Name: Can Your Church be Data Informed, and Spirit Led?
Uploaded: 2025-03-10T18:16:04.727Z
Duration: 30 min 4 s
Description: Can Your Church be Data Informed, and Spirit Led?

Transcript for "Can Your Church be Data Informed, and Spirit Led?": Can you hear me? I mean, I know I can't hear anybody else, so that's gonna be this is gonna be interesting. I haven't done one of these before, and it's not, like, with people in the meeting. So Yeah. That's exactly right. I do have an invisible audience. What's up, Alex? From Tennessee. There you go. Madison, Wisconsin. Alright. Hey, Sue Ann. Also, do me a favor and type in what your role is if you're a staff member or volunteer or, what department you're most attached to, what teams. We'll give it a few minutes here and then we can start. Hey, Jess. Elliot, what's up, my man? I was got about to shoot you an email. I was gonna text you, but I was like, I don't have a cell phone number. So I was like, oh, sweetie. He's here. Alex, welcome to the very first breakout. Here we go. I hope to not disappoint. Yeah. Please do, Will. That'd be great. Spirit led, data driven. Yeah. This is the tension. Right? Faith versus data. What's the role? Long Beach, California. Hello, Amy. Director of shared ministry. What does that mean, Sue Lynn? Like, put that in the chat there for us. Well, we got about two more minutes before we get started here. Hey, Danny. Welcome. Yeah. So just asking, where are you guys from, and then what is your role? Curious what your, your what are you curious about with the data? Like, what brought you into this breakout? Engagement. Shared ministry means engagement. Interesting. Why not just call it director of engagement? Might be a little easier or faster to understand. Julia, welcome. Where are you watching from, Julia? Michael, pastoral care. Oh, man. Love it. Love it. Is that Chillicothe? I'm gonna probably brutal the pronunciation of that. My apologies, Christine. Hey, Julia from Knoxville. Michael Scott, Virginia Beach. I'm from Greenville, North Carolina, my man. Yeah. So I've spent I've spent a lot of time, back in the high school, college days, ECU, not catching a whole lot of waves, Virginia Beach, but I've done my fair share. What church are you with, Michael? Joshua, nice to have you here. Data and tools. Yes. To drive it forward. Elevate. Alright. Cool. Fantastic. Alright. Well, let's do this. Let's get started because I don't we wanna make the most of our time. Quick introduction. Jeff Daigle. I am the marketing strategic partnerships manager here at Studio c. I live in Phoenix. I actually live in Scottsdale, Arizona. Offices are in Phoenix. Moved here in August of twenty twenty to go on staff at a church. I've got about twenty years as an executive pastor, overseeing creative and communications for multiple churches in my adult life. I'm about about to turn 50 years old, so I'm at a unique season where I'm rethinking. I'm now an empty nester. I've got three grown, sons. My wife and I are hitting twenty eight years this summer. So, yeah, we find ourselves in a unique position. I've got about ten plus years in the marketplace either as a design agency owner or as a creative director for full service ad agencies. So I like to think of the church world of what I've done with creative and communications and what I've done in the, marketplace as a creative director both doing the same thing, and that is connecting organizations to humans, to people, Right? To help them take a step forward. For some, it was to buy a product or a service, and then in the church life, it's to help follow Christ and take next steps of faith. So that's me just to give you some some idea of what I bring into this conversation. What I'm gonna share with you is a lot of life experience and real time practical and tactical tools to move forward. So let me share my screen. We're gonna go through this. And if someone can just give me a thumbs up to make sure that you can see, that everybody is seeing. Got it. There we go. Thanks, Elliot. Amy, you're just in Scottsdale. Spring training. Who'd you go see? Empty nesting is awesome. It is awesome. It's an adjustment. I cried a lot for the first two weeks that, I'm not gonna lie. I'm missing my sons on a daily basis, but they're all doing great, Dodgers and Angels. Okay. So you might notice this is not my this is actually my boss's office. He's got some baseball paraphernalia. He's a die hard. I'm not. So I'm not an imposter. I'm not a pretender. I just we we have a shared office office space, so he gave me his office to do this. Alright. Here we go. Can you be data informed and spirit led or faith driven? And this is the tension. Right? It's like we often think that these two things live in tension with one another. What is the right balance? Like, is there a balance? Is there a right balance? And if so, what is that balance? Do they complement one another or do they fight against each other? So to start, what we're gonna do is let's define very quickly. There's a difference between being data driven and data informed. Data driven says, the data says this, therefore, we can or cannot do this. Right? So if we take the data, and then based on what we learned from the data, it it determines the answer. So a lot of times, it actually restricts or limits our faith. It restricts our action, and it's based solely on what we see. Whereas data informed says, hey. The data says this. What do we discover from it? What is the opportunity? Right? And so the Bible is replete with stories. We know that data matters, numbers matter. There's all sorts I mean, there's a whole book called Numbers. Right? So let's just take a couple examples. You know, in Deuteronomy 17, the Lord tells basically says, hey. Listen. Do not count your chariots and your horsemen. Right? Why? Because if you count the data, you're going to put your faith and your trust in the size of your army, not in who the Lord is. Now you've also got stories of where it fuels fates. Take the Israelites, and they are they send spies into Canaan. Right? So 12 spies go in, 10 come back. All 12 report on what they saw. They give the data. 10 basically say, it's too big. They're too strong. There's no way we can do it. We we can't go in. And then two, Joshua and Caleb go, what a great opportunity. Right? So one is data driven. One is data informed. You've got Noah building an ark with precise specifications. It hasn't rained, but he's trusting, right, that what the Lord has told him to do is that it's going to rain, and so now he's building based on the data. You've got the story that's going to the New Testament, the story of four men who are carrying a friend on a mat, and they come to a house, and to get to Jesus, and what's the problem? There's so many people. Right? It's so packed they can't get in. Data driven was a, we can't get in. It's too crowded. It's too packed. Sorry, got sorry, bud. Today's not your lucky day, and off they go. Data informed says, wait. There's still an opportunity. What else can we do? What must we do? And then it leads them to go to the roof and then meticulously and painstakingly slow his hair apart the roof and then lower their friend through the roof to Jesus to be healed. Right? So data informed and data driven, what we are advocating for is being data informed. That it should actually fuel your faith. It should fuel your instep with the spirit. Right? So, even in the story Jesus feeds the 5,000. Right? Philip says, Jesus, this it'll take half a year's wages, not counting today's inflation, to feed all these people. Right? And so then you have the five loaves and the two fish, and there's a great miracle that takes place. So this is the key difference. Right? So we do not want to be data driven as believers, as followers of Christ, as spirit filled, who have the holy spirit dwelling inside of us to hear the father. We want to be data informed. It does play a role. I just went to the doctor, two weeks ago. Again, I'm turning 50. I wanna get a physical. Imagine if I just walk into, I just walk into the doctor. It's my first time seeing this doctor. I've never met with her before. And she just looks at me and she goes, ah, you look healthy. I think you're great. Do you need a prescription for anything? And then just sends me on my way. Would I trust her as a doctor? I I I wouldn't, and I hope you wouldn't either. Right? So I asked her, hey. Listen. I feel like I'm in great shape. Like, I exercise a lot. I eat well. I'm staying active. I stay pretty mobile. I I feel like I am doing really well. That's one thing to just think. Right? But I want the data to prove it and to show. So I had a whole litany of blood tests done. I had my, you know, cholesterol, all the all the different things that come with it. And then we look at the data to determine, oh, this is what's low, this is what's high. And now based on what I've determined, what I've seen, now what do I do with it? Right? So this is the process, a healthier process of leveraging data. As you gather it, you observe it, and then interpreting it, and then acting on it. The challenge comes in in the interpretation. Right? Because we are prone to confirmation bias to look at data to reinforce what we've already presumed and already assumed to be true, and so then we just want to we tend to prematurely jump the gun instead of what do we take with these findings, how do you properly analyze it, what questions do you ask of it, and then what do you do with it. Now if you think data is only numbers, right, if you feel like data is just the numerical values that we are assessing, you're gonna miss the bigger story because this is and I have this definition. While data can include numerical values, it is a broader concept that tells a story beyond just raw figures, providing richer insights when analyzed properly. Why does that matter for us as church leaders? So you've just gone through the main session. There's a lot of talk about knowing the one, caring for the one, discipling the one. We want to know the one. Now here's the thing. Again, I've got twenty years in vocational ministry. I know my skill set. I loved working in the lobby. I loved looking for people who were new, and I knew that I could have read body language all the tone. I knew how to just ask questions and extract insights from conversations with people who were new. The problem is while I'm having this great one on one conversation, a hundred people have walked past me. And so now I can no longer do this at scale. We don't have enough staff, enough volunteers to catch everybody's coming through the doors in the lobby. Right? So you need to find a way as church leaders what tools can we leverage to be able to know where our people are? Because not everybody comes in at the exact same pace and place. Right? So there are some people who were coming into your church, they have just moved to town, they came from a great church, they're looking for a great church, they come in, they're ready to get rolling, They are easy to plug in. You've got some people who come in. They're they're agnostic. They're exploring faith. They're not sure. They have a lot of doubts, a lot of questions. How you speak to and how you guide those two people and everyone in between needs to be unique. Right? So data basically allows us what do we know about people, how do we begin to understand their profiles, and how do we begin to guide them at scale. Now let's take an example, and I want you guys to think critically here. Okay? This is a real example that I encountered, and I'm gonna walk you through it. I'm gonna invite you. If you want to, you're welcome to drop comments into the chat. So here's the example. Family of five, you're at your service, family of five comes in, it's a husband and wife, mid forties, they've got three teenage daughters. Okay? It is their first time. It comes out pretty quickly. I knew it was their first time because I had never seen them before. It was on a it was on a Saturday night service. We often had fewer people on that at that service time. And the husband, as I'm engaging him, simply says, you know, because I asked you what brings you in, and he simply says, hey. We're just checking things out, possibly to see where to get plugged in. Alright. Here's what I'm gonna ask you guys to do in the chat. Where do most church staffers and volunteers take this conversation from here? If this was you and you're having this conversation with this family and the and the husband just says, we're just checking things out, looking for where to get involved, where to get plugged in, where do most conversations tend to go next? Latoya, just look at your chat. Easy tied. I'm not sure where in the in the same breakout. We're doing data informed and spirit led. Elliot, come to our next steps class. Yep. That's one of them. That is one of the most common ones. Kids in youth ministry. Right. Students. Right. So we're looking at we're gonna do men's groups, women's groups, marriage classes, date nights, student ministry. Here's what you need to know about us. Yasmin, thank you so much. That's exactly, what what are your interests. Right? Now would you be hear hear me out. Would you be wrong to go down that road to ask those questions or to say, try to get them into those next steps? 10 different automations all blasting the automated campaign. Here's what I would say. Would you be wrong to go down that step with them? Not necessarily, but maybe. And here's why, because we're I think we're asking the wrong question. It's not, let me get all your information. Let me get you plugged in. We wanna go now he said, we just wanna get plugged in. This is where we often don't pay attention to the data because if you say, well, what's the data? Well, you could say the data is they're in their forties. There's five of them, three teenage girls. But let's ask a better question. Because here's here's really the the bigger question that we're gonna come from is what is the best question to ask them? Not how do we get you into our next steps, here's our growth track, here's our starting point, we have men's ministry, we have women's ministry, student ministry, all these things. Because a lot of our a lot of our follow-up questions are often what's best for the church, right, for our organization, not oftentimes what's best for them. And so this is where the data informed and spirit led come into play. Right? So what are the data point? What are the not so obvious data points of this family? What data points should you be looking for? I'm reading the chat to see what comes in. What's important in your church search? Yeah. So here's what I would say. The data points that we often are not looking for. How did you find us? Again, they're questions about us. Right? In a sense, you could find out how they found but here's what you should pay attention to that's not often considered data points. Eye contact, body language, posture, tone of voice. Did you know that of all communication, 93% of a person's communication is nonverbal? 93% is nonverbal. And most of the time, we take what we hear and see immediately and then go into what we think is going to be the best path for that person. Here's the question for you. What kind of person comes in for the very first time to your church and says, we're looking for somewhere to get plugged in? Describe that person to me. What characteristics can we safely assume about that person if they're using language of we're looking we're checking things out and just to see where we can get plugged in? A believer. Yep. Hopefully. They're extroverted, possibly leadership oriented. What else? What's the most basic you you know who doesn't talk like that? There you go. Andrea, there we go. Church people talk like that. So I knew instantly this family had church background. Right? Ready to get their Saturday night. Okay. These are all great details. Maybe they're ready. We don't wanna assume they're ready. We just know they're at our church on a Saturday night. Something's off. Right? We gotta pay attention to the deeper levels as we are so I think data should be fueled by compassion and curiosity. Okay? So obviously I have some church background, so this leads to different questions. Instead of, let me tell you where I want you to go next, I start to being informed by the data that I'm picking up, the body language, I could tell that she was there was some hesitancy in her and the wife, and I was like, okay. And he's trying to be it's a little bit stand it's not standoffish, but it just felt scripted a little bit. And so I asked them, you know, well, where have you guys been going to church? Right? And then begins the story where they've been at this other church. The church has now gone through a transition. Right? They're closing this church is a multi site church, and they're closing the campus closest to them. And the next closest campus is a forty five minute drive, so now they're looking for a new church. Now I think there's probably a hundred questions you come up with. I simply asked, how long were you at that church? Right? Here's their answer. Nineteen years. Okay. So now I have a new piece of data driven by curiosity and compassion to read through the lines, between the lines. How long? Nineteen years. How old are their kids? They're teenagers. So what does that tell you about where their kids have been raised for the last whatever number of teen years that is? That means this couple has been at that church for nineteen years. Imagine this is you. You're now having to start all over. What's going through your mind? What's going through your head? The pain, the heartache. And as soon as I just said, you've been there nineteen years, I simply said, that tells me I said I could be wrong, but it tells me something's wrong. And I said I'm really sorry that you are now finding yourself having to start over. You know what happened? The water works just began. Right? Because I did not engage these people based on next steps that would benefit our church. I I leveraged the data that I was collecting from the conversation to treat them like a human being and to be close to them and to be empathetic and to show curiosity and to show compassion and kindness, and it's what their heart needed. He said, we're looking for a place to get plugged in, but what they needed was to be cared for. They needed someone to walk with them and say, hey. Let's just how do we come alongside of you as a family to help you find some healing and some hope and some comfort? Right? Therein lies the beauty of being data informed and spirit led. Now I wanna run through these, and here's why. The church has one job, to make disciples. Right? So as a church, you need the ability to accurately guide this person who comes into your church and guide them to becoming a fully follower fully developed follower of Christ, whatever you wanna call it, right, to be sent into the world because we believe the local church is the hope of the world. The problem is you have to guide that person and all of those people. Right? So this goes back to how do we create personalized engagement at scale. Alright. So being data informed, here's some just basic things. Establish your objectives. Well, we want our church to grow. We want our church to feel small. Right? Because as your church grows in size, the more difficult it becomes to maintain a personal touch. So you want people better connected, and you want to mobilize your church because that is the hope of changing your city. Alright. How do you do this? You need to know the one. Most technology solutions prioritize one size fits all, and we are big believers that technology should be submissive to the human side of it. You don't need more flash and hype and and cool shiny objects. All of your technology, whatever you choose to use, should be submissive to the methodology of connecting human to human. Right? One size fits one is way better than one size fits all. It works with baseball caps. It does not work for discipleship and care. So if you knew, what would you do? Right? If you knew certain things about someone, what would you do? If you've never heard of these two assessments, in the words of the great theologian Ice Cube, assess yourself before you wreck yourself, the ACES quiz, the Adverse Childhood Experiences, and the Holmes Rahe Stress Test, At the church I was at, we implemented these into every, starting point process, every new person that we met because it helped us locate where that individual was as a human before we got them involved in in our track. Use data to pastor and disciple your church. Observe the trends, make adjustments, let go of something. How do you create strategic and engaging com content? So here's the thing. To effectively guide people at scale, you need clear strategy methodology, where are we taking people. One, we have to then know where they are. Think of a GPS. Right? Put in your destination on Google Maps. The very next thing it asks you is, okay. Well, starting from where? But you can't start everybody at the same place. They're coming in at different seasons of life, different experiences, different walks on their spiritual journey, different starting points. You need to be able to leverage data to help guide accurately by dynamic segments. And then have a way to talk to them. So just real quick, and I'll get you to the what we have to give away for you guys is we do. We have two products that we work together with ministry brands inside of Amplify to offer, have your church person on staff find out and inquire about this. ChurchIQ is our macro movement, understanding our the analytics of the macro movements of your people, and then our member engagement solution is now being able to speak to them one to one inside of your existing church app. So it's an analytics platform and it's a messaging tool. K? So when it comes to analytics, it's really kind of these phases. It's hindsight of what happened. And most metrics tools that are out there only ask the question, what happened? What happened this past week compared to the last week, compared to last month, last quarter, last year? And then you need to start moving into, okay, well, why did that happen? And then what do we learn from it? And then what if if if these trends continue to happen, what might happen? And then how do we help make it happen? How do we actually begin to predict looking at historical data of what trends, who who might be at risk of disengaging from the church? So, you know, one of the things that came up that I saw, was groups. Do you know where your groups are in the city? Do you know what where your people are coming from in the city? Do you know what's missing? Do you know where you need to plant groups? This is where you begin to combine data with faith, being spirit led. And this is the we have a white paper to give away to you if you wanted to scan that QR code. That'll take you to you can download this. It's can you be data informed and spirit led. It it looks at the story of Jesus and Lazarus. Right? And oftentimes, we we can jump to, oh, I remember that story. Yeah. He was dead, you know, four days, and then Jesus raised him from the dead. But, again, if you only look at data as the as the numerical information, man, you miss the bigger part of the story. So the best thing I can encourage you guys on is use data and then be really curious about the data that you're getting and don't see data as only numbers. When you're dealing with humans, with people, think about yourself. How do you want to be treated? How do you want to be approached? Hopefully, and I imagine, we all deeply desire to be pursued with compassion and curiosity. And curiosity requires humility and a lot of questions. Right? So as you're gathering data, leverage that to then inform, okay. Now that we know these things about our people, either one to one or at scale or these groups or these dynamics or this segment of our audience, what must we do? Right? Now that we know, what must we do? Alright. I'll leave it there. We got about a minute to go. Any burning questions that you might have for me, I love to see the comments that you guys had, in the chat. Andrew, I'm seeing your comment there. They're grieving the loss. You're right. They are. You know, speaking of grief, I got forty five seconds. Somebody told me this and it changed my life, pretty deeply. They said we're often taught in life how to acquire things. We're not taught how to lose things. And in my personal life, we've had to navigate a lot of grief and disappointment and loss, not even just from people passing, but just understanding you're going through life and major transitions. So that Holmes Reiki stress test, just go to stress.org. Right? You can find that as a self assessment or the ACES, childhood experiences. The whole thing is it's it's all about how to better engage the one. Alright, everybody. Thank you so much. It's been an honor. Appreciate your time.