Tech Tools to Get You Less Frazzled and More Focused As Church Leaders Ep 2.07

Jeanette Yates  0:00  
Remember that any good tool does not replace you. No one, nothing can replace you and the work that God has called you to do. But a good tool can help you spend more time doing what you love in ministry and in your personal life. It is all about connecting building relationships, and serving the people that we are called to serve in this job.

Jeanette Yates  0:30  
Hello, and welcome to the Tech in Church Podcast, where we talk to everyday church communicators who use simple tech tools to go from frazzled to focused. I'm Jeanette Yates. I'm here with my co-host, Nina Hampton. We believe you should spend less time worrying about technology and more time doing what you love in your ministry and in your personal life.

Nina Hampton  0:49  
So in today's episode, we're doing something a little bit different. So like Jeanette just said, we talk to everyday church communicators on this podcast, but we're the communicators that we are talking to today. So some of you may have asked how does the Text in Church team get it all done? Like how do we manage everything that we do- our lives all the things? Today, we're gonna pull back the curtain a little bit and take you behind the scenes. So we're gonna share the tech tools that we use, what they do and how they help us stay less frazzled and more focused on helping church leaders. So like you to feel known, noticed and loved, like we love to say here.

Jeanette Yates  1:26  
Yes, that's our jam. That's what we say. And we mean it. 

Jeanette Yates  1:35  
So I am so excited about this episode, because one of the biggest shifts that had to happen for me when I went from like, working at my church to working for Text in Church is utilizing all of the tech tools. Yeah, I mean, I use technology as a church communicator, obviously. But how Text in Church uses all of the tools, all of them. But actually, it helps make us all more efficient, better communicators with each other. But there are so many tools. There are so many tools.

Nina Hampton  2:05  
And I think one thing like we're a tech company that uses tech tools, I think we turn a lot of people on their heads because we're very people-focused, peopleoriented, like but we are a tech company. That's what we do. And so I think that one of the things, it wasn't so much a shift for me, I wouldn't say that did that. I would say I was opened up to a whole new world when I joined the team. And I'm, oh, there's so many things. And it's not just that. And I think that this is something that I've loved about like being on the team these last few years is that we're not stuck to one. If we find one that works better for us, because that's the thing, we've switched over using different text tool, different tech tools for different things. There's a couple that have remained kind of our mainstays. But if we find something that's, oh, no, this thing works way better than that other thing over there, then we're going to use that other thing over there. Or you would have or I just said that I don't think I said that backwards. But, whatever one is more efficient for us, like, we will pivot. We will make it so that we are using the most efficient thing for our team so that we can best serve our members. And I think I've always loved that because I think I don't know about you, but there's been a couple that like I've found, and I'm like, 'Yeah, I found this tool, guys.' I was 'Oh, this is awesome.' We're gonna use this. I'm, 'Yes, I got a victor.' I found the tech tool this time. I found the thing that's gonna help our team. So yeah, there's a couple that we want to discuss. And I think that I'm just gonna kind of go over that. And we might, we may preview some other ones too. These weren't all the tech tools. These are kind of just the main ones that literally are kind of like the lifeblood of Text in Church, right. And that's Slack. My gosh, our team runs, thrives on. We wouldn't know what to do, y'all, if we did not have Slack, monday.com. That's another one. We keep everything organized in order. And we track all of our projects, all the things through monday.com, Google, all the things- Google, Google Drive, Google Meet, Google Calendar, and name a G-Suite product, we probably use it. We also thrive on Zoom, how we meet with all of our members, all of our people. We use Zoom a ton. And this one is a newer one, but it is near and dear to my heart. And the next as well, which is Reclaim. Reclaim is a little bit newer of a product in and of itself. I'm pretty sure I think it's only been around a little while. But if your brain functions like minor genets it is life changing. So.

Jeanette Yates  4:28  
So if you're prone to the shiny object syndrome, or do you work on social media, like I do, and like the algorithm is trying to pull your attention away? Yeah, Reclaim is a really great tool to help you like, 'Oh, it's something okay. What's not? You know, so even if I do get off track for a few minutes, I've always got something pulling me back to focus. And so we're gonna dive deeper into each one of these just to kind of talk a little bit what is it like. Some people may not even know what these tools are, how they can really help and so I wanted to take a moment just kind of hit every single one of them. This episode is a really quick one, because we're like, we're just listing some tech tools and telling you how we work. And not only like what we're using, which we just did, but now we're going to talk about, like, how it really helps us. How does it make? Like, why does it matter? Yeah. How does it help us be more efficient? And so the first thing you mentioned was Slack. And we both are like, yes, yes, yes. And that is our main, think of it almost like the messaging platform we use for our interactions day-to-day, especially since we're remote. Like, we do have an office, but a lot of us are remote and don't go into the office every day, or me four times a year, because we come up there. And so Slack is how we kind of collaborate with each other as if we were in the office.

Nina Hampton  5:44  
Exactly. So a lot of our, especially being, like you said, a partially remote team. And for us being really all over the world.

Jeanette Yates  5:52  
 I was gonna say and international.

Nina Hampton  5:54  
And not just international, but we're sprinkled all over the US. We have, you know, Blake, who's on the far west coast, and then we have you on the far east as you can possibly go. You, Caleb and Becca. And so that's how we all message each other in real time. We have a couple of team members overseas, that we're able to message them in real time. Like Alana, I can message her right now. It's a different hour of the day for her.

Jeanette Yates  6:17  
Yeah, it may be a different day. No.

Nina Hampton  6:19  
I can message her right now. She may be eating dinner, but I can message her. Just FYI, it's like mid-morning where we are and it's a different time for her probably, but I can message her right now and we can talk instantly. And so it's really how we get just notifications out to our team. It's also how we share important files and important documents. So a lot of the things that we've talked about a lot of the other tech tools that we we just hit on Monday, Google, Zoom, or all those things that we use to manage projects are communicated through Slack. And I think that one of the things that's really huge, at least for me, this may sound like kind of silly. I'm an integrations girl. If I can get my stuff to talk to each other, that's what I'm going to do. And so that's the one thing that's beautiful about Slack is that it talks to everything. 

Jeanette Yates  7:06  
Right. So when we use Google, we use Monday, we use Reclaim, let's say, right, but we don't have to go into all those tools necessarily all the time, or like Monday will remind you of something in Slack. Or if somebody makes an edit to a document, you can get a notification of that edit, I'm gonna get a notification. So even if I'm not in there, if I want to, maybe it's not, maybe according to my schedule, it's not the right time for me to do that. So I don't have to but if I wanted to, I could hop over into that Google Doc, and collaborate in real time there. 

Nina Hampton  7:41  
So it really acts as a hub for our team. And I think that and not just, I will say this, like, just if there are some people are listening to this. Okay, I didn't know that it could do all of this. We have some whizzes on our team, okay, that me and Jeanette lovingly call them wizards, because I'm like, I don't understand how you make the things work the way you do. One of those who will we will be talking to soon is Caleb Miller. He's one of the wizards on the team. He and a few key other team members had the ability to make anything talk to anything. So not only do we use Slack for the notifications to talk to each other, and to share documents and stuff, but it's also a way that we keep an eye on kind of emergency stuff. There's a lot of notifications that come through Slack, right. So like, again, we're a tech tool, right? So we maintain and run a tech platform. And so whenever something goes awry with Text in Church, there's a lot of notifications that come into Slack automated to let our team know before anyone else sees it. But hey, something's amiss. And so well, we can jump in there very quickly, we don't miss a beat so that we can again best serve our members. So we use Slack and not just the way that like stay connected, because we definitely have like gift channels and like goofy stuff. You know what I mean?

Jeanette Yates  8:50  
I was gonna say, we want to mention that it also, like I mentioned, it's like, instead of being around the water cooler, this is where we go. So it is our office online, essentially.

Nina Hampton  9:01  
Yeah, that's really the way to put that. 

Jeanette Yates  9:03  
So yes, there's work to be done, and sharing of ideas, collaboration, but also their celebrations of birthdays. We have a whole channel called 'crushed it,' where we celebrate each other.

Nina Hampton  9:16  
And we just move to the shout out, like, Hey, you killed it today in this thing, and I just want to let you know, I want the rest of the team know because maybe not everybody was there, like you did an awesome job.

Jeanette Yates  9:25  
Right. So that's a great way for us to all encourage and support each other.

Nina Hampton  9:28  
We also have a month to channel just bumbled really hard and you laughed at yourself and you want somebody else to laugh to. Hey, guys, I was muted for the entirety of the first five minutes of the Lunch and Learn and yeah.

Jeanette Yates  9:44  
I could do one I should have done one yesterday because I was sharing the wrong you had updated the slideshow for us Oh girl, and I was using the wrong presentation. But I figured it out when I didn't see the fancy new things. I was like wait, this isn't right. This is all this is all. Yeah, so Slack is, I can't imagine what we would do without it. I will say, one of the things that we are talking about is like you talked about, like we try things out, we implement them. And one of our engaged speakers a few years ago, Michael Hyatt, his talk was actually, it's about the experimental mindset, having an experimental mindset in your church. And he actually talked about when his team implemented Slack, like, I think he even says, like, I was one of the ones that I was like, why don't we use Slack? I don't know. And how that he helped. He used the experimental mindset to shift into Slack. So, um, we'll put that in the show notes. If you want it, I want to lose it. Because you if you're like, I'm not sure I can get people. Yeah, if you need some motivation, or you know, your team is going to be like, nope, let Michael Hyatt talk to him. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna log that in the in the show notes. Okay, the next tool is Monday. Yes, and I have thoughts. But I want you to share.

Nina Hampton  10:50  
I know that you do. So Monday.com is our kind of project management hub. So for example, as much of a love project as the Tech in Church podcast is, we manage all the things, all the details for the Tech in Church podcast, in a Monday board, to keep it all together, who we've done interviews with, where each one is in the process, because we have a team of people that help us do this. So you know, we have an editor. We have all of the raw recordings, all the things where all of that stuff lives is in a Monday board. And so it just helps us track. That's just one example. Not just that, but also like everything that Text in Church does. So all of the things with member experience, the things that we are planning for our members, our help articles, when we need to update those, we keep a Monday board that helps us kind of know where everything is in that process. So yeah, it's really, really great for project management for time tracking all the things and it's just like really versatile. And it's like, yeah, we also like fun things. That's another thing. And so I don't know how the other teams use it, but the member experience team, a lot of times when we're doing projects, they have a version to view your progress, right, like there's music chart or you can use a whatever. They have a llama farm option.

Jeanette Yates  12:09  
I don't know we don't we don't use that I did not know about the llama farm Are you kidding me? 

Nina Hampton  12:14  
Hey, you guys should, you guys have to get you guys gotta get on a llama farm so like you can see all your completed projects. If you choose a llama farm option by how populated your llama farm is. And every completed project is a llama farm and is a llama on your llama farm. And on top of that, if your completed project has sub items, then your llamas have babies. It's the best thing ever.

Jeanette Yates  12:35  
Okay, my mind is blown right now. 

Nina Hampton  12:38  
It's so motivating. It's literally set like we have to populate this llama farm. We have to get these things done because I need this llama farm to be full and I need to see all these babies. So it's great.

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Jeanette Yates  13:56  
So one of the things I do want to say about Monday, yes, I was gonna say our workplace. But that isn't our team. That's the word I was looking for. Oh, my goodness, our team uses Monday. And I remember when we started using it, like wholeheartedly, like I think probably a few people like Caleb probably was in there before I went. Yep. And some of our tech Jedi wizards. They were probably in there before and just kind of checking it out. And then it was like, Okay, we're going to use this for our project management tool. I think we had also kind of looked at a couple of other things because we were using Clickup to communicate with another organization. And so we were like, well, maybe Clickup would work or whatever. And Monday became the thing and then that is when we all were like okay, this is what we're using. So we had to make ourselves use it and that for me, that's what I was on. I was like I have thoughts. So for me, I love to use it. I love the organization. It provides. The way it organizes and clarifies everything and kind of helps you prioritize, but I cannot set up my own project in there. Like I have a project and I'm like, Okay, I know that Monday could help me with this. Yeah, and I can't figure it out. So that's why it's great to work on a team like this, because I can ask Nina's really good at it. 

Nina Hampton  15:09  
Y'all play really good. I can fumble long enough to figure it out. 

Jeanette Yates  15:13  
Okay, well, listen, you're better than me. And so you helped me and we have other members on our team that people are at different phases of expertise in there. And so once the board or the project is set up, I can use it, but I need help setting it up. So it's okay to ask for help is what I'm saying. It's okay.

Nina Hampton  15:32  
It really is. And again, like, I think one thing that I've encouraged with all these tech tools, especially as you're using stuff for your team, because I feel like the church leaders that we talked to a lot of the times are talking about the ways that they use tech individually, right. And we're talking on a team level, like we all use this stuff. I think what makes it palatable and makes it attainable for everyone is the fact that we also use it in like fun ways too. So just again, pulling back the curtain during the pandemic, y'all during 2020. We, a lot of us, not everybody on the Text in Church team, but a lot of us are movie and show buffs like we are our cinephiles. We are movie and show people. Okay, so there was a lot of talk about all the shows, and we would spend like a lot of time back then talking about what shows are worth it whatever, because there would be certain ones I think everybody knows this certain show throughout the pandemic caught everyone's attention. And we're like, all right. We're scheduling this meeting 15 minutes early, so we can talk about the show. And so we would do that. It was actually Caleb. He took it upon himself. He made a Monday board of TV and movie recommendation. And he like, the thing, it's, I guess funny is it sounds it was amazing. He had like a rankings column where you could like, loved it, like amazing half to watch. Loved it, you should probably watch it or like it's okay. Or like, don't watch it. And then like, we you could put like, the ratings level? Like, is it safe to watch with your kids? Or is it not like, and it was so robust. And then listen, we use that thing, like we really like, I will say, it's fizzled out. Sometimes I go back in there and check but like pandemic taught, we use that I was checking that regularly, right.

Jeanette Yates  17:13  
When it was needed, because we were all trying to figure out how we were gonna get through.

Nina Hampton  17:18  
Well, that and I need to show. I'm stuck in my house I need to show to somebody helped, right? I need a recommendation. 

Jeanette Yates  17:22  
You can only crochet so many things and bake so much sourdough bread or whatever else everybody was doing. So we had to watch some TV. So yeah, the point is just like in Slack, when we have our fun channels over there. And Monday, what's working in play is what we're saying. 

Nina Hampton  17:36  
Exactly. 

Jeanette Yates  17:36  
But it really is a good tool and what I really loved about being on a team and being able to collaborate, like I said, I asked for help when I need. And one of the things about our team that I love is like it's not your job, Nina to set up my project board. But you do it anyway. Because you know, it helps me and it's in the long run. It's going to help us serve our people, right? It's going to help us serve. 

Nina Hampton  18:00  
And I want you to win.

Jeanette Yates  18:01  
 Yeah, yeah, we all want each other to win. That's true.

Nina Hampton  18:03  
I want you to win. And if I can do that, and I think that one thing that we've gotten really good about as a team is like understanding our capacities. And so like, Hey, I don't have the ability to set that up for you today. Give me a week, and I got you like and knowing that with one another or being you know, just palatable, like because I think even how that started Jeanette, like, I don't think it was a matter of you even asking me like we had a conversation. And I was like, Do you need a Monday board? Like, probably, but I don't know how to do it. And I was like, Okay, well, then I got you. Let's do this. Like, let's make it happen. And so it's not. I think that's what having good tech tools allows us to do. Like allows me to support you in a really real and tangible way. Because if we wouldn't have Monday, I don't I would love to help you. I don't know, I don't know what I could do. You know what I mean? I'll do something. I don't know what it is, though. But now that we use these tech tools that are very productivity, centrist and focused and help us manage our projects, I can create that. I can make that for you.

Jeanette Yates  18:59  
You know, we talked about a couple things here, we talked about the idea of deciding you're going to use a tool and then using it, right. And then if you're not as on board as the other people or you're not as tech-savvy as the other people on the team that are using the tool, it's okay to ask them to help you utilize the tool better. Because now that I know what it can do for me, when I set up my social media planning schedule, for example, I can set up what type of post it is, what is going to be the copy of the post, what needs to be in the image when I'm going to post it. If I need any other assets from any other part of the team, all that kind of stuff, and then I can schedule that out. And then when I'm looking I love that it has like, you can look at your week, and it shows you like what's going on this week. So it's a very good tool. Once you see what it can do for you, then you're more likely to keep going back. 

Jeanette Yates  19:49  
But that leads me into my next thing, which is the Google Suite. I put in the show notes, y'all. I put Google all the things because I couldn't remember but Google Suite is what it's called. Google Business suite. And so that includes Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Meet, all the things. Docs, Sheets, follow. Yeah. And so we use those for, we create slides for our meetings that we do each week for our launch and learns, and demos. If you've come to one of those, you see those, all that kind of stuff. And it just, it really, you're probably using Google at your church, right? You're at least using some of it. So we highly recommend that you check out some of the other parts of the suite of tools that they have on the Google Suite, because it's really helpful. Now, I want to also tell you about another team effort for me and using Google. So I'm pretty good at Google. I mean,  I can't format anything. That's the only thing. I'm the worst. Our branding manager, Jenna is just like, can we just at least use the fonts, Jeanette? Oh, man, one of the things that's really good is I can ask somebody to help me, and probably I should just ask them to teach me next time I'm up in Kansas City. Somebody just needs to sit down with me. But one thing that happened the other day is I had a really great idea for something a tool that could be used between the marketing, I'm not gonna tell you what it is Yanina. It's in progress. But I had an idea for something that could be used collaboratively between the marketing team and the member experience team. And so I asked one of PD on our team to meet with me so I could share this idea with her and I'm just sharing it and I'm waving my hands in the air and drawn pictures in this guy. I don't know. I'm just talking. And she's just looking at me like, blank stare. I think I mean, I'm like, she's not reacting. And so I'm thinking, does she like this idea? Does she think it's stupid? Do we already have this in place? And I just don't know it exists? Like, I just wasn't sure. And what she was doing the whole time. I'm just painting this picture in the sky. She's putting it in a spreadsheet. Yeah. So she was able to help us meeting. Yeah. So again, I didn't even ask her this time to help me. But she was listening and said, Oh, I can see this in spreadsheet format. So she was able to do that. So again, there's going to be some tools that you use more like, I'm more likely to go to a Doc than I am on a Sheet. Yeah, but using all those things, and having those all there. And then of course, the Drive is where you can kind of keep everything organized, which is very helpful, especially as your team grows. So for the church using the different the Google Drive, for example, you can have a folder that is for your photos. A photo that's or a folder, that's for the videos of your member testimonials, or something like that. So you can have these folders. Maybe you want to keep track of your blog post that you've written, or maybe you have a team of people that write for your church, or you want to keep that cute copy that you wrote for the Eggstravaganza last year. You want to keep it. You can have folders for things like that. So it's really helpful to use. 

Jeanette Yates  22:58  
And then Zoom is next on our list. But I think moving from Google into real time makes the most sense. So let's talk about that. 

Nina Hampton  23:07  
Yeah, I do want to hit on and I think that this kind of goes into so like, when it comes to Google, I think what's really powerful for at least the member experience side, is that like, we have to be because of the nature of the member experience team. Because what we do, we spend all of our time with members. That's why we're called the member experience team. Our time is super important, like super duper, duper important. And so Google Calendar is vital to us. And so how we use it as a team. One thing that I think is like really smart is not like okay, yeah, everybody has their individual Google calendars. Cool, cool, cool. We have a few master calendars, that makes managing our schedules very easy. So like, I want to say that because I don't think people think about that a lot. People don't think that like, oh, I can make a separate calendar that's not managed by any one email address, but rather just for G-Suite that everything's kind of managed on. So we have  for all of our reoccurring meetings, our one-on-ones, our team meetings, our planning meetings are every everything. We have a calendar that all that stuff lives on for all of Text in Church, regardless, the team. Honestly, it makes it so much easier to reschedule things to make sure everybody has the right information that if somebody is going to be missing or anything like that, from a meeting. Sometimes like 'oh, yeah, I'm just going to reschedule this meeting really quick.' And then you realize that like you're not the host of them. It just gets weird, right? Like when it's stuff is hosted on people's specific accounts. And having those external calendars for those specific things, I think just makes it so much. It saved us a lot of time and a lot of weirdness. 

Jeanette Yates  24:45  
Because there's none really of that back and forth of like when do you want to meet me then you can look at the calendar and see when the member experience team is in a meeting so that like none on the team are going to be able to meet or this is a leadership meeting. So these People are not available, but these people are. So yes, elaborative calendars are very helpful.

Nina Hampton  25:05  
And another thing and this is the last thing I want to say at minimum, and I think this is a good transition into Reclaim is like having access to each other's calendars life changing. If I need to meet with Jeanette, I can pull up her calendar, and I can see how crazy her day is. 

Jeanette Yates  25:05  
Nevermind. 

Nina Hampton  25:14  
I mean, truly, though, like, if I need to push off, if I need to talk to you about something, and I'm looking for a moment in your day, I could just Slack you, right? Or I could do the proactive thing. And I can go to your calendar, see how packed your day is, and then maybe hold off until tomorrow. And so...

Jeanette Yates  25:38  
Right now you are saying, we just do a quick huddle, or-

Nina Hampton  25:42  
Yeah, all the things. And so that's kind of where I feel like Reclaim just kind of naturally sits in there. So yeah, what Reclaim is, I'm gonna say how I use it first. Because I think it's, when I try to tell people about it, they're like, What? And so I'm just gonna talk about my struggles, and why Reclaim saves my life. Okay, so this is me, I'm gonna have a transparent moment. Okay, one of my downfalls as a person, as a human being, I know all the things that I need to do, right, I do not know how to schedule, same amount of time for myself on certain projects. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to make my own schedule of. I have these five projects to get done this week. So therefore, I need to do the mental math and spend this allotted amount of time on each one of these projects every day. And these are the specific times that I don't know how to do that for myself. I will spend all day on one project. And that's why I get in trouble sometimes with myself because I do that. I'm not good, and I feel it's not just like time management. Because it's not like a procrastination thing necessarily. It's just like, a lot of myself time for those projects is a struggle for me. And so it's weird because I've always been like. If I could just have a product that told me what to do, and when it would save my life. Insert Reclaim. So Reclaim, you can put in different projects or habits. You can give it all the details, right? So you can say, I have a project, that's probably going to take me eight hours. When I need to work that I have a project that's probably gonna take me eight hours, it's due on this date, right? Like it's due. We're recording this on March 10. It's due March 30, right, and I need to work in no more no less than 15 minute blocks, and no more than one hour blocks until it's complete. It looks at your Google Calendar, honors your actual in person meetings with people, and then it just schedules out your time. And it's life-changing. So life-changing for me, because that's the thing that I cannot do. And the other part that's really awesome is that it will tell you can also put habits in. So if you don't know what project.

Jeanette Yates  27:56  
I was gonna say, That's me, right? 

Nina Hampton  27:58  
If you haveprojects to do, but you're like, Hey, these are some things that I need to spend some time doing every day, you can put in all the details of that. And then it will automatically, and that's the thing, it's like intuitive enough that it talks to itself. It'll be like you need to spend so much time doing these habits, and you also need to spend so much time doing this project. And so basically, it creates a daily schedule for you, based on what you've told it that you need to complete, right? Oh, it's the best thing ever. It is like, I'm like, this is the answer to all of my problems.

Jeanette Yates  28:26  
And so for you, like you probably use it even more effectively than I do. I'm still trying to get into the rhythm of it. One of the things that happened as I was looking at our my boss on the marketing team, Jack's calendar, to see when I could meet with him and I somehow organized, it wasn't, I was like, he is so organized. Does he schedule that in his  Google Calendar? And then so then he told me about it. So I'm a little bit with the projects that I'm not as great at scheduling and Reclaim. But what I do use it for is those habits, because with social media, there are some stuff that you have to, you just have to do it every day. But if you're not careful, you could only do that, but you really don't need to it really so I do. I'm very intentional with spending x amount of time every day engaging with our social media followers engaging with the people in our Facebook group. That's something that I do by hand in person myself. It's not automated. It's me. Now I could spend all day in our Facebook group just hanging out. Right. But that's not an effective use of my time or anybody else's right. So I schedule that. That's part of my daily habit. I tell it I want to spend minimum of this amount, maximum this amount. I have to do it every day, five days a week. And then unfortunately, social media, you got to kind of keep one eyeball kinda right cocked over there. So on the weekend, I have a different rhythm. Then it's not the same amount of time or whatever, but it's like, take a peek and make sure Yeah, right. You don't need to cancel all your scheduled post or something like gotta kind of pay attention that's happened. So.

Nina Hampton  30:03  
And I think it's funny because like, that's the opposite, like how I and anybody else, because I've even tried to like, get it over to my team. You guys should use this because it's changed my life. And I'm sure we're changing words because we have just the nature of member success. We will spend all day. And we have to, in some respects, right? It's depending on like certain roles and things like that. We will spend all day talking to our members in our management system that kind of manages all of that for us and talking to our members and responding. But there are some things we have to do. For example, like we just released a big update inside of the platform with that certain things got to be have to be updated, right. So like, we have to update our help articles. We have to update certain messages that come in on the platform. We have to update video training tools, things like that. Yeah, video training tools, things like that, right. And so with all of that, I will, if you don't tell me to take a break and work on the project, I'm going to spend my time emailing and messaging people and making sure that everyone's good inside their account. You know what I mean? And things like that. And also just supporting the team, right? Seeing if there's anything that anyone else needs help with. And so that's where Reclaim is great, because it's like, 'hey, take 15 minutes.' It'll be okay, and work on this project that has to be done. And so because it's our job, or like, Jeanette and I job's rhythms are very different. And so because of that, she's like, I need to do these things every day and kind of keep up on this rhythm. Whereas like, I need somebody to tell me to take a break and to work on the project that I needed to do. And Reclaim handles both of those for us in beautiful ways.

Jeanette Yates  31:32  
So well. And I want to just say one more thing about that, then we can wrap up with the one that everybody knows how to use. But we'll talk about anyway. But one of the things that we're talking about here is being intentional with your time. And especially in ministry, I think like you, there's the struggle between using a tool, and being with your people, being at the hospital room, praying in the preaching, writing your sermon, all this thing, and then like that you got to do. The website has to be updated the whatever. And I think one of the things that using these tools helps us do is you would spend all day talking back and forth with a member or hundred. All right, we know. And that's wonderful. That's what you're supposed to be doing. But if you spent 15 minutes over here, updating that training tool, then that's something for your members. And so I think you can translate that into the church space too. Say, all the technical stuff that you're doing, all of that is really just going to make you more efficient, make you have the time and space to do all that stuff that you are called to do, right? And so don't be afraid of utilizing that technology. 

Jeanette Yates  32:45  
Okay, speaking of which, Zoom made a big huge comeback in the world. 

Nina Hampton  32:52  
Comeback of the century. 

Jeanette Yates  32:53  
And that and the QR code, holla. The most random thing ever. The QR code was dead in the water. And then it was like we will rise up. But Zoom is something obviously that we use typically for just stand up meetings. We're going to use Google meet. But for meetings that we want to record or anything like that, we tend to use Zoom for our meetings with members for the lunch and learns and demos, Zoom has been a great tool for us. What are some things that you like about Zoom, Nina?

Nina Hampton  33:24  
One, I think that it's super handy. I mean, a big bulk of my job is meeting with new members and prospective members about Text in Church and just answering all the questions. And it's awesome, because I get to hear about like, all these different things. I started off every meeting, tell me about your church, I would really love to hear and everybody's like, are you serious? I'm like, yeah, no, I actually want to know. Please know, you can also drop your social medias in the chat as well. That'd be great. But one of the things is that, we automatically have it to where all of our member meetings, record, one and that's just obviously for quality assurance. Just to make sure all the things are good there and to get better. But also, it's just helpful for our members because a lot of times like they're like, Hey, I'm gonna send this information to the rest of the staff. No problem. Let me go ahead and give you the link to that. So that we can do that. I think also this is kind of a more kind of like a "haha" feature. Zoom as beauty settings. And if I want my complexion to be a little bit more blurred because I ran out of foundation, okay, or maybe I had like a little bit of a hard night asleep. They can do that for me. I don't have to, I can kind of look a little a little flawless without having done the work. I do appreciate that.

Jeanette Yates  34:29  
Yes, I will tell you that. That reminds me of when Zoom introduced that again. I think it was like during, it's the pandemic times is when they were kind of I was using Jack, my boss, my direct supervisor, his Zoom account to meet with somebody and so I was like, I gave myself a little bit of a more pronounced brow, little color on the lips. And then I said, I don't know what those settings say but just check when you turn it back on Jack and make sure that you don't have I think it does reset every time but I had this panel that he was gonna go to a meeting,

Nina Hampton  35:01  
I would have paid money to sciatic with a rose lip and pronounced arch eyebrow. 

Jeanette Yates  35:07  
But yes, that is always a part I love. And you can do this on Google Meet too. But I love, one of the things I love about when I get to meet with members is seeing their faces and kind of collaborating with them. And they're like, I'm like, you can turn off your screen. While I'm doing this first part, you can turn on your screen, but I love to feel like I'm talking to someone.

Nina Hampton  35:26  
Well, and that's just what like one of our values here at Text in Church is to prioritize people. And that's one of the reasons why we use Zoom, why we use video, because it leads to better connection. And we want to, we're in your corner. We're for you. That's why we're doing all the things. That's why we're trying to get on a Zoom call with you. Yes. And so we want to build a real connection with you, man. So that's kind of what Zoom allows us to do a little bit. And on top of that, it's just effective. The fact that I can share my screen with you and that you can look at all the things you can share your screen, too. We'll do that back and forth. I've had people who have jumped in, Hey, this is our current texting platform, can I share my screen? This is how it works, man, and we can talk about all of that. Show me whatever you got. We could talk about it. And so to kind of go about it like that, it just kind of lets it kind of open up the window that we get to look into each other's lives with a bit. And so I think I just really appreciate that.

Jeanette Yates  36:19  
Me too. And you get to see like the life everybody has, a kid walking in the room, or a cat walking across. It's just, you're getting too. So.

Nina Hampton  36:28  
My favorite thing is when there's, when somebody jumps on a Zoom call with a baby. They're like, I'm so sorry. I'm like, please don't apologize. You've literally just made my day.

Jeanette Yates  36:36  
Yeah, so that actually brings us to the end of this episode. But it also brings me to what I wanted to say. And then Nina, I'll let you wrap up with any final thoughts. But one of the things to remember about all of these tools, and any tool really, is that, first of all, they only work if you use them. So you can't download Slack and or Reclaim and have it automatically fix all your problems. You have to use it. So that's one thing. But remember that any good tool does not replace you. No one, nothing can replace you, and the work that God has called you to do. But a good tool can help you spend more time doing what you love and ministry and in your personal life. And so, again, we love tech, not the technology here. But like Nina was just saying, it is all about connecting building relationships, and serving the people that we are called to serve in this job. So that's why we do.

Nina Hampton  37:34  
I think just to echo that. We have spent, I've been on the team for going on four years. It'll be four years in a couple of months. And so I've watched us use, change, evolve, use new tech tools, and new ways to save us time so that we can be more present with people. That's one of the reasons why like we didn't used to meet with as many members, as we do now used to meet with new members who asked for a Zoom call. We didn't have the capacity, because we were doing too many other things that took up a lot of time. And so we didn't have the time to and we now use tech tools in new ways to save us time so that we can have more face time with people. And so in that same way, allow these tools allow whatever tools you find to work for you to empower you in your ministry. Like it's about kind of cutting out some of the I mean, that's why Text in Church exists, like cut out the arbitrary stuff that you can automate it use technology to work for you so that you can spend the time doing the stuff that matters the most to you. And this matters the most to the kingdom. Let it empower you let it encourage you. And that's what we hope that this episode has been we said it was gonna be short, it's actually a little bit longer. And that's okay.

Jeanette Yates  38:44  
That's because we love technology, which is why we like to have this podcast.

Nina Hampton  38:50  
So yeah, so that's all I would say. Let this stuff work for you. Let it empower you. Let it encourage you to do everything that you were called to do in the first place.

Nina Hampton  39:02  
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to see the full list of tech tools, head over to our show notes at podcast.textinchurch.com. And remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to that you can spend less time worrying about technology and more time doing what you love and your ministry and your personal life.