Chris Bright 0:06
Welcome to the thinking church podcast with me, Chris bright. Every week, I'll be speaking with a church leader, ministry strategy, and getting to grips with not just what they do, but the thinking behind why they do it. So without further ado, let's get on with the show.
Well, my guest today is Brady Shearer. Brady is the founder of nucleus church and Pro Church tools. Brady's got a really large following 35,000 people on Instagram and a huge I just checked this out a huge 116,000 people on YouTube, which is pretty darn cool. So I thought that Brady would just be a fantastic person to talk about to talk about communications in the church context, and just the future of church. And because I think Brady is gonna have some amazing insights for you today. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Brady, thank you so much for for joining me today.
Brady Shearer 1:03
Well, thanks for the kind intro, Chris, and thank you for pronouncing My name correctly, I find that those that are not on the North American continent struggle less with my last name, and I will attribute that to just familiarity with my namesake. You know, one who sheers sheep. When I was in Scotland, I just remember there were sheep everywhere. You know, a shearer. It's not a hard word, but you talk to an American, and it's always Brady shear. And we know America, they're just ruining our English language and just making it their own. Sherea was my favourite. I was sitting in a YouTube video with a host. And he's just like, I'm with Brady. Sherea. And we just had to kept starting over and over and over again. So thanks. Thanks, Chris. Again, you know, that's a little bit of a tangent, but I do appreciate it.
Chris Bright 1:49
Well, no. And one thing that's worth knowing for anyone in the UK, Shearer if you're a football fan or a soccer fan, Alan Shearer is like a legendary football player. And so Shearer is just a, you know, it's part of that surname is part of English folklore, really, so everyone should know how to pronounce, share, but Sherea.
Brady Shearer 2:16
Again, on this side, we have Harry Shearer, who was one of the big voices behind the Simpsons, I mean, more American than that, but again, you don't hear it on the commentator, of course, and pronouncing it. So that's true.
Chris Bright 2:28
I just probably was saying you're, you're Canadian. So you're at Cheyenne, too. So you know, you're, you're a member of the Commonwealth and the the Queen's head of your state. So that's great. We
Brady Shearer 2:39
love the Queen, we've,
Chris Bright 2:40
you know, clearly already got something here that's going to endear you to English. It's brilliant. Brilliant. Well, let's get get started onto it. In your videos, you say this a lot, which is that you've we've gone undergone the biggest communication shift in 500 years. And that is entirely correct. You know, the internet and mobile devices, in particular, my, my iPhone here. It's been revolutionary, and as revolutionary as the printing press. However, the church is, in many instances still kind of struggling to keep up. What are the biggest areas of communication in the church life that you still think need to come up with the times? What have we got to work on?
Brady Shearer 3:27
There are a lot of like ancillary things that would come to mind. You know, church websites are generally difficult to navigate social presences are not especially substantive or strong, graphic design, creative work. But usually, when I get asked a question like this, Chris, I always get down to the missional side of things. Churches generally embrace digital and creative communication sort of things. When it becomes especially popular, not when it's motivated by mission, there's rarely a missional trajectory tied to it. And so we spend a lot of our efforts on our YouTube channel on our podcast on our social platforms, talking about the reason why we embrace digital, the reason why we embrace creative communications. And then once we have that stronger foundation, then we can get into some of the more, let's say, fun or glamorous sort of things like particular font choices for graphic design, or the best strategies for Instagram, or tick tock or Facebook or YouTube, and things like that. But it all starts with mission. You know, we're embracing these platforms, we're involving our churches in these platforms, because that's where the people are, and attention. It's the most valuable commodity your church can possess. The reason that we do these in person gatherings is one because being in person is a crucial element of church. And also because that's where attention happens, you know, before the internet took place you wouldn't get to see the people in your church very often aside from let's say that one hour gathering on Sunday morning on average, and so you get people there. That's when we can share the good news. That's when we can worship communally. That's when we can share announcements and just the day to day housekeeping items of being a part of a local community, local body of believers, well, now, we can reach people outside of that one hour is 168 hours in a week. That means there's 167 hours beyond a church service where we can connect with people both inside and outside our church. And why are we a part of a church? What are we trying to accomplish? Well, we want to create disciples, we want people to become more and more like Jesus. And so we talk about that in terms of next steps. There's this illness within the church in many ways, where we are spectators, we're not active participants in small groups in giving in serving in worshipping in mentoring in discipling. And being discipled. In praying, we're spectators, we sit in the pews, we sit in the chairs, we observe, we consume, and we go home. And so we think that everything your church does in person, and online, has to come down to next steps propelling the people in your church to become active participants, and embrace being disciples and being discipled and discipling. And so that's the reason why we do everything that we do. Generally, churches get themselves in trouble, in my experience, at least online and in person, but I specify or I specialise in online work, when they're doing things because the church down the road is doing it, they're doing it because the highly influential church is doing it. When you start copying other churches separate from your own mission, that's when you can get yourself in a really, really vulnerable place. And because churches generally don't have the skills on staff, to tackle these digital things, if all you do is copy people, and then it doesn't work out, you're more likely to say, this isn't for us, this is not worthwhile, this has nothing to do with the gospel. And now you're in a really troubling place, because you've thrown something out, largely because you never had an effective missional motivation behind it.
Chris Bright 7:15
It's really interesting when we think about, you know, cuz I think churches have, you know, famous for, for copying other churches, and you know, you know, take whatever big mega church you want to someone's going to be wanting to copy it. But I think and there is an interesting part with, you know, when you're finding your voice, I remember hearing, I can't remember who it was, I think it was Todd Henry talked about it before. I don't know if you know, Todd Hendricks, like a kind of a marketing guy. And he talks about when you're finding your voice, you do copy to a certain extent. And that's the way of learning but at some point, you've got to branch out on your own, and you've got to have your own voice. And I think it seems like that that's maybe the struggle that we've got is that churches are struggling to say, Okay, I know how to copy but I don't know how to be myself online is that what you're seeing is that like this, this, this copying is because there's a slight fear what you've seen with that?
Brady Shearer 8:13
Well, I would delineate, there's two different types of copying, there's aesthetic copying, and then there's strategic copying. And they're very, very different, we generally often lump them in all copies the same. Here's an example. Let's say you are copying the specific angle, or this was the specific framing a church uses on their live stream. Like you know what I like the way they follow their pastor when he or she preaches. I like the way they frame them from let's say, you know, the belly button up or it's a full body shot. There's nothing wrong at all with copying the way they aesthetically frame, the way that they colour grade that image that that's a great thing to copy off of. Should your church be live streaming your services the way they are? That would be a strategic copy? Oh, we're gonna livestream our service with our worship with our announcements. And we're going to do it in the exact way that churches that is a strategic copy that may or may not be aligned with what your church should be doing. You know, there's nothing wrong if your church has an app, a mobile app, there's nothing wrong with looking at other popular mobile applications and being like, I like the way they do their navigation. It's, it's condensed into that hamburger menu, which is nice. You click on it, it goes full screen, copy those aesthetics. Yeah, sure. Go for it. Should your church have an app in the first place? Copying the strategy? That's the difference there. As for why we do it, it's pretty simple. There's like very few people that work at church or serve in church and we have to do all of the things and when you cannot be by nature, an expert in all of the things what do you do you look to people that are the experts and you just copy what they're doing, you know, for worship ministry as an example. It's it's it's just not realistic for our churches to write all of our own music all of the time. We just don't have that kind of capacity. Nor is it especially effective or useful. I'd say for a lot of us. So do we do we sing the songs that have been written by others that we know are especially powerful, especially good for congregational type of singing, it's easy for everyone to get the melody and to reach those octaves. And so it's part of church. It's not escapable, I'd say. So choosing when to copy and doing it aesthetically, and then just being aware, like you can't just bring in the strategies of another church and expect them to replicate similar results in your own.
Chris Bright 10:39
Yeah, I think that's I think that's really, really interesting. And I think, I mean, we can get into one area, straight away, which I think is the Sunday service. And if anything, it's almost become quite homogenised, the Sunday worship service, we know kind of what to expect, you know, it's going to be worship for about 25 minutes, then there's going to be some announcements, and then it's going to be a preach, and there might be some kind of wrap up at the end. And virtually every church, you know, I do secret shoppers with church, they're all the same. You know, everyone does that. And it's a very tried and tested formula in that sense. But I wonder whether, you know, when we're talking about that uniqueness, and not wanting to strategically copy other churches, there's, there's got to be some kind of someone's gonna start bucking the trend at some point. And I mean, first off, have you seen churches that are starting to buck that trend? And then I guess, probably going on to the next point, which would be how, what's the thinking behind that, that makes you buck the trend? So maybe that's gonna be the first one like, what? What's the what? What are you seeing that sort of bucking the trend at the moment from that kind of the worship service as we already know it? Yeah. What's the bucking the trend?
Brady Shearer 11:51
Well, the homogenization of church programming is very real, I'll agree with you there. 100%. There's a almost a self parody. Now, at this point, a slogan for churches were church done different. I've heard that said, Oh, and all that means is the music's a bit louder, and the message is a bit shorter. Like it's, it's there's nothing usually substantively different there. As for what I have seen, done different, we are beginning to see new expressions of church, which I think is an excellent thing. That's not necessarily an indictment on the way church is done currently. But I love the word that you use the homogenization if there's one expression, and that's almost the only expression 99% Plus, that's probably leaving something on the table for other ways of expressing faith and a local body of believers. So you know, one model we see from time to time is, instead of having that same 60 to 120 minute worship service that you detailed nicely. Worship announcements, message response, maybe, as your every single week programming, they'll do that every other week, or at church will do that once a month. And then on the other three Sundays, we'll have one that's service based, hey, let's go out into the community and serve the people that are around us. There'll be one that's maybe prayer based, there's one that's going to be family based or community based, hey, we're actually just going to do something to rub shoulders with the people in our community, it can be based on a meal. That's one that I think we're probably going to see a lot more traction in the future. It is very clear in the early church, how much time was spent around a table, how much time Jesus's ministry was spent around a table. And, you know, some of the fondest memories I have of growing up in church. I grew up in this really small Baptist Church, we didn't have like electronics in the sanctuary like, which is an acoustic guitar and like people's voices. There's no microphone for the pastor, you know, 18 people, small rural Canadian church, and every other week, we'd have potluck, and we'd go down into the church basement, and everyone would bring a meal. And everyone would share this meal around the table, everyone contributing different parts. And that Baptist Church did not have very much for me, theologically, or programming wise for like a young boy. But spending that time around the table. Those are some of the fondest memories that I have of that church. And so, you know, that's one example of a different model. There's of course, the Home Church model, which has been well explored and is self explanatory, on its own. As for why these things are happening, it gets back to the mission or motivation if our goal is let's say, maybe we all have our own slogan here. But if the if the goal of church the purpose of church is some combination of the Great Commission and the greatest commandments, go into the world, make disciples, love God, love your neighbour, if it's some combination of that for every one of us virtually as churches, the question becomes, is the current model effective at accomplishing that objective? Because there is an objective of church it's a A mission that is synonymous with the word objective, there's a reason we exist. Is the current model, succeeding in that objective? Are there other models that could succeed in that objective? Are there other better models maybe not universally, but better for us better for our community, our local context, our local group of believers in the community that we're trying to serve? And so again, it gets back to that mission or motivation. If you don't know that the reason we have modularization of churches, because why do we choose church? Well, because this is what church has become. And it's what church is everywhere. And so when we're starting a new church, when we're starting a new ministry, a new service, let's say, we end up just doing it, because it's always done that way. And I'll I'll acknowledge, Chris, it's very difficult to break away from a model when it is that synonymous with what church is understood to be because then how does it stay profitable? Profitable is not the right term, how does it have I run a business? Pardon me? How does it stay afloat? Like with the budget, people have certain expectations church, is this, this and this, your church is not like that at all? Can I even tied to that church? Do I want to tied to that church, and then it becomes kind of this self fulfilling cycle, where it's really hard to do something new, because we don't have the financial runway to even attempt it. So then you keep doing the same thing over and over again, which makes it even more difficult to do something new, even more difficult to finance something new. And that's a very real issue that needs to be acknowledged solutions for that, including them more by vocational ministers or more ministers that have full vocations and that are serving in church only. It also necessitates lower expectations for production and for size, and for in person extravagance. If we can remove ourselves from those expectations, wants, I think there's a lot of space to explore different expressions, that would be very healthy. Yeah,
Chris Bright 17:00
I think I think you're absolutely right. And I'm already thinking of, you know, there's so many different models that have popped up over the years, I used to attend a house church, gosh, it must been 15 years ago or so. And it was there for three years and seen that, you know, the pros and cons of that. But sometimes it's just nice to see a different style. And I think maybe, for church leaders just going and seeing something done differently, just to give you a different idea and a different thought and a different, you know, actually, you know, you don't have to be stuck in the, in the box of how it is, you know, even even if you're just making changes within your worship service, and you're going to have people join you every Sunday at you know, at 1030 for an hour, you know, there's still so much scope, even in that hour that you can do this to change. So many things I'm thinking of, you know, a preach committee, you know, preachers classically 30 minutes long, or about that, and or 40 minutes long. But then you see TED talks, where preachers are more and more preachers, you know, the talks are 20 minutes, maximum, 10 minutes. And then you see, you know, these long form podcast, Joe Rogan, or Jordan pieces and people like that we're talking for two hours. And it's all conversation based. And so there's so much scope, I think that we can really rethink things. And even you know, even in worship, we're so used to, you know, 30 minutes of worship, and then you can, you know, go and put on YouTube and put on, you know, Maverick city, and it's an hour long, and it's all, you know, so there's so much scope in what we can do. And I think it's just, I think, pastors need to have the permission just to go for it, and try something new. And this leads me on to my next thought, which is, you know, what, what has been the prevailing idea that's defined, you know, maybe for the last two decades, and it's the the attractional church model, I think, the attractional church service, you know, that there are churches like, mostly in the Australian tradition, you know, that the hill songs and some of the American ones, Willow Creek elevation, and more, obviously, but I'm wondering whether, you know, is this still going to be relevant moving forward? I'm thinking a lot about Gen Z, as well, about I'm hearing a lot about this is not something that potentially Gen Z are going to want moving forward? How would you think that's changing? Are we going to be moving away from the attractional model?
Brady Shearer 19:26
As to the question, is it relevant, I suppose that would depend on how you define relevant, is it going to be as successful Artemi as it has been to this to this point? Probably not. And, you know, irrespective of generational changes, just, you know, every single one of those churches that you just mentioned, has, it seems like a growing list of controversies attach some greater than others. And so, when that happens, it calls into question Question The the model itself, perhaps more importantly, it creates scepticism in the cultural at large, of within those kinds of churches, which is, you know, naturally going to make that model less likely to succeed. Because of the scepticism that's applied. You know, when those first came out, they were basically a swing from one side of the pendulum to another and one of the reasons they were so successful, one of the reasons Mark Driscoll was so success successful is because it was like, hey, you've seen church done this, what we're gonna do it this way. And we see this all the time. And so I hope my own comments don't come off is like, again, an indictment of the current church model. I think when you see a single expression of anything that dominant, we just know that there's so much more room, you know, like, I don't know why this this came to my mind. But you know, I'm Canadian. You're from the UK. We're not American. Like, let's talk about beer. There was one way of doing beer for the longest time. And we were just like, oh, yeah, this is the beer we drink. You know, we had ours in Canada. Molson Canadian. I am Canadian was the slogan, you know. And in America, there was, you know, so many different ones, Coors and Bud and, and then would craft brewery came around, and people were like, hey, beer can taste like this. And I remember the first time I had an IPA was in the city of Chicago, and I was having deep dish pizza, and they bring it to me. And I was like, This beer is very bitter, and it is attacking my mouth. In a lot of ways. This is different than boring beer. Like this is something I've never tasted before. And they bring a sour out. And then they bring a stout. And there's just so many different ways. Which one of those beers is best? I don't know. Everyone has different preferences. You like one you like another? You change as you as you age, different times of your life. You you like different ones, it would suck if there was only IPAs, though, it would not be great. If there were only lagers that were really boring. Like that was the the just the norm for the longest time. different expressions of anything is almost always a good thing. And so that's kind of what I'm trying to express is like, hey, we just need more just versions of this than what we have currently. As for what's relevant with generational changes, I mean, a Gen Z. It was a lot easy for me to talk about millennials. I'm 30. I am a millennial. I'm right in the middle. So I'm not even like an edge millennial or like an edge Gen Z. Like my parents, they weren't boomers, they weren't really Gen X. They're right on the cuff. Like, I'm a true millennial, it's very easy to talk about that. Gen Z, they share a lot of common traits with millennials, one of them being we do not love things that seem manufactured. Basically, Bs is not a thing that we like. And so in Gen Z that's getting pushed so far, from my perspective, at least, is that it's like they're cynical about almost everything. Because everything can be manufactured in some way. There's this there's a scene from the office that makes me think of until later seen season eight. And you know, Aaron's throwing this big Halloween party. And she wants it to be this great Halloween party because Andy, the manager, he says the Halloween party has to be great. So she enlists the help of gape, which, of course goes disastrously. And game plays this like Halloween movie that is just like these scary black and white images, there doesn't seem to be any cohesive theme to what's happening. And people are like, what is this and gave goes? It's a certain type of filmmaking that's pushing all the boundaries. And it doesn't even have a narrative. Because in a way, narrative is even comforting on its own. And for whatever reason, that reminds me of Gen Z, I just no matter what it is, we don't like it. What do you like, we like making fun of things that other people like. And this is, of course, a broad generalisation. And it's making it sound like they're, they're not a good generation. That's not true. I don't believe any of that. But as for, like, how they're going to respond to faith. If Millennials pushed back on what seemed fake, Gen Z is pushing back even harder. And so anything that is going to be over programmatic, over, manufactured, at least at this stage of their generations, like age group, I think that's going to be a tough sell, but one because they don't want to be sold to at all. And so that's where grassroots organic, real, you know, pardon the buzzword. And some of those like, those are the things that I think are going to get people involved in faith. But with church, I mean, sometimes I have discussions with my pastor friends, I'm not a pastor myself, most of my close friends are. And we have discussions like, Hey, Church, as an institution in North America has come out of like a 50 to 100, maybe even longer period of like, extreme influence. Are we entering a period of more irrelevance of in some ways making up for perhaps the sins of our past or If you don't want to look at it that way, they're just cycles. Every Empire Falls, you can't be in influence in perpetuity. So are we entering a period of like, yeah, like we're a bit more irrelevant. Our size, our numbers are influences much smaller. But what we do have is that much more passionate. You know, we don't have Christians that just go to church because it's cultural, cultural Christianity is gone. And it's been replaced with something smaller, but it's, it feels more true and it feels more at least, substantive to use that term. Again, you know, perhaps that's where we're entering. You know, this is all speculation at this point, you don't know for sure.
Chris Bright 25:39
Well, thank you so much for listening to this week's podcast. This is only halfway through. And you can listen to the conversation by joining our members podcast, just go to our website, www dot thinking dot church and you can sign up to our members podcast, it only costs the price of one coffee is well worth doing. So why not get a coffee, listen to the podcast and we'll see you again for this podcast next week. So bye for now.
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