PODCAST 010: Eric Geiger & Talking To Leadership About Church Online

Plenty of people can see the positives of Church Online, and how Church Online can complement their church's ministry at physical campuses. Some can see of Church Online can even expand their church's influence to disciple a whole new group of people. But while many see the positives, many do not. In 2019, most churches do not have a purpose, or see the why, behind Church Online. We've discussed this in the past: some of Pastors may have theological issues, while others may have practical concerns, with Church Online. Both theological and practical concerns are understandable, but need to be addressed.

And that's where we come in. It's up to us to have these conversations. But where do we get started? In this episode, Eric Geiger, Lead Pastor at Mariner's Church in California, explains to us what high-level leaders are looking for and how we can give high level leaders the information they need to make decisions on issues like Church Online.

Guest: Eric Geiger, Lead Pastor
Mariners Church
EricGeiger.com

Host: Jeff Reed
THECHURCH.DIGITAL
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Co-Host: Rey DeArmas
Christ Fellowship Miami Online
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Jeff Reed: 00:00 Well. Hello there. Welcome to the church at digital podcast. My name is Jeff and I'm glad you're joining us again today. This is episode 10 this is a unique episode, a little different than maybe some of the ways we've done in the past. You see back in episode nine, Rey DeArmas online pastor at Christ fellowship and myself were having a long conversation with a lead pastor, Eric Geiger from Mariners Church out in California and we were wrapping up the episode. It was a great episode in context of talking about Omni Church and maybe even Omni channel, Omni Communications, Omni church, a uniting church online and in physical campuses online. In context of communication. Eric Geiger actually brought up a new term, at least a new term to me, honestly, a unified church, a unified commerce where it actually more tightly intertwined things, not just from a communications perspective but actually into a more deeper, much more richer ministry mindset where the church, where the company physically interacts in physical space or virtual space the same way.

Jeff Reed: 01:07 Great concept. Loved it. And so if you're interested in more of that, check out episode nine. But at the end of the episode I asked Eric Geiger a question. I thought it was landing the plane and I asked a simple question. When you're making a decision about something in context of church online, what insight do you take as, as leaders underneath you? How can we communicate effectively to you to show you, to convince you a, to give you information towards what would lead you as a lead pastor to make a decision at this level. And honestly, I was surprised that, uh, 30 minutes later we were still talking at that one answer. And so rather than the pile it into one episode, we broke it up into two. So what you're listening to here is, Eric Geiger lead passenger for Mariners church in California, Rey DeArmas online pastor at Christ fellowship in Miami as well as myself, Jeff with TheChurch.Digital and a simple conversation, how to talk to your leadership about church online.

Jeff Reed: 02:10 You go, how do you as, as a lead pastor, Mariners is huge. Like, and just the, in a context of size California, you've got a wide varying range of people that attend different demographics, different. How do you make a decision for something like this? Like theologically, I'm agreeing with this, I'm not agreeing to this. Once again, I'm not, I don't want to put you on the spot offered a decision in a direction but more of what decisions cause cause realize that people that are listening to this are technical people that need to convince someone like you have what the way that they think. And so coach me through here, how can we connect with, with us as a high level leader to show you some of these things to get you to understand?

Eric Geiger: 03:01 Hmm. That's a great question man. All right. So you're saying that most people are listening right now. Are guys and girls like you and Rey and how do they, how do they have a combo with a senior pastor, executive pastor to push the ball a little further down the field? Yes sir. Okay. I it, you know, it always depends on how compelled the leader is by data. But if the leader is compelled by Beta, the data that you have at your disposal is staggeringly compelling. Right now on a couple of things. The number of people who are, who are watching services online, they are, it is really going, it is really increasing really high. Uh, I mean, we might be up like 45% on any given weekend right now online compared to the previous year. That's, I mean, how do you not pay attention to that? And then it's, bye.

Eric Geiger: 03:55 Okay. Do you not want to, what are we going to do with all of these people? You know, are there, they are watching and they're not, these aren't people just hitting, hitting the site, you know, and, oh, and these aren't people who are watching like on Tuesday night, these are people watching the live stream, which to me that's a different thing because if you're watching on Tuesday night, it might be my mom, you know, who's already put, which she does watch every week. Um, she's plugged into another church. I don't, I don't feel any responsibility for her. I mean, I do it's my mom, but not as, not as some. She's already in plugged into a church. Right. With the people who watch live on Sunday morning or Saturday night, that's a different thing. I mean, I'm, are they plugging in or they're not plugged into a church? Are they plugged into our church? Who are these people? Eric, look at how many people watched last week during church and then you know, here's where they're from. Eric, check it out. They are from, you know, x percent are from like within a 10 mile radius. I mean, I think that would get attention. Big Time.

Jeff Reed: 05:03 Where, so one of the things that you, you've talked about needing, and you said the word, I don't remember if it was discipleship process or discipleship pathway. Like, okay, who are these people? Uh, in the morning attenders, the live ones. Okay. There's some legitimacy in here. Um, this, so they're not attending church somewhere else. The majority of churches are Sunday. So we need to try to, do you, do you feel accountability for those? I don't even know what to say that word. Right. Do you feel accountability for those just within the 10 mile or do you define as as opportunities even outside of that?

Eric Geiger: 05:35 Yeah, that asks you a question and I think, I think our team's got to wrestle with that. Um, I don't feel, uh, I feel, I feel very specific burden for Orange County, for me. So there, but there are some churches that, that they're going to have a broader perspective. You know, like a life church for example. They're going to, they're going to, they're going to feel like, I mean, they have campuses all over, all over. Um, I'm going to view the stats within Orange County differently than I'm going to be the stats. Sure. Outside of Orange County, we don't, we don't have any intention to expand outside of... We want to be for this city, you know, 3.4 million people or 3.2 million people that live here, half who don't have any connection to a church. That's, that's, that's really where, where we're talking and praying. So because of that, I would view those stats through that Lens.

Rey DeArmas: 06:24 Yeah. Orange County is a very diverse area, right? Much like, you know, the context that we work together. And here in Miami are you finding that a lot of folks are sharing and spreading, uh, what you guys are doing beyond the borders of Orange County? Because I imagine it's a very diverse community from what, from few times that I've been, you know, in the LA area or even close to it, or maybe I'm off, just looking at some of the demographics, but I see it's just tremendous potential for, for some of that content just getting out there simply because of the unique environment that you guys are in.

Eric Geiger: 06:55 So you're talking about like, like in Miami, you'd have someone who's from Colombia who listens to a sermon and they're there, they're sharing it with like family back in Colombia, right? Yeah. And so you're right, there's diversity here that way. So Irvine's like 44% Asian. So, you know, multiple different generations of that. But, there's definitely relationships outside of this area, you know, so, I don't know if we've tracked the sharing yet of who's sending a message or who's sharing a link. Are you, how are you tracking that now, Rey?

Rey DeArmas: 07:32 We are, we are, um, we've been, since Jeff's been here, um, because there've been a whole lot of different analytics that we've been able to pull, um, and even people just kind of interacting with us on a global scale. This last week we had a connection credit from a Rwanda of somebody who wants to start a small group there. And so there's missional implications. There's all sorts of things that kind of happened there. When, when that does happen as a result of people interacting with us in different environments. And then, you know, obviously people sharing content, sharing content.

Eric Geiger: 08:03 How are you tracking? You've got sharing content like Facebook shares. What are you looking at?

Rey DeArmas: 08:07 Uh, we take a look at Facebook shares. Uh, we can take a look and see how links, uh, kind of bounce around. Um, and then of course we see with some of the different views come from and then when they reach out to us, that's where we get a definite sense of, hey, how'd you hear about us and how did this happen? And it spurs on a lot more of a detailed conversation. Sometimes it's family and sometimes it's a friend and sometimes it's, I googled the church and your name, your name popped up. And this is how I started interacting with your content. I don't live in a place where there's a great theology or where there's a great content popping up, uh, church wise. And so I started interacting with you guys and this is how I can about it. Rob, a small group leader that Jeff helped bring up and disciple and now he's underneath my care. He's leading an online group from the UK, but he actually found us because his company headquarters was here in Miami down the street from our West Kendall campus and took that back with them. So there's so many different ways that that comes in.

Eric Geiger: 09:02 That's cool. I mean, I would love to know you wrestled with the missiology. Like I want the message shared and then the Ecclesiology, do I want to, do, I want to assume spiritual responsibility for people there or help those people get connected to a church right there, right. Cause we don't have a church there. I would not want to assume shepherding and responsibility there, but I want to do, you know, I want the message out. I'd want to try to help them get connected to a church there, you know? Yes. But I realized that everyone would use that differently. So I'm not cracking on, on that way. I just am glad you have a strategy.

Rey DeArmas: 09:39 Yeah. And for us it's been a connection first, kind of a strategy to help them get connected locally. That's where Jay Frantic, he's been on a past episode of the podcast has been helpful. He's the, he's the online pastor over at Saddleback where he looks at things through an online to offline, kind of mode of trying to help people and to get into offline community relationships. Whether that's connecting them to a local church or even a local Christian community in their area. Trying to help them find a place to get shepherd and not just purely keep them here online, but sometimes to your point and this is where the relationship begins, where that transitions onto and how we can help them get connected in that community. That's kind of how we viewed the road for them.

Eric Geiger: 10:19 Yeah, you do a great job when I watch you Rey, on CF Miami on the online thing, you know, getting, doing the connect card and all, how many people a week fill that out.

Rey DeArmas: 10:32 It averages maybe around six or seven right now, a week. And so I don't want to, you know, it's funny because, and different churches experiences out of like the quote unquote thousands of views that you get. Sometimes you'll get x amount of interactions and for us those interactions become gold. They become valuable in terms of helping them take the next step.

Eric Geiger: 10:50 If someone's fill that out online, it's like they really are wanting some kind of communication.

Rey DeArmas: 10:56 Yeah. They want to reach out to us in some kind of way. And for us we take that and we run with it as much as they'll allow us. Um, which is why even things is even being specific in terms of we tried to make a lot of those fields required, whereas somebody may fill out a connection card at a location, right? And they may just put their name and drop it in the plate. We're looking for contact information in the sense of driving towards, you know, in the workforce or in the sales force. They might look at it as a lead. We see it as gold in the same kind of way we're, we're trying to get their contact information so that we can help them get connected as quickly as possible. So we, that's why we make a strong drive beginning of the broadcast, mid broadcast and then broadcast to make sure and ask for that. And there are even times where I've thought of throughout the message kind of doing popups and just saying, hey, if you're just happening in joining us in the live stream or whatever, make sure and stop by if cfmiami.org/connect and get connected with us so that we can help you take that next step.

Eric Geiger: 11:47 I'm sorry to hijack the broadcast. Jeff, go for it. I'm asking questions that I think, you know you sent me off earlier by saying, Hey, what are senior pastors wanting to know? So this is kind of stuff I want to know. What do you guys find in terms of, would be the stats I'm curious about is, I'm looking for active versus passive. You know, cause I guess a fear of online is, man, they're, you know, they're, they're doing four things while they're watching, you know, and I don't even know how you would gauge that. So this is the only one I can think of is how we're, like in an hour and 10 minute service, what percentage are tapped in, you know, for an hour, hour or more of that in, or what are there just for like three or four minutes of the service, what percentage of the total stat is there? You can tell them and they, they showed up, they were there on time and they stayed the thing like it looked like this was their service.

Rey DeArmas: 12:50 Yeah, in my experience, it's not a lot that will tap in for the entire thing.

Eric Geiger: 12:55 It's not, it's not alot?

Rey DeArmas: 12:57 No. And here's, and here's kind of thing cause you're looking at long form content and, and so some folks we'll check in and check out as they go along. Uh, and we'll see that. And given live livestream, we're where folks will show up for whatever reason, check out for a moment, check back in, check back out. And so there's been different applications for that, um, as far as how that works out in terms of the live stream. And then for on demand content, which there's two different strategies as far as how that works. I think of the way that I personally listened to podcast and then I talked to people as far as how they engage with the online service. Sometimes they'll take it in bites, almost like points in the message. Like on drive time, I'm catching point A, I'm getting home, I'm turning on the TV, turn on my apple TV, Youtube, get to point B, you know, fast forward I get there, hey, watch making dinner, come back in for point C or something along those lines.

Eric Geiger: 13:43 They are tapping in continually thru content?

Rey DeArmas: 13:47 That's the thing, they're coming back in at different points and so they might not sit there and watch it all in one particular showing, but they're checking in and checking out in different portions, which even has me considering chopping up different versions of the content and making it available and that kind of way so that people can digest them in that kind of way.

Jeff Reed: 14:05 I've got a Pastor right now that I'm talking to about doing church online and his goal is to record a five to 10 minutes sermon in his house and his studio, he's got set up on Thursday night. And so for him it's like, I'm going to record this for online and rather than broadcasting the live thing, this is the message that he's going to send out.

Eric Geiger: 14:27 Because it's the same content, or like shorter conversion of the content or a whole different message?

Jeff Reed: 14:33 It's the same message. You know, it's, it's a point one, two, three cut-out point two. And I'm like, well, if you do that, you're murdering it. And he's like, well, I can take out some of the stories and, and adjusting it. And so it's the same message, call it a condensed version that that's more tailored for the online audience. And realizing, Eric, you know this, uh, just like you're going to have people that aren't going to connect in the audience, uh, are online. Your audiences is disconnected as well. That guy in the back row, that's half the sleep is really half asleep.

Eric Geiger: 15:05 And so I want to be consistent on the, uh, expectations. You know, like I don't want to put a harder burden on online then I'll put on, but I just, I want someone to give me the data. You said you were asking me, how does somebody lead up to the senior pastor, helping me see that would would get my attention, you know?

Jeff Reed: 15:21 Yeah. It's, go ahead and go ahead Rey.

Rey DeArmas: 15:24 I was gonna say, Jay Kranda, I'm going to reference them again just cause he recently put out like a little blog post on addressing the three audiences as well and taking a look at who's joining you in the room, who's joining you in the live stream and who's joining you on demand later on in terms of how you're addressing them in your, in your sermon context as well, knowing that your people are engaging you in so many different ways. Um, and kind of even finding small tidbits, not just the beginning of the message in terms of grading them, but finding different ways to acknowledge them. I've heard Andy Stanley do this on and off and his messages where sometimes he'll even say, hey, some of you are listening to me right now and you need to go talk to your real pastor. You know the guy that's actually there, your character, you're listening to me online and, and so he'll, he'll make your ears perk up and that kind of way of, oh, he's talking to me or hey, he's talking to me while I'm in my car or something like that.

Eric Geiger: 16:13 Yeah, that's good. I have not done a good job here. Jeff you have, you know, we did in Miami. I did get good at addressing the campuses. I got good at that. I got good at looking at the camera and hey, you know, Rey, you were at coral gables. You know, I got good at talking to gables or talking to West Kendall. I haven't gotten, I have not developed the discipline yet of talking to the online group. I have not done good at that yet.

Rey DeArmas: 16:39 I will say that it does help. Absolutely. If you're, so, if you're looking at the data that Jeff's talking about and we've seen this, um, like a couple of weeks ago I acknowledged, hey, we got a lot of folks watching this in South Carolina, we want to give you guys a shout out. Little things like that. All of a sudden they're their attention perks up. Man.

Rey DeArmas: 16:59 Is that like Rick's old high school buddies sitting around in Rock Hill?

Jeff Reed: 17:04 there's a girl, I don't know if she's still doing it, but there was a woman who lived in Rock Hill, South Carolina that was leading an online small group. It wasn't from Rick's church. She was from Miami who moved to rock hill and then ended up and she was leading online small group with their friends and her family. Miami and Rock Hill, it was kind of a blended group.

Eric Geiger: 17:24 That's weird dude. Miami and Rock Hill. That's like the two biggest differences.

Jeff Reed: 17:27 Who would have thought? And transparently, what I did, "Hey Rick, you're never gonna believe this." And I told him that story. I'm forwarding emails because I'm trying to get him as I'm online pastor. He's pastor Rick, understand there's a story here. There's a soul, there's a person here that's connected to our church in your hometown and, and as much as data plays a part of it, there's also a face to that data.

Eric Geiger: 17:56 Now that's good. Uh, so that's a good, that's a better answer. So bring data but bring some stories too.

Rey DeArmas: 18:03 Absolutely. That's just the stories that once and once you start engaging in America, the story start piling up. They start coming in as far as, Hey, I'm watching you on from here. Thank you so much. And even to the point and um, as you start to sprawl out in your community, we've seen this, Eric, you know, how much we want it to like focus in on Dade County, but we had, we have a lot of people on that Broward line, who will drive down to Christ fellowship. But then this also became a way for them to connect on a regular basis. And there are times where hey to shepherd them, I've driven up there and provide some counseling or some different stuff just because.

Eric Geiger: 18:43 I guess I'm still the same guy cause I you just said that. I remember, I guess I was that way in Miami too. I was like, no, no, no, we're only going to be Miami Dade. Only Miami Dade.

Jeff Reed: 18:52 I told a pastor this this week and it was funny. He's like, I totally agree with that. And then I said it to him again and he's like, I'm not sure if this is what I said. I said, you got to realize that it may be better for that woman who's sitting in your pew at your church right now to stay at home and invite 10 of her friends over to watch this church service on her TV and the, and the pastor's like, that's awesome. That's great. And I'm like, wait, you say that? And I hear that a lot. But when push comes to shove, there's something that stops us from releasing people out of our buildings to go do this in, in the neighborhoods, in there, in the homes where they all are. Because we, there's still this innate thing that drives us to gather them in. And to me, that's the thing that, that church online does, is it gives the church permission to release people into communities, to release people to where they are. It's that it's, it's the go and do instead of come and see.

Eric Geiger: 19:50 Yeah. I think the, um, it goes back to that theological conversation. If you are, if you, if you can't get over the theological hurdle, I respect you, but if you, if you're over the theological hurdle, then you really are asking a philosophical like, which do you prefer seeing them or the, or knowing this other thing happening, you know. So I think that's a wise way to put it. Jeff. That's good.

Jeff Reed: 20:15 That's awesome. Um, man, what's next? We just totally went through everything and I know it's been a, it's been a long podcast. This has been really good stuff. Man, Eric, I just, I miss you man.

Eric Geiger: 20:31 I'm good. I mean I miss, I miss these kind of combos with you, man. We always did have, we always went deep, real fast.

Jeff Reed: 20:37 I'll tell you what I remember. I remember the first night I met you and if you do at the airport.

Rey DeArmas: 20:44 Was it the night that you drove me around at two in the morning buying socks?

Jeff Reed: 20:47 Yeah. Whatever, long story short, I got to tell this story, but it is, cause this is just classic for us. I was, I was at Christ fellowship, I think it was First Baptist Church of Perrine.

Eric Geiger: 21:00 It was First Baptist Church of Perrine at the time.

Jeff Reed: 21:02 Yeah, and so like I, it the church was um, Eric was coming in to, to preach in view of a call and I was like student intern or something and they were like, Hey, Jeff's young, Eric's young, Jeff, go pick up Eric and his wife at the airport. And that was Saturday night and a man, it was like, it what your, your flight was delayed. And I think, I think it finally landed at like 1:00 AM or something like that. And the luggage was gone. And so like he's supposed to be preaching at eight hours, um, and doesn't have a suit, doesn't have anything. And he like flew in from vacation that was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and it, he's like, what do I do? And I'm like, it was funny. It was, I was living at my parents at the time. My wife was on a mission trip. Uh, my house was being built, so that's why I met my parents. My parents were gone and I'm like, dude, come stay at my parents' house. You can sleep in their bed. And you know, my dad, who was a lot larger than Eric was, you know, hopefully maybe you can find the suit or something that'll work there. We ended up going to like what Walmart at 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM to buy socks and underwear.

Rey DeArmas: 22:11 Dude, that's what you were going to get the suit from Walmart. I was like, whoa. That had to be a bad suit, man.

Eric Geiger: 22:16 I literally preached and Walmart Clothes and in view of a call after sleeping in Jeff's dad's bed.

Jeff Reed: 22:23 I want to tell this part of the story cause Eric, I don't know that I've ever told you this in my heart there was something that was stirring right. And I remember this like clear before that before I went and picked you up at the airport. And I can remember sitting at home in my father's den, which was part of the area that we were living in and, and I was praying for you and I was praying for the relationship that you and I would have. I was praying for the relationship and the impact that you would have at that church. And I can tell you Christ fellowship is still, has your touch on it is still impacted by you? My life directly, the person that I am today and how I lead and manage in the stuff that I'm saying is, is directly in relation to our experiences together for that short, long time. So, uh, you know, the good and the bad, the plus and the minus end of the day. Man, I, I love you for many, many reasons.

Eric Geiger: 23:25 That means a ton. I loved working with both you guys and I, I've told people this, uh, about Jeff and gosh, I, we broke a lot of rules as launching, launching campuses with volunteers. I mean shoestring budgets and all of us had multiple hats. A man Jeff Reed was responsible on a part time basis to launch all of the, the camp. I mean, I can't even imagine that I would ask somebody to do that now. Um, if I showed up at our staff today and said, we're going to hire a part time guy who's gonna run all of this stuff, they would be like, what? I mean in Bro, you built volunteer teams and, and you were, uh, make it happen guy. And uh, it was, it was an incredible run, man. I look back and I have just such great memories.

Jeff Reed: 24:09 All right. Hey, so, um, hey Rey, as, as we're closing up any, any thoughts?

Rey DeArmas: 24:15 Absolutely. Can you hit it right on the head, you know, uh, as far as some of the theological implications in questions that we're going to have moving forward and encouraging pastors to take practical steps and to reconsider as far as taking the content that they're creating and putting it out there where they appreciate you encouraging him with that. And for any of you out there who are tinkering with, you know, with Church online and we've put putting your services online or whatever else, bring your pastor that data, talk to them, uh, let them know that there's great possibilities out there. Love what Eric had to share. That was great.

Eric Geiger: 24:44 Hey, I'm, I'm curious on the guys that you're talking to who are in the roles that you guys are in and had been in, um, ha. How much percent of their role is technical and how much percent of their roles pastoral. And I know that there's tools like you mentioned Jeff, that are like Google analytics. Um, you know, they obviously they don't have to Google, we'll run the analytics for you, but they still have to understand what you said a moment ago of like, I mean, you said it like it's no big deal. You know, it, all I got to do is grab some code, put it on their website and you know, for a lot of senior pastors that don't, that don't need it, but that's, that's like another language. So yes.

Jeff Reed: 25:22 So thechurch.digital go to your web browser, the church period digital. Um, here's the deal. Here's in the, on, we were talking about this with Kranda and uh, maybe a month ago, a couple months ago, um, everybody in an online environment, there's only like 20 people who are dedicated in the country to online. Even Rey himself is shared context where he's doing online, but he's doing a bunch of other roles with digital strategy and things like that.

Eric Geiger: 25:52 That's fascinating. You're saying there's only 20 pastors in America that are, that are fully dedicated online?

Jeff Reed: 25:58 Yes. Yeah. And I've actually, that number's come from two different sources. So that's just not meaningful. You know, and so, but as a, as a result of that, it's, it's a shared role between like a student guy and online or a worship guy and online.

Eric Geiger: 26:13 Rey, what's your second hat?

Rey DeArmas: 26:16 So my second high, I oversee all things web and digital here now. Um, everything from APP development to a, we're going to be launched and off the new version of our website soon to to get some different stuff. And, and even then I've been brought in a whole bunch on the creative side, everything from writing a lot of the background to shaping our environments because of its implications for what it would mean for online. And so my seat at that table is become very valuable because we're, we're not just thinking of the people in the room were thinking about the, and then we're thinking about how reports out to everybody else who's watching this. So when it comes to that, sitting, sitting in those meetings, uh, having an inability to help shape those things is crucial. So this way, when I'm looking at the service on Sunday morning, I'm not surprised by a whole bunch or I'm not saying, hey guys, this is very disengaging for thousands of people who are watching us. Uh, we have to do a better job of engaging them, of making sure that we are, uh, not, not guiding the service towards them, but at least including them or thinking of them in some kind of way. Yeah. So that's where that's becoming a valuable. And then the last thing is, is um, mobile has become so crucial in terms of how people are engaging our sure. Right. For sure. Majority of people who are engaging in not just our website, but our content in general aren't doing it, you know, on a desktop or a laptop. Like what we're all doing now as we record this podcast. They're doing it through a mobile device. And so I'm even reorienting a lot of our strategy as far as being more and more oriented towards the mobile device, uh, and just being part of those conversations moving forward. It's big.

Eric Geiger: 27:48 That's good. So in your role do you could, do you know how to like pull the Google analytics or you haven't get somebody else to do that?

Rey DeArmas: 27:56 It's, it's both an if something kind of jumps up over my head, I'll reach out to a coder or something or somebody who's versed in this and the code community has grown huge in Miami. Uh, so we're even, you know, when I'm visiting, when I go back to my campus at coral gables or when I'm visiting campuses, I'll have people come up to me who come out of that school saying, Hey, if you guys ever need any help, just give me a call. And that's become such a great tool and resource and it helps them feel like they've got a place where they could serve home, use their gifts.

Eric Geiger: 28:25 So our volunteers being engaged in that at CF?

Rey DeArmas: 28:27 Absolutely. It's been very helpful for us and very helpful for me because, you know, there's been a lot of new, in terms of jumping into this role wholeheartedly. There's been a lot of new and having people help who helps speak the language and help decodify. Cause you remember when I was, when I was interning at Christ fellowship, I worked at the apple store.

Eric Geiger: 28:46 I remember that, dude.

Rey DeArmas: 28:47 Yeah. So I already had like a lot of background that God was guiding things that I had no idea

Eric Geiger: 28:52 Both you and Jeff were apple snobs.

Rey DeArmas: 28:54 Oh, absolutely.

Jeff Reed: 28:56 I totally represent that. No, that, that's fine.

Eric Geiger: 28:59 Hey, Jeff, this ties into one more thing you asked earlier, uh, you asked, you asked like how, how does a guy in your role get to this in your Pastor? A rate, this is big right here. Talk about the number of people in the church who, who, uh, would love to volunteer in this kind of role. Who, who have technical abilities in this role. They're wondering if they're wondering if they're, uh, craft can be used for the kingdom. Absolutely. You, you would pull my heart at that point. Cause I would feel like, man, I'm preaching these, I'm preaching these folks that, that their work can be safe, sacred. And they have these, they have these, um, these great gifts. Are we giving them a chance to use it?

Rey DeArmas: 29:39 That's absolutely correct. And what I found is it's, it's creating a new way to build roads towards some of those other conversations. And this is something else I would probably catch a lot of senior pastors attention. It's particularly with men. This has become a great way to build in road conversations with them because there are a lot of men going into this field.

Eric Geiger: 29:58 So into the tech field like that?

Rey DeArmas: 30:01 Yeah, correct.

Jeff Reed: 30:02 Geiger, any closing thoughts? 20 seconds. What do you got?

Eric Geiger: 30:07 We're in a great day, where more and more tools are available to us and they'd been commoditized, meaning they're not as expensive as they used to be. So we can leverage these tools for the gospel.

Rey DeArmas: 30:20 Absolutely.

Jeff Reed: 30:22 Hey, well, it's been a pleasure to have you on, Eric Geiger at Mariners. If people want to follow you online or in blog, like where are you at? Kind of list that out for us.

Eric Geiger: 30:35 Blog is EricGeiger.com. That's where I put new content.

Jeff Reed: 30:40 All right, so everybody can find you at EricGeiger.com. Thanks for Eric, for Ray. My name is Jeff. It has been a pleasure to be here with you today. Thanks. And we'll see you next time here at The Church Digital podcast. Y'All have a good day.