DESCRIPTION
In this episode, Nick dissects an Office episode that he recently was viewing and correlating that to how older and younger generations often approach the discussion around "In-Person" and "Digital" ministry. His proposal, was less "Either/or" and instead it was a "Both/And" approach. One that he likes to call "Hybrid"
What can the church take that is set to defacto "In-Person" only and create digital versions and digital access points for those same elements? Such as sermons, community and Bible reading.
Full transcripts and other resources available at: http://www.hybridministry.xyz
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TIMECODES
00:00-04:12 What we can learn from The Office
04:12-07:24 Digital - Ryan
07:24-09:16 In Person - Michael
09:16-11:21 How to make those two become Hybrid
11:21-14:57 Sermons
14:57-16:12 Helping People Find Community
16:12-17:53 Bible Reading
17:53-19:38 Outro
TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:02):
What is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. So excited to be here with you. My name is Nick Clason, and I am of course your host. Glad to have you today. You know, I wanted to talk a little bit about, um, a little bit different of an episode today. I wanted to look at an episode from the American TV show, the Office. Now obviously, like many, many of us are very familiar with this television show, right? Um, and you know, it's actually really funny. I have a coworker who's younger, she's in her twenties, and she didn't even know that the show ever even aired on like Network tv. She thought it was always a streaming show. So anyway, so I'm, I'm doing a little re-watch of this show, and I mean, here's the thing, like truth be told, I'm kind of like always doing a re-watch of this show.
Nick Clason (00:53):
I'm always, it's always at some level or some layer available to me. But the episode in particular that I wanted to focus on was from season four, episode two. It's called Dunder Mifflin Infinity. And if you're not familiar with the show, let me just bring you up to speed a little bit on it. So, Ryan, new manager at Dunder Mifflin. Um, Michael is still the, uh, the regional manager, the guy that everyone's kind of like used to and, and no, and he's famous and whatever and whatnot. Ryan is now his boss. And so that lasts for about a season. But Ryan is this new kind of young, up and coming guy. And so Ryan's entire like focus and identity and purpose is, he wants to bring D Mifflin into the 21st century. He wants to digitize them. And so Ryan is sort of this all digital, this all kind of person, right?
Nick Clason (01:40):
Online is the future. This is how it needs to happen, this is how it goes. Eventually, Ryan ends up in jail for fraud. So it doesn't exactly end up well for him, but let's just take a look at this episode in a microcosm. Um, conversely, there's Michael, who's old school. Michael's all about relationships. Michael's all about customer service. That's always sort of been done. Mifflin's calling card in the office is they're able to, um, out customer service, the big box retail guys. So what they're doing constantly in all of their sales and all those things is they're saying like, Hey, we're better than Staples. We're better than Office Depot, and we're able to supply you guys with the best possible customer service. And so we have Michael, basically we have Michael versus Ryan, right? In this, in this episode. And as I was watching it, it made me, um, it made me really like interested in this juxtaposition that we find ourselves in the church, in digital versus in person.
Nick Clason (02:41):
All right? And so, um, basically to, to summarize, uh, the rest of the episode, Ryan's pushing everyone to be more digital, gives everybody blackberries. Like that's the whole thing. Michael is opposing it. Jan, his now, uh, girlfriend is telling him that, um, he can sue Ryan for being, um, ages istic, um, and pushing out all the old people. And so, um, in an attempt to win everybody back over, Michael takes gift baskets to 10 clients that they've lost and that have, uh, switched over to other companies. And in that, while he's doing that, right, people are like, Hey, um, thank you so much for this gift basket, but that website thing that you're talking about, that's actually quite interesting to me. So let me know when that's a, when that's up and running. I'll be interested in exploring coming back to your company. And so there's wins for them, um, but there still are wins in the kind of like customer service side of things.
Nick Clason (03:41):
And so if you're a fan of the show at all, uh, just real quick, Michael drives his car into a lake because he is following a GPS way too closely and way too literally. And, um, he comes back to the office soaking wet and he thinks that he's lost. And, but in the meantime, for some reason, Ryan doesn't have the kones to stand up to Michael and just put him in his place, which I always find odd and interesting, but it's just this kind of weird tension between the digital guy and the in-person guy. So let's explore digital real quick. So Ryan is the digital guy where online is the future. And, and it's where everyone's going. I mean, that's kind of the entire thrust of the entire nine seasons, right? Is that this company is becoming so irrelevant with how they're doing things that like all the other guys are, are passing them.
Nick Clason (04:28):
Like even in the beginning of this episode, there's a funny kind of bit where Ryan is talking about the overhaul of the website, and Jim goes, well, I don't know what's wrong with our website. And he goes to it and it's got like this little, uh, stick figure animation that says under construction coming soon, and it gives like a year. And like at the time of the airing, like that year had already passed. And so therefore it just goes to show that they had not at all and in any way been investing in their website, which is such a wild thing to think about how recently this show aired. Like that was, that's an, that was a necessary thing for people back then, or at least I feel like it should have been. And maybe, um, I'm forgetting how much older that show is, right?
Nick Clason (05:08):
But anyway, so Ryan's coming in and he's ready to overhaul this whole thing. And I, I see elements of myself in Ryan, um, and how I viewed digital ministry, um, very recently, and even maybe still a little bit if I am being completely and totally honest, right? So, uh, in the ways that I, I see myself like Ryan, I'm pushing all my chips into the middle, uh, saying I'm all in on online because I look at all the stats. I see that generation Z millennials, uh, high percentage of people are living their lives on Facebook. Uh, gen Z spends five to eight hours of screen time a day. And so therefore I'm like, we need to show up where they are. And I still believe those things, by the way, right? But sometimes at the, at the downfall of what happens on, uh, in an in-person experience or an in-person ministry type of moment, um, I forget that like there are valuable things, um, that can happen in the in-person type of moment.
Nick Clason (06:09):
And also, uh, the way I am, I'm, I, I often play devil's advocate. And so I feel like in uh, organizations, I kind of come in and I end up sort of taking the role of the change agent. And so if everything is, uh, a pendulum swing to, um, all the in-person style of ministry, I'm trying to push them to think about things another way. Not that I don't agree with these things, but just that like this church or this organization that I'm working in, they don't need more of that, right? They need more of this. And so my attitude and my posture becomes one of kind of all in and continually pushing in that way. So, uh, definitely in the last church I worked in, like there was this big argument on the heels of Covid. Covid was over. People were done with it.
Nick Clason (06:52):
They were ready to either come back or be in person or give up online, whatever. And I thought we were doing some valuable things online. And so therefore, I was making an attempt to continue to remain online. And so all I talked about all the things, I said, all my arguments were online, online, online. And I wonder if people that I worked with, like, do you, do you even care about some of this other in-person stuff? And the answer of course is, yes, I did. Right? But like, because of my personality and my devil's advocate this, I needed to keep pushing about it that way.
Nick Clason (07:26):
So let's look at Michael. Michael, anti-d digital anti online wants to be all about in-person, right? He's saying customer service still matters. He brings the gift baskets to all of his customers. I would say that I resonate with Michael in this episode very much like when I, uh, was back in Bible college, right? Um, in a lot of ways when I'm in college, I didn't have the ability to kind of nuance or think about things or see things in other ways. And so like this, like this is the way that it has to be. This is the way it's supposed to be very like dogmatic, right? Like I would say you can't do church without being together. Um, and I've even had conversations with, uh, former students of mine who've said those types of things, like, well, preaching has to be in person. And maybe one day I'll do a deep dive.
Nick Clason (08:14):
Um, first of all, I need to do some study into the theology of preaching in the theology of proclaiming God's word, right? But like, I need to look into that and say like, can preaching and can the exposition or delivering of God's word be done in a different way than behind a pulpit? And I guess I would have to say, I think it has to be, because biblically speaking, most pastors, exhorters teachers, overseers, shepherds, were not behind a pulpit. Like that's, that's a much more recent phenomenon. And so to say that that's the only way it can be can't actually be true. Cuz if you look at the Bible, that's not the way it was back then. And if we wanna wanna be true to what the Bible has to say and what the word of God has to say, then I don't know that we can make that, that, you know, conclusion.
Nick Clason (09:03):
Exactly. And so we see Michael very much in that like, this is how it has to be unwilling to kind of move and change and flex and adopt and become different, right? Like with the times and like, what's going on? All right, so that was Ryan. That was Michael. Well, now let's look at a hybrid approach to this, right? Because as I was watching this, obviously it's for comedy and obviously, right, it's for show, but Ryan and Michael, in my personal opinion were both right, but both of them were so consumed with winning, right? That like, it became, uh, comical about who is gonna win this guy or that guy, right? So, so Michael didn't want to go online at all. And I think that's dumb. Like there is going to be value in that, especially when you're watching the episode and some of the customers that he's seeing are like, uh, yeah, let me know when your website's back.
Nick Clason (09:57):
I think that they could do both, right? They could, they could have good customer service and have a good online sort of port, uh, portal, right? And make those things marry together. I think that, um, they could really serve their customers well cuz they are still small. And so if they were able to come up with a relevant, useful, good, uh, website, then could they bring that to their customers? And I think the answer to that is yes. And I wish that they would've, uh, seen that and that Michael and Ryan would've come together and willing and were willing more to work in like, sort of like a hybrid sort of way. I think. Um, Ryan wanted to go strictly online and was not concerned about losing the touch of, uh, their personal, uh, customer service, their personal touchability that Dunder Mifflin had. And I think that that's a big loss for him.
Nick Clason (10:47):
I think he's missing out on a pretty important moment. Why? Because, uh, Ryan, uh, didn't know what d mifflin's as up the sleeve was. The asep the sleeve was their customer service. So the people that were choosing to be with them did not want to be with them because of a nice new flashy website. Of course, he's thinking about reaching people, but how do you retain the people that are already there, um, as customers of your paper company? Okay? So I think both of them play a role. I think they mesh together really well. And at that intersection is where we find hybrid ministry. So let's explore in church, um, the pairing of the Ryan and the Michael, and where can some live things that we have a church have adopted or have become customary or we're just so used to, where can some of those live things be made more digital?
Nick Clason (11:39):
Okay, so number one, we have sermons. Let's talk about sermons again. I think one day I'd love to do a deep dive, maybe that'll be a future episode here of, um, sermons and exposition of the Bible and teaching and proclaiming of, of God's word. Um, where can some of those things be made into a digital format? Well, first and foremost, if you are preaching a sermon every single week, you can record that audio and immediately turn that into podcast. I read something that, um, the majority of adults, uh, listened to eight hours of podcasts a week. And so, um, I know like last week, for example, let me give you an example of my own life. I went to like a membership class at my church and I've told you guys, I'm new at my church. Um, and we weren't able to go to service or we were, but we kind of chose not to.
Nick Clason (12:28):
So hopefully anyone who like, um, I work for, sorry about that. Um, and guess what I did? I, I went and I was like, I'm gonna listen to this podcast, uh, later throughout the week. And so that is a really easy way for, for people in your church who miss. And it might even be, uh, easy way for people, um, who are unconnected to your church to come to, uh, at least an awareness of your church at a very like elementary level. And all you need to do is some simple plugin things into your audio board, capture your pastor's audio, some pretty basic mixing on the back end. You maybe don't even need to do a ton, as long as it doesn't sound horrendous. And then just upload that thing to an iTunes, um, apple podcast, Spotify podcast capture so that people can discover it.
Nick Clason (13:15):
Another layer to that of course could be to create like YouTube sermons. So to record your, um, sermon and your audio and pair those together. Of course, if you listen to my last episode, um, my 2023 and Beyond YouTube strategy for churches, I highly, highly recommend pre-filing your content, pairing down your sermons. Cuz most sermons or lectures are anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes long. And that's a little bit too long for the YouTube algorithm. You want to try and slide somewhere between that 12 and 18 minute range for videos on YouTube. So of course you could do that as well. Again, all you're doing is taking your content from your sermon and you're overlaying it and creating an opportunity for it to be digital, right? So like then another option is you have your sermons. So break those up into small short TikTok clips.
Nick Clason (14:07):
Like if you're not good at video editing, an option that you can do is you can take, uh, just a camera like I'm doing and talk directly into it and create 30 to 62nd clips from your message. Like you already have the content. So even if you can't get a clip from the actual pastor preaching a sermon, you can still use the same topic or the same content or the same passage and rip that post that and do 3, 4, 5 different little like sermon clips throughout the week. You can use that in short form video and everything, every single platform, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are all about the short form video content. So use those things to your advantage. So with your sermons, you got got audio podcasts, you got YouTube videos, and you also have short form video. TikTok style clips. Another option for a thing that, um, is done live, but can be made.
Nick Clason (15:03):
Um, digital is a group finder. Most churches are all about community, are about helping people get connected, find their place, find their place to serve, uh, find, have something on your website that operates as a connection portal, uh, connect group, a small group, a grow group, or whatever you call your small groups. Have people be able to go on there and browse and search, make it user friendly. Uh, a lot of church management softwares will have those things as an available option that you can use some sort of group finder type of thing or just build something on your website. But the reality is, is like in my personal life, if I can't get an appointment with a dentist or a doctor or whatever through creating an appointment online, I don't want to use them. So I'm probably not gonna call, I'm probably not gonna email.
Nick Clason (15:51):
I might email. Um, but if I can have a full service, create an appointment type of thing online, I'm gonna do that. And I think the same is true for churches, especially for finding community, for finding groups, for finding places to jump in, uh, and be able to serve. So create something that's full scale, full service and available for your people to use, uh, to find community. The last option is daily devotionals. We all know the importance of getting people in the word, but there's a recent stat out there that said 8% of Christ following Christians, uh, read the Bible only one time a week, 8%. So how can we as a church, help give our people the tools that they have? There are an unlimited amount of tools. Now think about before the printing press. What did they have to use? They had to go to church to get the Bible, but now they can access it on their phone.
Nick Clason (16:45):
Probably many of us have multiple Bibles on our shelves at home. So how can we help get people, um, using scripture throughout their week? So a couple of options are, uh, the U version Bible plan, uh, u version Bible app on people's phones. They have plans, you can read things together, you can also put sermon notes on there so that people can follow along. And then when they're done at the bottom, you can link out to a plan to read together or to encourage people to read through on their own u version. Done by Life Church is an absolutely incredible tool for churches and it's only getting better. So use that as something that you can help promote scripture and um, bible literacy with the people in your church and in your congregation. Another option, of course, like I said, is um, you can use devotional type content.
Nick Clason (17:28):
So this is different than sermon content, but devotional content or going deeper on the sermon or something like that. And you can do that in TikTok, real short form video. Uh, you can even do like a little mini-series, like how to read the Bible and do a three-part series and post it, uh, on your social media for the week. But what are different ways that you can use social media, short form video, TikTok and those types of things to create devotional type content. So like I said, I think that there's been this, this fight between digital Ryan Howard and in person Michael Scott in the Dunner Mifflin Affinity episode. And I just wish I could have got together and helped counsel them. Been like, this is how you can marry those two things. And I find that to be true in the church community and coming together and praying and crying on each other's shoulders and carrying one another's burdens.
Nick Clason (18:21):
That's so important. And it cannot be done digitally, but people also need to be discipled. People need to read Bible content. People need to hear the truth from God's word, and they're not always available to show up to your in-person event in a physical form. So what are ways that you can support people in your church to help them, uh, through the means, through the the phone that's sitting in their pocket to help coach them and and teach them what it's like to live a life? Um, that's not just digital, not just physical, but it's hybrid. Hey guys, once again, thanks for hanging out. Uh, we've, we have full transcripts for every single episode over at hybridministry.xyz. I'd love to encourage you to go check that out. It's a great place to find some stuff there. Also, um, on my personal TikTok @ClasonNick, c-l-a-s-o-n-n-i-c-k, uh, posting little clips, um, from podcast episodes, um, current and past. So go check out on, hang out with us there. Love to connect with you in that way. Until next time, we'll talk to you all later.
