ePIOZ Presents: Tech Disciples
Tech Disciples is the podcast at the crossroads of church and technology. From livestreaming to AI and music, we explore how ministries can thrive in the digital age. Tune in for practical tips, faith-based discussions, and our Praise Break spotlight on independent artists.
ePIOZ Presents: Tech Disciples
ePIOZ Presents: Tech Disciples | S2E3 - I wish my church had…
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What do people really wish their church had? In this episode of Tech Disciples, we take that question to the Nehemiah Next Level Up Summit and listen to real voices from the church community. The answers reveal more than a wish list — they point to real needs, real ministry challenges, and real opportunities for growth.
Intro
SPEAKER_02FIS presents Tech Disciples addressing the technological challenges of today's church.
SPEAKER_16Welcome to Tech Disciples. I'm Sean Alexander, and uh here by my right hand side, by my side, my man Stephen D. Holder, the funky technician. Thank you, Sean.
SPEAKER_12What's going on?
SPEAKER_16Uh nothing bad. And uh over there we have um the legendary, the one and only and the only one. I call him Storm and Norman Rogers, but uh to the world, he's known as DJ Terminator X.
SPEAKER_10Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh What's up, what's up? Peace and love. For real.
SPEAKER_16What's going on, gentlemen? It feels like it's been a long time.
SPEAKER_12It's been
Main Discussion, Pt. 1
SPEAKER_12a very long time, but we're back.
SPEAKER_16You know, for real. That's a beautiful day.
SPEAKER_12Shouldn't have left him.
SPEAKER_16So um this is a very interesting episode. I'm um I'm excited about all of our episodes, but this one really hits home to me. Oh, yeah. Um, and I'm gonna tell you why, because our church, I feel like checks pretty much all of our boxes. There's only one suggestion I have. And and it's really minute, small, you know, when I think about it. So I'm gonna jump right into it. You know, tonight we're asking people one simple church question. I wish my church had. Yeah, that's it. That's that's the magic question. I wish my church had. Do you have an idea of what you wish our church, not your, but our church has?
SPEAKER_12Yeah, yeah, I do. And we know we'll talk about it at the end of at the end of the program. In the Allian core. Yeah, Alley on core. That's right. Exactly. Okay. So um, but yeah, no, this episode is gonna be around for sure, um, asking people what they wish their church has. Um a lot of people want a lot of different things, and a lot of times, you know, churches they they can't satisfy, or more importantly, they probably don't know. So in the Alliancore, we will definitely have our interview segment where we go um, you know, man on the street interview type thing. Uh, we went to uh we went to uh Nehemiah in Atlanta. So uh we got some photos that we'll share, and of course we have a clip that we will share with uh with everybody. So that's coming up in Alien Core. Gotcha, gotcha. So all right.
SPEAKER_16What uh let's jump right into it. What do you feel that some of the popular I wish my church had, you know, and uh and I'm sure you I'm sure there's gonna be generational gaps. Oh yeah. Uh you know, the people our age will say one thing, other elders will say one thing, and then the young people, I can't begin to imagine what they have to say.
SPEAKER_12So yeah, I think well, I think every every church has their own unofficial list. Yes. And nobody's writing it down. It's just a lot of I wish this, I wish that. Nobody's writing anything down, they're just saying it over and over again. And if you say anything over and over again so many times, you start believing that everybody else is on your page, but yet and still nobody knows what you're talking about, right? So um I think that is number one, kind of getting a list and writing things down. And we also gotta think about what are you asking for? Like you ever know, like the whole um be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. I think well, I think a lot of the older churches, or at least churches with a lot of older senior members, say that they wish they had more young people. But like you just said, Sean, young people are gonna bring, they're gonna bring a different way of thinking than some of uh than some of the people that are already there at the church. So are you are you ready for it? You know, exactly. Um a course of technology, you know, cameras and Wi-Fi and all that type of stuff. But um it's really about saying or asking what you want, but then following through with like, hey, can we, you know, can we really support it? So kind of even going with the young people, right? Um, I want more young people, but do you want them in the building or do you want them in like ministry? Exactly. Right? Because again, young people are gonna come and they're gonna bring ideas and questions and creativity, and that might be a discomfort for some of the older people. And then if you're gonna shun them down, why would they stay?
SPEAKER_16Exactly. Right, you know, because they'll feel their creativity is being stifled.
SPEAKER_12Oh, it definitely would be stifled, like oh they want me to come to church. I'm I'm welcome, I have a place here, all these different kinds, all these good things. And um now you're telling me to sit down. And be quiet. And be quiet. I mean, that'll turn me off, right? Yeah, so uh Termin, did you have some? I don't know if you had anything. I thought I saw you might have had something. Or is he gonna save his?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I'm saving mine.
SPEAKER_12You're saving yours. Okay, all right, cool. No more worries, no worries. Well, um, yeah, just moving on. Another question or another at least uh wish that a lot of churches may have in today's society is better technology. You know, I want better cameras or microphones or lighting, um, internet. And it's not that most churches don't, it's not that they can't get that technology, right? They can get the technology, but they have to have a plan to implement it, right? A new camera does no good if nobody knows how to operate it. Hello. Yeah, right? A new camera, and I'm sure you gentlemen know a new microphone or a speaker or a switchboard or you know, whatever y'all do. We saw, what? Go ahead. Yeah, can I put this into perspective? Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_16Um, there's something that's fairly new that we have here at Southside Church of Christ, and that is um, and um in my experience, Norm is like um, you know, between the two of you, of course, you of course you stead that's that's no fun. That's you know, that's that's a given. But outside of that, Norm is like the only one who knows how to properly manipulate our soundboard, and it can do some amazing things. I've watched you guys do some amazing things. Even this morning, you know, we were sitting there, we're like, okay, this isn't quite right. And you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, there we go. I'm sitting there like, what in the world? I'm not sure we want to boom, boom, boom, you know, during service. Yeah, for real. But you know, yeah, you got it to we were um, yeah, oh no. Um uh, you know, just um to be specific, we weren't getting any audio coming through the headphones. We were trying to monitor the the service.
SPEAKER_12That's right. And and did you boom, boom, boom, and we had uh we had sound. Well, I didn't click automatically on the board. I looked to see what was flashing first. Okay, gotcha. I think this is right. But I mean, you're absolutely absolutely right, right? You have to you have to have people who are trained on it or know about it. You just can't go in there and start clicking on things. Absolutely. But yet still the wish is you know, I wish we had a better soundboard, or I wish we had a better uh output of sound or microphones or stuff like that. I know here we I mean we all went through a little bit of a situation trying to get right microphones for the praise team, even for here, you know, there's a condenser microphone, there's a what's the other one called?
SPEAKER_16With the omni dish.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, omni-dimensional and all this stuff matters depending on you know your audience, your room, your space. So you just say, I wish I had a new microphone. Okay, well, what kind of microphone? It goes beyond just the initial want or the desire.
SPEAKER_16Because we all sound differently and we all project differently.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, we absolutely do. And I think I was doing a little bit of research. We might do uh an episode on that, different types of microphones. Oh, we'll see. Let's see. Let's see.
SPEAKER_10So so I'll I'll go ahead and put my little two cents about I wish at my church had Norm doesn't want to wait. So uh an AI camera for whoever's preaching. Because when you get the when you get a pastor that that starts moving all around, starts shaking and moving all around, it's nice to have that camera where you're not chasing them with the other cameras. And that's happened, that happens a lot. Um and the second thing I wish we had enough uh cameras to do uh like re get reactions, certain reactions, like I watched certain programs and uh and whoever speaking will say something as people react, like you can have a camera that you can like single out a a person or coup or a couple people that are really reacting to what they say, you know, kind of flash to them, that would be cool too, but that's not uh necessary, but it would be nice to have.
SPEAKER_12So no, that's a good point, man. I mean, again, that is technology and cameras and getting different people's reaction, different angles, you know, when they, you know, the amens and the praising and all that. It's nice to capture all that. It really is. Um, and there's nothing wrong with that, and I think that's a great wish. Um, when you sit down and think beyond it, though, it's like, okay, well, how you know, how does this work? Because there's always different uh grades of an AI camera, for example, right? You're gonna have the generic one you probably get from the online real t uh retailer, right? You can get one from the local maybe department store or whatever. Um, and it might track, it might not track, it might track just good enough, but is it going to do what you need it to do at that time? And all of it really boils down to when it comes to technology specifically, it boils down to money, right? I mean which uh yeah, yeah, which is uh perfect segue into our next topic. Next topic, wish my church had more money. I mean, money matters, man. It just does, right? There's no there's no way around it. Um, but again, going back to the training, going back to sitting down, going back to having a plan, without the vision of how we're going to spend money, you know, it it could be uh fruitless, right? Um churches need churches need funding, budgeting, and maintenance plans, you know. Gone are the days. I think a lot of churches have a difficulty with this. Gone are the days of just buying something once and having it last forever. Technology just moves too quickly for that, right? Yeah, it just moves way too quickly for that. So you gotta have a plan in place. You have to maintain this stuff because it's not going to last forever. And you know, if something breaks or it needs maintenance and you don't have the skill set, you don't want to go in there and boom, boom, boom, try and you know, keep poking at it until it works. That's that's a poor mindset, mentality. It might have worked back in you know the 80s and 90s, but now I mean you hit something wrong the wrong way, it's broke. You're just not gonna turn on anymore, and you're gonna spend you're gonna spend a lot more money beyond repair. Just can't do it. They're gonna be mad, they're gonna be frustrated. Um, so yeah, so that kind of thing. Churches don't need miracles, sometimes they just need a spreadsheet. Right? Just write things down. Hey, what are our priorities? A B C One Two Three, and uh talk with people, talk with people in your congregation who knows this already. Um, and if you don't, if you can't find anybody, do your research and don't be afraid to look outside. Exactly. You know, a lot of people just want to I want it in-house, I want it in-house. I know what you want, but it's been X amount of time of you not getting this. It's time to try to do something different. Look outside and get different um different uh second opinions when you when you get somebody. And of course, uh we need people to operate all this stuff, right? So another topic would be I wish my church had more workers. Um I I know, you know, even at our church, and again all churches, you got those those few faithful people who are who are gonna do the best they can with what they have. But we don't want to burn those people out. You know, every event, every um um engagement, every talk or every um song, whatever whatever the event is at the church, you got the people there, the same people are gonna get burnt out because it is taxing, getting all the equipment up, all the equipment ready, operating as it should, just for them to come there late and you know, you're not ready, and then it's like, oh, I could have been doing something else. But um, you know, people churches want a lot. Events, media, announcements, phone, graph or not phone, graphics, and uh photos. But who's owning all of this? Who's doing who's the boots on the ground with all of this? Who's in the trenches? Yeah. So I mean that stuff is it's kind of important, and I think that's it's good to talk about and it's good to acknowledge when you say you wish you had all this stuff. Again, a wish is just the immediate need, the immediate gratification of, oh, I wish we had this, but who is behind the scenes operating it, running it through? So I think those are some pretty good points.
SPEAKER_16Absolutely. Um definitely would have to agree with you.
SPEAKER_12Okay. I thought you had something else, but yeah. Um so let's see that churches don't need more volunteers, they need a c uh culture of uh people that can be trained, people that support everybody else, and um some scheduling. You know, I think scheduling really helps with uh especially new things when it comes to technology. Because not everybody's gonna want the desire to do a certain type of technology. So if you schedule people out, or at least identify what they like, you might be able to get a little further with it. So let's see. Uh oh yeah, another point here. The church, the church wish uh the church wish list is real. The tongue tie when you say these words. All right, the church wish list is real, but sometimes the thing is we're the sometimes the thing we're asking for is uh structure vision training in follow-through. Right. I think that's really I think that's really huge. Again, even for Terminator's AI camera, you know, the vision for it seems to be clear. Doesn't line up with the preachers or, you know, the elders or the whoever. Um and the media team that's gonna be operating it. Well, I guess if it's AI camera, it'll be operating itself.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, it sure will. Okay. That's the whole point. That's the whole point. Actually, if you think about it, that that gives a person that with less experience uh say on a camera switcher, it gives them a safe place to be. Okay. You gotta follow what I'm saying. Because if you you can always go to that one camera and you're good as long as you're on the pre on the past. You know what I mean? So yeah. That's a good point.
SPEAKER_12I mean, technology is supposed to help us reduce stress and workload, but we still gotta be we still gotta be mindful of what happens when it breaks or it's not working right. How do we repair it? So um yeah, I thought those I thought I think that's a good I think that's a good um discussion, A, Sean. So all right, we are, I believe, headed into our first uh sponsor.
SPEAKER_16Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. And uh this praise big being sponsored by Nehemiah next level up summit. Now Nia Maya is more than a conference, it's a gathering for churches, leaders, preachers, ministry teams, and servants who are ready to grow with a purpose. Every church has a vision. But every vision needs strategy, vision needs leadership, vision needs people who are trained, encouraged, and ready to build. That's what the Nehemiah Next Level Up Summit is all about. Strengthening ministry teams, equipping leaders, and helping churches move from where they are to where God is calling them to grow. With training, development, spiritual growth, and meaningful connection, Nehemiah creates space for churches to sharpen the work and prepare for the next level. You can check it out at uh NehemiahSummit.com to learn more and the Nehemiah Next Level Up Summit, building stronger churches for greater kingdom impact.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Nehemiah, again, that's in Atlanta, Georgia. We went there last year. We'll get into it with Aliung Hor with some of the pictures and of course our uh our interview segment. But definitely check them out. They've been having it every year uh for the last I've been four years there, so they're gonna have uh the fifth year this year. And it's really great, really good to uh meet other churches, see other churches, really,
Praise Break — Køpa, “JESUS OU RIEN”
SPEAKER_12because aside from there's very few conferences that I'm aware of uh that that do this type of building. So it's great to definitely fellowship and see what other churches are doing around the nation. All right, so that was our sponsor for our first praise break, and we have somebody from France. I will go ahead and give the bio here, and then Sean you'll bless us with your DJ voice. We'll try it in French here first, though. All right. Notre premier praise break, news I mean on France of Copa, an autres originale de Lille. Copa fait music fresh, sample et centre sur Jesus. Son ad son adjectif et cler garde Jesus au centre. Alors set presbe Copa, Jesus ou Rien. And that's on you, Sean.
SPEAKER_16All right, yes. Well, um, and I might need your help with one of these words here. Our first brains break takes us to France with Copa and the artist from the city of help us out, see. Lille. Lille. Okay. Copa brings a fresh, simple sound centered on Jesus. Truly a beautiful thing. His goal is clear to put Jesus at the center of art in France. How was that? That was pretty good. Okay, cool. With this song, the message is direct. In the good days and in the hard moments, it's Jesus or absolutely nothing. So let's open with Praise Break right here with Copa. Was I don't hear it. I know we're wrong. That was Copa with Jesus or nothing from France.
SPEAKER_12You want to go ahead and try and say it in French?
SPEAKER_16Absolutely not. That's why I have you. Go on and now bless us with that there, brother.
SPEAKER_12Jesus. He's absolutely that. But uh yeah, so um, yeah, he's uh he's I guess he's I don't know if he's newer or not, but I found him, found him on YouTube, and I thought the video was pretty uh you know, pretty hype, you know, going on and jumping up in there.
SPEAKER_16So yeah, for real. Um brings to mind a couple of things because you know, we had as our church slogan not too long ago, all in.
SPEAKER_12We did have all in.
SPEAKER_16Yeah, all in.
Main Discussion, Part 2
SPEAKER_16All in, all or nothing. We're gonna take it back real quick, Steve. Go hard or go home. Oh, okay. Okay, for real.
SPEAKER_07All right.
SPEAKER_16Uh now, so really we get to a bigger question, and that is okay, you want this, but are you ready for it? Are you ready for the responsibilities that uh entails that it entails? You know, um, and there's so much that I can touch on with that. So it may may I get into it just a little bit? Uh yeah, man, go for it. Go ahead. Um now I know Norm can relate to this, you know, but uh coming up in the 80s, early 90s, you know, um, remember when the car was either a Cadillac or a stankin' Lankin? And remember when um Stankin' Lankin's stankin' Lankin, you know, oh man, that's when you have something. And don't even get me started on the Buick Electra Deuce in the Quarter to 225, boy, for real. And then, but uh one of the things that really exploded onto the scene, Steve, were the performance sedans. I'm talking, i.e., the Mercedes-Benz, the um BMWs, and then when um you know, the Japanese people got kind of into that um performance sedan realm, we see Acura, we see Infinity, we see Lexus, you know, now all of a sudden come on the scene. So, you know, as a young kid, I'm like, oh yeah, I want, you know, okay, yeah, I want this, that, and the third. But uh Nissan. Uh yeah, well, Nissan, you know, yeah, Nissan's all of those. Uh, cause the Maximus, remember when Maxa was first came out in the early 80s. I mean they did 300 Z. Remember that? Uh oh yeah, the the uh what you know who was it? 240, 260. 240, 260, 280, 300. Now I think they're up to 350 ZX, yeah. I'm trying I'm trying to see whether I think they're far farther than that. Okay, yeah. But the thing about it is now your dad can't help you work on these cars.
SPEAKER_12Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_16Yeah, I was trying to figure out where Okay, Steve's like, where's school going? I know about Carsu a little bit, but go ahead, please. But yeah, no, but that was the thing that okay, um, you know, my father um you know was uh um manager of the you know mechanical section at Sears.
SPEAKER_12Okay.
SPEAKER_16And he could work on, you know, the the Fords, the uh Chevrolets, the um, you know, Oldsmobiles.
SPEAKER_10You're talking about the automotive uh repair shop.
SPEAKER_16Yeah, exactly. He was yeah. And now all of a sudden, Dad's looking at this like, boy, I ain't even got no metric tools. You on this for yourself, you know what I mean? Um, yeah, you know, with um with these uh foreign cars and they're smaller, you don't have as much room to um work with them. So, you know, if you need to change an alternator, oh man, there's so much stuff you have to take loose as opposed to on a Chevrolet, the alternator sits way over there by itself. You know, if we're talking about um late 70s, early 80s. So these things that we wanted, you know, when I was in high school and everything like that, oh, it sounds great and everything like that. Yeah, I want a BMW, yeah, I want a Mercedes. We weren't ready for it. Right, right. So you know, we weren't ready for the maintenance, we weren't ready for the upkeep.
SPEAKER_12That's right, that's exactly it. So, like in cars, an automotive with technology is kind of the same thing. Wanting it versus being ready for it are two different things. Oh, absolutely. Your church can want all this stuff, but that's it's one thing to want it, but it's another thing to, again, like you said, the upkeep, the supporting, the maintaining, uh funding it, staffing it, and even stewarding it, you know. Uh like now that we have this, who is going to oversee it?
SPEAKER_16Exactly.
SPEAKER_12Because a lot of times you just get, you know, an alternator if somebody got it for you, but you didn't know what to do with it, you have to go find somebody, or after a couple days or weeks of not finding nobody, you just let it sit there and collect. Right? And all the and then you go and put it in and out, it's the wrong part, but you can't take it back because you went over 30 days. But all this stuff is true, right? I mean maybe not in cards because you might use them a little bit more than just Sunday, but um, that's the same thing with this technology. You get this new technology and you don't know how to do it just because you just saw another church do it. Oh, I wish we had that too. Okay, now you have it. Now what? Well, I don't know. I just wish we had it. And you spent all this money, or you know, it's not a very good look. So kind of to tie all that back together, I think it's kind of good to say every wish comes with some sort of responsibility. Oh, absolutely. Some sort of responsibility. If it's if it's you know training or if it's if it's live streaming, you gotta be trained on that. Where are you streaming to? What platforms are you streaming to? Are there different codes for it, or you know, the APIs or all that different stuff? It and then you get the people who say, Oh, it's just easy, it's easy. Well, it's easy because they've been doing it forever. But a lot of these churches are just their first time coming into it. Yes. Right? Or they're changing from another platform to this platform. And when people say it's easy, you gotta really take that with a grain of salt because it's easy for them because they've been doing it. And then as soon as something goes wrong and you ask them for help, oh, well, it works on my computer. Well, that's not that's not help. That doesn't help. Yeah, that doesn't help. It gets you frustrated. It gets it, it's an illusion that the stuff is as easy as people make it seem at make it seem to be. Um so again, obviously we we talked about this in our one of our last episodes, but we want better sound. What do you gotta do? Do we have our foot sweep music on that? I don't know if we have what are you gonna do if we need better sound? For real. Just not gotta stop for sound check. You gotta go through your mics, go through your speakers, you gotta go through the soundboard, you gotta go through the dials, you gotta go, you gotta go through all this stuff. You just can't, it's not just going to sit and work itself. Even with AI, you have to have some sort of human interaction. You just have to. Um, and of course, like we talked about earlier in the first segment. Um, if you want better graphics, I think this is a problem for a lot of churches where they want, but they want, you know, graphics to be appealing to people to come and look at what they have going on. But somebody's making these graphics, and that somebody probably has a family, that somebody probably has their own you know needs that they have to do. Um just boiling it down, it has to come to scheduling. You have to schedule this out. Don't come to people last minute saying, hey, do this for me, or I need it by tomorrow. Like, you don't know what I have going on. Exactly. But oh, I wish we had a graphics person. All right, well, work with them, get a schedule, use your planner, use a calendar. Um, you know, give them some leeway. It's unrealistic to expect anybody to just drop what they're doing and satisfy your graphic because you wish because you wish we had it. So um everybody wants to finish product, nobody wants to do the work. And that's a tough pill to swallow, but that's how we talk here on Tuck Decided. Yeah, for real. Everybody wants to straight no chaser. That's how we're gonna give it to you. But that's that's the thing, right? A lot of people want things, but they don't want to do the work. And then you have people who want things and they're willing to help you with what they can do, but they just don't have the skill set to do it, right? We have a couple people like that here, and it's not a bad thing, like, oh man, I wish we had, you know, I wish we had this. Well, I mean, it's not a problem because hopefully we're gonna be doing something with uh our one of our worship leaders here, Chester Neil Mailfield Jr. And um when we got when I got involved with all this stuff, with the tech stuff, you know, hey Steve, Steve O man, you know, I've been wishing we had this, I've been wishing we had this. And I'm like, okay, that's no problem, Chester. He's like, well, you know, I I wish it, but I also know, and Chester is, you know, wise enough to know, like, hey, listen, I know we want all this, but he's also humble enough to say, I don't know how to do all this. And he will say, Yeah, man, I've been wanting to know how to, I've been wanting that we have all this, I don't know how to operate it. I have the vision, and I can be here if you mean to be here, but I don't know anything about switchboards and all this stuff.
SPEAKER_16I know how to sing, I know where the microphone needs to be. So he has the vision, just not the expertise.
SPEAKER_12But yeah, but he's he's willing to be with you in the trenches while you get to it. Oh, yeah. You see what I'm saying? Oh, absolutely. And that's something that not everybody is willing to do.
SPEAKER_16Yeah, everyone uh the a lot of times you'll encounter people who just wish to delegate.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. People, yeah, there you go. People want to delegate and sit down and point and not necessarily laugh, but just call give you more turmoil and problems. And that's not I don't I don't necessarily think that's a way to run a ministry. Um, again, just being humble, saying, hey, I have a vision for this because I saw at this other church, it'd be nice if we had it. Let me sit down with you and let's map out a plan. That's very different than just saying, Oh, I saw something at this church, we should get that, and then walk off. So definitely every wish comes responsibility um and communication, right? You gotta have communication between all of the ministries that will be um partaking in what it is that you're trying to bring up. Let's see. Oh, yes, church needs to know what it's building. Again, when you say you wish your church had, what's your church's audience? Now I understand we're trying to get people, you know, try we're trying to save souls, right? We're that's what that's most churches go. We're trying to save souls, trying to get them in the building, trying to minister the minister to them, uh preach the gospel. I get it. But every church has to have an audience that's maybe a little bit more tailored to who they're going after. In other words, what I'm saying is, okay, we want to get people in the building. Do you want new members? Do you want visitors? Do you want young adults? Do you want people around the community? Do you want people that are just online? Right? This, who is your target audience? Because when you say you wish you had something, is that wish going to satisfy your target? In other words, I wish, I'm this is an example. This is my wish yet, but I wish my church had um I wish my church had, you know, uh six new young families to come here and worship. All right. Now let's say this is uh an older church where they still have, you know, paper cards. Let's say they have no Wi-Fi, let's say they have, you know, uh no online service, right? That's a wish, which is a great thing to get six young families into your building. But what are you going to do that's gonna keep them there? You can see you kind of see what I'm saying? Yeah, returned. Yeah, what are you gonna do that's gonna that gonna that's going to keep them there? Because you you might if you get five fam, if you get, let's say you get five families of the six, and you're oh we're blessed, we got these new families here, this and that, and two of the families approach you about, you know, hey, let's, you know, some new technology, you know, I work over here, and then you start again shutting them down. Oh yeah, we don't really do that here. Oh, you don't? Okay, because they do. Exactly. And that's where I'm going. Exactly.
SPEAKER_10Um, so again, yeah, you can't fall so far behind that especially with you if you're trying to get a younger uh group, uh they walk into your church and feel like they stepped into 1958. And needless to say, they're not gonna stay in 1958.
SPEAKER_12There's nothing wrong with uh uh what do they call it? Uh ancient churches or I won't say legacy, that's more of a tech thing. But just old, there's nothing wrong with old churches, but you gotta I don't I don't I don't have the answer, but what I am wanting to say is your what your church is building has to mimic what you wish for, because otherwise it's gonna be not aligned and it's gonna be a problem. So church cannot communicate clearly if it has if it has not decided who it's trying to reach. So when someone says I wish my church has, then oh when someone says I wish my church had, the next question probably should be why do we need it? Who is it for, and what will it take to get it, to do it well. That kind of makes a little bit of so church wish list is not always about a shopping list, sometimes it's about a mirror, just looking at yourself. Again, don't look at other churches and what they have, look at what you have and look at where you want to go. So, and after the break, we will have uh again, we're gonna play our clip for my lay on call, and we'll get to see what people on the street have.
SPEAKER_16I have to say about that. One thing I do want to add to that, Steve, is um you touched on something really important that it is take a look at what you have in your church and are you using what you have, what you already have, to its full potential.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, yeah, that's that's actually really good. I've gone into a couple of churches where they've asked for some tech help. I'm like, okay, let's you know do an assessment. And I come to a room and there's literally stuff in boxes that has not been opened.
SPEAKER_16That's not been opened, yeah, or opened and put me, you know, ooh, don't know what to do with this, put it right back in the box and stack it up in this collecting dust.
SPEAKER_12Right. And then you know me, like if we if we haven't used it, six months is lenient. If we haven't used it in six months, it's going, it's not staying here because you can't make room for the new stuff if it's you got you got all the stuff in your cabinets. But then you have these people who say, Oh, well, we got that from so and so. It's worth so much money. Just because it still works, maybe, doesn't mean it has value. Exactly and as technology progresses, you've got to stay up with the times. It doesn't mean you have to buy you have to buy a new camera or a new speaker or a microphone every year, but you got to be aware of kind of like, all right, we've had this for X years, there's new stuff out there, or you see it at other churches. Oh, I wish I had that. Okay, you wish you had it. Why do you wish you had it? Because it's nice and shiny, or because it actually brings value to your ministry. So, yeah, that's uh good point, though. But yeah, there's a lot of churches out there that just have stuff in boxes sitting in somebody's closet or in the basement or someplace that's not being used because they wanted it, they got it, and then they didn't follow through because they were probably the wrong people. Gotta get the right people. But that brings us to our second uh sponsor.
SPEAKER_16Yeah, this praise big being brought to you by Multiply, helping churches turn Sunday's message into everyday disciplineship. Okay. Let me put you on to something real. Pastors and everybody who loves a pastor, you know how much goes into the Sunday preparation hours and the word preaching, teaching, encouraging, pouring out. But then Monday comes, our discipleship can't just stop. That's where multiply comes in. Multiply helps take what was preached on Sunday and keeps it moving all week long with follow-up to the next steps and the discipleship tools branded for your church. The visitor gets a path. The online viewer gets connected. The member who is already deserved can find where they fit. No extra stuff, no extra tools, just the word still working, still working. Try it absolutely free for 30 days. No credit card needed. Learn more at
Praise Break — Evvie McKinney (Feat. DOE), “Believe In Jesus”
SPEAKER_16multiplymission.org. That's multiplymission.org. Multiply. Keeping the word moving beyond Sunday. Now let's get into this praise break. Okay. Believe in Jesus. Evie McKinney featuring Joe. That's our second praise bank. Featuring the powerful voice of Evie McKinney. Coming out of Memphis, Tennessee. A city with deep roots and soul, gospel, and testimony. Evie first stepped into the spotlight as a winner of uh Fox's The Four Battle of Stardom. And she continues to make her mark with a second root faith power. And that uh is real life praise. This time she teams up with Doe, a Grammy winning Christian and Gospel artist for a song that puts faith first, faith front and center, points us in the right direction to the foundation of it all. Let's take this praise break higher with E.D. McKinney featuring Doe. Believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_06Some people believe in the final things. That money's gonna set them free. Some people believe in kings and queens, thinking that they can fix everything. As for me, you are sin. I put on my faith above. All my hope is in the one who's worthy of all my trust. I believe in Jesus. I believe every word is said, I believe he's with me. He's the reason for everybody. Even if I stand alone, I let the whole know. I believe in Jesus. Oh Some people believe that they're too far. Some people believe that they're all alone. The God is not in control. But as for me, we're instead I put on my feet of my hopes in the world. I believe it's Jesus. I believe everybody said I believe it's pretty.
SPEAKER_16That was Evie McKinney featuring Doe with I Believe in Jesus. Alright.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, pretty nice video there, man. That was that was pretty cool. And I think that was actually our second person from Memphis. I think somebody we had on last time was from Memphis, too. So Tennessee's crack uh cranking them out. For real. So but yeah, good videos, right? Both of them. Nice change up. Uh nice little black and white thing they had going on there. I like black and white videos. So thank you to Evie and uh Copa for our praise breaks this episode. So we are going to kind of get ready to transition to Alien Core or Alion Core. Uh terminator, if you want to go ahead and start our transition music. Uh so on Alion Core, we will get to the heart of the question. I wish my church had. We're going to ask people from the Nehemiah 2025 Summit. We're going to get results. I'm sorry, we're going to get uh responses. They're going to be funny, they're going to be real, and they may even be a little personal. If you are listening on our uh uh podcast platform, this is the time to tune in to our YouTube channel so you can see our visuals at us laughing at each other. Go to YouTube, search Tech Disciples. You're not going to want to miss these visuals and our interview segment. So with that, coming right up, Alion Call of the Bush.
Allez Encore
SPEAKER_16And um to I wish my church had, and uh Steve I must come in, you must go on, you know, give you your flowers. You always get great video clips.
SPEAKER_12Do I? You really do. Terminator, what do you think? Absolutely. Well, uh, I mean, thank you, but you you guys are helping. Terminator boy. Uh no, man. You guys, Terminator and Sean, you guys definitely uh help uh with me in the show and couldn't do without you showing with the voice. Obviously, Terminator of his expertise and his mixing on the ones and twos. So um it's a team effort. But thank you. Thank you. But we do have some clips. Yeah, today we do have a clip. Set it up. I'm gonna set it up. So um last year, 2025, uh myself and Southside Church of Christ, uh, we went to the Nehemiah Summit in Atlanta. It's hosted at the Renaissance Church of Christ. I think we have a photo of it. Do we have a photo of it? We can share with uh is it uh okay. Uh there you go. Yeah. So that's their building. They are, I don't have the address off the top of my head, but they will be in the credits. Everybody will be in the credits for those who want to follow up. But this is the building we met at. And go to our next photo there. This was this was my badge, actually. I just wanted to, oh, I got my name's cut off. But that's okay. This was the badge of the summit, and I believe the next photo is uh Southside Church of Christ. Shout out to Southside Church of Christ, everybody there. Uh, we came down to um uh to attend the conference, and uh our brother Thomas had um, I think he had a couple sessions, so we just came down to support. So um, yeah, that's the South Side squad. We can give a shout out. And do we have a hand clap, clap, clap? We can clap a little bit. All right, very good. All right, so and um although South Side was there and I was there, uh Tech Disciples was there as well. Yes, yes, we were. We were there as well. Always learn we had a booth set up. I don't have any photos of that, but that's okay. And the next ones we will be sure to get uh photos of the booth. Um but yeah, for this episode, we recorded the title of the episode, I wish my church had. So what we did was we set up, we had some um microphones, we had a simple question. Hey, I wish my church had fill in the blank. That's it. Nothing crazy, no scriptures, no theological exam, just fill in the blank. Some of the answers were funny, practical, spiritual, and some sounded like they've been waiting a long time for somebody to ask. So, what we're gonna do is we are gonna get into the clip. We will do our reflection afterward, and um that's what we're gonna do. So you ready, Sean? Yes, Terminator, you ready?
unknownReady, ready.
SPEAKER_12All right, well, here we go. The um the interview clip segment from the twenty and twenty-five Nehemiah Next Level Up Summit. I wish my church had to be a few years. What's up, Tech Disciples? It is Stephen D. Holder. We are here at the last day of the 2025 Miami Next Level Up Summit. People are excited, people are energized, people are networking, people are conversing, praise is being lifted up. I wish my church had right here coming up next. Stephen Dee Holder here at FPS Presents Tech Disciples. I'm here with a legend, up-and-coming legend. If you don't know him, you're gonna know him right now. I am here with Anthony Gavin Jr. The junior is very important, just so you know. All right, Anthony Gavin Jr. So, you know, on the podcast, Tech Disciples, we do technology and faith and how they intersect. The theme for here at Nehemiah 2025 is I wish my church had. All you have to do is just fill in the blank. So I wish my church had a stronger youth department. Stronger youth department. Very nice, brother Gavin. Thank you so much, man. I am here with Mark Vaughn Jr.
SPEAKER_04Mark Vaughn Jr., where do you worship out of?
SPEAKER_14Crescent Hills Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_04I am here with Jason Sharp.
SPEAKER_12Jason Sharp, where do you worship out of?
SPEAKER_03Bay North Church of Christ in Fairfield, California.
SPEAKER_12What's my man's name?
SPEAKER_15Tristan.
SPEAKER_12Tristan? And where do you worship out of Tristan? We are here with a returning interviewee.
SPEAKER_08Ken Ken.
SPEAKER_12Ken Ken. Where'd he worship out of Ken Ken?
SPEAKER_08South Central Church of Christ.
SPEAKER_12Where is that?
SPEAKER_08Raleigh no Kakalaki.
SPEAKER_12I know where it is, but the viewers don't. So I am here with Leroy Johnson. Leroy Johnson's Where do you worship out of? Uh Kingdom Church of Christ from Charles, North Carolina.
SPEAKER_04We are here with Brother Nick. Savani. You got it wrong the last time on the podcast.
SPEAKER_12I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_04That's alright. It's all in love. It's all in love. I am here with Agni Goda.
SPEAKER_12Agni, where do you worship out of him, Agni?
SPEAKER_09The Church of Christ that meets at Baldacrest.
SPEAKER_12I am here with Nicole Gaskins. Nicole Gaskins, and where do you worship out of?
SPEAKER_08MSC City in Irving, Texas.
SPEAKER_13I'm here with Love Cooper from A Tennessee. What you know about me? Big L O U V E S me. I am here with Chris McHenry. Chris, where are you where do you worship out of Chris? I worship out of Greater Highest Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio. Hey, where church do you go to?
SPEAKER_14I to Northwest Church of Christ in South Taven, Mississippi.
SPEAKER_12I am here with Christopher Darnar. Christopher Darnar.
SPEAKER_14Are you a preacher? Yes, sir. Where do you preach out of? Fort Worth, Texas, East Point Church of Christ. I'm here with Crystal Taylor.
SPEAKER_12Crystal Taylor, where do you worship?
SPEAKER_14Southside Church of Christ.
SPEAKER_12I know that, but the viewers don't. So I'm here with Ike Rochelle.
SPEAKER_00Ike Rochelle, where you worship out of the Northwest Church of Christ in South Avenue, Mississippi. Sister Curry.
SPEAKER_12Sister Curry, where do you worship auto?
SPEAKER_00Church of Christ.
SPEAKER_12I am here with Kelly Brooks. And I'm also here with Anthony Brooks. And where is British Brooks worship autumn?
SPEAKER_15I'm the minister of the immigration church of Christ in Loganville, Georgia.
SPEAKER_12Because I am here with J.J.
SPEAKER_15Gelly.
SPEAKER_12J.J. Gelly, where do you worship auto? San Diego in the house.
SPEAKER_15Yes, sir, the senior minister.
SPEAKER_12Ah, senior minister of San Diego!
SPEAKER_15I am here with the senior pastor of the Church of Christmas Fairfield in Sacramento.
SPEAKER_04You wish your church had a basketball league. I wish my church had.
SPEAKER_12I wish my church had.
SPEAKER_13I wish my church had.
SPEAKER_12You wish your church had. I wish my church had a better sound system. I wish my church had.
SPEAKER_15I wish my church had a playground.
SPEAKER_12I wish my church had. I wish my church had.
SPEAKER_14I wish my church had a trillion books.
SPEAKER_12I wish my church had. I wish my church had.
SPEAKER_08A young adult ministry for forty plus.
SPEAKER_12Alright. I wish my church had.
SPEAKER_14I wish my church had. Probably better cameras and lighting. Probably in the sanctuary. I wish my church had.
SPEAKER_12I take that. I wish my church had.
SPEAKER_09I wish my church had more discipleship minded.
SPEAKER_12I wish my church had. Shout out your podcast again for the viewers who didn't see our episode.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, check out the called my god podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever you name it. Just check it out.
SPEAKER_12My man Nick, I mean, he's doing a lot of great things on his podcast. Definitely go log in and check him out. So Nick, you're here, man, and our theme, I wish my church had a basketball gym.
SPEAKER_04I wish my church had a basketball gym. That's what I need to explain. That's great.
SPEAKER_15Vision.
SPEAKER_12Ooh, vision. Okay. I like that one. I wish my church had more money. You can't go wrong with that. Thank you for the same. Appreciate you, man. Stephen Harder here, FPIs Presents Tech Disciples. This is the last day of the Nehemiah 2025 Next Level Up Summit. I'm here with the founder, the creator, the CEO, the president, the visionary, the master ninjutsuist, Dr. Orpheus J. Hayward. Brother Hayward, this was an amazing event. Thank you so much for having everybody here.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I've enjoyed it. I'm thankful for you being here. All of the support with vendors, the great presentations. We had over 71 speakers. It was an incredible learning moment, empowering, and it sends people home ready to do ministry. That's the goal of the summit, and just God moved in a mighty way and we're grateful.
SPEAKER_12So, sir, you know, on our podcast, Tech Disciples, we intersect faith with technology and bridging the gap from the younger generation and the older generation. At every event, we always pose a question to our interviewees.
SPEAKER_01And that question is I wish my church had I wish my church had a better awareness of how much it costs to get great technology and be willing to invest in the future. Technology is important. We realize that that's the way to step into the future. We appreciate people like you and others have an awareness to what technology can do to enhance ministry. So I wish people would be more aware of what it takes to really take ministry.
SPEAKER_12I just thank you so much. Looking forward to Nehemiah. And my fourth year here, I keep coming back. You keep having me. Take it away. Take care. Thank you all. All right. I wish my church had all types of responses, Sean. Terminator, what'd you guys think?
SPEAKER_10Very good responses. Very good responses. That's the one that said, I wish my church had vision. Well, that's not good.
SPEAKER_12It could be that he wishes the church has vision. Um, like maybe the church, maybe he's at an older church. We don't we don't know, right? Maybe you're at an older church and they need to have uh a vision. But um, I mean I thought all the answers were pretty good. Sean, what'd you think?
SPEAKER_16Oh yeah, you know, I love crystals, you know. Buses. What do you think? A lot of better sound systems.
SPEAKER_10A lot of better sound system witches, technology witches. Yeah.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, I think there were two churches there that said they wanted, well, one said A V, one said sound system, but you know, that's something that and they see it, right? They're they can say it, they can say that because they see it, because they're probably the people that are working it. So um, yeah, I do want to dial back just a little bit. Um, now since this was recorded, right? This was last year, November 2025, there's been a lot of changes. But everybody in that you saw in the interview segment, they're gonna be in the credits. Um, you go and check them out. The churches, I mean, the churches will be in the credits that people will be, you can find them on Facebook and stuff like that. But some things have changed. I want to make light of two things that have changed. Um, Brother Anthony Gavin Jr., the first gentleman that I interviewed there, he has uh gone to another church, another position. So we want to Yeah, and that's that's a hand clap. We can do a hand clap for that.
SPEAKER_16Definitely, congratulations, Aaron away.
SPEAKER_12Yeah, he that was great. And uh Brother Watkins from South Central Church of Christ and Raleigh. Um, I think two years ago he came, and then a year ago he was in he was installed, and then at the end of 2025, he was installed as the senior pastor. So that's not a head clap for that. So very great. Uh Brother Watkins there at Raleigh um saw it as a senior pastor. So um again, when this was recorded or when this was put together and compiled, it was just hard and um things changed. So want to make light of that. I don't want anybody to think that we're not trying to uh give them give them credit and stuff. Um, also with the interviews there, I got some news for you gentlemen here. Thanks to my Grams, our premier supporter. The mic I used there was a little older, but I got I got some new equipment myself. So really but no, thanks to Grams, we're gonna begin some new mics. So when we do our new interview segments, um hopefully it'll be a little clearer. I know here in the studio we had a little bit of a little issue, but it's all good. Um it's all it all works out. Um and yes, want to thank everybody. So one thing I want to do a takeaway here is sometimes humor tells the tells the the truth safely. You can kind of joke about it, but you still want to get the message out. Like, yeah, you know, it'd be nice if we had an A V system, but I'm serious. Right. Um, you know, oh no, another one, two of them said um basketball or basketball league and basketball gym. And I was thinking about this one for a little bit, and I was like, well, I guess if you have a gym, your your young people can go there and play burnoff steam, whatever it is, and you're not tied to the house or getting involved in other stuff that isn't so positive. Positive, yeah. I don't know what the word right word was there. So um the laugh is real, but the meaning behind it might be real as well. As we already said, people notice what's missing, so they are able to kind of um talk to it and say what they wish their church had and what it didn't have. So I think this is going to wrap us up. Um
Credits
SPEAKER_12when it comes to I wish my church had, uh, again, it's not necessarily well, thank you for well, I don't know, back up a second. I wish my church had, where we talked about the church wish list from average churchgoers. Uh, what people wish the church had and what those wishes may reveal. Your church can uh actually no. Terminator, you can go ahead and start our credit roll music, man. Uh, it's we're getting I'm getting late here and we need to go home. But as our call to action, please like, subscribe, share, follow us on social media. Don't forget our podcast platforms Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Amazon. And if you want to be a sponsor, if you have some music, you want to get featured on a future praise break, please go to our website, techdisciples.org, all one word, techdisciples.org. Again, uh, if you want to be a sponsor or you have a church story you want to share with us, please do that at the website as well. And oh, a round table, that's what it was. We're gonna go around a round table here. So, Sean, you wish your church had.
SPEAKER_16Um I'm gonna have to go sign with Crystal, you know. Um buses. Even if uh not buses, you know, maybe a couple of 15 passenger bands, you know. Big RVs? Uh alright. I don't know about RVs, but you know, the um We'll figure it out.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, yeah. Terminator, I wish my church had more people on the media team. More people on the media team. Uh ask me. I gotta ask me.
SPEAKER_16Yes, Steve. What do you wish your church had?
SPEAKER_12I wish we had more parking. Parking can get a little tough when we park park our vehicles, but you have more parking.
SPEAKER_16Uh true, but uh, you know, the key to get parking. Show up for sound check. Early. Show up as sound check. Show up for service early.
SPEAKER_12Again, check our YouTube channel out to see our visual of the Fs laughing at each other, as we love to do so much. But until the next time, I am Stephen Deholder.
SPEAKER_16I am DJ Sean Alexander.
SPEAKER_10I am Terminator X.
SPEAKER_12Uh take us to credits, man. We are done.
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