Mingo Palacios:

Hey everybody, thanks for tuning into the PD Podcast. You know from time to time we get the luxury of traveling around the country and actually bringing our podcast to conferences and events that are happening all over the country. This conversation took place at Thrive Conference. It’s an incredible one hosted by Bayside Church. Enjoy the episode.

Mingo Palacios:

Thank you for being here for those on the podcast. Welcome to the PD Podcast. My name is Mingo and today we are sitting in the airstream at Thrive Conference in Sacramento. We are stuffed to the gills with some social media mavens, if I will, several people who have influence in the tens of thousands, but more importantly, people who have a deep conviction about what matters most when we share what’s happening in each of our personal lives and as our audience is made up largely of emerging leaders inside of ministry and seasoned leaders. This is such a timely topic for this generation and the generation that’s trying to figure out whether or not social really is a key component that they should or shouldn’t invest in. So would each of you guys do me a favor and just introduce yourselves as we go round the table and then we’ll dive into the topic.

Adrian Humble:

Yeah. So, my name is Adrian Humble and super pumped to be here on the podcast. You guys have a beautiful airstream and I handle all the online marketing for Life Church and so anything social related for that.

Jeff Moors:

My name is Jeff Moors. I’ve been in vocational ministry now for a couple of decades and I’m on social media @jeffmoors. Father of teenagers, just a lover of people.

Alejandro Reyes:

Yo, Yo. Yo. Alejandro Reyes at Alejandro Reyes Church Marketing Labs, Dad, family man, Youtube-er, husband and friend. So, super pumped to be here. Work with churches of all sizes on how to best leverage social and digital.

Haley Veturis:

Hey guys, so glad to be with my Purpose Driven Church peeps. What up? I’m Haley Veturis from Saddleback Church. That’s @haleyveturis on all social channels and I run social media for Saddleback Church for the main brand channels and our 19 locations.

Sean Cannell:

What’s up everybody? My name is Sean Cannell and I help leaders build their influence with online video. I do that on Youtube through a channel called Think Media and I’m pumped to be on the podcast.

Mingo Palacios:

So excellent. Guys, thank you so much for being here and Miss Haley, thank you for joining us. The topic at hand, we’ve all been here at the conference talking to several hundred leaders about how they can leverage social media, but what very few people are talking about, I think, just candidly are some of the pitfalls of the dangers with May the fourth being today, some of the dark sides that we have to address with social media. I would say it’s no surprise that probably each of us have found ourselves an hour later, with a sore thumb, right? Scrolling through hundreds, if not several hundred posts or pictures and then wondering, “Where in the world did my time just go? What in the world is this doing to my psyche as I’m digesting? We talked about information overload. So this is very real. The question is from each of your guys’s expertise from each of your guys’s corner, what have you personally experienced? Maybe we’ll start there. We’ll do a little bit of self-exposure that you’ve said like, “Man, something’s not right here.”

Adrian Humble:

Yeah. I think one of the things that consistently battle when it comes to this social and being, you know, maybe like the dark side of it is at a point where I’m on social all day for ministry and work. Sometimes I neglect my own channels because I get a little jaded at the end of the day of like always posting, always being there. And then I find like, man, sometimes I just want to unplug, you know? And so I think that’s definitely something. But then at the same time too, I know that I need to post because I know that people are following and watching and I have influence and I want to lead them in the right direction. So it’s kind of like, what is that? Is that information overload like what we talked about or social media overload or is it just, how do you find and draw that line?

Mingo Palacios:

There’s a tension. There’s a tension from how much and how little how connected and how disconnected. Right?

Haley Veturis:

Yeah, and kind of along those lines, Adrian, you said you’re wanting to unplug. The dark side for me is definitely rest. This is a position that a lot of churches haven’t really quite come to value, so they’re not investing efforts in building a real team around it, so they’re really lucky to have one person do it, but that’s not enough because social media is awake 24/7 and that’s a lot of pressure for one person. Even with automated tools, even with scheduling. You use automation, you don’t abuse automation, but rest is biblical. God said create for six days and on the seventh you rest. And my struggle has been there’s just no space for that. It’s a nice concept, but we’re not building in space or teams that can support that.

Mingo Palacios:

That was really good. You know, I’d be guilty to say that I’m less inclined to think of having a social media team because most people think the way that they’re viewing it is through a singular device and so they’re thinking it can be managed by a singular person, but then when you talk about having 19 campuses, let alone the several thousand people in ministries that it represents, it can become a burnout machine for one person to have to try to figure out how to manage responsibly. So Hailey, I really appreciate that point.

Alejandro Reyes:

I think for me it’s the fear of missing out. Like every single morning-

Mingo Palacios:

Ah, the famed FOMO.

Alejandro Reyes:

FOMO. I wake up every single morning going to Twitter search like trending topics and want to know everything that’s happening in the world. Then I go to bed, the same exact thing. By the end of the day, what is happening in the world and it’s like every single day wanting to know exactly. It just becomes this addiction where I need to know everything that’s happening. If I don’t know, I feel like I’m missing out. And sometimes you’re so focused online in front of your screen instead of like, being present with the things around you, having a family, being a dad and yeah, so it’s interesting

Sean Cannell:

And it is interesting because you’re totally right. It actually is addictive. I mean, social media, Nottingham, Trent University discovered that there’s Facebook addiction disorder and I have to admit, I can relate to this. We could probably all. What’s the first thing you grab when you get out of bed in the morning? Right? And what do you do?

Mingo Palacios:

Toothbrush? No?

Sean Cannell:

You open your feeds. My Wife wishes I did-

Sean Cannell:

But it’s usually that phone first and it really makes me think, I mean, that is a reality. I realized if I don’t have my phone on me sometimes I’m like, what do I have? I get some anxiety or I find that I’m checking it multiple times a day and then sometimes I have to check myself and be like, “Why am I even checking? I just checked.” I like to call it the wheel where I check in on Instagram and then I check in on Facebook and then I see what happened on Twitter and then I go to Youtube comments and then I just start over again and then I’m like, “Man, what is happening?” If I’m not attentive to myself and my own time, I’m like, “Man, I’m not necessarily in a good pattern right now.”

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, that’s good. I like what you had talked about patterns. That’s a very important thing. I think that humans are built on rhythms, right? We’re built as a rhythm, a living organism. It’s crazy now that all of this digital content has now inundated those rhythms. And I think about some of the greatest books that I’ve read on peace and contentment and a self-awareness. There was zero digital in that era of those great pens. And now with this illustrious, shiny distraction. You guys are confessing as the practitioners. So how much deeper are the consumers by this moment? Right? So Jeff, you’ve got some teenage children in your household. You might have the oldest kids amongst this circle, right? 15, 13 and 11. So as you bring the mic your direction.

Jeff Moors:

15, 13, 11.

Mingo Palacios:

Tell me as somebody who is a content creator, and then now you know your kids are coming in. We have a lot to address when it comes to, FOMO is one of it, but I think the false perception of self, right? So we’ve got a lot, you’ve heard the phrase “Post the best and delete the rest.” Right? And now that’s a false sense of humanity that we have an entire generation growing up into. My parents, less affected by it. But I know your kids, wrestling hard with it.

Jeff Moors:

Completely. I think one of the things is when I was younger growing up and I missed a party, I didn’t know that until after the weekend at school, everyone’s like, “Oh.” But my kids actually get to see, to know that they’re missing out on that event. They’re missing out on that social thing because everyone’s posting, they’re having a blast, everyone smiling and they’re not. Or they’re doing it to their friends because everyone’s always being left out in some way, shape or form and social media makes you keenly aware of that.

Mingo Palacios:

It amplifies it.

Jeff Moors:

It amplifies that. Now as, as a dad who understands social there, there’s also another hard thing that comes into play is that I want to help them manage their brand because they’re really creating a brand of who they are on social media. And so for me, it’s kind of stepping back and just allowing them to kind of be who they are on social, post not everything but I guess be honest in their posts. But also I want to say something too, social gets a bad deal because everyone’s talking about the fake life because not everyone’s posting the real or the “authentic” of what’s taking place in people’s lives. But if you look back through your photo albums, you don’t take pictures of times that sucked. You know what I mean?

Mingo Palacios:

Why is my mom was having a breakdown? Let’s get a photo of that.

Jeff Moors:

Nobody does and we think for some reason we need to do that on social.

Mingo Palacios:

This is a good point.

Jeff Moors:

I’m not going to be like, “Hey, fighting with my wife.” Because when we did polaroids were we did when you had to develop film, it wasn’t like, “Honey, let’s capture this moment.” You know, like, no, you want to capture the good times in life and that’s what you want to see. And I think that you can be authentic in your good times. If you’re having to shift and change and put the sunglasses in the right spot and the right angle until you get the picture? Maybe you’re taking things overboard, but if you’re hanging out with your buddies on a cool bridge, yeah get that shot because that’s what you would have done back in the day anyways.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, that’s good. There is something about the, the topic of authenticity keeps coming up, keeps coming, keeps coming up. And Jeff, I think you brought up a great point about the fact that we can be authentic. The question is why are we obsessing over posting as much of life as we feel obligated to? Jeff, you’ve got-

Jeff Moors:

Well let me jump in. I don’t want to dominate here but we live in a society of instant gratification and now we live in a society of instant gratification because as soon as you post, you start getting those likes and that it releases those endorphins in your brain. Dopamine. It becomes an addiction to where I want to know and then that’s how we become validated is the likes and the comments and it’s a major social thing because I noticed that you didn’t like my photo.

Mingo Palacios:

I’ve been called out on that dude. I’ve been called out on not liking somebody stuff and they go, “Dude, is there a beef between us?” And I go, “You know, I just haven’t been on.”

Mingo Palacios:

“I love you as a person. I love you. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.” But it’s crazy, that’s a keen, we’re measuring your satisfaction with me in my life based on whether or not I’m double tapping on something that you posted a few hours ago. There’s more weight, I think, that we’re putting on our shoulders these days, than probably our Maker ever wanted us to with this tool. So, what are some key insights? Sean, you gave us a great one yesterday about it. If somebody’s account is making you feel a certain way, as Sean unpacks this one, would you guys do me a favor and be thinking about your own pieces of advice? For us to be able to guard ourselves, like Jeff said, it’s not like, Ooh my gosh, we’re playing with drugs” but in a certain way we kind of are, right? So what are some of those key insights as influencers or as people who have been in this world for long enough that you can say, “You know what, this one, I use myself. This is something that I use for me.” Start us off, Sean.

Sean Cannell:

Yeah, that’s good. You know, uh, there’s this famous quote from theater door Roosevelt that says, ‘Comparison is the thief of joy.” And what’s crazy is he said that when there was no social media and so comparison has never been a good thing, but comparison, jealousy, envy, feeling less than is definitely one of the dark sides of social media. And it was actually an insight that I gained from one of the mentors in my life. And she was saying, if you’re going through your feed and you actually keep seeing certain posts or certain people that are posting, and this doesn’t mean that you don’t respect or love what they’re doing. Especially as church leaders. Maybe you just see, you’re like, “Shoot, we were just down by 50 in attendance and they just had like 50 people make a decision for Christ. Who am I? I’m worthless.” You might want to unfollow every time you see that happen. You see maybe somebody that you’re jealous of, that’s you’re envious of, you just unfollow them and curate your feed because that’s not helping you. We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves in life. We’re in our own lane. God’s given us our own talents and stewardship and things to handle and if we’re following somebody that we kind of want to see what they’re doing, but every single time we look at it, it just makes us feel less than or makes us feel jealous. That’s probably not healthy and it’s up to us to basically we need to discipline ourselves with social media or social media can be detrimental to our lives. At the end of the day, every leader listening has their own lane that they need to be in. I think you should kind of put some blinders on at some point if you find yourself comparing too much and potentially curate your feeds so you can focus on the thing that God has called you to do.

Mingo Palacios:

Really good.

Adrian Humble:

I think one of the things that I’m thinking about when I post is like, “What’s the purpose for me posting this? Am I posting this because I know it’s going to get a lot of likes and it’s going to give me that gratification?” Like for example, I have a two and a half year old daughter. If I post a picture of her, I will get a lot of likes because she’s cute, right? But am I doing it because that was a really good moment that I want to remember for myself? Or am I doing it because I know that I need like a dopamine hit and I’m going to feel good because that’s going to give me gratification. So I think for me, like when I look at that, I just kind of like have that mental check and balance of like, “Let me capture this moment because three years from now I want to look back and remember it and I don’t want there to be 150 likes because I know it’s cute.” Right?

Mingo Palacios:

Right.

Alejandro Reyes:

No, I think the biggest thing for me is again, kind of echoing what you’re saying, just why am I here, what’s the purpose of this thing? And if I don’t keep reminding myself that I’m going to think about the comparison, I’m going to think, “Man, this person didn’t like it.” And when we’re honest, if you’re just keeping it real here on May the fourth be with you like man, like why didn’t they like my thing? And so what I’ve started to do is just like scroll through the feed. I try to like almost everyone that I’m following because I know that it feels good to them. I want them to feel noticed because sometimes other people feel noticed. We feel that dark side of it, but they probably feel it a lot more. They don’t have the context. I think sometimes that we understand as practitioners, so they probably deal with it a little bit more than even us. And so I’m out there just liking other people, understanding why I’m on this thing and kind of for that purpose, why am I creating this, you know, what’s the purpose of me being here? And hopefully it adds some value to someone’s life, you know?

Sean Cannell:

And I hate to interject here, but I think that’s so good because social media, we’re talking about the dark side, but there’s also such a light side to it. There’s so many chances to reach people and it’s the modern form of communication. You talk about encouragement as church leaders, we should be building each other up and encouraging one another. And a like on someone’s post or comment on someone’s post to take time out of your day to do that on someone that’s in your church or another leader or someone who again-

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah how often have you been stoked when somebody likes and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this guy, this account, this person.” They’re like, “They’re watching.” That certainly is a bump, right? That’s a boost.

Sean Cannell:

It’s huge. And the Bible talks all about encourage one another daily. So the chance to actually take some time to go on social, just to add that encouragement to others, that’s powerful.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s a great point.

Jeff Moors:

No you go.

Haley Veturis:

I’m going to go back to the point about rest.

Mingo Palacios:

Someone needs a nap.

Haley Veturis:

I love all of this but I think if you can take like a week away, like a sabbatical away from social media. If you have a job where you can do that, I would highly recommend that you do because the world is still going to turn if you’re not there checking on it 24/7. Everything is still going to be happening and you can encourage people like send them a text message that’s even more personal than one like among 300 other likes. And so what can do outside? You can send them a note. I love handwritten notes. I love receiving those because somebody took the time to sit and write it down for me and send it to me versus just another comment of 13 comments or one like of 200 likes on this post. A personal text on my birthday means so much more than one of 400 happy birthday posts on my Facebook wall. So think about like how can you make it personal again, outside of social, because life happens outside of social.

Mingo Palacios:

Jeff, were you going to say something?

Jeff Moors:

I was. I was going to say a couple of things. One to add onto that, I mean the relational aspect. I mean social media is social. It’s meant to be social, it’s meant to been connecting in stuff and I think that as leaders, if you are a leader, if you are a pastor, then you can utilize your social media to pastor your people. You can now disciple thousands of people simply by how they follow your social media. I’ve shown hundreds and thousands of young adults what it’s like to be a good husband and what it’s like to be a good father because that’s so much of who I am. That’s what they see and then that’s what they follow, that’s what they get. And so I think that you can be very intentional with your social media to pastor, to disciple, to develop people and other leaders simply by what you post on your Instagram, on your Facebook and Snapchat and so on and so forth. But I do want to say though that even as a 39 year old man when it comes to who I follow, who I don’t follow, as a 39 year old man who’s well established in ministry, there are certain people I will not follow because either a. Jealousy or b. There’s a part of me that wants to morph into someone or something of who they are. And I think so much for our young people, they’re trying to become these other people because they’re trying to figure out who they are. And there’s all of these social media stars and Youtube Stars and stuff that now they’re trying to talk like, be like, and act like and they’re missing out on who they are. So I think it’s important to even a young age to establish who you follow and why you follow. Like I follow professionally, relationally and inspirationally I’m going to follow people that are in the same professional that I met, but I want to connect with, that I want to encourage, that I want to hang, that I want to follow relationally, whether it’s just friends and family in my life, I’m going to follow things that inspire me. So I follow certain brands and certain companies that I look at and go, “I want to rip that idea off. I want to steal that. I want to make it mine because great artists steal.”

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, steal like an artist, my favorite books. Guys, such great insight on the way that we process social media and some of the traps I think that can fall in front of us. But Sean, how great it is to be reminded that it is biblically applicable. That it can be encouragement. It can be a breath of hope and a wind a spring off of one another in a way that it has not been around for the last maybe 30, 40 years. Tell me for pastors who now are having to deal with understanding a personal brand and a ministry brand and all of that stuff, what would your advice be? Do you blend them together? Do you punch them all into the same feed? Better to separate, better to assimilate them? What would be your guys’s advice for any of our listeners who are like, “I want this because I’ll be missing a lane if I don’t put my two cents in, If I don’t put a horse on that track.” What’s your best advice for somebody who’s like, “I want to build a strategy. I’m listening to this episode.” What’s your two cents on it?

Alejandro Reyes:

Yeah. I think I’m really fascinated about this because I feel like social, especially right now, live video, Instagram stories, really kind of peels back. You know the Wizard of Oz, like the stage to pew, there’s that disconnect and I’m going to jump to the Kardashians. Have the Kardashians ever come up on the podcast before?

Mingo Palacios:

No, but this is ding, ding, ding, I have a Kardashians button somewhere. I just can’t find it. Yeah.

Alejandro Reyes:

Every time we Kardashians. No, so I mean we look at the Kardashians, some of the biggest social media followers. Right? And people think that’s real. They watch The Real Housewives, they feel it’s real. Some of the most scripted stuff out there. But people feel like, “Oh, I’m getting the real life.” And I think there’s guys like Pastor Carey Nieuwhof from Canada does a fantastic job with his Instagram stories kind of given a behind the scenes. It’s like, it’s not the guy that you see polished on stage. He’s talking about his family. He’s getting his grill out and wow, he’s kind of like me. And you’re showing that personal side of who you are. And that’s why I think trust comes in, resonance, that relationship. And so I think using social media in this way to kind of peel back that veil, the layer a of exclusivity invites people in to more community with you. And so because of that trust, I think people are more inclined to show up to church, people like, “Man, oh, I just saw him.” Like, “Hey Pastor, I noticed that grill, I’m thinking about buying one that steak looked amazing.” It kind of enhances the conversation in real life versus going Sunday to Sunday and saying, “Hey God bless you Pastor.” It’s more meaningful discussion because I feel like I really kind of know who you are a little bit more. So if I’m a pastor right now, I’m thinking about Instagram stories in the next year to two years following Sean and what he does. Maybe I’m vlogging; I’d love to see pastors in the next couple years, start some sort of vlog, talk about the behind the scenes. What happens with a pastor’s life Monday through Saturday?

Mingo Palacios:

In between production.

Alejandro Reyes:

That’s fascinating to me. And so that’s, that space is really interesting. So I hope that a pastor is listening now and begins to think about what that will look like for their context.

Mingo Palacios:

And then I know those pastors who were like, “Vlog, what the crap?”

Mingo Palacios:

Okay so, a say regularly scheduled a video, it doesn’t have to be high production, but just something that is incrementally released that shows what happens between Sundays, between platform moments, between messages.

Jeff Moors:

Or they can even do that, just they could Insta Story their day captured at the end and then just post it.

Mingo Palacios:

Right.

Jeff Moors:

It doesn’t have to be-

Mingo Palacios:

I just want to readdress the fact that there’s a desire there for to know the pastor. It’s not because we need you to waste your time showing me what grill you have in your backyard, but there’s a desire to be relationally connected beyond just me cheering on your sermon, which I love already. I just want to know more. And if you don’t have the ability to have proximity to the people that you shepherd, this is a great way to give everybody kind of like equal access to you, right? I appreciate that.

Sean Cannell:

Yeah. And you know, I think that this conversation though also brings up that a challenge that a lot of leaders would probably wrestling with in their own mind that comes up with like humility

Mingo Palacios:

Yes.

Sean Cannell:

That comes up with, “How do I promote? Like, I don’t want to promote myself and build my brand so big.” Haley and I were just talking about this and that’s a big mindset that we would have to wrestle with. But I would challenge leaders to really realize that I don’t think money success or social media changes people. I think it just amplifies who they already are. And so that you kind of got to deal with your heart issues first and your motives first, but acknowledged the fact that these communication tools, we’re living through the greatest communications revolution in the last 500 years that we have to steward these tools and we have to have self awareness too. Maybe it’s not right for me or not right for me right now. But pastors I think need to be a little bit more bold to realize that if we’re living in celebrity culture, that there’s something about navigating the way people look at leaders and influencers and modeling. I love what Jeff said, modeling humility, modeling integrity, modeling but putting that out there, but being bold enough to realize that in the process you might be misunderstood and that probably even believers or Christians might be like, “Well, why are you posting your life?”

Sean Cannell:

Yeah, they could do a lot of that, but again, you’re on mission to reach people, know what your motives are and be bold to embrace these platforms because they are powerful for impacting people.

Haley Veturis:

I think I love social media right now because it’s really people can see through inauthenticity and right now people getting the platform in church world are the pastors that are falling and I think if you’re vlogging and you’re using social as another accountability, you’re less likely to be doing shady things off camera if you’re always on camera and showing people your true authentic self. So, maybe use this as a platform for accountability and people would just love to see your true life and I love that. Like, you can no longer have your work self and your private self. It’s all blended now. And so just show people who you are because people are looking for leaders they can trust.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s so good. You know, one of my favorite things to like randomly pop onto is when Carl Lentz reading books to his kid. You ever watched that? Like on a random night. He’s like, “Yeah, so we’re reading about Harriet Tubman right now.” And he doesn’t exploit it; he doesn’t go the whole way through, but it’s always just a random peak where you’re like, “Dude, I love that this guy lays in bed with his kid the same way I lay in bed with my kid.” So certainly that trust and that mutual-ness amongst who you might subliminally be platforming, it kind of brings them off the platform a little bit. Right? Is that fair?

Jeff Moors:

Totally Fair. I also think though, it’s incredibly important now for pastors, those that do have platform for them to be theologically correct and doctrinally sound and what it is they post, what it is they say because now we’re also living in an age where people believe anything they see.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah.

Jeff Moors:

And especially even more so with the younger generation. Like, my daughter spouted off something recently to me, like a fact that she read on Instagram fact point and I was like, “That’s not true.” And she’s like, “Yeah it is dad.”

Mingo Palacios:

But it says fact.

Jeff Moors:

But it says fact and it’s on Instagram. And I was like, “Let’s look this up.” And so we looked it up and it’s completely not true. But with that though, we now have a whole generation that where you can get on and as long as you say something with authority from a platform, people are going to believe it. And so I think there’s a greater weight now on a pastor’s shoulders or any kind of teacher leader, the CEO’s shoulders, to make sure that they’re propagating and promoting things that are true, that are right, that are sound.

Mingo Palacios:

More so now than probably ever. So as much as I’d love to keep this conversation going all afternoon long, we’ve got to close it down. I would love to close it with a word of encouragement for people who are maybe on the verge, right? They have been thinking about a vlog or they’ve been thinking about starting a Youtube channel. Listening to this conversation, they’re thinking about motive now they’re thinking about some of the guardrails that they should be setting up. They’re aware of what is and what isn’t. Probably the healthiest way to engage in it. So with all of that, what’s a word that each of you would give to our listeners concerning their own social practice?

Haley Veturis:

I would just start by saying the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. There’s so much room for growth in this area for pastors that you could be that pioneer pastor that is paving the way for all other leaders, showing them how to live authentic lives, showing them how to pastor, how to have good families, good marriages, be a good parent, and modeling that for others because there are not enough out there doing that. So, you can be the person. Just all you have to do is start trying.

Alejandro Reyes:

I think doing is the best form of thinking, so a lot of pastors are probably like overthinking it. I need to write out everything and you’ll probably get to that point, but I would not prevent that from stopping me now. So just start posting, grab it, grab that vlog camera or grab your iPhone. It doesn’t really matter. Just turn it on and start speaking your passion, your mission, your purpose, and believe in people, empower them, encourage them and you’re going to start seeing those views go up I think.

Sean Cannell:

I would just encourage church leaders. You know, again, we were talking about the dark side of social media, but when I’m not hearing about in the media these days is television addiction. I’m not hearing about any other technology, radio addiction.

Mingo Palacios:

Whoa that’s big. Radio addiction. I heard about it.

Sean Cannell:

On the drive to work man. But you know, every time there’s something new like this, people do take it to the extremes and it does disrupt our personal lives and whatnot a little bit. So I would just encourage people just move forward in wisdom. Don’t vilify it. There’s a verse in Ecclesiastes that says, “A man who fears God avoids all extremes.” And I think if we go on the extreme side of social media, it could be harmful. If we go on the extreme side of abstinence from social media, we’re missing out on reaching people. Find that wisdom through line, embrace it, and be bold because there are people for you to reach church leader.

Adrian Humble:

Yeah, I totally agree with what Shawn was saying, but also too, as a pastor or church leader, your schedule is already going to be busy and you’re thinking, “Now this is just one more thing that I need to do.” But what I’ve learned is just document, like, don’t figure out trying to find the perfect-

Mingo Palacios:

Storyline.

Adrian Humble:

Storyline. Whatever. Just document your day and that in and of itself will create moments of transparency that people will find as being authentic and really start to connect with you. So I think, yeah, just document.

Jeff Moors:

And then if I could be maybe the contrarian here a little bit. I’d say that I’d definitely learned about social. Definitely if you can figure it out, but it may not be you. You may not be someone that’s good at posting, that likes to post, that does it. And so if it’s not, then you’re wasting your time and talents in an area where you could maybe be doing something different. Maybe you’re the book writer still or maybe you’re the guy that’s writing all the handwritten notes to your congregation. And if you just spent 15 hours trying to figure out how to post and what to do and am I getting likes and am I building my followers, then you’ve just missed out on 15 hours of sitting by somebody’s bedside as they’re passing away.

Adrian Humble:

That’s good bro. Wow.

Mingo Palacios:

Jeff, the pastor of pastors. I would only throw out there that in relationship to what you said, Jeff, be eager to give it away because I think so many people are so hungry to manage it themselves. The true essence of great ministry is to give it away. So find some kids that are doing it great in your circle and tell them the reason why you want to build a channel. Tell them the parameters by which you expect them to operate. Give them proximity to you, which can be very uncomfortable if you are a tight, personal person. Part of this world, this unfolding world, is the ability to have exposure in proximity to people that you may not always have exposure and proximity to. But, I’ll promise you this, if you give it away, you will earn trust credits with a generation that you probably aren’t in. You’ll allow somebody to rise to the occasion and become somebody who they probably doubted they were in the first place, but because you said, “Hey, I’d love for you to try this” you’re going to give them a shot of confidence if they probably don’t have themselves and what you’ll end up doing is building a bridge between two generations that’s very needed in today’s church era. So, that would be my last piece of advice guys and lady, thank you so, so much for sharing your hearts with our audience. My prayer is that this is a word of encouragement despite being the dark, the fourth that you’d see a lot of light punching through this conversation for people who want to find each of you, this is going to be like a roll call. How do they find each of you? Start this way and go around?

Sean Cannell:

Yeah. The best way to connect is on Twitter probably, or just I’m @SeanCannell everywhere. S-e-a-n-c-a-n-n-e-l-l or just type, “Think Media” into the Youtube search bar. Think Media.

Haley Veturis:

The best way can get ahold of me would be Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @HaleyVeturis. H-a-l-e-y-v-e-t-u-r-i-s and may the fourth be with you.

Alejandro Reyes:

Alejandro Reyes. Nine one six. I’m just kidding.

Alejandro Reyes:

No, you guys can Twitter, Instagram @AlejandroReyes.

Jeff Moors:

Yeah. You can connect with me on Instagram, Twitter. It’s just Jeff Moors, @-j-e-f-f-m-o-o-r-s or you can just search Youtube, Jeff Moors and I’m on there as well.

Adrian Humble:

And then for me, Adrian Humble. It’s just that @adrian a-d-r-i-a-n-h-u-m-b-l-e on all social channels.

Mingo Palacios:

I love it. And you can find this conversation and many others at thepdpodcast.com or a tricky url, pdchurch.flywheelstaging.com. Thank you. For our listeners, we love you guys. For the Youtube live-ers or Facebook live-ers, we love you guys too. We’ll talk to you guys soon.

Mingo Palacios:

We hope today’s insights left you feeling inspired and propelled towards your greatest potential. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of the PD Podcast. Until next time.