What's Currently Trending in Online Ministry (June 2023)

[Tom Pounder] What's trending and what's really working right now in social media and online ministry? That's what we're going to talk about today. Are you ready? Because it's time. [Announcer/Intro Voice] You're listening to the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast, part of the TCD Podcast Network. [Tom Pounder] Hey heroes, my name is Tom Pounder and this is the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast. This is the podcast where we bring on ministry leaders and we talk about how you can do ministry more effectively in this very digital and online world. And today I've got my friend Aaron Magnuson on with me. Aaron is the co-host of Social Media Church Podcast, the world famous Social Media Church Podcast with Neil Smith. they do that but also Aaron has a ton of experience with online ministry social media ministry and he'll update you on what he's doing right now in addition to the social media church podcast but I'll let him tell you not me so but Aaron is a great resource he's a great person and he's talking to a lot of communicators about what's working and what's not working in social media and online ministry so i bring them on my podcast and say what's working what's not working i want to know since you talk to everybody tell me what's working and so aaron and i have a great conversation we learned about his path to ministry and again what's working and what's not working with social media and online ministry so i'm really excited about the interview but before we get into that i do want to highlight the church digital at the church.digital the website we've got a ton of cohorts coaching we've got a ton of blog posts podcasts that are there all designed to help you in your online ministry whether it's digital ministry regular online ministry at a traditional church or whether it's metaverse ministry or vr ministry we have encouragement for you today so if you've never checked out the church digital go to it right now it's the church.digital jeffrey started it we've got a ton of different coaches and cohorts going on really people who are in the trenches doing ministry right now who can relate to you and encourage you with where you're at so go there today we'd love for you to check it out and be encouraged today all right so without any further ado let's get an interview right now talking to Aaron Magnuson all right with me right now is Aaron Magnuson Aaron how are you [Aaron Magnuson] I'm doing so well, Tom. I really appreciate you having me on the podcast and getting to take our conversations from Twitter and bring them here into Zoom. [Tom Pounder] Yes, you're really active on Twitter, and I really like that. I can appreciate a good person who loves Twitter. Yes, yeah, I do love Twitter. [Aaron Magnuson] I know you love Twitter as well. I am active. I feel like I'm not as active as I could be. I'm trying to figure out how to, because I've been testing it, Tom, and you probably have tested this as well. um i twitter only really helps me promote my stuff when i'm talking about oregon state uh so i'm uh i'm trying to figure out how to how to have my foot in both the sports lane which i love on twitter as well as the ministry lane which i also love on twitter [Tom Pounder] Yes, you and I fit in that very much. We love college football and sports. So we're tweeting about sports stuff. And then we also have that ministry connection. But OK, I'm going to just ask you to share about your life because I know about Oregon State and some of this other stuff and why it's important for you. So why don't you just introduce yourself in case someone doesn't know who you are? And then we kind of go from there. [Aaron Magnuson] yeah happy happy to introduce myself yeah so um tom has introduced me as aaron magnuson that is true uh aaron since the key and peel video came out i get that very frequently um and yeah i went to oregon state university starting i guess starting in college is probably the best best place to go um and did have the opportunity to play football there at oregon state and then i met my wife who played volleyball at oregon state nice um actually stopped playing football after my redshirt freshman year uh because i was only um a preferred walk-on uh is what they called it so um but i wasn't getting any scholarship money and i realized that i needed to buy a ring and so i needed to get a job and so i stopped playing football and got a ring got a job Not in that order. I got a job and then I got a ring. And which was great because then I was able to watch my wife play her last two years at Oregon State because volleyball season and football season are at the same time. And then was getting my degree in human development and family sciences. So I didn't go to Bible college. I didn't do anything that pertained to getting a job vocationally within ministry. But my last term, senior year, I had a lunch with my pastor and he was like, hey, I want you to apply for this job as our community life director. And I was like, yeah, I have never entertained working in ministry, but I would love to work for you. And my journey, Tom, was. football up until i stopped playing was like i i grew up in a christian household so i've always had a relationship with jesus uh never rebelled against the church never rebelled against jesus but jesus was not like the lord of my life uh football and the pursuit of football was the lord of my life And so something spiritual happened when I gave football up as well, where I started prioritizing Jesus as the leader of my life. And I could make some arguments how he was really leading my life to leave football, to start my life with my wife, Megan. uh so as i was coming back to the lord that's when i got baptized i got baptized my senior year of college i'd never been baptized before um and so some people listening to your podcast might say that i wasn't a christian um until that point so i'll let you i'll let you pick which you don't get into those debates here we don't get into them here i just want to start some start some uh twitter conversations for you tom um And so, yeah, I just, I had a different view on maybe what God wanted to use my life for. And my grandpa was a pastor. Actually, he was, yes, he was a pastor, but he was also a church counselor. And in the later years of his life, actually a consultant for churches looking to do multiple leadership structures for their church. And so. i uh was familiar with ministry was familiar with what that looked like and um it was just felt like that's what god had for megan and i and uh to go into and so i did that for five years that was at a church in oregon a small church of 300 we met in a middle school set up tear down every week And what that turned into, though, was not having a building, being the community life director, which my role was to build the community within our church, but then also build our church within our community, was to get on social media and create these digital places where we could stay connected throughout the week as a church, but then also have our church be connected to our community. My first week, I'll never forget, there's a lady named Heather on our staff who led worship for us. And she was like, well, why don't you just Google like social media church? And we know what search result came up after Googling social media church. It was the social media church podcast posted at the time by Nell Smith and Jay Cranda. And I just started listening to all of their content, everything. And they were talking about so many things that our church was not in a position to do. but what we were in a position to do was to build community online even though we weren't broadcasting our services we weren't looking for a global reach we were just trying to build community in digital spaces um to gather together throughout the week and so did that for five years that uh kicked off a relationship that i had with neil smith and jay kranda they were kind enough to respond to my twitter dms uh they will both still do that today here in 2023 If you have questions, but I was trying to figure out how to like structure a social media team and like manage Facebook groups. And so that relationship actually turned into I've never met either of them in person, but there was an opportunity that both of them knew about in Southern California for me to become an online pastor. And they were both recommending that I be the one to take that role. And so I called Jay the next day and I said, hey, why do you think I'm qualified to be an online pastor? Because it just it didn't seem like, you know, that's that's not really what I was had been doing. However, it turns out it was what I had been doing in the sense that I've been pastoring for five years. And I also got really familiar with I become a digital native. um and understood youtube and understand understood tags and understood all of the features of instagram and facebook and facebook groups and he said look there there's you know there's a lot of people that can pastor um but the unique part about the online pastor role and this is i know true of your uh story as well tom is having this experience to be able to optimize what's happening digitally. And he said, not every pastor understands that. And so you have both of those things. And so I would say that you're qualified. That was good enough for me. So I went down the path of applying for that job. And in 2018, moved my family down to Southern California, where we got to become online pastors for a church down there in San Dimas, specifically called One and All Church. And had a great time there. learned a lot of things, grew that online ministry, and then had an opportunity to move to Dallas, Texas to become the online pastor at Shoreline City Church with Earl and Onika McClellan, and most recently have actually transitioned out of that seat because I got an incredible opportunity to work with all of those same teams for different ministries at Pray.com. through a pastor success role. And so we work with the teams. I'm now working with the people and the leaders that I used to serve and sit in the seat up and I get to do that at scale now. And so it's a really cool opportunity, an incredible opportunity to see ministry from the other side, but be familiar from my experience with the seats that I used to sit in. And on the side, what I started in Southern California, that obviously increased the relational equity between Jake Randa, Nils Smith and myself. And I started working specifically with Nils, became one of the co-hosts of the Social Media Truth podcast. So, Tom, it's really humbling for me to have seen the podcast that got me started in ministry that I now get to contribute to that to the larger community. helping other people start that journey as well when they do the Google search of social media church. And so I'm continuing to do that in addition to working at Pray.com. And it's just been a really fun season in my life professionally and get to go on podcasts like this and meet. We haven't met in person yet, Tom, but I can't wait for that day. It is coming. But meet my friends that I've met online. and continue to grow those relationships. So that's my story. [Tom Pounder] That's awesome. That's a great story. Thank you for sharing. I didn't know that you had transitioned out of the online pastor role into Pray.com. So that's really exciting. [Aaron Magnuson] Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_01] That was a transition that's been just coming up in July a year. So I guess so. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so I want to backtrack on some of the things that you said. One is San Dimas. Is that the same San Dimas that's in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? It is. It's one and the same. It's one and the same. That's all I know about. I've been to California a few times, but like San Francisco, San Diego, I think Los Angeles one time. But San Dimas, I have no idea where it is. I just know that that was in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. yeah pretty hilarious if you just drive east uh if you drive east of la it's you'll you'll go through pasadena and then you'll hit san dimas so that's awesome that is very cool what i will say i i love listening to you guys on the social media church podcast i listened to it as well when i was early on i still listen to it i love your your updates on all the things that are happening that's part of the reason why i have you on today because you you really do talk to a lot of great people and you you guys are talking about future tech stuff you guys are talking about current tech stuff you guys are talking about all things that will really help you in online ministers do ministry more effectively so to kind of get us started talking about things i was kind of curious what are you seeing right now as some of the cool things that are happening in online ministry some trends if you want to call it that Some things that are happening good right now, but also some things that you'll see on the future that you're really fascinated with. [Aaron Magnuson] Yeah, short form vertical video. If you haven't figured it out by now, it's everywhere and it's what everybody wants. And Snapchat obviously really kicked this off. And we really only experienced it in stories. But now TikTok has come along and really shown us how this doesn't just have to be life updates of our food and what room we're sitting in, but it can be really creative and informative. And I think that's the unique part, Tom, that we're seeing is the short form vertical video now being adopted as reels on Instagram. I don't know what they call it on Facebook. I guess it's a real on Facebook too. [Tom Pounder] I think it's Reels too. Yeah. [Aaron Magnuson] Okay. Yeah. Reels on both Facebook and Instagram. So Reels for Meta and then Shorts for YouTube. And what we're seeing is that ministries like yourself, because Tom, you talked about this on the podcast when we had you on. um and listen to that episode because tom is going to share his insights into what's going on he's asking me now but tom's got great insights on on the trends what we're seeing is two two things one those platforms want to promote that style of video the consumption is high it's short form there's a lot of content being consumed at um any given session which ultimately increases the session length because probably everybody listening to this podcast has experienced where did all the time go what have i been doing oh i've been scrolling through short form vertical videos watching them over and over and over again And the second part I think about short form vertical video is it's informative. So some of it's creative and entertaining, but especially on TikTok, if YouTube is the king of long form educational content, you're going to YouTube, how do I do this would be a common thing that you're approaching YouTube with. um whether that's like fixing your car or trying to use chat gpt uh tick tock is the short form expedited version of education and i could not believe and i still can't believe in 2023 how many people go to tick tock to learn how to do something not to be entertained not to you know um you know, just scroll through a bunch of videos. But like, I mean, there's one person that I was talking to that's like trying to learn Mandarin through watching TikTok videos because there's people that are doing like language teaching things on their TikTok channels. And so I say all that to say, Tom, we have an opportunity with short form vertical video to preach the gospel, to teach people about the gospel, and to do it in a way where these platforms, aka TikTok, um i can't wait for twitter to get in this game but meta which would be instagram and facebook and youtube are helping us promote and that's something that you've seen tom uh as you've shifted from just the long form rectangular videos to adding in not replacing but adding in the short form vertical videos how much further in terms of views and engagement those those vertical videos go and so i just can't emphasize the vertical video piece enough [Tom Pounder] Yeah. And it's really fascinating because just the other day I saw the CEO of Instagram, he shared on Twitter about how they do their algorithm, how it's not, you know, this made up, but they talk about how stories is important. The feed is important, but reels is up there as well. So if you want to get in people's algorithm, if you want to get into people, you got to be using these vertical formats because that, that is really popular in people. These companies want to invest in that area. [Aaron Magnuson] That's right. That's right. And I don't think there's anything special about recording a vertical video. It's that these are what the platforms want to help you evangelize. And we have an opportunity to ride that wave. And that's really what it is. These are social media platforms. They're just tools. And they're tools that we get to use to better advance the gospel. And I would also say, Tom, the other interview that we did recently on the podcast was with a guy named Ben Bennett. And this calendar year, I say calendar year, this fiscal year. So since he started, I think he's been doing this for eight or nine months. He has seen, he's doing, if you've ever seen like Instagram, I'm talking to your audience, if you've ever seen Instagram preachers or TikTok preachers where they're doing like a gospel presentation, talking about like what somebody might be struggling with and then giving them an opportunity to respond. If you've ever seen those videos in like 30 seconds, it's incredible how concise they can be. but what's happening and what they're seeing is that people are commenting and responding and then he was leveraging bots to identify certain comments like with certain keywords so similar to the calls to action that we have from stage it would be like text this number or raise your hand or do this action to let us know that you just received jesus And so he's doing something very similar within his videos. And whatever that keyword is that he's using, a bot will go through and scan his comments and start direct message conversations with these people. And they interact with the bot for a little bit before they get siphoned into talking to a person. But he's got this whole system set up. He told us that he has seen 70, 70, 70,000 salvations in in these like 10 months. from his content. He's posting three vertical videos a day, three videos every day, and he's just really dialed in and tailored this. But it's not the vertical video so much as it is the opportunity to get in front of people and then also understanding what types of vertical videos are connecting with people. And it's catchy, educational, not just necessarily entertainment, but people, when they're in that scroll tongue, they're looking for something. And when you're able to inject something in there that maybe snaps them out of this trance almost that they're in of just like mindlessly, in a lot of cases, mindlessly looking to whatever they're looking for. um which is what ben was able to do and so we just have a huge opportunity to be taking our sermon content to be taking um even i mean it's so simple tom you just take your iphone or whatever phone you have i used to have an android for a long time um and thank god you converted thank god there is god out there you converted i i converted i'm gonna do a commercial break here i converted this is my conversion story i The reason I converted to Apple is also the reason I still hate Apple. And here's what I mean by that. I hated that Apple grabbed the corner market on community so aggressively that there was actually communication that I was lacking in my life because I was not a part of Apple's ecosystem. And what I mean by that is once I got an iPhone, I discovered... How many more like random FaceTimes you get because it's just there? How many more group chats you're a part of because it's there? And so I converted to Apple because, well, for two reasons. One, that community piece, which is why I hate it that I had to do that because Apple has ruined community if you're not within the Apple ecosystem. And the second reason is I had shifted from, because Androids are incredible for customization. i had shifted from a place in my life from desiring customization on my phone to needing things to work when i needed them to work seamlessly every time and apple has also grabbed the corner market on that and um and so it's just a different different life state so i gained what i'm paying for what i'm paying apple for is increased access is how is how i would talk about it uh so i do have an iphone i do like my iphone but i'm an android sympathizer and i still hate apple the way you do i just i'm paying them so uh anyways anyways um i say all that to say uh The commercial break over the accessibility that you have to be able to create original I'm talking to the pastors now original vertical video content without a team without getting miked up without a camera person or a multi camera setup. to just record meaningful gospel presentations in a short, concise way and create reels that's adding value to people's lives, particularly a younger generation that is starved to hear the gospel and meet Jesus. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, I really agree with you on this. And I'm glad you said all that you said, because I think when people think about getting on reels and on TikTok, they're like, I got to be catchy. I got to be wearing this weird outfit. I got to come at you like really crazy. But you don't. You got to just go and present your real authentic self and share it. Now, again, you don't want to bore anybody with the gospel. The gospel is not boring. So don't bore them on your videos. But you don't have to be all this flashy guy. crazy person, you can just be sharing the gospel and that can be really, really effective. [Aaron Magnuson] Yep. That's right. So you have an opportunity to do that and record vertical video, take vertical video from your, from your sermons as well. The content is already there. That's the beautiful part about it. And then just ride this wave of, of the, of the social media platforms that are trying to help push out vertical video. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, 100%. We've seen a lot of growth on our personal channel as well. Your interview with Ben, I have that one bookmarked and I've been meaning to get to it, but I haven't. Now I'm really going to get to it. [Aaron Magnuson] Yeah, and also I'll shout out Ben really quick too, Tom. In that episode, it's not just like, hey, look at me, look at what I've done. he breaks down the seven point framework. Like he just, he gives all the secrets away in the episode. So this is definitely something to listen to that will give you practical handles on like, oh, okay, this is like, this is the play he's running. And we're trying to tell as many people. And so I'd say the overarching, you were gonna ask another question, but the overarching thing that I, so in addition to vertical video, the overarching thing that I'm seeing is this rise of digital evangelists. that are they don't have a church they don't have a congregation um they they don't have i mean dare i say like they don't have resources they're literally just preaching the gospel they're almost like street preachers without without the obnoxiousness or inappropriate well this depends on where you land i'll say my opinion the inappropriateness of like the bullhorn preacher on the side of the um on the side of the street, they're almost taking this approach and just leveraging the natural discoverability of this short form vertical video. And I didn't really understand that what Ben shares in the podcast is there's like there's almost I don't remember what his name is, but there's a guy who's trained up like 100 people to do this on social media. And so you're actually like seeing a system systematized movement of people who are not just like, Hey, I got, I got TikTok famous. Like they were trained and they're intentional. And there's actually a strategy for how they're evangelizing on social media. And I just think that that's so fascinating, Tom. That's just, that's it's this, it's this pivot that we've made where you don't have to go to. gosh i'm saying a whole bunch of stuff here that might that might keep going keep on going you don't you don't have to go to seminary to to introduce people to jesus in 2023 uh to disciple people uh to to present the gospel in a way that can reach thousands of people you don't have to have a church to get that audience anymore now there's a place for church discipleship matters systematized discipleship matters resources behind discipleship matters people driving by on the street needing a place to go get fed get clothed orphans widows right there's a place for the physical represent representation of church but as far as the presentation of the gospel there's a way to to expedite that now that we've never seen before in a responsible way that can lead to discipleship on the back end where you can get a whole bunch of people exposed to your church and then leverage your church's resources to be able to disciple them once they've committed their life to Jesus. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, I don't know if we've talked about this before, but I will say I don't encourage churches necessarily to be on Twitter. I think Twitter is great. I think it's fantastic. But churches don't have that kind of great impact on it. However, me as tom pounder i have a great impact as a so that's why i do like we do these digital devotionals on from our church but then i also do some separately that are just straight from tom pounder and i call them differently i call them and again people my role is i feel like i'm i have greater impact on places like twitter [Aaron Magnuson] because i'm able to share from tom pounder not new life christian church you know i people are going to listen to me a little bit more because i'm just a regular joe so i i think you're right on yep yeah it's and what you just pointed out tom it's a both and right it's there there's a place for what the church is but you you pastor you church leader you online pastor you communications director whoever's listening to this have an opportunity to evangelize yourself um you're not evangelizing evangelize jesus but um you you yourself have an opportunity to evangelize that doesn't require you hiding behind your pastor or your church um because you have unique things about you right tom's not just talking about jesus but he's meeting people talking about All sorts of different stuff, baseball, movies, old 80s references, right? I love old 80s and 90s. That's right. And there's people out there that care about that as well. And social media is such a beautiful place to blend all those worlds together. Very similar to if you were just in a market space or on a plane with somebody. And that is something your church alone cannot wear or represent. that requires you to represent and the great news is all of those things can work together in synergy but they're not replacing each other it's all additive [Tom Pounder] Yeah, 100%. I think that's awesome. And I strongly encourage it. I think it's great that that guy has been training up people to do that because I think we need to do that more and more as church leaders. We need to do that more and more because online ministry is relational ministry too. And so I'm building relationships online. And again, one of the things I love, and I can't wait for us to meet in person, is I love meeting my Twitter friends that I've been friends with for such a long time when I actually meet them in person. It's like a celebration. [Aaron Magnuson] It is. It is. It's happened. It's happened to me a lot of times and there's going to be a lot of times in the future. And one of the things I like to tell people is I try to warn them and it never works. It actually never works. I let them know that I'm really tall. And every single time I meet people, they're like, wow, you're taller than I thought. And I was like, well, I tried to warn you. [Tom Pounder] um but uh yeah you can't get some stuff from the profile picture and from zoom but it makes it really entertaining when you when you meet each other in person for the first time so i love that um well tell me about something future-wise so something that's about i i know we're talking about ai and if it's ai then so be it but what what is something that you see in the future that's going to continue to to take hold yeah i i think it's [Aaron Magnuson] I think it's what we've been talking about, not vertical video, but the latter half of this conversation of what Ben and his crew of people are doing in terms of a combination of doing what they can do, which is presenting the gospel, and then leveraging AI technology to start but not finish the discipleship process. And so when you're thinking about systems within your church, when you're thinking about systems online, the idea that you can have a bot that is consistently looking out for keywords phrases things that are being said to driving that into like driving that down your funnel through a direct message and then positioning yourself to to be able to actually have real humans that receive that there's a real opportunity we have here to not just reach the masses with gospel presentations and seeing all these baby christians starting to be born but actually responsibly disciple them and i think we have an opportunity as churches and i know that there's going to be organizations that come out um to be able to help come alongside churches uh to to better do this but we have a real opportunity to disciple and so There's this evangelism piece that almost maybe in addition to the pulpit, but I would say maybe in some cases it's like, no, our evangelism is happening through our pastors and what they're doing online. And then our church services and our church is primarily about discipleship and feeding and growth. and of course there's going to be discovery when somebody drives by your church and like what's going on there i'm curious about it or i'm desperate you know i'm at the end of my wits i need to go to church um but i just feel like there's an opportunity tom in the future and what we need to be thinking about is evangelism happens online And evangelism happens through your personhood online and maybe your personal life. And then there's this discipleship piece that starts happening in church through corporate worship. And it's, again... digital evangelism and digital church is not replacing the brick and mortar and that's really key for leaders who are shaking right now or maybe uh really close to turning this podcast off right now to understand but i would be thinking about how can this ai technology help us drive people down our funnel um in a way that's leading to real people, but is giving back time to the preachers to preach, the teachers to teach, and the disciplers to disciple without having to worry about the systems. And so it's not replacing jobs, Tom. I think I've done a good job, and there's been a lot of people who have been doing a good job of writing. And the good job I did is reading, not writing, but writing on AI is not going to replace your job. Maybe for some people, well, it's going to give you time back. It's going to make you more effective. There are things that AI is going to be able to help you with where maybe you get 30% of your time back. And for pastors, teachers, and preachers, 30% of your time back to be able to do more of what you were called to do is absolutely incredible. and so maybe that 30 is what allows you to start doing more evangelism online creating vertical videos doing these things that you wouldn't have been able to do before and so i think the future tom isn't like this maybe new new thing on you know new social media platform or this new um you know whatever i i think it's mostly about leveraging ai to give you time back so that your time is better spent more rich more effective you have that extra coffee with somebody you have that extra conversation you text those five people you weren't able to text before um and you just double and triple down on what you were put on this earth to do which is pastor and shepherd people lead people disciple people and that's what ai i think for the church is gonna best help us do [Tom Pounder] You know, Dave Adamson has said this a few different times on Twitter, but he just said, never have I met an online pastor who is looking to replace the church. And you just said it so succinctly too, is the simple fact of the fear that... online and ai stuff is going to replace what we do in person or the that element of church it's not going to happen nor is it anybody's desire to do that we're using ai as tools to help us do ministry more effectively we're not doing ministry the same way we did back in the 1970s or 80s or 90s if we were we'd be a dying church or no church at all So the reality is we have to adapt. AI provides it. Me as a writer, I like to write a lot. And sometimes I go through writer's block. Well, I pulled up AI and just said, introductory paragraph on this topic. And I didn't use it verbatim, but I use some of the things I'm like, oh, that's a good point. And then I just built off of it. It's kind of like my help and it saved me time. So I agree with you 100%. [Aaron Magnuson] Yep, that's right. Let it be additive and let it speed up processes for you is what I would say. That's what I see the future being. [Tom Pounder] That's awesome. Dude, we could talk for a really long time about this. Unfortunately, I have a time constraint, but I want you to still talk about the Social Media Church podcast a little bit. Talk to me a little bit about that and what do you guys have coming up in the near future? [Aaron Magnuson] yeah all all good stuff there yeah so we recently added on a third co-host and usually the episodes now are some combination of any two of us or one of us um but uh dk hammond is uh the the third co-host and he is um in the creative communications department at embassy city church in uh texas in the doubt in the dfw area and um Irving, I think, is where they are. Anyways, DK is incredible. And yeah, what's next for Social Media Church and what we're doing? First of all, you can go to socialmedia.church, find out everything that we're doing. But it started, if you're not familiar with the podcast, it started in 2013, I believe, with the founder, DJ Chuang. And DJ is one of the most incredible leaders in this space, has been for a long time. He then passed that podcast off to Nils Smith and Nils ran with it. And that's when Jay hopped on and there's been a couple of co-hosts before me, but Nils has been the constant. And it's always been, this is how DJ started it and it's how we've continued it. It's a conversation about technology, about social media, about online discipleship, about... anything online as it pertains to the church and conversations with leaders in the space which is why we had tom on the on the podcast and um we are always trying to connect our audience uh with these voices and really tom how we see it is pastors and church leaders and communications directors are listening to the podcast because they either don't know where to start which is where i was back in in 2013 when i started ministry or they don't have time to do all the research and so what we pride ourselves in is being able to give these 30 minute 40 hour long episodes that concisely uh and comprehensively cover topics that church leaders are interested in that might be a fit for them that might not be a fit for them but they wouldn't have had the time to research it or look into it for themselves and uh or maybe they just hadn't come across these people before i'm sure there's people on our podcast that didn't know who tom was that have now given him a follow on twitter and are listening to the things that he says and so it's really just this melting pot of ideas and people that we want to keep the online church leader space connected resourcing the rest of the church and so that's really what the podcast is we talk about a lot more things than just social media but social media is a good guide for the things that we talk about um And yeah, I mean, coming up, I mean, I've been seeing Nils. Nils has recorded a lot of solo episodes here recently. I don't know where all these people are coming from. And I don't remember her name, so I hesitated to tell this story. But there was somebody in our group chat with DK, Nils, and myself that none of us had heard of that DK was like, she is crushing marketing, like church. marketing on social media um and so what did we do we reached out to her and we're like hey uh we have a podcast we'd love to have you on the podcast and so having the podcast is also just a good excuse to talk to people we want to meet and um you know give a platform to and give leverage to who are doing really incredible things for the kingdom but because the internet is so big and the church is so big and there's so much work to be done in terms of accomplishing the great commission We don't always know who all the names are. And so we like to pride ourselves in saying that our podcast is one of those sources that's going to help connect you to voices you might not have heard of or know. And I'm sure that if you scroll through the 300 plus episodes that we have, there's probably some familiar names on there as well. [Tom Pounder] But yeah, that's what we have going on. That's awesome. Yeah, I love your podcast is great. It's one of the top podcasts, especially in regards to digital ministry that I look forward to. I subscribe to it on Apple. And so I'll include all his links on that. [Aaron Magnuson] for you to subscribe to it too if you're not already doing it they post you're posting pretty regularly like once a week right now right that's the goal is to have an episode out every friday so sometimes we hit it sometimes we don't but but as far as the eye can see right now we'll hit it for the next uh couple months so [Tom Pounder] Yeah, and that's great because not a lot of podcasts dump on Friday. So you can make that your Friday podcast to listen to. Every Friday, listen to the guys. [Aaron Magnuson] Yeah, evangelizing it. [Tom Pounder] Yeah. Well, Aaron, it was great having you on. I wish I could have you on more, but I am going to have you on again. And I got you on before I got Nils on. So there, you're one up on Nils. [Aaron Magnuson] Yeah, I'm number one. So definitely tune in to Nils' episode whenever that comes. [Tom Pounder] uh so that he can uh you know redeem everything that i just said um but yeah thanks tom it's been a pleasure that's awesome well thanks hey man have a great weekend yeah you too all right so what did you think what stood out to you it was great talking to aaron again i really can't wait to meet him in real life and actually see how much taller he is than i am uh it's just great to see about hear about his oregon state beaver's experience to see about his ministry path and to see what he's doing now. I'm really excited about that. And again, he's got a great podcast. So if you've never checked it out, check it out. I've got the links there. I got the show links for the specific ones he talked about. Check those out. They're great resources. Him and Nils are fantastic people who really have a heart for the big church, the big C church. And so if you've got questions, if you've got thoughts, put them in the comment section below or put them on Twitter. I've got Aaron's Twitter handle in there. Click on his link. Ask them a question. You can ask me a question at TAPounder. That's my Twitter handle. We'd love to carry this conversation online so we can encourage each other and spur each other on in this online environment. All right, so that wraps it up for another episode of the Church Digital Sidekick podcast. As always, if you enjoyed the podcast, subscribe to it. Click on the subscribe button. It's on Apple. It's on Google. It's on YouTube. It's at the Church Digital as well. There's lots of places where you can go and click on it and subscribe to it. Go subscribe to it so you can get these every time they come out. All right, heroes. Well, I hope you have a great rest of your day, a great rest of the week. And until next time, have a great one.