Is It a Sin To Use Data As a Church? -- It's All About the Heart with Blue Van Dyke | Hot Topic Friday

Unlock the secrets of effective church engagement with our special guest, Blue Van Dyke. As an executive pastor with a rich background in global marketing, digital advertising, and venture capital, Blue brings a unique perspective on how business principles can transform church communication and member engagement. From his journey with prestigious firms like Daimler Benz to the development of Studio C, an innovative member engagement system for churches, Blue shares compelling insights into turning congregants into passionate advocates and utilizing data-driven strategies to foster deeper connections within faith communities.

Our discussion illuminates the mission of guiding individuals on their spiritual journeys through the strategic use of digital technologies. Drawing parallels to a GPS system, Blue emphasizes the importance of understanding where people are in their faith journeys to offer precise and compassionate guidance. By tailoring activities to meet the unique needs of each individual, churches can create a more personalized and effective approach to spiritual growth, transforming "not yet Christians" into fully committed followers of Christ.

Dive into the critical role of data management in church settings with Blue's expert advice on using data responsibly to enhance engagement and avoid missteps. We explore the ethical use of data, address concerns over technologies like AI-powered facial recognition, and underscore the necessity of clear, transparent communication. Learn how to ensure no one falls through the cracks and how to create meaningful, personalized interactions within your church community, all while reflecting on the importance of data hygiene and the power of predictive analytics for future-proof member retention. Join us for an enlightening conversation that promises to revolutionize the way you think about church engagement.

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:08

this is lead time hello friends, this is lead time. This is a special hot topics episode, and I am here with my friend, blue van dyke. It's a really great guy. I've had a chance to get to know him uh, actually as a client of his uh with a really cool product that he put together called the Studio C, which a lot of churches are starting to use now for their church apps, and so this is a really exciting time. Usually we go right into the topics, but I wanted to spend a few minutes just letting the audience here get to know Blue a little bit, because this is the first time bringing him onto our podcast. So, blue, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank, you.

Speaker 3: 0:48

It's great to see you. It's an honor. Honestly, you mentioned we know each other as a client. You've been a phenomenal client. So, honestly, to be able to even be asked with some of this, I'm really really honored. So thank you for having me here. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Thank you so much, blue. Why don't you share, just take a few minutes and share a little bit about your story? Like your story and also kind of like the development of the Studio C app dashboard. You call it a member engagement system, which is a cool name. Can you just share a little bit about that story?

Speaker 3: 1:17

Yeah, you bet, and I think, even to share where it came from, I have to share a little bit of my background. So you know, prior to starting Studio C, I was actually an executive pastor at a church as well, but before that I was a marketplace guy, right? So that's full disclosure. I always say I'm a Jesus-loving MBA, right? I?

Speaker 1: 1:33

didn't go to Bible college. I didn't go to seminary.

Speaker 3: 1:35

Don't hold it against me, but you know, always, always loved Jesus and I honestly don't even remember not having him for the presence of him in my life. So but business guy by trade, I came out of grad school. I'd actually did a chunk of my undergrad at a German university. That got me actually hired by a German firm called Daimler Benz. They're the parent company of.

Speaker 3: 1:55

Mercedes Benz and, and so literally for the first five years they just sort of bounced me around the globe and different projects. But the big takeaway I got while I was there was this idea of engagement. Right, we'll talk a little bit about that. But I took a marketing track in grad school and I thought, man, I'm going to get to create all these really cool ads. Right, mercedes-benz, it's awesome, awesome brand. And I was very quickly taught that no, what we do is we focus on our existing customers and we turn those guys into advocates. That's how we grow our company.

Speaker 3: 2:24

From there I jumped ship into the digital advertising space, right? A colleague of mine was actually charged with building out mercedesbenzcom, so that dates me a little bit. But the old internet days and I got on this project and ultimately, you know, hired we hired a firm to help build that out. I jumped ship and, and over the course of time we just learned how to use this new thing called data to help create messages. So, literally, I would go to companies like Toyota or Marriott or these big companies and I'd say, hey, listen, you're spending billions, literally billions of dollars to advertise to everybody. Let me use this weird new thing called the internet and data to help you segment your audiences. Right? Like I remember saying to the head of Toyota quit advertising to the head of Ford, he's not buying Toyota. Right, you don't need to waste your money.

Speaker 1: 3:08

So from there.

Speaker 3: 3:09

I jumped into venture capital and for people who don't know what that is, you buy a company it was all tech centric grow it and sell it, and the whole thing there that I kind of learned is this idea of how do you take something and scale it right.

Speaker 3: 3:22

For a bunch of people or a bunch of organizations to use, and all of that how I landed. We were fortunate enough to kind of sell a business and my wife and I, anyways, we try every seven years to take a year off. We call it just sort of our year of Jubilee, but the idea is to focus on God and it's always the same three goals regroup with God, regroup with each other and regroup with the kids, right? So we just spend a year pouring in and, anyways, during one of those I decided, man, I would really like to do something with the church and I was fortunate enough to be asked to come on staff as an executive pastor and help to do that. But that's where Studio C came from, was.

Speaker 3: 3:56

I actually took that background and I entered the church and I started to see some things that I took for granted from the marketplace that I just saw missing in the church, right, and some of that was management of a life cycle, marketing strategies, communication strategies really what all summarizes member engagement strategies, and so started to build those out as a church and then just really saw the need for it what I'll call the big C church to bring some of those skill sets. So that's actually where the word studio C comes from was. We used to have a studio team doing it and I said, man, the Big C Church needs a studio team like that, and so we started Studios.

Speaker 2: 4:30

That's awesome. Yeah, it was a fun story.

Speaker 3: 4:32

Thank you for letting me do that.

Speaker 2: 4:33

So it's the studio for the Big C Church, trying to bring scale to across denominations, across congregations, across locations right Making. Hey, if you've developed a great product, why not bless the wider church for it? That's exactly how we think about it in the ULC when we think about leadership development and trying to be more effective with mission and raising leaders locally and church planning and all of that. If you actually learn techniques to do that, why not bless the wider congregation with that, the wider church with that?

Speaker 3: 5:11

Yeah, I love that you say that. Sorry about that. I love that you say that. I go through and I just realize that at some point or another, either nobody has it or sometimes it's just the really larger, well-resourced churches that have access to this. And it used to always break my heart when, you know, we were a fairly large organization and we'd have visiting pastors come in and they'd say, man, this is great, I want that, and then you'd give them the price tag for it. You'd see them kind of hiccup a little bit as they go through this, and so my whole belief was man, we should be able to take these things and make them available to all kinds of churches, because everybody can benefit from this stuff, not just the large churches.

Speaker 2: 5:48

Yeah. So before we hit some of these topics, I want to just talk about the word engagement real quick, because I think that can get some ministry people. If they're not familiar with this discussion could get some people triggered. We're saying, hey, we're trying to corporatize the church, we're trying to, you know, turn a mission into marketing. Right, the best way I've had it explained to me that clicks in my head a good friend of ours, matt Engel.

Speaker 2: 6:12

He talks about engagement is interaction in an exchange for value. Like in reality. That's what's happening, and even in so this is happening in both sacred and secular contexts. So this is happening in both sacred and secular contexts right In the church, this is happening. In Disneyland, this is happening. Right In school. This is happening. In the corporate world, this is happening. These things are happening well, in fact, we might even say that corporations learned it originally from how the church engaged with people, how the church engaged with people. So you know, what you may actually think of as a business concept is actually businesses adapting what they learned as the church engaged with people. Right, think about words like mission statement, right?

Speaker 3: 6:57

And values Great. We'll talk about a customer life cycle. It's so awesome. And the person at the bottom of our customer life cycle this is when I was at Mercedes-Benz. We called that person a brand evangelist, right? So we used words like evangelist and stuff and I guarantee I picture a room full of Germans 200 years ago saying I don't know who's grown pretty quickly by doing something with their people. The church has done a pretty good job over 2000 years of doing that right.

Speaker 2: 7:22

So you're right, what do they have? We're still evangelists and missions, and right.

Speaker 1: 7:27

So yeah, they're learning it.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Now we're learning it back from them. That's exactly right, so I think that's a good primer to get into these these questions. So the first question I have for you is how do you see digital technologies reshaping the way churches engage with their communities, and and what steps should local churches be taking to adapt to these changes?

Speaker 3: 7:48

I love it. It's a great question. I think I'm going to start and even frame what we were just talking about with engagements. I think it's important to understand it. So, taking Engel's definition, I love it, but I always feel like our job, one of the things of our job as a church to do, is to help people through that life cycle, right Through this journey, if you want to call it and I usually just say it starts at the top with a not yet Christian right, because I don't want to get stuck on terminology.

Speaker 3: 8:10

And we take them through some journey and they spit out the bottom of this journey. Usually we're disciple, disciple maker, fully committed follower of Christ, whatever that looks like right. So the job is how do I take them from way up here not yet Christian all the way down through to this committed follower of Christ? And then our goal is we do that because, like you said, then we hope they're going to go out and bring more people into the kingdom. For us, we're creating this army of salespeople to use a marketing term right or creating a group of evangelists that can help grow the kingdom. So to me it's the pieces in between. What I always tell people is when I got to the church, I first looked at it and said what's our job? Take them from here to there. And then second question was are we any good at it, right? So when I started to ask are we any good at it, that's when I got the stairs like I think so, right, I'm not sure. So all I did was break some of those pieces in the life cycle down and try to measure it so that I could just see how effective are we, or where are we dropping off or where are we less effective, and so we just piece them through.

Speaker 3: 9:06

What I think deploying digital technologies or technology can do is help you manage people through that life cycle, so it can help you understand where they are in it Right, that life cycle, so it can help you understand where they are in it, right. And what I found is that a lot of times, churches talk to people as if we're all at the exact same place. We're all either starting or we're all right here, we're at the bottom, and then we all run at the same speed. And what we found is that people are at all kinds of different places in that journey, in that life cycle, and they go at different pace. Right, so they're at a different place. They're at a different pace. Right, so they're different place, they're at a different pace.

Speaker 3: 9:36

And I think one of the first things that a digital technology solution or focus or implementation can do is help you know where the people are. It can even help you match them to things that they can do, and then it can help you talk to them to get them to do it right. So I like to call it helps you know them, match them and tell them, but it really makes that journey personal, and that's what I'm trying to say is by using those I actually get to know where Jack is and talk to Jack uniquely to him and his needs, and stops with this whole shotgun approach to assuming everybody's going at the same speed.

Speaker 2: 10:46

Yeah, I think a good handle for people is match, not batch, right.

Speaker 1: 10:51

Yeah, good, I love that.

Speaker 2: 10:52

The traditional way and we dig into this concept a lot because we run a school and we've been talking a lot about how do we make education more personalized to the, the unique challenges of the kid Right. Every kid. Kids learn differently, they may learn at different paces, so how can we get, how can we have, a more matched experience for learning for kids? Can we have a more matched experience for learning for kids? So, rather than just batching because the way you know, the way that the education system has been run in the US is just a batching system Everybody's going through the same grade together.

Speaker 2: 11:25

It may be suitable for you, it may not be, and then you just deal with it, with having a good grade or not having a good grade, and the system isn't designed really to lean into what are your particular strengths and weaknesses, to kind of get you that better outcome. So I love this because this is actually like a philosophy that we get to introduce into the church. Every person is different. Everybody's wrestling with God in a different way is kind of a way to say it right.

Speaker 3: 11:50

It's great because you're right. I mean, especially if you start looking at all of the spiritual backgrounds from people where they came from family structures. Not, they're going to come in with a whole bunch of other baggage or non baggage or you name it.

Speaker 3: 12:01

And then you look at even just the rhythm of life, I mean we used to laugh. We're like, try to get a single mom with three kids under five in a small group. Good luck, right, she's got her hands full. So if you know people, it helps you really tailor sort of this approach to the things that we believe are really beneficial for them, right? I used to say that the things, the pieces of your engagement are those things that you hope people participate in, because we just know when they do, the probability of their heart changing for the Lord goes way up right. So how do I introduce somebody to that when it's right for them, based on where they're coming from? But this idea of a tailored journey for everybody, I think of any place. The church should absolutely be one of the few places that does that really really well. That's awesome. So, jack, I kind of like to think of it sometimes. This is maybe a stretch of an analogy, but I'm going to go with it.

Speaker 3: 12:51

Our job's kind of like a big GPS is what I say to people. And so for any GPS because I'm trying to get this guy from here to there and so I say, like for any GPS to work, there's a couple things I need to know. First of all, I need to know the destination, like where are you headed? So if you're here in Arizona and you're heading to California and I give you directions, east, that's not going to do any good. So I got to know the. You know the destination and to me and to me that's this journey, a well-articulated engagement pathway or discipleship journey.

Speaker 3: 13:19

And then what I need to know is where your starting point is right, because if you're heading to California, it's very different if you're starting from Florida or Texas or Arizona or wherever you're at. So I got to know your starting point and that's where I can use data to kind of understand where you're at in your spiritual journey. And then ultimately, like a GPS, I need some device, I need some way to tell you when to turn right, right or when to turn left, and what you're doing. And to me that's where communications kicked in. So I'm going to say that that's what we're really are. We're just kind of a big. That's where technology is. Think of it as a giant GPS to help people through their journey, as long as we can know the destination, where they're at, and then we have a way to talk to them and communicate to get them to go there.

Speaker 2: 13:53

The beauty I love this, the beauty of the GPS. I mean a lot of people are. You know we're at. We're in an age of society where a lot of people don't remember what it's like to use a paper map or ever had that experience. I've had that experience plenty of times, right when I'm driving and I'm looking at this entire big map here I'm trying to figure out where I'm at this big map. But the beauty of the GPS is it just tells you where you need to go for your next turn, next. Right, you don't necessarily have to see the entire journey. It's thinking about it for you. Yeah, and you're just figuring out what is my next. You know what is my next?

Speaker 2: 14:26

200 yards look like on the road right yeah. And when that turn comes, it very seamless. Hey, don't worry about everything else, just worry about this next turn that's coming up and make the turn at this turn right.

Speaker 3: 14:37

You're right and I know it's about me. It's not complicated. I've made the communication very easy. And 300 feet, you're turning right right.

Speaker 1: 14:45

And so it becomes.

Speaker 3: 14:46

it's very personal. I know it's not the guy's journey behind me or the guy in front of me. I don't have to worry about where. So you're right, I love it I might steal some of that, as I continue to talk about it as a GPS. So thank you.

Speaker 2: 14:58

That's good. Anything more to share on that particular topic?

Speaker 3: 15:02

before we move on, I would just say that there's a couple things to do that that I think are important. If I were to look at where, I would say how do you go down that path? What are some places where people should do? I think the one thing is you can guide people to these steps, but the steps actually need to be good. Right, it doesn't do you any good if you don't have a solid. I'm going to use a marketing term. I love jesus, but I'm using marketing term.

Speaker 3: 15:22

If you don't have a good product and you drive somebody and say, go right to go to this destination and your weekend experiences, your small group ministry or your serving opportunities aren't solid, then you run the risk of actually getting somebody to engage again or leaving it very quickly. So I think you have to have. This isn't meant to be a substitute for having a really good experience and a really good products that are out there. With regards to this, all right. I think the other thing is you need a really clear understanding. You'd be amazed at how, when I walk into churches sometimes and I say, hey, what is this engagement pathway when you get 900 different directions Right? So having clarity on that I don't remember who said this I'll probably get in, you know. So I don't even try quoting it, but I remember hearing somebody say that, hey, if it's misty at the leadership level, right, then it's a dense fog one layer below that and it's pitch black the next layer down. So if we are not clear as leaders in the church about what our engagement pathway looks like, it's going to be really difficult for our members to understand it. So I think the next thing that's really imperative is really really good clarity around what is it that your steps are. I think, then, if you've got an idea of sort of what we're defining, we've got an idea of where we're going to push them to.

Speaker 3: 16:30

I think the next thing is that's when you can start deploying tools to be more efficient and more effective. So that's when you bring the tools in to say, hey, how do I message people better, how do I track some of the data better? Through all of these? The only the last thing I'd say that's been really, really helpful is this idea that communicating with somebody is actually a science, too, right. And so not being afraid to bring in the skillset of somebody who can communicate and craft messages is important too, right. I usually look at it and I say somebody's really good at the product, we're really good at our campuses, but we don't spend a lot of time with regards to bringing in the science of messaging. There's a lot of us that went to school just to learn how to send a message, and so you're starting to see at least this idea of comms directors and communication specialists that understand rhythm and strategy and timing and channel management and all that stuff. I think that's a really nice plus to add to the mix.

Speaker 2: 17:25

Yeah, and of course, that can be a challenge for some smaller churches. Yeah, but definitely I think we're seeing that more and more with churches that have the resources to bring to bear. There's more and we're going to hit this with our next topic there's more work being done on actually collecting meaningful data. There's more accountability to the messaging. Is the messaging actually delivering in the way that we expect it to deliver? Now we have the opportunity to refine, so let's move on to our next question how should congregations approach data analytics to enhance church member engagement?

Speaker 3: 18:00

And what?

Speaker 2: 18:00

are some key insights you've discovered through the development of your platform, the member engagement system, the Studio C.

Speaker 3: 18:08

Yeah, I would say the first thing is one as an organization, you have to make a decision about how you feel about data. I think so because there are mixes. Some people think if you use data, it's a form of manipulation, and so you've got to test your heart on this. Do I want this data because I want something from them, or do I want this data because I want something for them? And that was a litmus. I would say data is not a sin, right? That's my starting point on this.

Speaker 3: 18:34

Unfortunately, I don't have the divine powers to know how many times a woman at the well is married.

Speaker 3: 18:39

I have to sometimes use data to understand that so that I can shepherd her better and resource them better. So I think the first thing that we have to do is say, hey, how do we feel collectively about the use of data as an organization, and get clarity as an organization or a leadership group on that right. I used to always say what I'd ask our folks is if you knew, what would you do? Okay, so don't ask me for a data set if you don't have a plan to shepherd somebody with it or point them to a program or drive them with it. So if you knew, what would you do If you knew? On your own means? You want something. If you knew so that you could actually support and lead and guide and care for somebody, then I'm all for the use of that kind of data. So I think that's the first starting point is decide your approach, or an organization's approach, to the idea of how we're going to use data.

Speaker 2: 19:23

Yeah, I want to pause on that real quick because there's a psychological component to this and this was kind of an aha for me. Let's just say, in a smaller church, a church may decide to take attendance just by having somebody who just like marks people's names off as they show up oh, here's the, here's, here's Joey, here's Sally, here's Bobby and they're just marking it off on a piece of paper as they see people coming in. And I've seen churches do that and it's actually very effective if you've got a small enough church where you know people and you can actually identify new people really quickly. If, like that, you got a person that does that. Now, let's say you got a camera set up and instead of a person checking names off, you got a camera and it's using ai to recognize people's faces and recording them present, right, people feel less comfortable with that. Yeah, even though you're doing literally the exact same thing same thing isn't that interesting it is.

Speaker 3: 20:15

Yeah, I think there's something about that feels like the eye in the sky and a little bit of big brother or something of that nature that does it. I think that's where you have to actually communicate and articulate why you're doing that, because I think what happens is there's a natural question of when I look up and I see that camera or I look and I'm trying to figure this out is what's the intent behind it? And so if you just do it without communicating the why, then people are going to formulate their own beliefs about why you're doing that shaming, tracking on doing something. So I think that's where the understanding of hey, we think this is a spiritual discipline, like going to church on a regular basis, the community of like minded believers to worship the Lord, is part of your spiritual development, and what we want to do is make sure that we can lean into you and understand that and support you and drive you. I think can go a long ways for helping people to feel comfortable with stuff like cameras and checking buttons and things like that.

Speaker 2: 21:03

Yep. And then another thing too is I've been confronted by people in the church because I push data, I'm a data-driven guy and again, like the fear is okay, we're going to be corporatized, we're going to be turning the church into a business and we're losing the, the heart of ministry. And I say no. The reason data matters is because data represents people and people matter yeah right, so as long as you're very clear about that, that it's not the data, it's not.

Speaker 2: 21:33

it's not the data, it's not the percentage necessarily that matters. It's the actual people that that percentage represents that matters. And if you're very clear about that, then I think it changes the narrative about how we're using data.

Speaker 3: 21:46

Yeah, and we'll talk about that a little bit on the insights that we've keyed from this too, but I'll even jump ahead with it. When I have a relationship, or when a customer in this case, a member or a congregant or whatever term they want to use has a relationship with an organization in this case, a church, I actually expect you to know me. I actually want you to know me, I want you to recognize me, I want you to understand me. Now, if it's a third party that doesn't know me and they're trying to solicit me or sell me something, then I'm annoyed. Don't do it. Or sell me something, then I'm annoyed, don't do it.

Speaker 3: 22:17

But if we have a relationship, I actually expect you to know me and to be able to have more of a what I'm going to call a first party relationship with me. So, especially as you explain that, hey, we're not doing this to check on, we're doing this because we love you and we have a relationship with you and we're going to pour into you, I actually think it's not weird. It's not as weird as people think, because they expect it. I actually expect Amazon, because I have a first party relationship, to remember the type of soap I use, because I want to be reminded of that. Now, if somebody else is doing it, if they're selling that to somebody, I get a little bit annoyed. But the fact that I've got a relationship and I willingly came into this relationship and I created some sort of a first party bond there, I expect you to kind of remember who I am and not treat me like a stranger every time I come back.

Speaker 2: 22:56

Yeah, and I think people want to know that. If well, first of all, people want to know that people are not going to fall through the cracks Like the church.

Speaker 2: 23:04

The congregation wants to know, hey, the staff and volunteers and whoever's willing to do it like we're working to make sure people don't fall through the cracks. And if the system doesn't have good data, it's hard, it's really hard to do that. So imagine reaching out to somebody and you send them an email or you do a phone call saying, hey, I haven't seen you in a while because your data doesn't show that they've been there, but in reality they've been there, right. The response has been oh, I guess you haven't noticed me, right, right? Or the response has been oh, I guess you haven't noticed me, right, right. Or you send somebody an email thanking them for their first time gift I've been giving for a couple of years now. I guess you haven't noticed me, right? That is a connection fail that's caused by having really poor data about somebody.

Speaker 3: 23:49

Yeah, it's great you say that. I used to say that actually a bad message, right, is not neutral, it's counterproductive, right, a wrong message is counterproductive and you know I've told the story a long time ago that when I was on staff even I've been with the church and I got an email that said hey, it's group season, let's sign time to sign up for group. I actually printed it out, wrote on there been in a group for 16 years, right, been been leading one for 11 years. I was like this email said my church still doesn't know me after 16 years and so a negative email is actually counterproductive. I used to tell folks that you'd be better off to say nothing than to say something dumb, so let's not.

Speaker 1: 24:26

And some of them are funny.

Speaker 3: 24:28

I had a church that they had some funny ones. A gentleman got an invite to a breastfeeding class and he was like what is this? And we all laughed about it, right. But I had one lady and she wrote this to us that her husband had just passed away and the church did the funeral, did the memorial service, and the very next day she got an email that said you're going to have the best year of your life, right. And she just felt like, yes, you just did the funeral for me yesterday, right? So that was actually a little bit wounding. So that's just. I give those examples to say it can actually be. It can actually be really counterproductive if we're not careful, using the right data you know to send out.

Speaker 2: 25:04

Yeah, and I've had that too, where we were inviting couples to like date night ministry and it turns out we had some widows on there that we didn't do a diligent job to clear that off, right. That was very awkward, right. So, yeah, not having a good handle of your data can be can cause a relationship fail, so you have to actually have to be super diligent with it.

Speaker 3: 25:25

And I would say, if you ask me, like, how to approach data, I would, I would, I would take it in these four stages and probably in this order Right, and the first one I just call data enrichment. So data hygiene, enrichment. Right, and the first one I just call data enrichment, so data hygiene, enrichment. And I think if somebody is going to start tackling their data, the first place I would start with is how clean is your data? Right, and where are you missing things? So there's a lot of ways you can do that.

Speaker 3: 25:45

That's not weird to say, hey man, we don't even know birthdates, we don't know wedding anniversaries, we don't know baptism anniversaries, things that allow you to recognize somebody, we don't even have that. So if you, if somebody comes to me and says where should I start, if I'm ready to dive down this use of data path, I would say start by hygiene and cleaning and start by enriching, getting more information about your data, right, and then the second place I'd go right after that. As I would say, now visualize that data, put that data in a format so you can actually, or somebody can, look at it and start making some decisions off of right. It's nice that it's there, but if I can't see it in a way that helps me pull a lever or make a decision for a particular area of the church or the organization, it kind of doesn't do me any good. It's just cute, and churches are sitting on a plethora of data that they're not using to make wise decisions off of.

Speaker 3: 26:31

So I would enrich or hygiene and enrich your data, then I would enrich or you know, hygiene and enrich your data. Then I would go to visualization. Then the fun starts kicking in. Now you can start looking like data analytics, right, and this is where we work with some churches to say, okay, what's this data telling us? Like, typically, when we have a first time visitor, how long till they get in their first step. Right, when is that? What is that step for this particular segmentation? And now you can start messaging people intelligently, based on what the history of the type of people that go to our church look like. So these are just your gleaning insights that help you actually get smarter about when and what to say and who to say it to at particular times. And then I would say four, and this is way down, it's a reason. It's number four is I think you can start using all of that to predict future behavior. Right, and this is when we talk about it. But I think, ultimately, what you want to get to is this idea is hey, how can I use this information so that we can see?

Speaker 3: 27:28

And one of the campaigns we were, you know, with some churches on is we wanted to predict who was going to leave the church six months from now so that we could talk to them today. And I'll tell you where this came from was. You know, we had a church we were working with. We had new first visitor numbers and they were really good. So we're all kind of high-fiving each other and I remember thinking, uh-oh, we got good numbers on first-time visitors and we have horrible numbers on attrition, on who's leaving.

Speaker 3: 27:53

So I dove into that and I said I got to figure this thing out. And it turns out we were still losing a fair amount of people. We were growing but we were losing these many people, right, losing these many people, right. So raster blue is like where we're losing to, and then marketer blue was like that's, we spend a lot of money to acquire people. What are we doing to lose them? You know how we pouring into it when we're doing it so long and short. I found out that we would wait until almost six months. If we had no contact with somebody for six months, we'd finally reach out and talk to them and I said, guys, when we talked to them we'd hear things like man, the church has now gotten so impersonal that you just proved it, because I've been gone for six months and nobody's reached out to me.

Speaker 1: 28:58

So I remember bringing everybody in.

Speaker 3: 28:59

I was like man, I don't want to call people six months after they're gone, I want to call them six months before they go. So to me, level four is when you can start doing some predictive campaigns like that to help really inform your messaging.

Speaker 2: 29:09

Have you seen? What, would you say, are some of the key markers that start to predict that somebody may be dropping off their membership from the church?

Speaker 3: 29:19

What do you think churches should?

Speaker 2: 29:20

be looking at to try and find those patterns.

Speaker 3: 29:23

Yeah, that's great. So these models are really complex. So I don't want anybody to take one attribute and think, oh, they're leaving the church. That could also be a bad message, like, hey, you stopped a group, you're leaving.

Speaker 3: 29:32

But most of the time what we found is the people who left our church fell into like one of three categories, right, and those categories are what we call a change in family status, so that means there was a death or divorce, so you can look for some of that. There were healthcare reasons and there was a change in financial status. So that was kind of the reason, and the things that we looked for that showed something was happening was just that a drop off in attendance is one of the very first things that you can see. If somebody had a regular attendance pattern where they're showing up three out of four weekends in the month and all of a sudden they're down to one, that's a clear indication that there's usually something that's going on in their life.

Speaker 3: 30:08

Stopping giving was a big one. If you had somebody who had traditionally been a regular giver or somebody that was a recurring giver, to see that drop was a big one. If you had somebody who had traditionally been a regular you know giver or somebody that was, that was a recurring giver. To see that drop was a big indication, right. And then another one was what we would call overall decrease in engagement. So an engagement may be a kid check in, it may have been going to a camp, it may have been shown up in an event we track.

Speaker 3: 30:27

All of those is technically what's called an interaction, and if you have so many interactions on a regular basis and all of a sudden that drops down to here we have fewer interactions. All of those can kind of indicate that there's a trigger of something going on.

Speaker 1: 30:40

Wow that's very insightful and, again, none of those things.

Speaker 2: 30:44

None of those things mean that they will drop off. It just means that there's a higher risk or a probability that there's a again. A prediction is just basically a statistical model. Just saying there's a again. A prediction is just basically a statistical model just saying there's a higher chance that there may be something going on here that we need to look at. Yeah, agreed, and you know what I?

Speaker 3: 30:59

think it does for you too? Is all of this like you're saying? It helps you plan better? I'm listening to you say that it doesn't mean that you automate a response from somebody, but now you can be smarter about how you approach different things, programs that you offer, times that you offer people you invite that to, and at least begin to have a dialogue with it. I just think having data I don't know how to say this data is not the thing.

Speaker 1: 31:19

Data is the thing that should support the thing.

Speaker 3: 31:21

It should be the thing, that helps you with your thing right, Helps you do your thing better.

Speaker 2: 31:26

I think that actually hits our kind of our last question here, right, because critics argue that an over-reliance on digital tools can detract from personal or face-to-face interactions, which are very essential for building church communities. In our context, we don't think of the church apart from a gathering of people. It is the people that makes the church, it's not the building.

Speaker 2: 31:48

It's the community, and if you don't have community, then you don't have church. That's just literally what it means theologically. Don't have community, then you don't have church. Right, that's just like literally what it means theologically. So, from your perspective, do you believe these arguments have merit and, if so, how should that impact our digital strategies?

Speaker 3: 32:03

Yeah, that's great, You're right. That does kind of right to you into that. Yeah, I think they have merit. I'll be honest. I say I think they have merit.

Speaker 3: 32:09

If organizations particularly try to go exclusively digital, I've always felt that a digital communication was meant to enhance face-to-face communication, and here's how we handled it. For me, when I started, this thing is and this is where it hit me quite a bit is we used to have Saturday services and Sunday. I would attend on Saturday and I'd go hit some of our campuses on Sunday and I'd stand out front and while I'm standing there I'd look for somebody that I know right and as they come up to me and I'd stand out front and while I'm standing there, I'd look for somebody that I know right and as they come up to me, I'd grab their hand and I'd shake their hand and then I would ask them about how they're doing. And I fundamentally think part of the insights when you meet somebody, what they're looking is to be recognized and encouraged. Those are the two primary things I think we're supposed to do with our members.

Speaker 3: 32:47

Hey, so when I'd see them I was like hey, Bob, how are you? How's Betty? What are the kids up to. Did he finish? Did he finally graduate? That's great. Why aren't you leading a small group? You know we need guys like you to get out there and lead. Why aren't you doing that? So I'd recognize him and I'd encourage him to do something in his faith more Right, and it was all the time.

Speaker 3: 33:02

So I'm doing that face to face and it's really effective and it's great. But while I'm doing that, 42's talking to those guys. Right, who's having that message? So when I came back to my team, I said guys, I want a digital version of that handshake and if you can do the handshake and the hug, do it. It's better. Yes, but the staffing needed or the ability to do that on a regular basis at the volumes that we're talking about or the times that we're talking about, sometimes becomes prohibitive. So I always say that digital communications, or digital in a way, is meant to really reinforce or enhance some of that communication, and a lot of times we actually used it to try to drive face to face. Hey, show up at this event.

Speaker 3: 33:44

Give us an opportunity to meet you. We'd love to be able to have lunch with you. Can you do this? So we would use it to actually reinforce some of the physical communication.

Speaker 2: 33:54

Yeah, and again, like when you started talking about maybe some of these predictive patterns, what are you predicting for? Well, you're actually trying to predict for a situation in somebody's life where they actually need maybe more relational connection with somebody.

Speaker 2: 34:09

If they've gone through a divorce, they may be in need of a much, much higher level of pastoral care for a season 100% and they're not telling anybody. But it shows up in the data, right. And so there's an opportunity, using data, to actually make that relational interaction happen, if we know what we're doing and if we're thoughtful about it, right, yeah, interaction happen if we're, if we know what we're doing and if we're thoughtful about it.

Speaker 2: 34:38

Right, yeah, and and I. Another example is like there's very few people that are going to take on a leadership role because you send them an email, right, right, committing. Committing to a leadership role is a relational process. It's getting to know somebody, it's having a conversation with somebody. It's actually you know. Yes, there are, there are assessments that people can do and you know, you can publish, you know leadership opportunities, but to really have somebody commit to something, that's a relational process. I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 3: 35:06

And you know, what's funny about it is we actually started to do some A-B testing on how we were communicating with people and we did this campaign about people that we thought were going to leave. I actually put them into three categories. One don't hate me. I did a control group, so we didn't communicate. We just kind of tested to see if our data was valid, if they were going to actually leave, right. But then one third of the group I had pastors make phone calls to and one third of the group we sent digital messages to. Now, remember, they're in crisis right now. Something's going on, and what we found is that people responded to the digital messages at a higher rate than they did the phone calls, and I think one people don't like to pick up their phone anymore, right, there's a nervousness associated with it, and then there's a sense of I want some anonymity. I'm a little bit embarrassed, no-transcript maybe. Think of it when you said divorce and they were going through stuff is.

Speaker 3: 36:21

We actually worked with a church where we were doing a marriage conference and we were bringing in.

Speaker 3: 36:26

It was the parents who were doing a fight night, right, and so we decided that this was actually we're going to, we're going to talk, use data to talk to people who don't go to our church.

Speaker 3: 36:34

So we hired a company to help draw a radius around each of our campuses by five miles and give us a list of people that they predict would be divorced in the next six months.

Speaker 3: 36:44

And so what we did is we then sent social media campaigns or ads out to these people of hey, you've tried everything else. If you tried the church, we'll scholarship you, we'll pay for the conference, click here and get your free tickets. We had like 1200 people sign up for a marriage conference at a church that had never been there before, right, and now, all of a sudden, because they signed up for tickets, we now had a first party relationship. So now we're able to send them messages of like hey, if you thought the conference was good, you should try our small groups and you should try this. But to me, these are people that were desperately in need, that hadn't automatically gone to the church as a place of support, and it was data and a way to deliver the message that allowed us to kind of build a rapport and a relationship with these people. So it's huge.

Speaker 2: 37:25

Right I've said this to a lot of churches as they're thinking about like, how do we address felt needs in the community and why do we do that other than just like preaching, right, and it's like there are lots of families out there they don't care about your invitation to church, they just don't care about it, correct, but they care about their marriage and if you invest in their marriage and you help them, like in an authentic way, in a very godly, authentic way, now all of a sudden they care very much about your invitation to church. It's, it's a, it's a shift in relationship, right.

Speaker 3: 37:59

Completely so. That's what you say is. You know, we've been talking this whole time about a personalized message, but I think it's a personalized and a relevant message and that's the important part. I can say hey, Jack, how are you? You know, do you want to go to the basket weaving? I've got it personal, but it's irrelevant to you, it doesn't matter. But if now I know you and I'm inviting you to something that matters to you whether it's a marriage conference, that you're felt with this felt need you're talking about Now I've hit both of those personalized you know me and irrelevant, that you can help me and lean into me. And if we can tackle both of those, I think you can make some really good headway.

Speaker 3: 38:45

Amen, yeah Well anything more to add to that Blue. I think we're getting around in the corner here. The end of this conversation has been really exciting. If people wanted to get a hold of you and maybe learn more about your platform, the StudioR-G, so thestudiocorg, they can look me up on LinkedIn. There's not a lot of blues out there, blue Van Dyke so they can certainly do that or email me or text me, you know, with the show notes for anything if you send those out. So any one of those but websites, probably the easiest way, and I would just say that you know the whole reason why we didn't talk about is kind of this idea of why.

Speaker 3: 39:09

But I think engagement is the thing that leads some of the other metrics we've been trying to look at.

Speaker 3: 39:15

So like giving and attendance, you know, one of the things that we just studied for the last two years is that giving and attendance tend to be a byproduct of engagement, and what I mean by that is if engagement is growing and we've been looking at the pace of this, attendance and giving tend to grow at the exact same rate across from it.

Speaker 3: 39:33

In fact. You know, we were looking at some folks that had really good engagement numbers. We weren't tracking giving. We were tracking, you know, as far as a total dollar amount. We were tracking whether they were participating in it as a spiritual discipline, et cetera. And of our top three churches, which has been kind of cool is as their engagement grew, attendance was up 25% and giving up was up over 50%, not because people were sending out messages about a giving and going to church. They were just trying to get their people engaged in a relevant way and that byproduct ended up being go to church and then they found the spiritual discipline of giving. So I would just say that don't think of it as you know that you're thinking of engagement. It's just a way to pour into people and the other thing just happens, you know, as a result of that.

Speaker 2: 40:13

Yeah Well, I'm just going to reflect on that Like to me, like one of the number one metrics I look at, probably above every other metric, is our net promoter score as a church. Like, just how do people think about us? Right, and you know, what I've seen is in those seasons where we've managed to have this really high net promoter score, like we are growing in worship attendance and we are growing in giving and we are growing in participation and all these different things. And a lot of times, you know, you're starting to catch some of these things that would be more difficult to survey just by you know. Just hey, they ignored my invitation to do this thing. You're actually giving them a voice to communicate back to you about what you're doing well and what you're not doing well with respect to engaging them when you do have the opportunity to interact with them, right, right.

Speaker 3: 41:02

So yeah, I love that. I mean, the idea is, am I in a place where I feel so comfortable I am compelled to bring my brother and my aunt and my best? Friend and my neighbor to church with me. Yeah, you talk about brand evangelism right.

Speaker 2: 41:14

Exactly, I tell people the easiest way to evangelize is bring your friends to church, and there's actually a large number of people that will say yes if you invite them right, you'll love this.

Speaker 3: 41:25

We actually changed our whole model, so we were spending money on advertising. Upper funnel, don't know you. You don't know me, I don't know you, we'll get you to church. We actually know you. You don't know me, I don't know you, we'll get you to church. We actually said at the ads we put out now are not designed to bring somebody to church. Anything we do on ads was designed to credential the invite from one of our neighbors, our members, right?

Speaker 3: 41:42

so I wanted one of our members to go to their neighbor and for their neighbor to say you know what I've heard of that church?

Speaker 3: 41:45

they're not crazy, but we weren't trying to get, that's interesting we were just trying to underscore and reinforce one of our members inviting their best friend or their neighbor to come to church. So I don't think there's no ad I could ever have been doing this for 30 years. There's no message I could ever produce that's going to convert as well as you, Jack, inviting your best friend to church. There's nothing I could build that's better than that. So I need to reinforce you to feel prepared to do that.

Speaker 2: 42:08

This has been a fascinating conversation on the topic of data and engagement and you know, Blue, I hope I have another chance to bring you on here again because there's a lot more, I think, that people can talk about and dig into, especially in this concept of engagement and how to think strategically with your digital tools. Blue, I'm going to continue to pray for your ministry because what you're doing is a big blessing for the wider church and I hope many other churches have an opportunity to take advantage of your services. Friends, this has been Lead Time Hot Topic. We hope you had a great time with this conversation. It is a great day. Make it a wonderful, beautiful, excellent day, with a faith and joy and peace that comes from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Take care, brother. Thank you, Jack. Appreciate it, sir.

Speaker 1: 42:55

You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.