Church Executive SEPT / OCT 2019 DIGITAL ISSUE | Page 12

MISSION: ACCOMPLISHED
JOEL GUTHRIE / HOST, THE CHURCH ENGAGEMENT PODCAST / CONTENT MARKETER / WORSHIP LEADER / YOUTH LEADER / AUSTIN, TEXAS
“There's a crazy statistic about how churches and faith communities
are 80-something-percent of the users of groups and pages on
Facebook,” Guthrie says. “So, they actually developed specific features
for churches and faith communities.”
Guthrie says it’s one of the most popular podcasts. “It’s really
interesting to hear somebody that's actually advocating for our
churches at Facebook to get us cool features and things like that.”
Another favorite podcast focuses on Millennials, where Guthrie
welcomed his good friend Nicolai Buccino, associate pastor at Rain
City Church. They discussed how to empower the next generation of
leaders — many of whom aren’t instantly recognized as Millennials,
but they are. And, as Guthrie points out, they’re already on staff (or
dedicated members) at so many churches.
“For the past few years, I feel like the Millennials conversation has
been talked about from a youth standpoint — high schoolers, college-
aged kids,” he explains. “Some college-aged kids are still millennials,
but a lot of us at the top end are in our 30s, so the conversation needs
to shift.”
What Buccino brings to the table in the podcast are strategies to
empower the Millennials on the staff and in the congregation. “They're
not looking for a boss — they're looking for a mentor; they're looking
for opportunities to be developed,” Guthrie says. “Millennials get a
bad rap for wanting to be at the top of the food chain at the beginning.
But we actually just want to know the opportunity to grow is there,
because we want to learn.”
To date, one of Guthrie’s favorite feedback stories is based on a
podcast he did with Peter Hodgen, VP Business Development at Crowd
Hub: “3 Strategies You Need to Better Engage Your Church.” They talked
about a strategy for creating content for your church’s “skimmers,
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CHURCH EXECUTIVE | SEPT / OCT 2019
swimmers and divers” — in other words, short-, medium- and long-
form content.
“I just love that analogy,” Guthrie explains. “Some people will spend
less than 10 seconds looking at your content; others will spend 30
seconds to a minute; others will give you five to 10 minutes of their
time. And we’ve got to create content that speaks to them all.”
“Up next …”
In future podcasts, Guthrie says he’d like to address the debate
between multisite churches and church plants, or new campuses.
“As large churches grow, they’re wondering how they should be
structured, from a technological basis, a leadership basis. “Do we want
to be independent from a financial standpoint? What about from a leadership
standpoint?” he explains.
“No one has really defined how to do it or which way is better,”
Guthrie adds. “It'd be cool to pull a few people together to talk through
each side, either as a success story or as a failure.”
He says he would also like to touch on advertising for churches —
something that’s almost considered a bad word but, to Guthrie’s mind,
represents a lot of opportunity for church growth.
“I'd love to get a guest to talk about a church that's been successful.”
One thing that won’t change is the shared goal between Guthrie and
Blackbaud that serves as the podcast’s basis: create valuable content
pieces to help grow the church.
"Having Blackbaud, and the resources they can provide behind it,
expands the reach of the podcast and allows me to take the time to
create it — it's an awesome combination," he says. “I'm very lucky that
I get to call it work. Not a lot of people get to pair their actual day job
with furthering the Kingdom.”