How Your Church Can Use Video In A Fresh & Better Way | Omar El-Takrori

Bart Blair: [00:00:00] Ready? Go. All right, here we go. I’ll kind of sit down and then, Jason, you can get a roll. And here we go. In three, two.

Jason Hamrock: [00:00:08] Hey, Omar, welcome to the show. How are you doing today, man?

Omar El-Takrori: [00:00:12] Dude, I’m excited, and I’m honored to be here and help some communication directors and people who are involved in ministry, and see how we can use video in a better and fresh way.

Jason Hamrock: [00:00:22] Oh, I love it. Yes, all right, you just let it out of the bag right there.

Bart Blair: [00:00:27] There’s the title, that just became the title of the episode, using video in a fresh and better way.

Jason Hamrock: [00:00:33] That’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be a great episode. I’m really excited to unpack this with you. Let our listeners know a little bit about you. Where you live, what’s your ministry experience, and what is your passion?

Omar El-Takrori: [00:00:46] Yeah. My name is Omar El-Takro, and currently, I am a full-time creator. I create content for a channel called Think Media on YouTube, we have a little over 2.3 million subscribers, where we teach people the best tips and tools on how to build their influence with online video on YouTube. And a lot of times there’s crossover, because we have opportunity to reach churches as we try to reach people in just that idea. But we are also a company built on Scripture and biblical principles, and I’m also a community pastor at my church. I help my pastors, pastors Jabin and Shanen Chavez plant a church about five years ago here in Las Vegas, Nevada, called City Light Church. And so I found myself in, you know, I definitely have a heart for the local church, it’s kind of how we’re even using the influence on Think Media to kind of build the kingdom.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:01:42] And yeah, I mean, in that I’ve seen that a lot of churches can use the help as well. But I used to work at a church as a creative director and, you know, really grew in my gifts, talents, and abilities in that role for about three and a half years. And then kind of stepped off staff to pursue starting a business and doing small business promos, weddings, and family photo shoots. And that was really cool until the opportunity presented itself to be able to help Sean Cannell, who’s the CEO of Think Media. Around 2016, I helped them shoot and edit some videos. And then around 2019, he was like, hey, can you start teaching? And so it’s been a cool journey to see the growth of Think Media to what it is now, you know, over 15 plus W-2 employees, multiple creators, and really trying to help people capitalize on the opportunity with online video. And what’s so cool is, like I said, Think Media is a biblical principled company that’s built on biblical principles, that we even use the opportunity to share the gospel in the form of having live events.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:02:49] We’ll have a live event, it’s a usually video marketing event. Last year we had one in May of 2022 and we invited John Bevere to do a bonus session and we said, hey, if you want to come to the bonus session where, you know you can come figure out the secret sauce, we’re giving away 300 books. And you know, there were 600-plus attendees that came to just that bonus session, and John didn’t hold back. He laid out the gospel, and I think around 300 people raised their hands and gave their lives to the Lord. And it was just a seed moment, and just how we can facilitate that, we try to do the best as possible in regards to getting people plugged into local churches and stuff. But all that to say, that’s kind of what I’m doing.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:03:31] I also just opened up my own studio here in Las Vegas. I started a group coaching program to help entrepreneurs get their set up, kind of dialed because I do think having a quality setup matters if you’re a professional. And so yeah, it’s been fun. Really just video being a big part of my life, as I took broadcast journalism in high school. This is now over 15 years ago, and that’s when I first got introduced to Adobe Premiere Pro I really fell in love with the process of creating videos. And looking back now, it’s funny that I’m the guy teaching it. A lot of people think I’m fairly gifted, but I just think if you do something for a long time and you evaluate and you improve that over time, you just become really good at what it is you do. And so kind of just got my testimony in that.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:04:18] And even in the form of getting in front of a camera and teaching, I’ve also been afforded an opportunity for my pastor to allow me to preach on weekends. And I think my pastor is a phenomenal communicator, he’s spoken at Elevation Church, Transformation Church, Hillsong, like, you name it, he’s been on those stages, and I have the privilege to be able to learn from him and grow in my communication even as a Bible teacher. And so, yeah, I guess you could say I’m a pretty dynamic kind of guy.

Jason Hamrock: [00:04:45] Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. All right. My head is spinning. I have so many questions, but one thing that’s top of my head. So we talk to a lot of churches, and often we get asked because maybe we’re going to run an Easter campaign. Easter’s coming up we’re going to run an Easter campaign. And inevitably, they say, well, hey, Jason, or hey, Bart, what kind of video should we create to advertise? Or they’ll even say, what kind of video should we create to show our own people? And I give them my ideas, but I’d love to hear from the expert. When you’re talking or you’re counseling or you’re coaching or teaching people about how to create videos, what are some of just the nuggets you share?

Omar El-Takrori: [00:05:31] Yeah, I mean, when churches reach out to me, and I actually have a church that I’m helping on a creative like mentorship standpoint. But a lot of the time it’s just, first, before we even promote things, because I think it’s really good to have paid promotion and doing ads and stuff, it’s awesome because it’s a great way to meet people. Google gives every nonprofit like 10,000 a year, might as well spend it, you know, all that stuff. But I think it’s like, what are we doing when we’re not promoting? Because I think the church loves to promote, promote, promote, and get you here, get you here, get you here. And yes, we want people to come in the door. obviously, that’s just like God’s building his church. But what are we doing in the middle of the week with what we’re already doing, you know? And so when it comes to like some video ideas, and sorry, there’s like a weird truck that never is here. And I’m in the middle of this.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:06:24] When I’m, you know, encouraging churches to create content, it really stems from, what are you currently doing? So we currently preach a sermon on a weekend. Well, how many times is that being cut up into a different kind of clip, you know? And then secondly, like, can we create graphics from that? Can we create devotionals from that? And I think we underestimate the power of internal videos in churches, even, you know, like, has your church created a course for your church? Like how to read the Bible? You know, we’re going through the book of Ephesians. And this course can be hosted on your YouTube channel because I know a lot of people are just hosting sermons on their YouTube channels.

Jason Hamrock: [00:10:09] Well, that’s awesome. Okay, so I have a lot of questions that I want to run by you, but off the top of my head, we talk, Bart and I talk to churches all the time about things that we do for them. So advertising, like Easter’s coming up, so we’ll be advertising for Easter. Well, inevitably we get asked, hey, what’s the best way to build our video for promotions? Right? They’re looking for ideas or looking for those tips for creating videos, and I give them different answers. I’m really curious about your answer, like, what’s the best way? What are the nuggets that you would offer people that are wanting to create videos?

Omar El-Takrori: [00:10:45] Yeah, I think when it comes to promoting because, like, I love promoting, that’s like part of it, not the whole point. But I do think the bigger picture is what matters, right? I think the question churches should be asking rather than like, what should we make for our video promo? Because we put so much energy into one video, but we forsake the two and a half months we have until Easter or, you know, and what are we doing between that time to actually get awareness? And I think that’s where we’re missing, and I say we as in like a general statement in regards to the church because I think that a lot of churches are just missing the opportunity with videos to just show up Monday through Friday. Like, you don’t actually have to do a paid advertisement if you just show up consistently, you know? And I think what’s funny about marketing is a lot of the times when we market, we’re trying to market to the individual that we don’t wholeheartedly want, you know? And I know that Easter presents itself as an opportunity to meet a lot of people, but Chriseasters are not necessarily, the church isn’t built on Chriseasters. So we’re actually promoting and trying to get Chriseasters in the door with the hope that that net, you know, it becomes like, yeah, we present the gospel in a fresh way and then hopefully they become a member and then they jump on a team. That’s a great, you know, customer or member journey, I guess you could say.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:12:16] But I really want to encourage churches to step into producing content that actually is helping your church. Because what’s funny is, when you start helping people, it becomes very shareable and then the people are actually promoting. And when your church is responsible for discipling or educating people through video, then the awareness starts taking place, which really I mean, that’s honestly my passion. Like, what’s the goal with Instagram? Number one, what’s the goal, it’s to just be aware, people know that we are around. So that when they come to that place, they think of us.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:12:55] And as like what kind of videos can do that. You know, I definitely think, you know, taking the weekend sermon and cutting that up into a few clips a week and posting that online is a way to utilize something that’s already happening. You know, if churches could consider starting a video podcast. I know a lot of times even YouTube channels are just hosting sermons, but you know, you could start an interview show with people in your church and just interview them on their stories. Single mothers, entrepreneurs, dads, you know, like youth growing up in the church, and now they’re leading or maybe they’re on staff, and these conversations could be 15, 20, 30-minute long conversations where people are sharing their testimony. The Bible says, “We are overcomers by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.” But we don’t have to put all this energy into one cinematic testimonial video, we can actually just record conversations, and from those conversations, we can cut up reels. This is what I call the mothership strategy, like sit down once, create some content, and then you can spin off, upload that audio to the podcast, get 3 to 5 clips, upload that to YouTube shorts, you know, Instagram and stuff, and then you have this piece of content that could live on the channel.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:14:14] I think another untapped idea that churches can start implementing is creating courses for your church. And those courses could be hosted on YouTube. What are the biggest questions people are asking? They probably don’t know where to start when it comes to prayer. They probably don’t know where to start when it comes to reading the Bible. They probably don’t know how to study scripture. Like can you do a Book of Ephesians series where we show up every Wednesday, we’re dropping a video, and then it turns into a playlist and now you have this asset for your church? And I think this is what it’s going to do, it’s going to create awareness. And what’s funny is like you guys are big on running ads for churches and stuff. You know, City Light, we’re celebrating five years, February 19th will be five years, and we’re seeing around 1500 people on a Sunday. And we’re trying to handle the crowds, and we can’t even pay for marketing. Like we have the problem of we don’t know where people would even go, but it’s because we’re utilizing what’s already happening to promote what is going on. And when I say that word, promote, I’m not saying everything we post is, get here, come here, don’t miss this, this time, this place, no, it’s actual helpful content that is actually helping people in their walk Monday through Saturday. And I think that’s kind of like the new way of thinking when it comes to leading a church’s media department. I used to be a creative director at a church, and it’s a new way of thinking because I was solely in charge of promoting ministries and making fun ads to play on the weekends. And now when I think about a communication or creative director at a church, you almost have to step into a pastoral point of view because now the platform is an opportunity for people to be pastored. And for you to have the brain on how that can even happen, whether it be for a season, you do a devotional or, you know, whatever that may look like, but you being able to think those strategies through is really important because I have found that most pastors don’t have a content problem. If you tell them like, hey, can you write me up a seven-day devo on peace, they’re going to be like, yeah, I already have. I did a series like three years ago, I already have it, like, I’ll just bring it out of the woodwork. Well, we’re going to sit down at this time, here’s this time window. We’re going to shoot all seven of these devo’s 8, to 10, to 15 minutes each, and then we’ll have content for seven weeks and then we’re going to have this asset on peace. You know, like I think as I’m talking, people are probably getting ideas, but I think that’s the big question, like, what are we doing from now until Easter to create an awareness about the fact that we just exist?

Jason Hamrock: [00:16:54] I don’t think you have to be overthinking it in terms of a studio, right? It’s just, use an iPhone, have some decent light, and a good microphone.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:17:07] You can get wireless mics on Amazon right now for like $35, it plugs one and then it has two, and you can literally do a nice little conversation with it. Yeah, for sure.

Bart Blair: [00:17:16] I think, you know, and I don’t want it to…So you, Omar, I watch your videos and the content that you’re creating, you are really working to help primarily entrepreneurs, but certainly churches as well really elevate their game as far as production, production quality, and things like that. I mean, you provide a lot of stuff that is super, super helpful in that regard. At the same time, I think one of the tensions that a lot of churches struggle with is wanting to produce everything at an HBO level and not being able to do that. And therefore, they don’t do anything. I don’t want to say I’m a Gary Vee fan, but I will say Gary says, version one is better than version none. And that’s one of the things from Gary Vee that I’ve always said, you know, sometimes you just got to go and do it. And if you do it, then you learn how to do it better. But we work with a lot of churches that I see, that I see that paralysis, because if we can’t do everything at that broadcast level all the time, then we don’t do anything. And what’s your comment or your feedback on something like that?

Omar El-Takrori: [00:18:22] I think it’s, you know, this might be a little bit deep, but it’s kind of like modern-day religion. It’s caring so much about how we look, that we forsake to even be effective, you know, like I said, it’s kind of deep. But the thing is, is content value is more important than production value, right? So the potency of content, the contents of your content is what matters. I had this coaching group, like literally right before this call, or this interview, I had my coaching call and I just interviewed one of the students in my group who has grown his IG from 2000 followers in December, and we are here now February 7th and he has 68,000 followers, all done with his smartphone, all posting content on how to read the Bible and where to get started. And he would just go to a coffee shop and then, you know, you’re not even using audio, just sharing, like here are three Bible books that you can read about identity, boom, boom, boom. And people love that stuff, and it’s crazy that like this guy is growing his influence, Christian [inaudible], and yet, you know, he’s a student pastor, he’s also an interim director. He’s doing a lot of things, but he just felt like, dude, people are spending 8 hours a day on their phones and the church is vacant.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:19:43] You know, it’s funny because it also is a bigger picture of what a lot of times the emphasis Church has and that we put all our eggs in the Sunday basket and then the church is nowhere to be found Monday through Saturday. And I even see that on a social media standpoint, I think the church is doing an incredible job on Sundays. You’re posting, you’re showing pictures, but everybody’s at church anyway. Like the people that you’re promoting to are going to church, so like, like restructure the strategy so that you show up during the week and that you can get started with the smartphone. Like dude, you know we don’t have it all figured out, like you know, City Light doesn’t do it perfectly. But I am pulling out my phone on Sundays, and I’m recording volunteers waving at the camera who are greeters, and I’m going to the kid’s room, and I’m just getting all my phone so that our social person has something to pull from. Because we take photos, but like, dude, this looks really good, a smartphone, if you use the rear-facing camera, set it to 4k, it’s amazing. And then you can just literally find a template on Instagram, and then it has a song to it already, you just pick four or five, or six clips and then it creates an edit for you without even editing. So when I think about like, it really it comes down to this idea, it’s not about your resources, it’s about your resourcefulness, right? So what are you doing with what you already have? Heck, if you have this stuff, use it. But if you don’t or if you have it and it’s paralyzing you from using it, then just go to the smartphone. And there’s just something about, you know, we don’t want to be messy because we’re the church and because people are watching. But it’s not messy because it’s valuable, it’s sharing a story, it’s beautiful what the church has to offer when you get inside of these doors and when you join this community, it’s going to help your life. If that is the fruit and the product or the thing that you are offering at your church, then why are we prohibiting people from …We’re robbing them. You know, I was like a lot of people that know we know we need to post more, we know we need to be more consistent. but you don’t realize that there is a people waiting for you to show up.

Jason Hamrock: [00:21:52] Yeah.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:21:52] And if we don’t, they’ll either follow somebody else, or they won’t be reached. And I think that’s a sobering reality, as someone who’s so passionate about the local church that we can literally rob people from meeting with God because we care so much about perfection.

Jason Hamrock: [00:22:10] Yeah. And if you think about, so this is really for you, church, if you look at Instagram or Tik Tok and you look at those videos, just the quality, that’s all you have to do is just be like that. You don’t have to have a studio with tons of equipment, like Omar, you’re saying, just walk around with an iPhone. And that is good because that’s what people are used to seeing anyway, and so you’re no different, but your message is totally different.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:22:36] And I will see, honestly, really big churches are not consistent because they have that studio space. And I know you’ve got to book your team to like, and I would even say churches that are doing content at a very high, high level, they are actually not being consistent because of that mind hurdle that it has to be shot in the studio, the audio needs to be perfect, and it’s unfortunate because it actually is removing a touch. There is something relatable even if you do have this stuff, to show up a few times on a smartphone. Like sometimes our pastor will do an invite to Sunday just using his phone because there’s just something about seeing your pastor on that level, you know like he’s relatable. He’s not just every time I see him, he’s shot on a red camera, or he’s on a stage. No, he’s at home in his office, like all day, he’s just like me, you know, there’s just there’s something powerful about that that we definitely miss out on.

Jason Hamrock: [00:23:30] Yeah. Another idea I’ve always shared with pastors is, hey, when you’re prepping, you’re sitting at your desk. Just take a minute and just record yourself calling, hey, right now, this is what I’m doing. Just drop a nugget, right, and then let your team take it and run with that.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:23:45] Oh, dude, that’s so good, because I think, let’s go a little bit beyond social media for a moment, just the power of video. Like, when’s the last time, and I think the answer is never, you pulled out your phone and you said, Hey, Jacob, I saw you this Sunday, and your photos were absolutely amazing. I’m just so grateful that you’re on the team, I’m grateful that you serve with your gifts, and love you so much, I hope you have an incredible week. And you text a video with you doing that, what will that do to that volunteer?

Jason Hamrock: [00:24:17] Yeah.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:24:18] Actually, that church that I brought on, I commissioned kind of their entire staff to do this with three people on their team. And multiple people said that their people responded with tears, literally, because of the thank you. And it’s because people want to be known and seen, and video and not just talking about social video, we’re talking about like using the power of our smartphone and using it to communicate in a fresh and better way, that it’ll go so far. You know just thanking your team even with your smartphone, shooting over that text, or what have you, it just really is a powerful touch that you can have.

Jason Hamrock: [00:25:03] Bart?

Bart Blair: [00:25:04] Man, that was absolutely…My brain is on overload right now because I’m thinking about that principle right there, not just in how I’m going to share that with churches, but I’m thinking about my own personal life and how I could actually use that just to be an encourager for people in my life. So that that, that jumped way over just like the ministry threshold and like into my own personal life and how I can implement that. Man, this is all really, really good stuff.

Bart Blair: [00:25:35] I want to kind of pick your brain a little bit on maybe what, you’ve given us some really practical things that churches can do today, things that maybe you’ve seen some other churches do, some things that you’re coaching churches to do. Why don’t you play a little bit of prognostication here in terms of, say, a church is doing many of the things that you just kind of laid out to do, some teaching, creating courses through YouTube, leveraging social media more during the week as a way of sort of adding value to people’s social media feed rather than simply promoting. You know, if a church is doing all of these things, knowing where we’re going culturally as far as the Internet and video use is concerned, what are some predictive things that you see that may be coming in the future? How do these things impact a church long term? What kind of things do you see coming that maybe some of the rest of us don’t see coming?

Omar El-Takrori: [00:26:38] Yeah, I mean, I definitely think pastors using ChatGPT to write sermons. That’s a joke.

Bart Blair: [00:26:45] Oh, no, no, no, no, I’m sure it’s already happening, dude.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:26:53] Yeah, write me a sermon on joy and peace, a three-point sermon. No, I think some things that I think the future is, is like content has created a new occupation. You know, where now we actually have influencers attending churches. Don’t be confused, I mean, when you think about an influencer, it doesn’t mean you have Kim Kardashian attending your church. No, I mean, like there are people who are building, and they have real influence in an industry. You know, like, I show up to church as Pastor Omar, but I have 25,000 followers on my Instagram. And I think if there is a church that’s doing everything, you know, this is kind of maybe a couple of years from now. But I think there is something to say about, you know, like honestly leaning into people that have adopted this new reality and that are coming to your church that have a big influence. And what is the church doing for people with influence, I think is a big question because those people need, I think, direct access to somebody on a team. I think those people need to be discipled because they are representing the church in many ways and they’re also more than representing the church, they’re representing God. And that is a point of education that the church should be able to speak into.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:28:20] Now, how can you speak into that if that’s not something you’re even applying? And so, like, you just probably have a person coming to your church that you can even use, like use as in the form of like, hey, can you help us? We see that you’re killing it online, how can you help us? And that relationship, I think that’s going to happen more and more, that’s what I foresee coming. Because, you know, at our church, we have entrepreneurs that have 400 and 500,000 followers on Instagram. We have, you know, a lot of the Think Media team that lives in Las Vegas, we all go to City Light, and even Kyle is the video director. But like, yes, we’re solid. But like, I could only imagine, when we notice someone who comes into the doors or starts joining a group, or even like joins the community at City Light, and we’re like, oh, wow, this person, like this, is their hustle. Like this is their job, they’re a full-time content creator and entrepreneur. They should be seen, you know, because the multiplication factor is real. I’m not saying focus on people who only have a following, and forget people who don’t even have a social media, that’s not what I’m saying. I actually think people who don’t have a social media account can disciple people who do because they have probably something to offer these people beyond, you know, their thing. So like, I think it’s the two worlds merging together. People who didn’t, you know, social media is like this weird concept, but they are so foundational on their relationship, on their word, on their biblical interpretation, on their discipleship. Maybe they’re older, maybe they’re not, whatever, but then connecting them to people who have influence because it’s like, hey, I want you to represent God in a real way, and how can we do that effectively? Yeah, I kind of see that happening.

Bart Blair: [00:30:06] I just had kind of a little mind-blown moment there. So what I’m hearing you say is, and I’ll summarize that. People attending our churches oftentimes have far more influence online than we do as a church or even as church leaders. Right? How do we actually disciple those people? Number one, because we want them to be a better reflection of Jesus in the world. But number two, we want to be able to equip them on how to leverage the influence that they have for the kingdom because that really should be a personal calling on every believer’s life is to be light.

Bart Blair: [00:30:41] So, you know, here’s a question, man, and we don’t we’re not going to answer this question, but I’m posing the question and I’m going to follow up on this. In what part of our discipleship pathway in our churches, in what part of our discipleship systems do we ever actually lean into people’s use, their personal use of social media for their own personal evangelism, and their own personal light into the community? I’ve never seen a church do it. I’ve heard more pastors lecture people about the stuff that they’re doing on social media and the way that they’re using it. But are we, or how can we, actually lean into it? And, you know, when COVID hit, Jason and I were on the front lines of this. Every church is no longer in person, and everybody’s going to do church online. And so churches are like, we’re all going to be online and we’re going to have online pastors are going to do all this stuff online. And most of them, you know, it sank as quickly as it floated, Right? It just didn’t work the way that they thought it would. Yet we know that all the people in our church are online, but we’re not doing anything to actually equip them and empower them to be bringers of the Gospel, be bringers of light, be bringers of good news in the spaces that they’re in already online. And I think that there’s something there that I have to kind of process a little bit and figure out what I’m going to do with that. But that was just something that I thought of.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:32:01] The first thing that comes to mind is what you said, is resources, like giving resources to these people. And you know, a lot of the times one powerful resource back to kind of creating helpful, educational, uplifting, and encouraging content is the shareability. So like if all you’re posting are fliers about men’s breakfasts.

Bart Blair: [00:32:24] With pictures of bacon, they all have pictures of bacon.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:32:28] Maybe it’s bacon, maybe it’s the barbecue and the pig on the grill, whatever. But like, that’s not something I want to share to my people, right? But if there’s a provoking thought or a great question or a Scripture that provides encouragement, that is more likely for me to share it. So like, I think the question is like, are we giving resources? You know, here’s just a practical level of how I see this happening, and I think we’re doing it subconsciously, we’re not really doing this because of it, but we give people access to our SmugMug. SmugMug is how we host those video files that are shot on the weekend, our photos, and so people celebrate one another because they have access to it. If you’re on the team, you have the login to that, and you can download photos and see your kid in the kid’s ministry. And that’s creating a form of resource, providing valuable content on your actual feeds and on your YouTube channel, that creates a resource that people want to share.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:33:22] And then it’s like if you really want to go there, actually create resources, like, you know, here are a few things that you could post from the weekend, or post for the weekend, just pick which one that resonates with you. And, in that case, it could be something that is promote focus, you know, if it’s a special graphic or something that you can add a personal touch to. Like, I love how churches will be like, you know, tag three people that you want to come to church, and you’ll use a graphic the church created and then tag away based on who you want to invite. But I think the word is resource, like, how are you sourcing people to be able to create shareable content or even content that they can then share themselves?

Bart Blair: [00:34:03] For generations, we’ve figured out how to resource missionaries that we send into other parts of the world, or missionaries that we send out to plant new churches, but we haven’t yet figured out how to equip and resource the digital missionaries that are actually a part of our church every single week. And I think that there’s some intentionality that we can lean into, to do better at that.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:34:26] 100, yeah.

Jason Hamrock: [00:34:28] Well, Omar, thank you. We got to probably land this plane. We could keep going on and on and on. But is there one thing that you wish we would have asked you that we didn’t?

Omar El-Takrori: [00:34:39] That’s a really good question. I think it’s, I mean, we kind of covered a lot. I think it might be just, maybe we can hit a part two and kind of go deeper on resourcing your church because it was kind of like something that came up off the conversation. But, no, I think it’s just, you know, this is kind of like a weird thing to like, leave this conversation with. But if you’re a communications director. and you’re not investing into your skill sets and your abilities. And by invest, I mean like you either fork over your money or you ask the church to pay for some sort of program mentorship course because the reality is that everyone in churches are just trying to figure it out. And then you hope to meet somebody that knows something you don’t, that then gives you a very biased point of view on how to do something based on their experiences, rather than like trusting an expert who knows exactly what they’re talking about and how they can help your situation. I think there are a million ways you can go around that, but you determine that for yourself. But I think that is something that as you lead your ministry, can you invest in yourself and your skill sets to grow so that you can come up with these fresh ideas so that you can join communities that unlock these realities of how to reach your church in a fresh and new way. And so I think that’s just like something I personally never said before. But like if you work at a church, get a budget for your education and it not just be a two-day conference where you just eat good and then come back home and really have nothing to why like get join up, join something that will level up your thinking and your leadership and your ability to create something new and fresh with video.

Jason Hamrock: [00:36:20] Well said. Yup, exactly, I give that advice a lot. You’ve got to keep learning, you’ve got to tap into it. Well, thank you. We appreciate you taking time. Man, this has been fun. So how do people get a hold of you, if they want to reach out?

Omar El-Takrori: [00:36:36] Yeah, I mean, you could follow me on Instagram. The Instagram is @Omareltakrori will finish it off. I’ll never sell you crypto, I never make you buy into Bitcoin, so don’t fall for those things, I only have one account. And then if you really want to learn, literally going back to learning almost every day, pretty much every day we drop a valuable piece of content on Think Media, it’s on YouTube. Just search the word, Think Media, and usually, our videos aren’t super long unless you follow the podcast. But if you click our video once a day for a season, I know in a month’s time you’ll just level up, and that is obviously is free content on Think Media on YouTube. So yeah, YouTube, or follow me on Instagram, I’m pretty active in the DM’s so if you have any questions, just reach out.

Bart Blair: [00:37:23] Awesome, Omar, we probably will reach out to see if we can do 2.0 on this.

Omar El-Takrori: [00:37:29] And I know, I know I kind of tapped in a little late, but I would love to do a 2.0. Yeah.

Bart Blair: [00:37:34] All right, man, thanks so much for joining us today.