Nina Hampton [00:00:20]:

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

Jeanette Yates [00:00:38]:

Welcome to season three, everyone.

Nina Hampton [00:00:40]:

Whoo.

Jeanette Yates [00:00:41]:

I'm so excited. Oh, my gosh. We cannot wait to get started with what we've got in store for this season. In this episode, we'll share some things to look forward to and give you an overview of what our podcast guests, ministry leaders just like you, will be sharing. First up, Nina. We kind of kicked it up a notch this year, am, right?

Nina Hampton [00:01:00]:

We did. We did. So we switched it up. So we are so excited to not only have these episodes be in our typical podcast streaming wherever you listen to podcasts, but also to be on the text in Church YouTube channel so you'll be able to actually watch these interviews. And if you've ever wondered why in the past when we would say that you can't see our faces, well, this season you can. You can see all of our reactions, all the jaw drops, all the everything. So we're super excited to see all of our guests and watch these interviews and to be able to interact with all of our viewers as well.

Jeanette Yates [00:01:37]:

Yes, so these episodes are all recorded and then we'll be dropping them, but that means that we can show up in the comments with all of you as you're watching and engaging. So we look forward to doing that. I know that I will be much more well understood when people can see my face, because my face does all kinds of things and probably causes people to laugh that are on the interview with us. And now you'll know why. So anyway, all right, so let's jump in. We've got some great guests this season and they're bringing their stories, which will encourage and inspire you and sometimes make your jaw straight drop to the floor. I mean, there's some good ones out there.

Nina Hampton [00:02:18]:

Yeah. So all of our guests share their specific strategies to give you practical tools to create your own inspiring story in your community of how you can use tech to reach your people. So, first up, the first interview that we did for this season is Robbie Smith. And man, that interview took me out just hearing the story of his church and just kind of all the things that, first of all, he as a pastor did for his was, you know, listening to podcasts, flying people in, doing special trainings, reaching the city. And it was so incredible to be able to hear and chat with him about everything that God is doing at their church.

Jeanette Yates [00:03:00]:

One of the things that I really thought was jaw dropping. And so like from the get go, we're dropping jaws, right? And I'm not going to spoil it. Y'all are going to need to listen to that episode. But he shares a Jesus story that sounds like it could be like a movie. Like this thing happened and it sounds like it could be a movie. One of those miracle movies is all.

Nina Hampton [00:03:23]:

I'm going to say.

Jeanette Yates [00:03:24]:

This is really great.

Nina Hampton [00:03:25]:

Seriously, it's amazing. And so then next up, another person that we talked to was Stuart Smith, which first of all, he had all of the sayings, the phrases, the idioms. He didn't just have the idioms, but he also had, like, the whys. So he would explain the why behind it. So that's just a little talked. So Stuart talked about how him and his wife use it for the college ministry that they're actually a part of. They're part of a nonprofit organization, and they put on these meals for these college students. And it was just so cool to listen about the really creative ways that they've used technology and Pivoted to reach these students. Because I know, listen, anybody who's been in college knows I need a meal. Please, somebody come and feed me. So it was a great time to hear him just kind of talk about all the ways and I feel like he had so many, and we talk about this. I feel like this is a recurring theme for this season, but all the trial and error, right? All the different ways that they used this strategy or this piece of tech or we changed and we did this. There was so much Pivoting that he and his ministry did. It was awesome.

Jeanette Yates [00:04:38]:

Yeah. He shares some really, like you said, really great stories. You're going to walk away feeling like you got a doctorate in, I don't know, whatever Greek was, some kind of mythology. I don't know. He shares all the things. Plus and I was just talking with him in the Facebook group today, Nina. He was sharing some different things that he was doing. And I told him, I said, you know what, if Texan Church was a video game, you would be the top. You would have the know, you would be the master level, whatever, one ranking. Yeah. So he utilizes multiple types of tech very well, but he also has some very cool use cases. And then after Stuart, we take a little break and we bring in one of our good friends, molly Pelleck from Church Marketing University. She shares with us something that we felt like not enough churches know about, but they need to. And it is a really unique tech tool. It is Google Ads. And she talks specifically about Google Ads grants.

Nina Hampton [00:05:39]:

Yeah, she totally kind of blew the lid off of Google Ads. I thought I knew about the Google Ad and Google Grant program. Turns out I knew nothing. I didn't know anything at all. I was totally misinformed and I think something that's been so cool, even just for me, as I've learned and after that conversation with her, I told so many people about we me and my husband, we have friends who are pastors kind of all over the city. And just in chatting, I'm like, you guys need to do the Google grants and get on Google Ads because it's seriously such a game changer, and it's really crazy that Google is giving away this money and more churches need to take advantage of it. It's great.

Jeanette Yates [00:06:20]:

Exactly. So always love talking to any of our friends over at Church Marketing University. But Molly, that is her whole job with them is to walk churches through how to go through the process. It's not that difficult, but there are some steps that you have to take. And over there, they have a whole program. But she shares all of that with you in her episode that she does with us. Okay, after Molly, we have a longtime Texan church member, a good friend of mine, even though I've never met him in real life, zach Minton. I live in Florida. He lives all the way over. He and his family live all the way over in Spokane, Washington. But he is one of my favorite people, and he comes in and shares probably the most unique use case I've heard of church. Yeah, he talks about how they use it as missionaries and to do their missionary work. It is amazing.

Nina Hampton [00:07:15]:

Yeah, it really I just man, first of all, Zach's just, like, the most genuine. So, like, just talking to him and listening to I could listen to him tell me a story all day long, but also just hearing about the church that they're serving at and just the way that they've used text in church to really build the community of all of their supporters and their givers, it's just oh, man. He tells some heart wrenching stories of just how God has used how God has used the way that he's used technology not just to let people know what's going on or oh, yeah, we're having this service, but really, hey, I need you all to pray for me and my family and just the stories that he shared. And it's just incredible. If you need to be encouraged, if you need to be encouraged, if you need a story about how God is moving in the hearts of people across country and building bridges between people, regardless of how far away they live from one another, you definitely have to catch that. Great.

Jeanette Yates [00:08:17]:

Yeah. So, you know, we know that a lot of our podcast audience y'all, use Texan Church or familiar with Texan Church, but all of these episodes, but especially Zach Mittens, it's going to touch your heart whether you're a Texan church user or not. He has such a powerful testimony in general.

Nina Hampton [00:08:41]:

Yes.

Jeanette Yates [00:08:42]:

And he shares a little bit of that in his interview with us. And then just like, he's a great storyteller, so he's going to pull you in with those. It's so, so good and heartwarming and encouraging. Okay. And then we have April Busky. I loved having her on. So April is what has been a text and church user for a long time, but she recently joined our team as part of the talking church side. So I know she and I have a similar text and church origin story in the sense that we used Texan church as church communications people for our churches and then basically stand. We were like loving on some Texan church so much that finally the team said, hey, come on over. And so that's one of the things that we share in common. But you work alongside April a lot, so why don't you tell us what you found particularly helpful about this particular interview?

Nina Hampton [00:09:46]:

I just think 1, April is one of the most passionate people ever.

Jeanette Yates [00:09:50]:

She got super excited.

Nina Hampton [00:09:53]:

She was so excited. She was so hyped to just share about talking church because I think that that's what's really cool about our team. And I know that this can sound like a thing that we have to say, but we really don't. Nobody's telling me to say this. It just is what it is. All of us who are on the team are just so passionate about what we do. That's why nobody told us to start this podcast. This was Jeanette and I's idea because we love the church. We love texting church and we think that these stories are important. We love the community that we're a part of. And so that is just as true of April. She was so excited to have this conversation. She is a talking church. Whiz I'm not I will be the first to say that we rolled out this new product as a company and it's all there to help church leaders. I understand the whys and everything, but she understands if you were to take off the back panel of your computer, she knows what she's looking at. That's how in depth, she knows all the things with talking church, but just sharing. She's had so many awesome stories that she's been able to be a part of of different churches who have started using talking church and just how it's revolutionized their church's ministry, how it's freed them up, and just really hearing from different churches about how much this is saving them. And I think this is what's really cool. It's not just saving them time and efficiency, it's saving them money. That's the other part. She talked about how one member that she was working with really crunched the numbers and they were able to like they freed up enough for like a.

Jeanette Yates [00:11:36]:

Whole ministry.

Nina Hampton [00:11:38]:

For a whole other ministry by switching to talking church. And it was just more efficient for them. It worked better for them all because they replaced their phone system just hearing her talk about that and really get into the heart of the whys of talking church, like why this thing exists, how it's helping people. It's the best.

Jeanette Yates [00:11:59]:

Well, you mentioned that this podcast was really started so that we could invite church and ministry workers to come in here and share their own stories, no matter how small, rural, big, whatever they are. And then with talking church, like you mentioned, we are on the text and church side more than the talking church side. So we asked April because she is so passionate and so involved with the talking church side, we said, we know you have some good stories. She told us some. But then she also told us about one of the talking church members who's also a Texan church member, Stephanie Murphy. And that is who we chose to invite onto the podcast for another interview. And I loved hearing from Stephanie, first of all, because she has been serving in communications at her church since my senior in high school was one year.

Nina Hampton [00:12:57]:

What?

Jeanette Yates [00:12:58]:

It's a long time.

Nina Hampton [00:12:59]:

Yeah.

Jeanette Yates [00:12:59]:

And first of all, in her interview, we congratulate her for sticking with it in that communications role for so long. But she's seen it all, you all. She's seen it all. And she's very encouraging and inspiring. And the way she talked about the different ways they opted into various tech tools was so practical. And she's very well spoken as to how they made each decision that they made and why it worked for them. And I really appreciated that about her, the conversation we had with her.

Nina Hampton [00:13:35]:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also just hearing about how it's specifically affected their church, she talked about how whenever they came on to Know text in church and then eventually even talk in Know, Iowa. This is where she's located. She's in Cedar Rapids. They had just seen a Doretcho, which is basically like an inland hurricane. I didn't say this on the podcast, but my in laws are in Iowa. And so when she said that, I was like, oh, my nephews were in that storm. We remember what it was no joke. It was not a game. And so how she was able to use all this technology to connect people in their church that were displaced, whose houses had blown down. She shared a little bit about that. So, again, just like being able to not just talk about the practicalities of it because she's got practicalities all day, but also how it's specifically just making an impact in her church.

Jeanette Yates [00:14:35]:

Yeah, and also one unique thing that she shared was that their communications team, they actually have a philosophy or like a mission statement for their digital ministry, which of course, I think I thought was genius. Yeah, genius. We all should do that, right? That was a great conversation. And then we are also going to, as usual, be bringing on some podcast. Faves well, Randolph hasn't been on yet, but she will be a fave as soon as we invite her on. But we are bringing back Caleb Miller, our Chief Experience Officer, aka Customer Experience, Guru Jedi, all those things. He's amazing. And then Randolph Ward is also on our team. And she's basically a Jedi as well on all the things. She knows a ton. She is extremely intelligent, very fun. She's a lot of fun to chat with, and I can't wait to hear from her. Now, you've actually been working behind the scenes with what they're going to talk about. So do you have any little spoiler, little sneak peeks for us yet?

Nina Hampton [00:15:44]:

Yeah, one, there's a couple of things. So with Caleb, what we're chatting with him about is kind of just getting a little bit of behind the scenes about text because there is so much that is changing in the texting world. We know that other church systems, church management systems have we've all been running into different obstacles and hurdles because of the changes that are being made. And so we're going to really crack into that. This probably is going to be like the most technical episode, but it's necessary information because texting is so vital that no matter how you choose to do texting, we want you to know these takeaways so that you can be effective in your communication. And we may or may not be previewing some new text in church features in that episode as well.

Jeanette Yates [00:16:34]:

See, I did not know this down low.

Nina Hampton [00:16:36]:

You are the download on some new releases and what we're going to chat with Randolyn about one thing I have the privilege of, like, if there's one person that I probably work closest with besides Caleb in my entire time here at Texan Church, it's Randolph. We were hired on the same, like, we're like work sisters. And so she is a ninja at all things AI. She uses it all the time. She is a whiz, like, literally. And so we're going to be just kind of picking her brain about that. Because if this is a tech tool and it can work for us in the church space and make our lives just a little bit easier, how do we do that? And I promise you, there's nobody on the team who knows the answer to that question better than Randolphin. So we're picking our brain on that. And yeah, just getting some practical takeaways. Our team has used AI since really it kind of became a thing in different ways and just kind of made our lives easier. And so we're going to be sharing some just so we'll be peeling back.

Jeanette Yates [00:17:41]:

The curtain on a little bit of.

Nina Hampton [00:17:42]:

How we use it. Another peeling back the curtain episode. Yeah, taking the back panel off the computer. That's what we're doing.

Jeanette Yates [00:17:49]:

That is a wrap on today's season three preview show. We'd love to hear which guests you're most excited to hear from. Head to the comments of this video and share your thoughts or questions with us.

Nina Hampton [00:18:00]:

And if you want to learn how to use tech tools like text and church so that you can spend less time worrying about technology and more time doing what you love in your ministry and your personal life, make sure that you subscribe wherever you're listening to this episode so that you won't miss out on future ones. Yeah. Yam.