Digital Tools and Apps that Help Us

Today we're going to talk about digital apps that you can use that will help you be more productive and actually help you as a person as well. Are you ready? Because it's time.

You're listening to the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast, part of the TCD Podcast Network.

hey heroes my name is tom pounder and this is the church digital psychic podcast this is the podcast where i bring on ministry leaders and we talk about how to do ministry more effectively in this very digital and online world and today we're doing things a little bit differently you know i've been trying to do different things with the podcast a little bit and we actually did a live show a little bit ago where i had my friend cory sullivan on and he's going to be on in this podcast but we also have a producer on here as well and his name is shane and he works for the church digital uh and he's a great guy and corey and i talk about digital apps that help us but we also invite shane into the conversation a few different times as well and so shane gets to share about some apps that he likes as well it's just a great fun conversation that we have because remember back in the day when smartphones really started using apps and they always said there's an app for that there's an app for that there's an effort well yes there's apps for a lot of things But that doesn't mean that you're using them all. So what are the apps that we're using, and how are they helping us be effective? And hopefully, how will they help you be effective? That's what we talk about in today's podcast. But before we get into the interview, I do want to highlight thechurch.digital. At the Church Digital, we have tons of podcasters, we have tons of bloggers, we have tons of coaching and cohorts that are happening right now. And if so, if you want help in your digital ministry or in your online ministry, in your metaverse ministry we want to be able to help you at the church digital so go to the church.digital right now you get connected there and we also actually have the family as well where you can get connected in a family and be encouraged by other digital and online ministers who are learning how to do this on the fly just like all of us we're all learning digital ministry one day at a time and so if you want to learn all that stuff go to the church.digital right now you can get training coaching and encouragement every single day all right so you ready to get into the conversation with corey sullivan and shane okay let's get into the conversation right now who better to invite along with us today than corey sullivan so corey for anybody who doesn't know who you are why don't you go share who you are

Yeah, my name is Corey Sullivan. Like Tom said, I've known Tom, I think it's pushing 10 years now. So we've been friends for a while. But what I love doing is I love seeing youth thrive. And so for me, that means helping organizations think about their strategies and what they put in place to help engage youth in their communities and with the work that they're doing. So that goes from serving youth one-on-one to coaching through programs and helping them do that. so that's what i love to do that's what i'm passionate about and i've always found my place alongside tom we have a lot of interest and like-minded and how do we engage people and how do we engage people um through new technologies through new things and trying to be innovative in that and so me and tom are like-minded and thinking through new and creative ways to kind of come up with some of those ideas yeah

uh and corey corey and i actually both have a background um with young life uh corey you met the lord through young life and i actually worked with young life for a number of years and so um again like he said we're like-minded we've done a lot of a lot of crazy things before haven't we We're live. We can't we can't go that far. Oh, yeah. We can't say all the different things. OK, so, Corey, just quickly, where where are you from or where do you live right now?

I'm in Rochester, New York. So right now it's March. So some days it's 70 degree weather and the next day it's snowing. So that's kind of the state that I'm living in right now in terms of weather. And so I love Rochester, New York. It's the home of the garbage plates. So you don't know what that is. That's something for you to Google later. It's the best food in the world.

Didn't the guy from Man Vs. Food do that? Or was that in one of those diners, dive-ins, and drives?

It was probably diners, dive-ins, and drives, which I do like. Whenever I travel to a new city, I try and look up those kind of places.

Yeah, the garbage, when I come and visit you one day, one day, I will do the garbage plates.

I won't hold my breath for that one day. That's good.

Okay, so Corey, let's get into our conversation right now. We're going to talk about digital tools and apps that will help you again, not just in ministry, but also in life. And so just to kick this off, and we'll probably want to pull Shane up in a second, but just to kick this off, let's talk about apps that won't believe.

and absent you love that you just will not delete from your phone for whatever reason all right am i going first or are you going first you're going first you're going all right let's go one for one let's go one for one okay we'll do one for one all right so the first one i said that i'm not deleting so this is the idea is like stuff that's not already on your phone you have to download it and what's staying there and i would not get rid of ways W-A-Z-E. It's just a navigation tool. But man, I feel like whenever I'm traveling or whenever I need it because it's like a social navigation. So I know like where traffic's coming from. I know like where the police are sitting. So when I go a couple extra miles an hour, I'm not getting a ticket. Like I need that. So it's always up. I trust it more than like Google Maps. I trust it more than all the other math things. So I'm definitely saying Waze. Yeah.

Okay. That's good. You just blew that off. I'm an Apple Map guy. I don't even like using Google Maps. I just go in Apple Maps. That's my kind of thing. I don't know what the deal is. Here's the deal. I will say this. Because we are live and I know some people are watching, if you're watching on one of the different platforms on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, or Alter Live, definitely type in in the comments section what is an app that you absolutely love and will not delete from your phone. Okay. So for me, the first one I will say is Twitter. I mean, it's like a no brainer for me. Twitter is like my LinkedIn. I have a link. I've connected so much with so many different people. I love interacting with people on Twitter that if I have to, obviously I will. But if I don't have to, that's the last one that's probably going to go.

Yeah.

I mean, wait, Corey, you have Twitter, don't you?

Dude, I got on it just for you today. I don't know if you got a notification. I did get a notification. I liked one of your tweets. Just to say I was on it today. Yeah, I do have a Twitter. All right. My second one that I said would be Amazon. I feel like I'm always on Amazon looking for stuff, ordering something, like a wish list or picking something up for my son. So I feel like I use that on a pretty daily basis.

That's awesome. Well, it's just been told that Jeff's favorite is Pokemon Go. I mean, I think that's fantastic that he's just sitting around all day.

I was going to say, I haven't played Pokemon Go all day. That's one of the first things that's going.

That's awesome. Okay, so let's bring in Shane here for a second. Shane, we're going to ask you the question. What is an app that you will not delete from your phone?

this sounds terrible but i am not in the market for shopping for a car cars are way too expensive but i always have auto trader on my phone i don't i am a car guy and i love just looking at cars and so i just go in there and go hey these are all cars i can't afford this is awesome okay is there a car that you like look at more so than other ones I have a soft spot for Porsches. And so I love looking at older Porsches and I love looking at just the different models and different things like that. So I'm a Porsche guy.

Okay. So I can't let this comment go unmentioned because again, I'm a huge 90210 fan and Dylan McKay owned a Porsche Speedster. And I've always been fascinated with that, the classic Porsche right there. And so, yeah, that's awesome. Yes. um let me ask you guys this question okay well my second one i'll say this is is tick tock i love just tick tock it has become just a a nightly thing that i do is i just scroll through tick tock entirely way too late at night but it's fun it's entertaining do you guys do tick tock at all i like am on like the instagram version of tick tock so i just see all the reels that make it over to instagram but not on tick tock itself

yeah so as a digital pastor i am always on tick tock i'm always looking up the next trend the next crazy dancing i don't dance so i get my wife to kind of handle all that side of social media because i think we would lose followers if i attempted to do any of that or gain a lot

yeah it would be it would become fell army at that point that's awesome okay shane we're gonna have to connect later because i'm gonna have to start following you and we're gonna have to swap and like follow each other um i don't do a lot of trends on tick tock but i definitely uh

every now and then i'll throw out one and i like to just do encouragement on tick tock okay so those were just fun that do you have one more corey that you'd like to share yeah i was gonna say like my last one is spotify like i need to have i'm a music person so i need to have music i don't play any instruments but i just need to have music on so whether it's at work or at the gym or like just doing doing the dishes like have music on so spotify is my go-to do you do you do the podcast stuff too or no yeah yeah so like that's why i like spotify like it has the podcast there it has even like audio books so um yeah i have nothing bad to say about spotify in terms of except the other day they crashed yeah See, I don't do Spotify. I do Apple Music.

I'm an Apple homer. I'm an Apple homer.

Listen, can I say this one thing about Apple right now that is a pet peeve of mine? Is on Apple TV, when you go from one episode to the next episode, it starts you off back to season one, episode one. Oh, really?

Yeah.

I don't know how to fix it. And so if I could, because like my son watches Paw Patrol and I'm watching like season six, episode two, instead of the next episode, it jumps me all the way back to season one, episode one. I think that's a you problem, not an Apple problem. Well, listen, I just need help. So if someone knows how to fix that, you guys let me know in the chat box how to fix it, because that's what I need right now, because I need that kind of a support.

Yeah, if you're in one of the chat rooms, we'd love to know. Help Corey out. Corey.

How do I just hit the next episode on Apple TV? That's all I need.

Oh, Paw Patrol will be there on the double. Is that Paw Patrol?

It is. And so I'll sing half the song and my son figures out the rest, so it's pretty fun.

Oh, that's awesome. Okay, so Corey, let's get into this now of just apps that we feel like is really, really useful. The ones that we won't delete are kind of like our guilty pleasures. I mean, there's something great. But let's just go in. We're going to highlight a few different apps that we feel like are really useful. And we would recommend them from a ministry perspective and a personal experience. And I will say this. apps that help you with personal stuff it matters because if you're not working on yourself a little bit if you're not healthy we've learned over the last two years with covid that our mental health is so important so some of these apps are helpful that we're going to recommend that could be really helpful for our mental health and our physical health which is just as important because if if we're dead we can't do ministry right i mean yeah and also just

because of when we can have our own apps to help us create better systems or better structures or whatever is in our lives like then we can go into the work world yeah already ready to go because we've created those better systems elsewhere that's true that's right so all right so corey let's go back and forth a little bit on this uh what what's one that you would recommend Dude, something I love lately is something called Calendly. I think I'm pronouncing it right. I'm going to pretend I am. But it really is meant to help with scheduling. And they have a really great system to allow for, like, scheduling phone calls. So, like, on my website, I have it posted, a link posted that they can go. They can pick, like, an appointment. It's, like, a great time to have those coaching calls or anything like that. Then it links out to one of my Gmail calendars, my Google calendars that I have for that. and so it's pretty synced up and it's something convenient for me especially as trying to do different conversations and different people coming in and out um what i really like about it again is that it it's not just in the of itself but it connects to other systems like the the google calendar to allow for me just to hop on and use google calendar to stay organized

yeah i will say again some of these apps that uh corey and i are going to recommend there we have like again we have a preference a calendar um i use that as well but there are other calendar type apps that will be useful the goal here is to find one that's useful for you and what i love about calendar

i can't even now now you've got me all worried about how i'm saying it's calendly that's what i'm saying but there's a lot of things like schedulosity or schedulicity or something like that does one and you know different professionals use them for different things like i know my barber uses schedulicity to like schedule out haircuts

Well, again, it's really important because as you're scheduling out your day, if you want to try to connect with someone and again, it's in an online capacity in particular, you just send them the link and then your calendar is synced up to Google. So you don't have to look at your calendar. They can actually just look at it and say, this is the best time for me. I'm going to schedule this time with Corey or I'm going to schedule this time with Tom. So that's a great app. I really started utilizing that in the past year. uh and that's been helpful i always love it when i try to meet up with with uh jeff jeff reed jeff always sends me a link to his thing his is a little bit different than mine so it's kind of always nice to nice and simple okay so that's one that you recommend i'm going to recommend i will say this the the apps well these are really helpful for ministry purposes it's the messenger apps Now, again, initially, I'm 47 years old, and you think, okay, the SMS, the regular text messaging. And some people really respond to that. However, there are people who are on Snapchat Messenger. They're on Facebook Messenger. They're on Twitter DMs. They're on... other apps instagram dms i have people who are messaging me in their app in those specific apps all throughout the week and so but the one thing i know is that if i want to get a hold of corey i can text him or i can send him an instagram dm if i want to get a hold of somebody else i can do a twitter dm or a facebook messenger actually i've really utilized facebook messenger a whole lot more lately because a lot of people are using messenger and even though they don't use facebook a bunch they'll use facebook messenger so my encouragement on the messaging apps is these are great ways for you to connect with people just because you don't get them on a regular text message or they don't respond try a different way to message them and see which one works for them and connect with them that way

Yeah. And just reiterate that last point you made, I think is awesome is like people are out there. They just might not be using the method that you are preferring or that you are using.

Yeah.

So sometimes if you're able to open up that door a little bit more to one more app, right, the audience and engagement that you might get or, you know, just the conversations you can have. are now going to increase just because you were able to figure it out. Yeah. The other one that I was thinking about is Constant Contact. This is kind of like a email mass marketing communication platform. It's very similar to maybe like a MailChimp that you're using. I use that probably weekly, monthly on a lot of different things, sending out different weekly email blasts. um different campaigns even just like alerts to different situations that are going on um with programming or anything like that or hey there's an error that's happening in the system

somewhere um so i use that a lot to like just market and broadcast what's happening um on a day-to-day basis yeah i think email is still a really vital tool again i think there's the trend that people are going to text message and in the messaging apps are like really important because people see that and people respond to them but the reality is email uh engagement is still pretty good and again if you're gonna use a email tool content contact is one of those really one of the big bigger ones mailchimp is something i like to use and as an online campus pastor i would say we use mailchimp and i try to send out an email once a month okay now again I'm an online campus, so I'm not sending out constant emails because some of the people on my email list are going to the mother ship of our main campus. So I don't want to inundate them with so many emails. But what I do is try to strategically plan out a once a month email to stay connected with them, stay, get them involved and really focus on things that are centered around their. that that particular online field i also have a student ministry uh constant or mailchimp so the student ministry one that we have is very good i send out a weekly email there highlighting all the different things that are happening within the youth program so and the great thing about this is you just add them to your list you don't have to keep on typing in specific ones into your apple mail you don't have to type in hundreds of emails every time you send an email you just

use that list and send the email so i i find that really helpful as well um just random thought the question that came in my head and throw it out at you is there like such thing as too much communication you know like say like hey you're using consequence stack you know then you're using some other ways is there ever such thing as too much what do you think

Dude, that's a whole different podcast right there. I mean, it's so cool. I don't know.

There's a question. I was like, you know, like, is there a line sometimes when it is? But all right. We'll save that for round two.

Well, but here's the thing, too. If you're watching this right now, you're listening to us, and you heard Corey's question, is there too much communication? I know Jeanette Yates would probably have a thought on that. So she's someone that I think would really speak into that one very well. I think there can be. Again, I think early on in COVID – uh when we were hitting up people all the time i think it became too much email and people start to drain drain it out you have to find the right balance for you and your uh your group that you're talking to I'll hit on one that's kind of a little bit tied, a little bit like Constant Contact and MailChimp, but it's something I find really useful as a minister. So we have, we use Planning Center. So every church usually has a database. There's CCM, there's Planning Center. There's a whole bunch of other ones that now I can't even, Fellowship One or, you know, there's just lots of them.

Whatever you guys are using.

Yeah, let us know what you're using for your church. But what I like about it is that a lot of these have apps. And so when I'm on my phone, which is I'm on my phone a lot, and I need to look up a parent or I need to look up someone at our church, I can go on the app and really quickly search them and get their contact information. And I found that to be really, really helpful over the past year. And so it's one of my more popular apps right now. as I'm able to search and find out who the people are and how I can connect with them best. So if your church database has an app, I would strongly recommend you download it to your phone so you can just really check out people and connect with them in that way.

all right keep keep on going i'd definitely say some way some collaboration space for me um that's google drive being able to you know collaborate on different projects um different work aspects it's a quick place to to share that across distance um when you're not actually in there there's other ones like sharepoint is another great place to utilize that as well that way you can have multiple people working on the same project or someone updating things quickly and you may not have the same distance or you may not be in the same room and then it stores everything as well so it's a great place to have it outside of maybe your your you know desktop or whatever to have that as a backup Yeah.

Can you explain a little bit more about SharePoint? Shane just said Google Drive is the best. We're going to talk about Google Drive in a second, but can you just go into SharePoint?

SharePoint's Microsoft, so it's just part of their office product that they have. And it allows, and it can connect, you know, really right to your desktop. So if you're like on a computer, it'll upload, download any updates that you have to some of those files if they're up in SharePoint, just like a cloud-based system. And then I utilize that for a bunch of program stuff. So we have a ton of files and we utilize in SharePoint. So we have that all organized. It's basically a cloud-based system that we can utilize to connect people around the same resources. So it uses the Microsoft Office apps, so Word, Excel, all that kind of stuff that we can just all utilize at the same time, make updates with it. We have... You know, we're in every day trying, you know, just across systems for it.

So you guys use SharePoint?

Yep. Okay. I personally like Google Drive more. It was just kind of we have SharePoint because we have the Microsoft Office. So that's what we utilize.

Okay. Let's bring Shane back into the conversation here. Shane, you want to pop in? Yes, there you are. Okay. Talk to me about why you love Google Drive.

I like Google Drive because you can – document open and see everybody collaborating at the same time you can open up a presentation whatever it is and have real-time collaboration uh we as digital are never in the same room and so it's always nice to see the other person even though we're on zoom and i've got it set up on another screen we're talking and we're all typing at the same time on a working document

see again you guys shane i don't know how old you are but i'm assuming you're younger than i am and so i grew up actually i grew up with um what what is that word perfect okay so i grew up with word perfect i know it's really dating and then i had to get used to microsoft word and i love word i love office and all that stuff but this online stuff is still hard for me to comprehend and when i bring in interns over the summer and they're all using google drive and

they're updating things it's like it's like i'm i'm the online guy and it's still like mind-blowing to me uh so i just i just think it's really really interesting oh yeah i mean it's always interesting it was something different when i started but you know it's one of those as a non-profit you get it for free and so of course you know as church people we do things for free

yes that is true and isn't it true like if you have a a church like a professional account with gmail do you have unlimited um storage in your google drive is i don't know as a limited but non-profit is 30 gigs i think 30 games okay yeah unlimited users up to like a thousand and but then you can ask them and they'll unlock blocks

for what whatever you need but for the most part uh it's the google basic plan or google suite plan uh that you can get in on and you can get that for free that's interesting

i i am growing in my google drive experience but it's still like when i'm when i'm creating documents and stuff i'm going to microsoft office and then i i'm saving it and then i'm sending it i don't know what kind of bridges i'm going to burn but i think like google drive outdated something like a dropbox right because if you give access and permission to someone on certain files only you know outside of you know that one specific user know that's that's great too so i can have people edit or share or only just view permit and like change their level of permissions on different documents that i need them to

Well, because most people have Google, like a Gmail account. And so it's easy to get permissions, whereas not everybody has a Dropbox account, you know? And so, I mean, I would actually, whenever I have to share a file with someone over like Google Drive or Dropbox, I will nine times out of 10 share it on Google Drive than I would on Dropbox.

So again, good.

all right shane thanks for your input i i love pulling shane up shane's got some good good stuff here i like this okay so you were talking about okay i'm gonna go a little bit more personal on my last one okay so my last one is Wait, where is it? This thing, the Apple Watch. Okay. And here's why. And again, I side towards the Apple Watch, but this is any smart watch. Like, what do you have, Corey?

I got the Apple Watch.

Okay. But you had a Fitbit for a while, didn't you?

I did, but I want an Apple Watch.

Yeah, you want it to be cool with all the cool kids, right? I want it to grow up to be like you, Tom. There you go. So, but here's the deal. I think with the Apple Watch, and I've written a blog post about this, and I firmly believe in it. Again, I don't use the Apple Watch for... text messaging although it's nice when i'm on a walk and or or run someone text me i can do it i don't answer my phone on it i like to get the notifications on it but where it's really helpful for me is the fitness component and that's why i'm like you don't need a smart watch like an apple watch per se but something with a fitness component because we we need to be healthy right now we need to be staying fit you know i remember when covert first hit I told my girls, I said, we're not going to get fat here. Like we're inside, we're shutting inside. We're not going to get fat. We started doing workouts. We started going on walks and doing some runs and that kind of stuff. But I just felt like the Apple watch keeps me fit. And because I'm, I'm so fixated on closing the circles every single day. And that shows me that I'm actually being healthy because it talks about your stand hours. You want to get at least 12 stand hours. You want to get for me at least 30 minutes of. uh working out and so that that looks a lot of different ways it's not a workout workout but if you go on a 30-minute walk that counts if you go on a you know whatever it all counts but then you you have a calories that you want to burn throughout the day and everyone's got different calories that you burn throughout the day It just helps me stay fit. And I think if I stay fit, then I can stay healthy and I can be on this earth hopefully a little bit longer. And if I'm not, you know, I'm just not. So it keeps me very health conscious. So having something like a smartwatch or Fitbit or whatever it is that will help you. I would highly recommend.

I would recommend it too. I use Apple watch. I use Fitbit. And what I like about it is it's information, right? It's information right there about you. So there's no hiding it, right? There's no hiding that you skip something or like you can't get lost in it. Like it's telling you what's going on. um in terms of heart rates or in terms of exercise in terms of standing i i think it's been really helpful with me and like my fitness journey over the past like six months or so and so like getting back into the gym again after covid and after uh you know having a baby and all that kind of stuff like it's important and so i do think like that is help information to help you stay focused help you make really good choices about what you're doing and that goes along with other apps as well but like i think when it's something attuned to you know your personal health um that's really important yeah that's good do you have apps on your on your apple watch that you use not a ton i like i'll probably use it most for tracking workouts and like the fitness side of stuff when i think that's why like i was hesitant from jumping from fitbit to apple because i didn't do it a ton but now like i i'll like i'm in a meeting i'll pop it up i do it honestly probably more than anything else even more than fitness so i use it for multi-factor authentication codes Like I use it like just doing different things that need two factor authentication. I get a text message on my phone. I can pop it right into the computer, you know, and it makes life easy. That's cool.

Do you have any other apps or tools that you like to use?

Man, I have a ton. And something I talked to you earlier about was this idea like there's a lot out there and there's a lot that do very similar things. And sometimes it's like one feature or another feature that really boosts one over another in the terms of like preference. And so while we had a list here, like there's something a lot out there that people are using. It's up to us to use those tools well. They're just tools. They're not magic pills. They're not anything special. So we have to have our own systems in place to utilize them. Like I have to remember to look at my Apple Watch. I remember to charge it, right? I got to remember to do all those things and put those things in place. I got to remember to check that, that make sure the connections with an email are good to go. So there's definitely a human side still to even this technology that if it's lacking, those systems aren't going to work like they're supposed to. Yeah.

Now, again, here's the thing, and Jeff and I have talked about this a bunch of times, and I firmly believe it. You know, digital compliments in person, digital compliments, you know, the physical in real life. I, you know, and so, yeah. Oh, yeah, Shane, I definitely do close my rings. I'm completely addicted to closing my rings. um but uh but digital complements things and the the point of the digital is like yes you can overdo digital um you can look at your screen too much you can be on tick tock way too much you can be on twitter way too much but the whole purpose is you can use those tools for good stuff and they really help you in what you're trying to accomplish in your life and so that's why you know i love my last one that i want to really talk about for a second is zoom i mean you know i know they all say that everyone's zoomed out and and of course yeah okay yeah when you're doing meetings all the time uh on zoom only yes people were zoomed out they didn't want to be on a zoom meeting uh you know you know uh an email would have been just as fine as a zoom meeting as it would have been an in-person meeting but the reality is zoom really has been a great thing that i still meet with people on zoom on a weekly basis that that we just don't meet in person and in some ways i don't have to meet with them in person because we have this opportunity to do zoom and so i think zoom's a time saver it helps you save time you don't have to drive somewhere battle traffic or whatnot you can get on and talk about what you need to be on and then you can get off you know so i love it and then i love the fact that you can schedule it and it pops on my google calendar and that's it it's on my calendar so i love zoom yeah i do too i think you know

what it's brought to different business models and ability to engage people like you said save time but also increase engagement like people can't always come to an in-person meeting because of their own scheduling conflicts you know because a half hour meeting turns into you know an hour and a half with traffic you're driving and all that then all of a sudden they can engage in this meeting even though it's 50 for 15 minutes or whatever and they can give you something where there's nothing previously

Yeah. And again, speaking from an online ministry component, I love Zoom online groups. Before COVID hit, I was not sold on Zoom online groups. I was doing a lot of my groups on Facebook groups and even Google Forms or Google Groups. I did some stuff. But... Once Zoom came into play, I saw the real power in there and the simple fact that someone again, I don't know what it's like in your area, Corey, but traffic is definitely picking back up in Washington, D.C. So we're picking back up, but it's not Washington, D.C. traffic. It's not. I was on I was in traffic today and it was it was not fun. and i'm like things have changed it's been two years and we're we're not quite back to where it was how painful it was but it's painful and so for me to ask a person that work all day come home uh rush to eat rush to get the kids ready then rush out the door to go to a life group at seven o'clock with kids who may be cranky because it's their bedtime they don't get home until nine o'clock and then you put them in the bed the sleep schedule is all messed up you guys are all frazzled whereas if someone is coming home and they have a zoom meeting at seven o'clock they can come home eat with their family spend a few minutes with their kids pop into the zoom call really get spiritual nourishment pop off at eight o'clock, still spend time with the wife and kids. And it's just a great, it's a better experience. And it's a tool that churches can use. So I, again, I'm going off on my little soapbox here, but I think it's a really powerful tool that we should not lose sight of now that everyone's going, seems like they're going back in person.

I think that's just important to take back too. There's a lot of good things that have happened. We've learned really tough lessons the hard way in this season. There's stuff to utilize now in a new season. There's stuff to still use to bring with us that we've learned. Whether it's tools like Zoom or our ability to be resilient in the face of all the stuff that's coming at us. There's things that are going well.

yeah so i i think that's uh that's really good um yeah and do you have any final thoughts on this at all corey any final one that you want to share

no i something that i did write down is just the concept of finding something that helps me streamline stuff across multiple platforms that's why i do like you know a google or microsoft outlook office type thing where it's multiple platforms multiple things that they can intersect and connect with each other makes my life always easier when it's like automatically updating a calendar to stay organized or whatever it is um i try and hone into some of those and so that's where people you know lean into one brand over another because of how those things are cross-platformed but i do love like something like a trello just like a project management tool to help me kind of streamline next steps or projects i can collaborate with some people on that and find out what other people are doing along the way um

okay cool yeah i i think trello i think there's things like slack uh slack is definitely one that uh i've used as well um so i think um yeah those are great uh and those are different tools so here's the deal we we would love to hear from you What are the apps that you love, especially over the past two years with this COVID stuff? What are some apps that have really stuck with you that you started using and that have really been helpful for you in your ministry or in your personal life? So definitely let us know. um yeah let's keep this conversation going on i mean so um so i think that would be awesome okay so we're gonna wrap up real quick i want to pull up shane in a second but before we do that um uh corey why don't you uh tell people where they can connect with you yeah um i so

Definitely, I would say COVID made me reprioritize a lot of things and take some focus and less. I took a step back from a lot of the digital stuff and really focused in more on some of the relationships and connecting with kids. I posted a blog the other day, but you can find me at rallyyouth.com. So it's R-A-L-L-Y youth.com. And I'm on Instagram as well as rally underscore youth. um and we love just to help people think about how can we impact this next generation how can we help you thrive and what they're doing so we'd love to connect with you guys there as well then a personal side i'm on instagram as well as big underscore sully five five yeah i wish he was on twitter more i mean like listen i think instagram and twitter are just generational things

okay that yeah no you shouldn't no okay yeah okay hey go go there go there we have this conversation over there we're not we're not going to go there um but he is on twitter too i will include all that yeah yeah i also am on twitter big underscore sally552 um and don't get mad when i don't but i don't respond to a message on twitter and corey is good with systems and processes too um and so if you've got questions about systems and processes you want to connect with him dm him on instagram that's the best place yeah All right, so what did you think of the conversation? What do you think of the apps that we threw out there, the ones that we find most useful? I would love to hear your thoughts on it. So definitely put in the comment section below or hit me up on Twitter at TAPounder. You got to hear from us. Now I want to hear from you. What are the apps that you love? Because I'm always looking for new apps. I want to learn. I want to grow in this as well. So I want to try new apps. So if you've got one, again, put in the comment section below or hit me up on Twitter at TAPounder and we can carry this conversation on. Continue online. All right, heroes, well, thanks so much for joining me today. As always, if you enjoyed the podcast, definitely subscribe to it. You can subscribe to it on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify. You can just go to thechurch.digital as well. You can find it there and subscribe to it there. I've got new podcasts every single week, so I'd love for you to be in tune with that and in touch with that. And again, as a reminder, go to thechurch.digital in general. You can find lots of encouragement there every single day. Alright heroes, well I hope you have a great rest of your day, a great rest of your week, and until next time, have a great one.