic forced us to learn some efficiencies and then forced us to throw out some things that are not like for us, if we're doing initial interviews, Zoom's easy, and then you don't have to coordinate. But when you get down to the final people, before we go to a client, we are getting on a plane, we're going to sit because the there's something face-to-face that happens that cannot happen great. Eric Geiger, your neighbor over at Mariners, he says, um the reason we love worship, we don't sing very well, we're not as diverse as heaven. It's because the music's gonna be so much better in heaven. But the reason we love a good worship service is it's an echo of what we're gonna spend eternity doing. And he said, the thing with online churches, it's an echo of the echo.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Isn't that good? Yeah, it's so good. And and like one of the things I really encourage church church leaders to think through like, even the proposition of things you might invest in more heavily post-COVID, um, is yeah, invest in the digital experience, like Mariners does. Like they have an online pastor, they do a lot of stuff that's really cool. But like one of the value propositions is what you can't do well online is uh minister to the whole family.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00So, like the kids, like I have three kids. I have a 13-year-old, 11, and an eight. Like Oh, you're you're getting dumb, aren't you? I know, yeah. I'm not as cool. I'm not as cool as I thought I was.
SPEAKER_01I got dumb. Everyone, every time when someone turned 14.
SPEAKER_00Well, like, like one of the we go, we have Saturday services at our church, and we go to the Saturday service at six because the youth program, our junior high ministry, is really amazing. And and two of our kids are in the junior high program, and they love this specific. So we go, so I say that like even like the value proposition, like if you're running ads or if you're thinking about inviting people, like, hey, it's important to go to church as a family, especially if you have kids. So the value proposition isn't just like coming and getting content. It's yeah, like obviously we go, we have a small group and we we go to church and have dinner after Saturday, so every week. Like that's the thing we do. But our kids now having that experience. So this is where, like, okay, how are you inviting people to come to Christmas and Easter? What are the things that you might more staff heavy and you got to think about the experience? Where the whole family is a huge value proposition that is underutilized. And this is where digital like our one our biggest YouTube channel at our church is our Saddleback Kids uh YouTube channel, and they have done amazing and we believe in it. They just launched a we just launched a Bible with Zondervan. It's amazing, but but uh our kids program doesn't think our team doesn't think that that's better than coming in person. No, it's it's together. We do a bunch of stuff on YouTube, but we have this amazing kids experience.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, it's I I had heard it years ago, and it's certainly not my line, uh, but the pandemic made me remember uh the first thing God cursed in the Bible. Pop quiz. What's the first thing God cursed in the Bible?
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness, cursed. Uh I I it's it's just the rebellion against the water.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's what everybody says. Uh and maybe they're right, okay. But before all that, um he issued all these benedictions, right? Uh let there be light and it was good. You know, let there be waters in the heavens and there's good, and then this is good, and this is good. And he makes humans and says, uh now this is very good. And then he says, You know what's not good. Oh, interesting. It's not good that people be left. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Before sin entered the world, God cursed solitude.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_01And it's so, you know, if you're a pastor out through this word, no one's ever gonna come to my church because they all go to Stephen Furtick online or Matt Chandler online or Andy Wood online or whatever. Yeah, yeah. People have an innate hatred for loneliness. And they they're starving for connection. I'm assuming the book goes into you know, gives some tools for uh how to how to discern which is the online, which is not. Is that fair?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I provide some uh kind of frameworks and some things to process through a team. I really wrote it. I mean, really, it came out of this idea that I had this, I've had this extra my church has given me a luxury to think about this for for a bunch of time. And I know as I've talked to you know thousands of church leaders over the year, we created a year a resource years ago on the state of online church prior to the pandemic, and I wanted to provide something that you could go through as a team and really like walk through this together. And really, the hope is you walk through it with a staff, your volunteer teams in such a way like like here's how we think about digital. We believe it's a tool, we gotta wield it wisely, and here's some of the things. And so there's some high-level principles. I kind of start off with some like concepts to wrestle through, and then here's some practical tools that you can go through to kind of really embrace it. Because really the the the charge of it is I think it's something we get to leverage, but you gotta leverage it right. And also your church has to determine like how do we empower this? Because it can't just and this is why I I kind of jokingly say online church is not the answer, is that you hire somebody like me and then you go, Oh, I'm gonna solve it. I'm the online pastor's gonna solve it. And and I go, No, the average church doesn't need an online pastor, but you need everybody thinking about it as a tool that you in your tool belt that you get to pull out at the right time and the wrong times. And and this is where like the challenge is empower everybody to think about this. But churches just don't have a you know, I I went to seminary, like this isn't something we talk about. It's not something, you know, like I think there's only one digital program, like church online program in one seminary. Not surprising, it's at Liberty. Uh, but like it's how do let's let's think about this in a more holistic way. And I uh the last thing I'll say is I had one of my friends, and I talk about this in the book, that the pastors of church in Huntington Beach, and he said, he called me up during COVID and a church of about 800, 700, and he said, Jay, um, and I he was actually one of my professors in seminary, and he goes, Jay, I feel like uh pre-COVID we were flirting with digital. Uh COVID was like a shotgun wedding moment. And and and now the question is, is this a healthy or unhealthy relationship? Right. And my hope is I provide some of the things that I'm gonna do. Do we want to get this annulled? Yeah, do we want to get this annulled? And and and and really, I hope churches don't divorce from digital. I hope they just see it as something they can leverage in the right ways. I don't think it's the answer to everything. I think you gotta you gotta leverage it in very strategic areas, and and that's really what I unpack.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, and and I'll this is this is for free bonus content. If you're pastoring out there and you're worried that everybody's going to online church and your sermon doesn't measure up, here's my suggestion for you. Because at least 50% of all preachers are below average preachers. It's just the the the math doesn't lie, right? So but that doesn't negate calls. If you're worried about your preaching, let me encourage you. You know, Billy Graham used to used to say, I get up to the table to write my sermon, I'll put a Bible on one side of me and a newspaper on the other side of me. Well, what if you took the Bible on one side of you and news for your one zip code and just hyper-contextualize all your preaching? So that the digital things that are out there are evergreen and fairly generic, and but nobody knows your six city blocks or whatever your little version of parish is better than you. And people come to hear what God's saying about our particular neighborhood right here, right now. I that's just my take. You might call me crazy, Jay, but that that seems great.
SPEAKER_00An amazing tool to kind of echo. You could use uh google.com slash trends, and you can look in your zip code what's trending on Google, what people are searching for. That's worth podcast. Say that again, please. Yeah, so I it's Google.com slash trends, I believe. And it you could just put in your zip code and what's trending in your area, which you can just see what people are literally searching. So, like that might be the I mean, I don't get newspapers, you might still get newspapers delivered to you, but I get the Sunday paper. You get the Sunday paper. I do not get the Sunday paper. You know why? Why it's cheaper, it's cheaper than just the digital. Oh, that yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because they have it doesn't make sense, but it's you think, am I getting taken here? But like over 50% of a newspaper's ad revenue is the Sunday paper. So they'd rather move that to keep the ad selling. That makes sense. And then just so we look at the digital, and then just for kicks, we look at the comics on Sunday. That's great. I love that. So yeah, so you don't have to be online, you don't have to be correct, everything for everybody, but maybe Jay's book can help you figure out how do we leverage this moment. The book is online church is not the answer. Jay Cranda is uh the author. Jay, where can we go find that? Is it on Amazon? Is it do you have a blog?
SPEAKER_00Like yeah, you can get it on Amazon. I have an audio and a um print there you can buy. I also sell some bundles on my website, jaycranda.com, if you want to like buy a bunch for very affordable there as well. But thank you. Thank you, William, for having me on.
SPEAKER_01And let me you know, I like you, but this is not about you. No, really, really. I I've said this, some of the listeners have heard me say it. I growing up, I used to think people would say, What would have been a cool time to live? And I'm like, the Renaissance. How cool would it have been to be alive when Da Vinci's doing his thing, Michelangelo's doing his thing, things are getting invented. Uh, I think the next 20 years are gonna make the Renaissance look like a non-event. Interesting. And what I've noticed, so I'm on you're on here because I like you, but I think there's a pattern in human history, kingdom history. I think every time God wants a seismic shift of growth in his church, not oh, we're using drums now or whatever, like the big time. Every time he wants a kingdom breakthrough, he precedes the moment with a communication breakthrough. Yeah. You go think through it. I mean, how'd the Reformation start? Well, a printing press. How did Paul plant all those churches? Well, Rome built roads. I mean, you can see it if you look for it. And and I think right now we're on the beginning edge of the greatest communication breakthrough ever, which just tells me we're near the end. This is a big kingdom breakthrough, and we're we're really close to the finish line. And leveraging this communication breakthrough, I think, is gonna be how we're scored when it's time to score who did what. So sorry, sermon over. That was a little long. No, that was great. That I'm writing, I just wrote down notes. If you don't want to get to the finish line, then don't order Jay's book. If you want a kingdom breakthrough in your church, no, it may not get that far.
SPEAKER_00You just you just gave me, I'm gonna AI break that up for an ad now. It's gonna be like that's the full circle. We're coming.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'll even tell you my safety word. Um, hey, listen, Jay, thanks for being with us. It's so good to have you here. And really do go check out the book. And and uh, Jay, please come back on again. Maybe one time we'll do it in person just for kicks. I know, just for kicks.
SPEAKER_00I like I'll bring my paper. I'll buy the paper and then I'll bring it in.
SPEAKER_01So thanks to all of you for listening. We're always glad to introduce you to our friends, some of whom you know, some of whom you don't know. We think it's kind of fun. Um, you can go to our show notes are at Vandercast.com. Just put your email in. We won't send you orders for Ginsu knives and if you order now, but like just get the notes so you can find jkranda.com. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again next week.