Hey everyone, welcome to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast, where we help you build, run, and keep great teams. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_02Well, hello, everybody from the home office of Vanderblumen, as we are delighted to bring to you another conversation with friends, hoping that the people that we have known over the years will help you develop and build a ministry that can go farther and faster. We're thrilled today to have Ed Stetzer here with us. I've known Ed for gosh what, Ed, maybe 20 years or more. I don't know. It's been a while, yeah. And uh the funny thing is, neither one of us has gotten older. It's amazing. So nice try. Well, and and and on a more serious note, for those of you who know Ed, uh, you may know he's had some physical challenges lately. This is actually the first podcast that's being released since he's been in the hospital for a long time with a really serious illness. That um, well, it's kind of a funny story. Corey's here too, and we'll get all introduced in just a second. But Ed, uh last time you were on a podcast with Corey, like it didn't turn out so good, right? Tell us what tell us the story.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, and this is kind of proof of life video. I've not, I think this is the first time people will see me on uh if they're listening, they're watching on the video. Um and I will tell you, I shaved and I showered. I mean, it's been it's been a lot. So what um what happened was I was actually preaching up for Ryan Kwan, who many of you know, he's just a great pastor. And um and I had I had hiked. I hiked um the the the the Redwoods in San Francisco, having a great time. You know, he asked me to preach on July 4th weekend, so we went out and watched fireworks. A lot of walking, a lot of walking. But when I was trying to get up, you know, a lot of stages don't have like uh a railing on when they the stairs to go up to them, and I'm like, I can't get up these stairs without a railing. That's a that seems really weird. So my doctor said, You need to come back. I had some symptoms when I was over in England uh teaching there. And so she said, You gotta come back to the doctor's office. Like, okay, fine, I don't think it's a big deal, just a little wobbly. Well, it turns out um she did some tasks. For example, I don't have any reflexes in my knees, which is just a very strange thing to watch when they hit you with a little hammer. And uh and again, I've not told this story before. So so um so she says, We need to do an emergency MRI. So do this emergency MRI, but I still go, I do the MRI and I go speak to the Mariners Church pastors because I was scheduled to do this. You know, using a stool, whatever. And then the next morning I'm recording a podcast with Corey and Peyton Jones. And um and she calls in the middle of it. So I look down at my phone and said, Listen, guys, I need to take a quick pause because she's gonna call me after the MRI. And she says, Hey, I need you to go to the emergency room right now. I said, Well, in the middle of a podcast, or let me go in 20 minutes. She says, Right now. So I that's my that was my last public sighting is uh with and they edited it out, so it doesn't sound like that. But um but yeah, so hospital, what was I hospital for 10 days, three procedures uh one being the biggest thing is they I have this thing called a fistula, so they they sealed that, but you know, I mean I'm in likelihood I'm going to have some level of permanent neurological damage. We're you know, um unless the Lord just intervenes and completely heals me. But we're um you know, we're we're working to see how much that is, and it will be 12 to 18 months of before I know how much I recover. So uh so I did just take a walk for 15 entire minutes with a walker. Um but I was very excited because I've only gone 10 minutes, and so uh, and this is the first time I've sat in a chair uh for a month. So here we are. Now my feet there's a whole setup here where you know it doesn't look like it, but I'm actually my feet are elevated and all that sort of stuff. So I don't look my best, but this is proof of life. And if there's anyone, I love I love Vander Blumen, I love, I love William, and I love the I love the work that you do, so I'm I'm happy to let my proof of life video be with you. So hello everybody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're honored you'd be here, and I uh many of you have probably been praying for Ed, I have as some of this unfolded, but uh you know it's just not right when your body won't do what your mind's telling it to do. And uh yeah, yeah. And and hey, I'm gonna make a specific targeted prayer request for you guys. Uh you've got a daughter getting married, right? I do.
SPEAKER_03I intend and I think we share that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We have one of the dance too. I want to dance at that wedding.
SPEAKER_02So okay, guys, everyone listening, take a second, just hit pause and and pray for Ed to be able to dance with his daughter in 11 months, and then we'll all celebrate when it happens. And thanks Ed for sharing with us. I really appreciate it. So thank you. Hey, Corey, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you, and uh there you go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh Corey Aldrin, I founder, CEO of Sermon Shots, started Sermon Shots about four or five years ago, and the whole idea started off by trying to help churches create social media content from their sermon, helping them save time, create the cool clips that you see uh churches making.
SPEAKER_02So so what what kind of shots do they do to make their sermons better?
SPEAKER_03So um I don't know, I don't know about Corey, but I'm a Baptist, so I don't drink and people, so I don't know, I don't know anything about that. I'm just asking questions, that's all.
SPEAKER_01You know, just there's there there's a couple of good kind of funny stories in that actually. When we first what when we first launched and we were like we were at a conference for the first time, it this kind of thing went around that helped actually get people to our booth because there was some kind of underlying joke happening. And one of the pastors actually came up and is like, sermon shots, like, and I'm gonna do this on video, but like, like, like that? I'm like, oh no, no, no. Um it might help solicit, it might help some sermons.
SPEAKER_03I'm sitting here use a sermon shot.
SPEAKER_02I am sitting here thinking of branding for all kinds of cheap marketing you can do. Shot glasses with Bible verses. I uh we actually have a client who is a brewer. He brews beer, but he's a Christian and he puts Bible verses on his cans and talks about only have one of these. And so maybe you could do something like that.
SPEAKER_01So there was there was another time where we were right next at a conference, we were right next to um uh people that were selling communion cups. And so there's another kind of natural connection there too, right? Like, can we give out you know communion cups for that? So yeah, there's a there's so not to and you where are you located, Corey? I'm uh just outside of Indianapolis.
SPEAKER_02Oh, great, great, yep. And so um I'm you know, when we invited you guys, this is Sermon Shots is something that's powered by but not created by AI, right? And uh I I I started to say this is we're gonna call this episode what should the title be? Because that's what everybody uses A for I for right now, anyway. So um don't know what the title should be, but I'd love to hear, I'd love to maybe maybe we could zoom out a little bit and talk about AI and the church. Because I think that's a that's a pretty hot button for pastors right now. I'm sure you're seeing it in your engagement. Some of them are emboldened, some of them are scared, some of them, you know. Uh so it tell me, you guys are are chest deep in this world, probably more than 99% of everybody listening. Ed, why don't you start? Tell us where you see AI, because you know, you and I were born when there were eight-track players.
SPEAKER_03So let's fast forward and we've got that. It was my parents, but I I have played an A-track tape. Yeah, I mean, I think this is, you know, I mean, it I don't I think it's hard to overstate how big of a deal uh the AI is. And I think that there are significant, like I'm doing a whole sermon at Mariner's Church on, we do this series in January called uh On the Table, we look at hard questions. So mine is like AI in the image of God. Like I think, honestly, I think pastors need to give some instruction on AI in uh in their churches. So so what I would say is there are significant, even existential questions that AI is going to create. And I think there's a whole like I I just was invited to this Vatican thing that they're doing around AI and being a contributor. And I I'm deciding if I'm gonna do it, but but I mean people are asking and rightfully should be asking those questions simultaneously. I think there are just some no-brainers that people can use to accelerate their ministry. So I don't think you have to answer like most pastors are not gonna be answering the questions uh about the uh you know about what AI means for the future of the labor force. Those are real questions. Like those are real questions. Um but I think most pastors need to ask the question, how can I steward my time? You know, I've been around long enough in large churches and small churches like you, William, is that we know that for pastors, their greatest commodity is time. And so for me, like I want to go to that green bucket that just says, yes, you should do these things. And most pastors, I don't think, are utilizing AI in all the ways that they should, in part because they're concerned about these bigger conversations, which I think they should be, but probably as a local church pastor, the question you would ask is how and you should have a policy about this, but how can I ethically use AI to multiply my ministry impact to go, as you mentioned, going further and faster and and do those things. And that frees up time for other great gospel work as well. So I think AI is like a superpower with some ethical guidelines. I think you should have a policy at your church about a use of AI. But I think for most pastors, they they could lean in more rather than less and still be within the no-brainer category.
SPEAKER_02Well, our our business um helping churches find a pastor or a nonprofit or a school or a Christian for-profit. Um, you know, it I don't think it it will ever become an AI-driven thing. It's too people sensitive. If it does become if it is good enough to become an AI thing, then we all need to call John Connor and try and get him to save the world and kill the Terminator, because that's where we are. But uh but we do use it quite a bit, you know, not on the oh my gosh, are you using AI to find my password? No, no, no, no, no. Lots of other things. So I've joined a lot of forums and I've noticed interesting, I'm in a uh like a uh, I don't know, mastermind, I guess would be the title, uh, for founders and CEOs on AI with companies in the revenue that we are, and we're kind of the smallest company there. So the first two meetings we met twice a year for the last two years. Uh everybody's there, we're dreaming out loud, we're learning. It's businesses across the world. It's it's there's no homogeneity to the businesses. Uh the only thing we had in common was he told us, the founder told us, uh, you can bring one guest next year. And so I thought, oh, I'll get to meet everybody's spouse. You know who I met? Chief legal counsel.
unknownOh wow.
SPEAKER_02Because now that the whole shiny object of ooh, AI is is genie out of the bottle, all these businesses are like, we better have an ethics code. We better have something that governs how we use this, because we're in a in a wild west that we've never had before. I don't I don't know if you're seeing that or not, but it was interesting to me to see. That's the next move is okay, what's the regulation?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I would say, like, even for for pastors, it's legal for you to have ChatGPT write your sermon. And, you know, because I have so many things online, sermons, and I have a thousand published online articles. Like, I can say write a sermon on Philippians chapter two, verses one through four in the voice of Ed Stetzer, and it is remarkably good. So, but I think that's you know, that's where we've got to say that's an ethical uh boundary. And I think churches can articulate. But I think you're right. I mean, I think the the next frontier of legality, I mean, I'm one of the authors whose books were ripped off by uh was it is it I don't want to say was it anthropic? I I probably shouldn't, I don't if I'm not sure the name, let's just say whatever that company is called uh that did that, and you know, they just took our books and and trained AI on our books without permission. And so I think those legal things exist. But I think the I I in my view, the the boundary is different, you know, for students. I lead a large seminary, but also the boundary is different for pastors. Not everything that's legal is good for you to do. But again, and I think I I want people to wrestle with those things. But there's uh so many things, just low entry, easy, obvious. You know, again, that's one of the reasons like I approached Corey uh about you know the sermon shots thing and how we can work together. Because it's sort of like it's kind of like a no-brainer. It's like you're you're you're taking your sermon and using it for 10 other things, and it actually wasn't AI when he started, but now using AI to accelerate that. It just seems like so what I would say big questions out there. I'm I'm preaching and teaching on it in my own church. Um ethical guidelines. Yes. But there's a lot of stuff that just kind of like, no, why why are we not increasing our processing? You you mentioned um you're not using as much in your uh in your field, which I get. You know, you and you have a very personalized approach. One of the things we we really appreciate about your work. Um but I could see, not that I'm giving you unsolicited advice on your own podcast, like if you get a thousand resumes and someone has specific things, you could say, hey, of these thousand resumes, who has let's say they require an MDiv and and who you know who's you know multilingual or whatever it may be. So there are ways that you could you sort, just like for us, like for students.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_03We go through the process of you know, uh student transfers in. You know, we just took over uh Phoenix Seminary, and so all these students are having to come in. We're we're not doing this yet, but we're working towards this. But all these students come in, so I have hundreds of new students coming in, and we got to go through individually their transcripts, see what line up. Well, that could be automated, and probably you know, we're it's too soon in the w for us to be able to do that for the Phoenix Seminary, but we're learning, and what I'm saying to my staff is is how do you accelerate the processes in your work without losing it? Actually, frees us up for more human touch, which is what we want.
SPEAKER_02Well, and and there's some uses that uh I do we're going to sermon shots. Sorry, audience, if you think we're not there, we're ahead of there, but there's some uses that I've seen uh that you wouldn't naturally think of. And I think the sermon shots will give people just thinking bigger about how they, for instance, like you know, when we were looking helping served mariners when they were trying to figure out what happens after Kenton retires, and we got to be a part of that, and Eric has been there, and clearly God's blessed that. Uh, but man, I don't have to sit down and write about what's life in Orange County like anymore.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02Like that part, I'm farming out. And and then the more important thing that I did not do with that search committee, but we're starting to do now is record every meeting. Tell them you're recording it, record everything. Right. And then we spend days in a launch meeting, record it all, and then the night before your morning meeting before you leave, uh, AI helps synthesize it, say, here are clearly the six things everybody agrees on that we're looking for. And it creates a synthesis of ideas that can work versus the old analog way, which is you know, where they say, uh, what's a horse? Uh what's a camel? Uh it's a horse drawn by committee, right? Uh, you know, it doesn't have to be that way anymore. So um tell me now, like there's so many plays for how you can use AI as your intern, UAS AI, in ways that removes medial tasks, but like with sermons and sermon shots, give me first the elevator pitch, and then I want to hear a little bit of the how did you guys start, what was it like, what have you fumbled over in time? Like, tell us the behind the scenes sort of uh origin story and what you guys have have found along the way as you're learning.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Uh yeah, so the the elevator pitch of sermon shots is you it turns your sermon into different pieces of content that you can use throughout the week. Social media content's the big one. You know, a lot of churches uh really want to do as much as they can on social media, but it's time consuming. Don't always have the you know extra time to do that. And so Sermon Shots utilizes AI to really speed up the process of being able to find all of the great moments in your sermon, whether that's videos or creating images or helping you with some initial drafts of like a five-day devotional, just different ways of really utilizing your sermon. And uh one of the one of the things that we have done from the very start is we we really believe that the human part of all of this is very important. And so what we do is we utilize AI to speed it up so you can do all of this stuff so much faster than you could five years ago. But all along the way we build in places where the human has the touch wherever they want to. So editing the videos yourself or editing the content, the words that are used in the five-day devotional, changing the colors, all of this is it's it's really the what I believe is the best combination of utilizing AI and the human input to create this content. And we're actually only using this, we're only using the the pastor's voice, their words, right? We're not we're not rewording or creating new content, we're actually using the sermon to make it.
SPEAKER_02Well, now let me let me hit pause there because I know where Ed attends church and I've been to the Thursday service and the Sunday service. So that they let me in the Thursday service because I'm too old.
SPEAKER_03Um seriously, kick out old people. It's literally true. We it's literally true.
SPEAKER_02You don't want creepy old men. Yeah, you don't want a creepy old 50-some-year-old dude like me wandering around all the I get it, it's fine. But Eric, Eric and I had dinner, we go in and watch the thing, and I was blown away. And he preached the message that he was going to preach in the weekend, but he had packaged it for that audience in a way that was more tailored. Are you finding that to be something that happens through AI, or is that still a human task?
SPEAKER_01Uh absolutely, because the whole the whole thing with this, that what we do is you're delivering it to a different place, which is a different audience. The audience that's scrolling through Instagram is not, or at least in that setting, is not looking to listen to a 30-minute sermon, right? They're they're looking to get their 30-second, 10-second sound bite. Uh the one that wants the images, they want to see the you know, the inspirational quote from the pastor. That setting of being in social media is way different than coming to the church on Sunday or Thursday.
SPEAKER_02So how about you, Ed? What would you say?
SPEAKER_03Well, I would say specifically related to that Thursday night thing is kind of a good example. So I was trying to, you know, I I was working on my message, you know, and and uh when you preach at Mariner's church, you actually preach seven times over the course of Thursday till Sunday. Um but that young adult service is different. And so I'll give an example like like of course I intentionally write my own message, uh, then I use AI to help to research stuff like that. So I do a first draft and I I had this uh illustration that was funny at the time. I had um I had just, you know, the last six years I've lost about 120 pounds and really just hiking, and I'm really hoping that I'll hike again. So just trying to be healthy and et cetera, et cetera. So it just fit in my, there's this thing where I where I make a joke about um so this is gonna be a real really weird illustration. I don't know why I'm telling you this. But uh but so the joke is that you know, I've lost a hundred, at that time it was about a hundred pounds. I said, listen, I've lost a hundred pounds, so just think of it as losing one of the backstreet boys. Well, I can assure you that nobody in that third time service has any idea who that is. You know, it was really funny for the for the boomers and the gen Xers. I'm a Gen Xer. So I I actually asked ChatGPT, who should I say? And they said, so I basically said at the at the adult service, I said, I basically lost one Timothy Chalamet. And everyone thought that was very, very funny. But like I didn't know, but but again, so that would be an example. Now, of course, you know, some people are gonna be horrified that I made the joke anyway. But uh but yeah, so so it it changed between the two services. I'll give you one other example. I was preaching on why are there so many denominations in one of our On the Table series. And then um I was trying to look for a I was kind of explaining, you know, the first 1500 years of church history, you know, where these denominations come from. And then I I I made a joke that I actually only I made because of the at that young adult service, um, I changed the illustration on that as well. And in both of those cases, I I asked AI to find a more age-appropriate reference for that. So yeah, no, I think it's a and again, this is where I think the superpower is is using this in research. I think where uh and again, I don't I I want you to care about the ethical things, but I want you to settle that. Have a policy and settle that, and then don't spend all your energy worrying about the ethical implications. You're gonna settle that. And and and then you're gonna say, okay, from on this green zone, there's I I don't I think there's probably not a church right now that can't do more to accelerate their ministry uh using I made a double negative there, but every church could could almost certainly find more ways and spaces to use that. So for me, you know, when I kind of hooked up with with Corey, it was like a no brainer. And you know how large our church is. So it's you know, it's now the largest church on the West Coast. So we have a very we have media people and like I mean, it's we have this vast array of staff. Um but for me, I have this love for small churches. I do this weird thing where I tweet when I'm in a town hey, if you're a small church under 100 and you're like a guest speaker, you can't pay me but I'll come. fill in for you something. So for me, the again, keeping in mind that I really like the green no-brainer space. I want you to set that ethical boundary for your church. But then like so that church of 200 can get like I have a college student who does the my sermon shots work. They can just go in and boom create these things without a media team. And I'm not mad at media teams. We have a media team and we use these kind of tools at Mariners but but that's kind of for me I just want people to thrive more in that green no-brainer space make clear where you are ethically don't let AI write your sermons.
SPEAKER_02But man there's so many things you can do. Well and and uh just to put a bookend on this part of the conversation one thing I've noticed you know we've been doing we've been helping churches find pastors for not quite 20 years it's hard to believe but it's it we've been around a while and when I first started Ed you'll remember this core you'll have no idea what I'm talking about uh the old adage was the average the age of the average attender swings and Ed can fill this in if I made him 10 years around the age of the pastors that's right undoubtedly you have a 35 year old pastor your visitors are going to be 25 to 45 given. So pretty easy we need to grow in 40s get us somebody that fits the window. That's over and part of the reason it's over is because of demographics forget AI boomers are more than bigger than ever and they're they're retiring there's nobody my age there's nobody 40 to 55. It's just lower birth rates. Every industry's dealing with it and now you have a cascade of younger people coming into organizations like a 500 person church or a 200 person church or whatever you want to call it where they're 30 and they're ministering to people that don't know who Timothy Chalamet is. So I I really think AI can kind of thoroughly kill and bury the idea that you've got to be a preacher within 10 years of who you're trying to reach. I think it's it just opens the portfolio where people who are older and wiser can use AI to find cool illustrations and people who are younger can connect with the older and I would just encourage you guys from my vantage point it's a huge liberty to not have to say well we've got to find somebody that's going to draw people within the 10 years. Now enough me tell me I'm going to send you a message I did let's say it's a conference talk or I speak at a church that we're representing I sign up and I am then doing what? What does that cost me? What do I get? What does that look like? Like sell it to me so I can so I can hear the you guys love this more than anybody on the planet. So I want to hear the white hot version of why it matters Corey I'm putting you on the spot.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So it all the things I said basically turning your sermon into all this content uh sign up you can use it unlimited for a couple of weeks to test it out the the thing I say about AI just in general is just try it and see what see what it can do. And so that's what we do at Sermon Shots is allow you to try it out for free for two weeks as much as you want. And after that it is not expensive at all. It's about $50 a month and you get all of that content. Okay but what is what do they say the clips what else uh clips is the big one images thumbnails discussion guides audio for your podcast uh pulls a quotes creates a five day devotional and all of this is an editor built inside of it so it creates it allows you to edit and create all of your brand colors and all of that all together and the thing that matters to me is that is that it stays within that edit system.
SPEAKER_03It's a closed system. So I'm not you know if you if you type in uh to chat GPT, give me edset quotes about the gospel you'll actually get I said give me 10 edcer quotes about the gospel. Of the 10, four of them were from somebody else that I recognized that that I maybe wrote the forward to their book or whatever. So I'm concerned about these systems that go outside. So one of the reasons I like the what Corey was doing is and there you know there are others that do this as well but it stays inside that that window and that gives me a sense of safety. It's my content I'm repurposing and reusing my content and I think that that made a difference to me so that's part of where I just started the conversation.
SPEAKER_02It's a huge difference huge difference and everything I'm learning in my masterminds the two that I'm in is stay in a closed system. Yep. Whatever you do if you're using ChatGPT go ahead and pay the freaking $20 a month to make it closed. You know just get in the closed system. Really really good point and and Corey love it. Go ahead and try it.
SPEAKER_03Well what's the saying uh if you don't like AI this is the worst version you're ever going to use that's a good point that's I love that I'm gonna use that I didn't I didn't think that yeah but I I do think you can't say enough for the close like I I I pay for ChatGBT and and I use a Logos and uh and uh probably sermon shots those are probably the three areas for me um but I do pay for the paid version uh of chat which I will tell you um knows far more about my medical condition I have literally turned it into a doctor because I have this it's a rare thing yeah um like no no one that I'm meeting has all the doctors like yeah we never seen this before I'm like oh great um but chat super you know in there and and for me you know I I use I like I use logos because they have a closed system that actually cites the books that kind of stuff I I like I like things that cite the sources or stay contained within the system uh I just think that avoids some of the ethical uh problems or at least helps shield you for some of the other problems.
SPEAKER_02Well and logos just uh we're in a bit of a free form here but logos is amazing I I I got to go through their dry run when they first released their new AI driven deal and uh there's no referral code I'm not getting paid like it's just it's worth everybody I thought I mean it was an old software I hadn't used in years and years and years and and they have seriously up the game and I would just say my experience what I'm with my style might not be true for anyone else is if I want to uh think strategically I use chat GPT and I go ahead and pay for the the biggest version I can if I want to find things I use Gemini because Google sees more of the internet than anything. And if I want to write I use Claude.
SPEAKER_03Okay so you subscribe to subscribe to all three of those?
SPEAKER_02I do for the next three years I am the the the guinea pig for our company so it's like look go go figure it out figure out what we're and I'd hoped that I'd find like one ring to rule them all kind of thing but there's not it's just I'm thinking of subscribing to Claude because of the agents thing.
SPEAKER_03So I'm thinking about doing that um yeah so I'm I'm still I'm still exploring I will tell you that like with Logos this new I think it's called my study assistant I actually I I would you know because I was what am I doing? I'm sitting in a hospital bed for 10 days and I I actually said you know what would you say to someone like me because the doctor said I was too ambitious and I needed to scroll you know scale back my expectations and I got it to dunk on me which was kind of fun it's like well you need to listen to the Lord and and it's getting quoting quoting scripture and books from Moody to I don't even know Luther and so you know to me I get to know you as you as you know but yeah so I gotta I I'm gonna I think I'm gonna subscribe to Claude Corey I'm interested do you subscribe to any I know we're getting to a free form discussion here but what do you subscribe to?
SPEAKER_02It's all free form it's AI.
SPEAKER_01I have the same three and I'll say that that the one I use the most is Claude.
SPEAKER_02I really I have found it in most to me it's the most thoughtful okay and I'm also I've had far fewer hallucinations the the the the LLM having hallucinations with Claude than with another uh we've had very bad hallucinations with Gemini so I always double check things there but it does see more of the internet so I you know and and it's all going to change in the next year or two. I think I'm going back to what Corey said if you're not trying it try it because you are going to be left behind if you don't try this. That that I'm certain of I don't know what the future looks like but I think those who choose to just say I'll just keep using a legal pad and that'll be that no I'm telling you from a seminary perspective.
SPEAKER_03I think seminaries and you know universities are slow adopters. I learned some from what Cedarville's doing for universities and some others but I just think so right now we're you know we're coming mid to the new fall the school year one of the things I've asked our director of operations to do, she's gonna kind of work with each team and say how are you adopting AI to increase your because again then we have more time to spend with students because you know we're we're growing a lot we're in a great place so we got a lot of new students but if we're all caught up in our processes trying to match this and this when AI can do that. So yeah I think I think uh again I keep come back to there's so much green space here. You know there is yellow yellow and red exist but just set your ethical policy and then work in that green space there's plenty you can do and I'm inspired if you guys are voters and Claude I'm gonna subscribe.
SPEAKER_02If you think you're gonna design policy that's thorough you haven't lived policies happen when a mistake happens yeah you only make a policy after there's a problem yeah so you can't anticipate all the problems and they're gonna be different five years from now than they are five years ago. So I'm with you Ed you know go fast and go forward and uh you know if you if you're not willing to get on board you will be left behind I'm just sure of it. And I would just say uh at Ed, this is a total sidebar but you might go look up University of Chicago Law School this semester they're starting a new class with a brand new curriculum it's it's like written in all the legal journals because they're dismissing all the go read case law stuff. Anything AI can do is no longer in the classroom for them. Wow yeah yeah so it's it's it's an interesting time but hey listen uh I've kept you guys too long but I'd love to hear I'd love to close out you know one of the cool things I love how I built this with guy Ross you know and he always says okay where did you stub your toe what didn't you see coming that came what are the things we don't know about come on guys tell us some tell us a cool story that that's something that you didn't see coming and you learned and you had to fix it.
SPEAKER_01I think let me say that Corey he won't tell you this he's kind of the serial entrepreneur he's done other stuff before that led to this so Corey I'm setting it up for you to step in I mean I'm I'm actually I love hearing the story go for it uh yeah I mean this might this might be a great story as a segue to that which is uh I had I I started other software that was in a different industry but for uh for basically it was helping authors create visuals for their stuff and so I I basically wanted to take what I had learned and apply it to the church. When I was doing that I thought of it as Canva for authors so what did I the first natural thing I thought about was Canva for churches. Well little did I know every church got Canva for free. And so it's tough to compete with free. So I I jumped right in though I thought I had the best idea right well huge failure but what it did do is it got me talking to lots of pastors and it actually helped me find what they really wanted which was making clips. They constantly I kept hearing no I've got Canva for free but you know what Canva can't do? And that's that's really cool big failure turned into a success.
SPEAKER_02Well I can't thank you guys enough for jumping in the water you know the the i it's sad to say but I've heard this cliche many times that the church is fantastic at raising the flag during sunset. We always adopt late and and it doesn't have to be that way and and frankly as I look at it Ed knows way more church history than I do but the little bit I know is the times the gospel has really blossomed is when the church steps into a new communication breakthrough. You look to the printing press you can go to Roman roads you can go to Koine Greek you can look anywhere you want. And I think we're on the precipice of a really big breakthrough with a generation that's really hungry to hear about something other than this world. So thank you for what you're doing and and I don't want to leave without please I know you wouldn't do this but please give me the pitch where do we go what's our call to action what do we do I'm making them do this they would they are you know I'm getting nothing for it like tell us how to get this started.
SPEAKER_01Yeah go uh really simple sermonshots.com and you can do two really simple things sign up for free or we even make a couple of uh clips for you for free right there on the homepage you can sign up for either one that's fantastic that's great well Corey it's great to meet you look forward to knowing you more in the future and Ed thank you you you know if you all don't know Ed you should he has been a sage for church leaders for longer than I can remember and uh we're praying for your health man we're I'm gonna see you it's been it's been a while good good to see you a uh one day in person thanks for being a part of my proof of life video.
SPEAKER_02Yes and send me a video of that dance we're we're all praying for it. Amen thanks brother hey God bless you guys and thanks for what you're doing and thanks for everybody who's listening. Uh here we don't get into telling you what I know that you don't this is just let me introduce you to my friends who are doing cool things. And these two are some of the best so if you need anything notes that sort of thing just go to Vandercast.com and then tune in again next time to hear from another one of our friends and hear how God's moving in a great special way that might help you go farther and faster.
SPEAKER_00God bless you thanks again for joining us on the Vanderblumen Leadership podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode if you're looking for more leadership resources you can find us at VanderBloomen.com and on social Vanderblumen see you again next week where we continue to get