Name: Main Session: Healthy Church Summit: Time For Revival
Uploaded: 2024-09-12T18:44:37.272Z
Duration: 1 h 4 s
Description: Main Session: Healthy Church Summit: Time For Revival

Transcript for "Main Session: Healthy Church Summit: Time For Revival": To the Healthy Church Summit, it is here. Healthy Church Summit number 4. Number 4. Officially a toddler. Yes. We're growing up. Yeah. Wonderful. Hey. My name is Scott. Jess. And we are super excited to host today. Glad that you're here. Hey. If you haven't already, let us know where you're joining us from. Go ahead and put that in the chat, where you're joining us from, the church that you serve in, maybe your role in ministry. We have people all over the place joining us, and we're really glad for that because we have 90 minutes jam packed full of things that I think are gonna be really helpful, encouraging, strengthening, equipping. We're gonna be talking about all things revival. Mhmm. We're gonna be talking about what does that look like in your church, but what does that look like in your systems, in your teams, your volunteers, all of that? We're gonna see some of the latest innovation our team has been working on, hear some encouraging stories. Jess, big news, we have breakouts. We do have breakouts. Breakouts are new to the summit. So after our 60 minutes together, we will break off and we've got really powerful speakers. We're gonna be covering, so many things from digital engagement with your congregation, what that looks like in 2024, 2025, as well as recruiting volunteers and just really practical things that you can take back to your leadership, to your congregation. So do not miss out on those. I think I'm probably going to join Yeah. One of them. I don't know which one. But Well, we can't tell because then everyone would join that one too. It's true. So Yeah. We don't wanna give any favorites. You can click the agenda. You'll see the agenda button. You click that, see what's coming up, that you can join. Also, we're on a new platform, which is fantastic. Now there's so much here that you can do. Obviously, we're in the chat. You can engage. You can ask questions. There's gonna be some polls coming up. You can send messages. You can use GIFs. GIFs? GIFs or GIFs. GIFs. GIFs. And emojis. And emojis. How could it get better? Right? I have a good emoji. I love it. Give me I yeah. Give your favorite emoji in the chat right now. We'd love to see it. Yeah. Anyway, this platform is built to be, really what we're doing today and to be as an amazing experience for you. So we hope that it is hey. We're gonna jump in again. A lot to get to, but before we do, we wanna pray. Jess, would you pray for us? Sure. Jesus, we thank you for this time together, god. I pray that you would empower the church leaders who have taken time to join us today. I pray that you would, fill them with hope and joy going into, a busy season. God, I pray that you would revive their spirits. I pray that you would help them take away practical tools that they can use to fight burnout and grow their churches and build disciples, god. We thank you for this time together. Pray that you'd bless it. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, hey. We're gonna jump in, first to an interview, that we did with one of the leaders in our company, our executive vice president of core solutions, Janet France. And she really talks about where we've been as a company, where we are, and where we're going. And and she dives into all of those things and really helps, to share the heart of of what we're doing here at Ministry Brands. So we're thankful for her time. Why don't you go ahead, jump in, watch this with us? Well, Janet, thank you so much for taking time to sit down with us today at the summit and just talk a little bit about, where we've been, where we're going as a company. So thank you so much. As the executive vice president of Core Solutions, you really oversee what is the nervous center or, the heartbeat of our software solutions, that we provide to our churches. So I wanna just start off this conversation by talking a little bit about where we've been as a company. So walk us through Ministry Brands' history, kind of how we got to where we are today. Yeah. Sure. First of all, thanks for having me. I love talking about our solutions and love serving the kingdom. So Ministry Brands has a really long history, over 40 years, in fact. A lot of people know, the brand Shelby, which is one of our first brands, and we've come together with some of the best in class solutions over the years through this 40 year journey by looking and acquiring companies that offer the best solutions to serve the church and the the operation staff at the church and church ops and bringing that all together. So we've acquired a lot of companies, and we love, looking at the new innovation that's out in the marketplace and being able to bring that into our solution. That's a great point. I mean, and for a long time, people didn't even know ministry brands. They knew us as mini brands. In fact, I like if you're okay with it, I like to take just a minute. Let's go back and forth, and I'll name a brand, then you name a brand, and we'll see how long we can go without repeating ourselves. Sure. You mentioned Shelby already, so I'll go with fellowship 1. Oh, how about Ezekiel? Ezekiel. Okay. Ekklesia 360, our web product. Oh, high ground solution, a communications product. Sharefaith Media. Oh, Sharefaith Kids. Church streaming. I'm gonna go with our, f one go innovation platform. I think we could probably do this for a while with with 50 brands close to 50 brands on our portfolio. I think we could do this for a while, but let's use this as an opportunity to maybe talk a little bit about what our history has set us up for as we look to the future. Like, we have the best in class solutions as you mentioned. Mhmm. Now we're taking a step forward. What does that look like for us at Ministry Brands? Yeah. For us, it really means, outlining a platform solution that allows us to bring all of this together as one, which is absolutely critical as we think about our church staff and the work they're trying to do every day and simplifying what they do. So we've built a platform all in one solution, Amplify, which is in the market, obviously, now, and that takes all these best in class solutions, plugs them into this powerful platform, and allows us to help our church staff, do the work that they need to do for the kingdom, but and relieve the administrative burden by having it all under, you know, one hood, so to speak. I think that's fantastic. And a little bit of our business model is what allows us to do that. Right? So as we look at our board of advisors as an example Mhmm. Talk to us a little bit about just how we're set up as a company to be able to innovate quickly Mhmm. And take advantage of some of this, historical momentum that we've been able to achieve. Yeah. No. I think that's an awesome question. I think that bringing the leadership team together that we have at Ministry Brands, which I have the absolute pleasure to be part of, is part of that. So we've you know, we have a lot of talented experts that are passionate about serving our churches, But then we tap into a board of advisors that really helps us understand how to remove friction, how to help ensure that the congregant or the member has the best possible experience, and then how are we looking to the future. So we're looking at those ways to ensure that we're bringing innovation to the space. We also have a a real journey as it relates to, you know, software. Right? Think about since you started using software, how's that changed? Yeah. Since I've started using software, it's changed tremendously. And so how do we take the best experience to simplify what we're doing in that all in one platform and have it be frictionless for our church ops staff to use it, as well as, you know, the members or congregants of the church. And our board of advisors really leans in and helps us, understand and challenges us to be better as a company and help us ensure that what we're putting out in the market is truly best in class. That's fantastic. And as we kinda wrap up today, I'd love for you as an as a member of our executive team, as a member of our leadership team, and, taking everything we've talked about into account, what would you say is at at the heart or at the core of what drives Ministry Brands to provide software, in our market? At the heart and core is our churches and their members. It's it's making sure that we're enabling them with the tools and the technology and the service and the support to serve the kingdom. That's what we're here to do. We build healthy churches. I talk about this every day with my teams. How are we building healthy churches today? You know, what action can we take, whether it's with our people, our process, or our tech to build healthy churches? And to your point, remove that friction, simplify, and allow, us to innovate on behalf of the church so that we all grow together. Well, once again, thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. And to, repeat a phrase that you typically end meetings with often, onward and upwards. Onward and upward, my friend. I love hearing the heart behind ministry brands and where we put our resources. We want to empower churches, and Janet spoke to that so beautifully. I'm so thankful to have her on our leadership. Yes. Me too. And speaking of resources and the things that we're creating, developing, one of the things we wanted to do here at the summit was actually dig into and show you how software helps to get people connected to your church. These are tools for sure, but the purpose is so much bigger. They're crucial to reaching and shepherding people, and so we're we're pumped to do that with Yeah. We've got one of our senior product owners. Her name is Amy Parsons, and she's gonna walk us through our Amplify platform looking at a journey from someone who's just joined the church or just visiting all the way through their full adoption of the church. So let's take a look. Amy, thanks so much for being with us. Now we are gonna jump in. We're gonna look at things, but I know that you have a heart not just for software and tools and technology, but for ministry for the church. You have a background in that. Can you share that with us? Yeah. Of course. So years ago, a senior pastor realized, that I was a software geek and said, hey, Amy. Is there any tools that can help us ensure that new visitors aren't getting lost? Can we use a software that would help us really understand the needs of the new visitors and how to best connect with them? How can we make the very best first impression when they walk through the door? I love that. I love that's where kinda your heart, your journey began. So let's do this. Can we jump in? Sure. See see the tool in action? I love it. Well, we know that that today, Amy, the the first impression that happens when somebody's looking for a church is not when they walk in the building, but it's online. And so let's just jump there, talking about that digital experience. How does Ministry Brands Amplify help in making a great first impression digitally? Well, as you know, you know, when people are searching for a church, often that starts with the website. Right? So I have a big family. So if I'm searching for a church, I'm gonna look at that website. I'm gonna check out their children's ministry, their youth groups. I wanna see how do I connect, all the things. So the websites are becoming so important. Amplify, gives us the ability to really create a website specific to the church's ministry. They can do that with cloud based websites, WordPress websites, and even custom made websites. Yeah. Now is this a I can need to go and code it all myself? Is it I can edit it easily? Can you kinda show us a little bit of how that that works? Of course. So I have a website here in progress, and the beautiful thing is it's just drag and drop. I can drag and drop, some basic elements to create my website. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay. So let's say we're gonna call our our visitor, Joe Visitor, today. So let's say Joe Visitor has come to the website. He likes what he sees and he's decided he and his family wanna come visit this weekend and so he does. So how do you how can you utilize the website to engage with new people, making sure that they don't fall through the cracks like we talked about? Yeah. Okay. So what I did is I added just a connect card right on the website. So Joe Visitor would fill out this website, including what service he's hoping to attend and how he prefers, the church to connect with him in Amplify People, we can take that connect card, set up a workflow that's automatically going to do 2 things. 1, it's going to, put Joe Visitor into a group that says, hey. These are all the people that filled out our connect card. Let's make sure they don't get lost. Right? It but then the other thing it's gonna do is send an interaction for somebody to follow-up with Joe Visitor. Be prepared to just meet him right there when he walks to the door and introduce themselves. That's awesome. And and I love kind of some of the the ways you're showing, that it's taking tasks and to do list items off of church leaders' plates and allowing the software to be that tool that does it for them. Now let's say Joe and his family have come 3, 4, 5 weeks, and they're, man, feeling like we kinda wanna take a next step. How does Ministry Brands Amplify help in making it a seamless process, whether it's finding a group to join or submitting a prayer request? And how does it kinda help on the back end to make sure your volunteers, your church staff are following up on those? Yeah. Okay. So our group's page has a really neat little area called the group finder where we can put any of those groups right out on the website. So, again, back to the website. You can go look at the groups, see which one is, like, the best location, the best time and date for him and his family, connect with the group leader right from there. Regarding prayer requests, also available on the website, another sweet little widget called the prayer cloud allows you just to drag and drop that widget and allows the people to be able to submit a a prayer request right from the websites. Then an administrator has an opportunity to review all of those prayer requests, and approve them. So let's say Joe's wife, Jean, submitted a prayer request. I have some health concerns. Please pray. An admin can then approve that. They can see those prayer requests right on, the website. In this neat little feature, people can actually just acknowledge, hey. I've prayed for you, which I think is so fun. Yeah. No. I love that. And and it's so important, in helping people feel like you're not alone, like people are are walking with you. Yeah. It's important to feel seen when you're coming to a new church, especially larger churches. It's it's easy for people to slip in and slip back out. And so any opportunity that you can invite them to be seen, I think, is super powerful. Yeah. Well, Amy, this is fantastic. I know that we're just scratching the surface. I know we're gonna have you back a little bit later in the summit to dive into some more of how Ministry Brands Amplify helps with this journey, and so we're looking forward to that. Listen. We wanna talk about today not just the tools and look at them. We certainly do. That's helpful, especially as we're looking at how to revive your system, your software, your teams. But we also wanna hear stories from churches where this is happening, where they're seeing, their teams be strengthened, where they're seeing their ministry grow, and they're seeing a real impact as they use these tools. So we're so grateful to bring you one of these stories today, and we'd love to invite you to watch this with us. 1st ARP Church was established a 137 years ago. It started off with 47 people. Since then, we've had 2 church plants. We've added an education building, a welcome center, and a ministry activity center over the last few years. We try to not only reach out across the street, but across the globe. My name is Billy Marino, and and I'm the church administrator here at First AARP Church in Gastonia, North Carolina. We kind of are traditionally known as a small town. We have so many wonderful things from Tony's ice cream down to our barbecue. We want to kind of embrace the technology and keep our small town feel at the same time. My name is Tara Mainy, and I am the administrative assistant here at First ARP Church in Gastonia. So we were looking for a platform that could help us with communication. That communication being reaching out to new members, communicating that information to our pastors, and doing this all in a way that takes less time from us where we could devote more of our time to other things because we have a platform that could do those things for us. I reached out to a Methodist church down the road. They recommended your software, spoke with some of the folks from Ministry Brands, and they let us know about your product, Made the transition within the la next 6 months after. Customer service was great throughout that. We wouldn't have been able to do it without folks kind of walking us through each step of the process. Throughout that 1st year, we went ahead and noticed that there was a bump in giving because some of our younger folks and even some of our older folks that we didn't think would use the app went ahead and started giving electronically. Throughout that first year, we noticed a 13% bump in online giving because it was at the palm of their hands instead of having to send in a check or put cash in the plate. There's a myth out there that some older folks may not like to give online and use technology. We've actually found the opposite. We have many folks that use their church app to go ahead and give. Communication is the biggest, most critical connecting point in any organization, but especially in a church. Knowing what's going on, connecting folks to one another, discipleship, it all stems from communication. One of the features that I love about this particular software is the interactions feature. When we have somebody who visits our church for the first time, we take their information, and the goal is to have one of our elders or one of our staff members follow-up with them. A story that comes to mind, we had a new guest visiting with us and we got their information. We scheduled a time to come by and visit and drop off a loaf of fresh baked bread, and that was all followed up and maintained in the interactions. We were able to assign those different tasks right through the software, and folks could see where this person was in that process, and then they became a member of First ARP because they felt so welcomed. And interactions helped us do that. The platform ultimately makes me feel more comfortable with my connection with our congregation, and it ultimately makes me feel more comfortable with my connection with our congregation, and it ultimately makes me feel good to know that they're supported. One story that comes to mind of how the software has positively impacted our congregation is that there's that instant access to the most up to date information on our members through the directory. We have folks that are going through things. Right? They're sick. They're going through different ailments. And the fact that their information is being able to be accessed, cards are sent, calls are made by other congregation members not led by the senior pastor has been amazing. And then we end up getting that feedback later on that it was so nice to receive all those calls and all those emails and all those letters, and this platform allows for easy access to help others and to reach out to others. One of the most amazing things about this software is that it empowers our ministry leaders and our lay people to do the work of the church and the work of the Lord. And by being able to streamline to make it seamless, to make it easier, then they get to do more of the 1 on 1 stuff and not lose that time on the back end. The software doesn't. Our goal is to help folks across the street and across the globe. Through your software, using the communication tools that it has, using the directory and the access to member information, we can communicate with our folks. Our folks can then use that information to communicate with each other, and then we can communicate the events that are happening to get them involved in serving the folks around our community and across the globe. Now what a powerful story. Getting to see the effect of software in action, see the impact that it makes on a ministry and how it's empowering a healthy church there in Gastonia. We love that. And listen, our goal isn't just to create innovative tools, to create powerful tools. It certainly is that, but it's also to help the churches that we serve use those tools, to actually know how to use them in the way they were created to make the most impact possible. So we're gonna get to dive into some of that today, how we do that. Yeah. So we've got Jess O'Neil, my sweet friend here, and she is our onboarding manager. And so I want Jess let's start with you just telling us a little bit about yourself and ministry, how you've been involved. Well, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to just kinda talk through this. I've been with Ministry of Brands for about 5 years. And so what makes me excited about being here is I get to, take what is important to me in my personal life in serving the church and how I advocate for the church and do that here. So I'm really glad to talk through how onboarding, how the experience that we offer is helpful to our customers. Yeah. Let's jump into that, Camie. Can you kinda help us just just understand the overview of what churches can expect when adopting our software? Yeah. I think, what's great is what they can expect is that it's really user friendly. Right? And so all of our tools kind of integrate together. We've got this thing that we like to call it a one stop shop. What they can expect from us are free resources, just allowing them to launch the products, learn the products on their own with step by step guided, resources. Right? But if that's not how you learn, we have other options, and we're gonna talk through those. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's kinda where we were going next. So and not every church is the same. Obviously, they've got unique needs based on a multiple of different factors. So tell us a little bit how we can maybe customize that experience for different churches. Yeah. I think this is our strong suit. Right? Like, we've got such great people Yeah. That are experts in what we're doing. Yeah. And so that can be anything from consulting through launch plans, that can be consulting with transitioning your donors from a platform they're on now into this new one that you're coming to that's gonna be great for you. We also talk through how to get your systems integrated together. And, again, this can all be done and customized to, each customer's church, based on their needs. And it's real people. You have access to a real person, that's warm and friendly and that totally understands the church. Yeah. And that's what I was gonna ask because, you know, there's times where, hey, we're jumping in a new software, and it's like, let's go read all those articles. And again, for some people, they're like, great. I love that. I just learned everything. But for others, it's like, I need to talk with somebody. I need to ask questions. And so there's a team of people, right, who have backgrounds in ministry, know what it's like to serve, who are there to help. Is that correct? Yeah. Absolutely. We love to talk. We love to talk about what we love, and so all of those right people are placed on those teams, and they're just excited about what they do. Yeah. I love that. Ma'am, that's awesome. Well, Jess, thanks for being with us today, sharing a little bit about what you, your team, and and just some of the other teams at Ministry Brands are doing to help churches adopt new software. And listen, we wanna again, we have another poll. We wanna hear from you. What do you find most difficult transitioning to new software? It's something that can be challenging. It can have some some hiccups, some things that are tough. So we're gonna put that poll up now. You're gonna see that. We'd love to hear from you. What do you find most difficult in transitioning to new software? Maybe finding the right option. Maybe it's convincing leadership. Right? We've all had to have those conversations where it's like, I know this is a good idea, but I have to convince these people that it's a good idea, importing data. Maybe it's learning a new system, training staff, volunteers. There's there's kinda so much that goes into it. And so let us know right now that poll's gonna stay up for another minute or 2, and we wanna hear from you. What do you find most difficult in transitioning new software? Yeah. When we ask these polls, these, this is great feedback for us. This really drives the decisions that we make on the back end. So be honest. We really need to hear from you. So thank you for taking time to do that. Well, we've gotten to hear a customer story today just hearing how software has impacted their ministry, but we we wanted to kinda continue on that theme and have a conversation with 1 of the churches, that we are privileged to serve. Yeah. So we wanna look at a real customer, a real church, and how they use these forms. So we are glad to welcome Steven Lyles from Mission Church in Memphis, Tennessee. Steven, thank you for joining us. We're so glad to have you with us. Yeah. It's great to be here. Thanks. Yeah. Hey. We wanna hear kinda directly from you some of the ways you're using the software, in your ministry. If you could, as we start, could you just kinda share your role, at the church? Yes. I'm the director of business ministries here at Mission Church. That's the accounting, the legal, the, all the business background, behind the scenes stuff that we, that we do here at Mission Church, HR. We also have a coffee shop on the grounds, and so I helped to run that coffee shop as well. That's great. Now, hey, as we jump in, can you share how you've seen the giving platform and the flexibility, of the forms really impact giving and generosity? Yeah. So just in a very practical way, the way that we're using forms, the the customizable piece of it is has been super great for us. We we actually have had, different courses, events, classes, ministries. All those things can can now take those forms and adjust them to their ministry, to the event, to the course. And so it's been it's been very impactful. It's been easy to use there. And I guess that the second part of that is just in general, the ease of the the platform has increased giving. Like, we've seen that physically happen because it is so easy, and and so that's that's really had been the biggest impact we've seen in the in that respect. Yeah. So you were were we've looked at your form, and you are utilizing all of the high impact features of the form. One thing that stands out to me right out the gate is that the form has recurring giving as the default. Can you share with us the impact of of what that's done for your ministry? Sure. So, you know, in the church world, having those big conversations about recurring giving are are important, but we can't do that every time we stand stand on the stage. So having that default there kinda puts it in the person's mind, this is important. And so and we have seen that recurring giving used more and more as we've gone through the use of the platform. The other thing is is that we've also turned on this little feature that that we love, and that is that we can have them pay for the processing fees. And that has had a huge impact. We have seen an increase overall from year over year of 18 to 19% increased in giving. Now we know that those features don't all do that, but they definitely help. Yeah. Now we introduced impact reports recently to allow you to kinda call out certain initiatives. Now often that can be used for building campaigns, mission funds, all sorts of things. You actually use it in a really interesting unique way. We have your form pulled up here. Can you share kinda how you're using the impact reports? Yeah. So one of the things that we have wanted to do for a long period of time was to take crypto or to take stock through, the same platform that we do giving. It's not been something that we've been able to do, but because of what Ministry Brands has done, we're able to introduce that. And so people can go on the app or they can go online, and they can give stock or crypto right in the right in the app. That's awesome. And one of the things, that we are super excited about is some of the digital wallet options, Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, all of those. We have more in the works. Now now what impact has a digital wallet made on generosity? Yeah. Again, I go back to the end user experience. The easier it is for that user to pull up their phone while they're in services and give, and they may have never given before, and they can still do that in time, right there as they're sitting there, has been a major a major thing for us. We have a capital campaign that we're finishing up where we've taken in about $587,000, and 51% of that has come from online giving. Wow. And a a lot of those new givers have never given before. And now they're giving to $50, a $100, $20 at a time, and they've never given to anything else before. And we've seen that because of Apple Pay, PayPal. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's awesome. Now you just mentioned that capital campaign. And, Steven, I'm so thankful for your time here with us today. Now, part of our purpose of having you join obviously was walk through, the software and show it, but we don't want to just have you kind of talk about it. We want to show the software as well. And you mentioned that capital campaign and Steven, we're so thankful that we want to be able to contribute to that today. And so we're going to be giving mission church, and Memphis there $2,500 towards the renovations that are going on. And again, just to show how easy that is, we have that gift in here. Now we're going to go ahead and choose our apple pay, continue with apple pay little fingerprint ID. And, we are going to be able to give that to the church. We're so grateful, for you guys for the ministry that's going on there, and thankful for the way that you're blessing so many people, in the community. And we hope that it's a blessing to you today. Well, that was an unexpected surprise. Thank you so much for that, guys. It's it's gonna be a big help. Thank you. Thanks so much, Steven, for being with us. We're grateful for the church, the ministry that you're doing there, and we're so grateful to be a part of it. Well, thank you guys very much. It's been a pleasure. Well, Steven, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate your time. This is this is truly the best part of doing this job is seeing this software I love it. Blessing churches. I love it so much. Listen, we just dove into the giving platform with Steven. But we want to hear from you. Now we actually have a poll that we're going to throw on the screen as we do that. We're going to invite Amy back to the healthy church summit, but we want to hear from you, what is the biggest pain point with your current giving software? So maybe that's a lack of digital wallet options. Maybe your forms aren't customizable. Maybe, it can be poor integration capabilities, the donor experience being a bit confusing, lack of reporting, whatever it is we wanna hear from you, and share those pain points because we wanna know, man, how can we best serve, and help those of you in ministry? So go ahead and fill that poll out. We're gonna leave that up here just for another second or 2. So make sure you let us know what's the biggest pain point with your current giving software. Now, Amy, welcome back to the summit. Thank you. Part 2, we're glad that you're here. We're gonna keep going with Joe Visitor's journey, Joe and Jane Visitor, the Visitor family, and see kinda where their journey leads today. Yeah. So when we left off, Joe Visitor had joined a small group, and Jane Visitor had filled out a prayer request form. Okay? So the kinda natural next step that we see in visitors is they start engaging with the church through giving. So let's take a look at how Amplify's giving software can support that and and help churches amplify that. Okay. Yeah. So I'm gonna take us back into workflows, and here's why. So visitors tend to come to our church and give here and there. I think the trend shows that they're starting to give more consistently the more involved they become, the more connected they feel. So there's a really neat, ad here that says giving new regular giver. Okay. Lots of capabilities there. Pretty easy to set up. We can just add that trig add some triggers. We're gonna match people who are maybe of the visitors, and we can set up we want to see anyone who gave less than maybe 2 times a month for the last 3 months who have changed to giving, at least 3 times a month in the last 3 months. Okay. Right? So this is going to prompt, maybe an interaction or just a list of these people who, are really starting to give consistently. Yeah. Well, it's so important. Right? Because the the it it isn't always the case, but often regular consistent giving can equal a commitment level to the church. And so these automations, these workflows that help see that can be so important. And it's good to know the gift, you know, the person who gave it, and just kinda understand that, on people's journey. Yeah. So Joe and Jane are fairly plugged in at this point. Right? So there's kinda one more benchmark, that we look at, and that is their involvement in serving. And so volunteering at the church in some capacity. Let's take a look at the volunteering, functionality through Amplify. Of course. We have the capability. Let's say that Joe Visitor, is also kind of a software geek and wants to help with, let's say, the slideshow on Sunday morning. Right? So he is gonna sign up for the tech team. Here within the people module, we have the ability to set up the different services, the different teams, and we can plug Joe Joe Visitor right in as part of the visual team. When we do that, he's gonna get an email saying, am I going to accept that or decline it because the timing just doesn't work for me? That's awesome. I think what's what's so important, right, the goal of all of this from first impression on the website to a prayer request to forms to giving, to serving, to all of that. Like, the whole point is to shepherd people and to help people get connected to take those next steps, to help them grow in their faith, but that also helped them to be healthy. So, can you just help us understand briefly, how does Mystery Brands Amplify help kinda measure the health, the engagement, the participation of people in the church? Of course. One of my favorite places to go as a small group leader myself is I really like to look at this time line. This time line quickly shows me, are they giving? Are they attending? Are they part of my small group? Are they serving anywhere? But, also, I wouldn't be a product person without giving you just a little sneak preview into what's coming in 2025. We have officially partnered with Studio C, and so all of this is gonna be wrapped up into a pretty graphic, charts and graphs really demonstrating, the health of the people. Well, Amy, thank you so much for talking us through this. This is essentially just scratching the surface of what Amplify can do. So thank you for giving us a look. That was super practical walking through a real visitor. Yeah. Especially as we look at revival and and wanting to see the kingdom of god move, it's it's more people. Right? More people looking to join a church, get connected. And I think that the question for people today is, are you prepared for that? You know, do you have the right tools in place to help shepherd the people, to help those coming to your church, exploring, asking questions? And so we love getting to get a glimpse of that. Amy, thanks so much for being with us today. Yeah. Of course. We spent a lot of today talking about, man, how can you revive your systems? How can you revive your tools? How can you set that up as a church? Showed how people can get connected, the impact that it can make, all of that. But we certainly understand that software systems, they can support revival, but they don't cause it. So we wanted to invite pastor Jeff Simmons, to join us here at the summit to really share what can you as a pastor, as a church leader, do to see revival in your church, in your community, and beyond. So, pastor Jeff, thanks so much for being with us today. Oh, thanks, Scott. Thanks for all you guys do. It's amazing, and I'm just so grateful to be a part and excited to see what God's doing. And I tell you, God's moving in a mighty way. And pastors, church leaders, I'm so grateful for you, you know, and you're in the trenches, and the way God's moving in our country, in our world. But it starts with us, right? As pastors, as leaders, it starts with us focusing our focus on Jesus and our love for Him and growing in Christ. And I really believe revival's getting ready to happen. I believe we're seeing it all over our country right now. And I hope and pray you're sensing that in your soul and in your spirit. And revival of these powerful movements of God. You know, when God just breaks in, when God begins to move in ways you never dreamed, or even never imagined. And we see that in the Bible, right? Remember in Acts chapter 2, when Pentecost happened, there are 120 believers gathered together there in Acts 1, after Jesus' death, his burial, his resurrection, praise be to God. And then he ascends into heaven. And about 10 days later, they're all gathered to have a church. But you can imagine the uncertainty. You can imagine the fear. You can imagine the worry. It seems like all of cultures gone against them. And then in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit comes. The Holy Spirit descends in such a mighty way, right? At tongues of fire. The early church was lit on fire. These men, these women begin to go out and share the good news of Jesus. And you think about what happened there at Pentecost. You know, Peter stands up on the Southern steps there at the temple and people coming from all over. And as he shares the good news, I mean, God's Spirit moves. And in one day, 3 1,000 people give their lives to Christ. And the early church just explodes. I mean, you imagine going from 120 at your church on a Sunday to 3,120. That's why we need systems, right? That's why we need to be able to help people get acclimated to church and become involved and engaged. And so, we're talking about that because I really believe revival's coming. And we see that. And when the church starts to believe that, and the church starts to pray that way, God starts to move in a mighty way. God starts to move. And the power that happened there at Pentecost is the same power that's available today. The same holy spirit that moved back then is the same holy spirit that'll move today. You know, when Jesus was talking to the church in Ephesus, right? In Revelation chapter 2, and he says, you guys are doing a lot of great things. You got a lot of great things that are going, yet I hold this against you. You have forgotten your first love, right? You've forsaken what you love, the Remember what you did at first? Repent and go back. And I think for all of us as pastors, as church leaders, we have to go back to that first love. Jesus, I want you to be the Lord of my life. Jesus, I want you to be the Lord of your church. Jesus, start with me. And when we do that, and our church begins to do that, wow, get ready, because it begins to spill over into everybody else. And I believe that's what's getting ready to happen right now. I believe that God is doing a movement. You know, as you look back even at our own nation, when churches started doing revivals, maybe you remember old school revivals, right? And setting up tents and tent revivals. But you look back at the history and those churches doing revivals begin to spring up into big movements of God called spiritual awakenings or the great awakenings. You can think about the 1700s and pastors like Jonathan Edwards, you know, sinners in the hands of angry God. Remember that whole talk with George Whitfield in the 1700 and 100 of 1000 of people coming to know Christ out of these revivals. You think about the 2nd great awakening that took place, Charles Finney, and and so many lives. People believe over a 100000 people gave their lives to Christ during that that second great awakening. Or the 3rd great awakening took place in the 1800. And it started in New York with just a businessman, a lay pastor who's begins to pray and started prayer meeting him. People believe over a 1000000 people gave their lives to Christ during that movement of God. But think about the 4th great revival, the great awakening that took place in 1960s, 1970s, and Billy Graham, or the Jesus movement that took place. And you see all these lives that have been changed and transformed. If you go back and study history, right, and these movements of god, they happen about every 50 to 60 years. You just think about doing the math. Right? Last one, 19 sixties to seventies, and now here we are in 2024. God's moving. God's working. His spirit is at work, and lives are being changed. But for revival to happen out there, it always starts in the church. For revival to happen in the world, it always starts in the hearts of pastors and lay leaders, who begin to trust that God's doing something bigger, that God's doing something greater. It starts with us. It starts with you, and it starts with me. You know, the marks of every revival, right, it's repentance, it's confession, it's worship, and it's prayer. And so, you start to see as God's people go, you know what? I've drifted away from my first love. And maybe it's world, it's culture, it's the fear, and maybe it's politics. Maybe it's a lot of things that have taken over the throne of my heart, but as God draws me back to himself, as I begin to put God back as the first love of my heart and first love of his church, wow, things begin to happen. As I begin to confess those things, as I begin to worship, as we call God's people to pray, revivals are always marked with participation. It's not always right, pastors. Right? It's the lay leaders in the church who begin to say, hey, we wanna be as part of something bigger than ourselves. We wanna be a part of a movement of God. And when people start to engage like that, man, get ready. Get ready. We're already feeling the rumblings. You can think back to last year, February 8, 2023, Asbury College revival breaks out. And the pastor ends that chapel service with, Lord, revive us in your love. Lord, revive us in your love. And here comes the holy spirit. And the holy spirit descends in such a mighty way that for weeks, revival takes place. Repentance, confession, worship, prayer. It's estimated over 50,000 to 70,000 people came, and were a part of that experience. You can look and see what's happened at universities like Auburn or Ohio State recently, as the football players pulled out a trailer and just began to share Jesus, as people were baptized right there in the middle of campus. That's happening right now in the next generation. It's gonna happen today. I believe we're on the precipice of the next great awakening. And it starts with a revival in the church, and how incredible to watch as God moves. You know, it seems like our nation is falling away, right? It seems like so many people are walking away from the Lord and walking away from church, and you can read statistics. Hey, I don't wanna be pastoring in a day and time when people walked away. I wanna be pastoring in a day and a time when God draws people back to himself, when God brings revival in our nation, and it starts with you, and it starts with me. You know, you look there in acts chapter 4, and you think about Peter who stood up that day at Pentecost. And it wasn't that he had been to seminary. It wasn't that he was this great theologian. But then, after he's arrested, after he's taken to jail, it says, when they saw the courage of Peter and John, and realized that they were unschooled ordinary men, they were astonished, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus, that these men had been with Jesus. Revival comes from where with Jesus. Peter and John, these ordinary fishermen. Right? They didn't know what God was gonna do. They had no idea how big it was gonna be, But god was doing immeasurably more than they could ever dream or imagine. They got to walk with Jesus and they got to see revival come. They got to be a part of that incredible movement of god back then. Hey, let's be a part of that incredible movement of God today. Let's don't miss it. Revival is coming. You feel it shaking. You feel our nation ready. You feel this time in the next generation looking for hope, looking for help. Hey, what are we gonna do when our churches are filled, when our churches move from having a 120 people there on a Sunday to 3,120 people? You remember after 9/11, churches were filled across the United States. People were coming left and right because people know, right? I need Jesus. I mean, where's the hope in life without Jesus? Where's the hope in life without church, without community? And people can run after money or success, and it all fall short. And at the end of the day, people need the Lord. And so, God has called you. God has called me. God has called us for a time such as this. So let's get ready. Revival is coming. I just wanna encourage you, you know? In this day, in this time, it's easy to get discouraged. It's easy to look around. It's easy to feel like culture has gone against us. It's easy to be up there, you know, kind of like the early church was with 120, worried and being fearful about what's happening. But that's when God does his greatest work. And God's getting ready to do his greatest work, I believe. I believe Jesus is coming back soon, and this could be the last great revival. This could be the last great movement of God, and that you and I have the opportunity to be a part of it. So let's be ready. Let's confess our own sins, our own need for God. Maybe we've drifted in some areas. Let's repent. Let's come back to him. Let's make sure that this time is a time we're leading God's church and his people to his throne and for revival to happen. Let me pray for us right now. Father God, come. Holy spirit, fall fresh upon us. Lord, this is your time, and we are your people. You have called us to be pastors and church leaders for a time such as this. So, father, start with us. For revival to happen in the world, it's gotta start in your church. For revival to happen in the church, it has to start with us, your leaders. So, father, move in our own hearts and lives. Prepare us for what you're about to do. Prepare us, God, for revival. And it's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Well, amen. And what a gift, to hear from pastor Jeff today, just to be encouraged, right? To seek revival, to be encouraged about what God is doing and what he's doing in your church, your community, but also in the world. I it's so encouraging. That was really powerful. I think seeing God do revival throughout generations should always be a motivator for us to look forward to the next revival. So it's an exciting time Yeah. To be in the church. Man, it's awesome. Well, listen. We've had, an amazing 60 minutes about, so far. We do have giveaways, though. Giveaways. Let's not forget about our giveaways. The time has come. So if you've been waiting to pack for your cruise, you're not sure, totally understand. We're gonna do our giveaways. Listen. We started a tradition a few summits ago where we actually reveal our giveaways on social media. Yes. It is super fun. We'd love to do that. We have a great community over there, specifically Instagram, Facebook. And so right now, we are sharing who won our giveaways. So go ahead at ministry brands official on Instagram. Just search ministry brands on Facebook. We're gonna have links here in the chat. We're also gonna post the winners here in the chat as well. Yes. But go check that out. Make sure you give a little like and a follow while you're there. We'd love for that. But, man, we're so excited. Again, just like we got to bless, Steven and, Mission Church. We wanna bless some of you church leaders watching this and hope that you're encouraged. Hope that this is wind in your sails and somebody it's literally gonna be wind in the sails as you go on the cruise. So we're we are so pumped for that. Go over Instagram, Facebook, check those out right now. Again, you see them in the chat. We'll be reaching out for next steps on those. And listen, don't forget, we have breakups. We do. Breakouts. Right? Breakouts. We've got breakouts. Don't don't break out. With us. Go to the breakouts. Yeah. So just some instruction on that. Again, you should be prompted to select a breakout, but in the small chance that you are not, you will look at the agenda tab. It should be at the top of the screen just above our heads. Yep. You can click on that and select from there, and you will be taken to a breakout session. Listen. We hope that this has been a helpful time together. We still have more to come in these breakouts. We know that there are some really, powerful topics and things that I think are gonna be really helpful for you. But as always, we hope that this has been an encouragement to you. We hope that this has strengthened you. We hope maybe it's given you some vision for what could be at your church looking at how can you support what God's doing with software, with systems, with tools, again, ultimately, which is our goal to help empower a healthy church. So we hope that this has been some fruitful time together. We're excited for these breakouts. Get ready to jump into those, and we will keep going. Yeah. We'll see you over there.