Learning to Market for Churches in the Digital Age | Peer Jambor

Peer-Jambor-Interview.mp4-CO
[00:00:00] Ok. And then you go back to gallery view and hang on just one sec. Ok, here we go.

[00:00:25] Peer Jambor, it is our pleasure to welcome you to the Missional Marketing Podcast, thanks so much for taking time with us today.

[00:00:31] Thank you for having me.

[00:00:32] Hey, so one of the things that we love to do with all of our guests is really just to get to know them a little bit. And we’d love for you to share your story, your professional background, your ministry experience, and how you ended up doing what you’re doing today at 12Stone.

[00:00:47] Oh, I’d love to share that. I love telling stories. I’m a marketer, so it might take a little bit of time. It’s really hard to put my story really in a couple of minutes. You will hear a little bit of an accent and everything, and I’ll use weird words because I’m actually German. So I was born and raised in Germany, and I relocated here with my family seven years ago to Atlanta, Georgia. And it’s a long story, I’m a corporate marketer, I’ve been actually in marketing and corporate marketing for about 16 years. Seven years ago, we were at our home living a good picket fences Christian life, and volunteering at church, and with three small kids in Germany. And just God kind of had a different plan, and through many different things and him just saying like, hey, there’s a next, there’s a new, we ended up with seven suitcases and three kids at Atlanta airport and kind of started over in Georgia.

[00:01:45] I was still in corporate marketing at that point, and also there just, I had a good career at an IT company, a global IT company, as a CMO there. And it’s been great, and then a couple of years later, somehow God said this is still not it. And again, he was kind of like pointing the finger and said, like, guys, when you started this journey with Jesus, at some point, this is not what you signed up for, there’s more. And he was kind of like pointing fingers and directions, and we were actually going to 12Stone.

[00:02:21] And while he was doing that, 12Stone reached out and said, Hey, do you want to take that job here at 12Stone? And immediately we were like, no. But God different idea, and he just spoke to us and we just knew that’s a new thing to do. And so about three years ago, we actually started this adventure to go from corporate marketing into church marketing.

[00:02:46] Wow.

[00:02:46] That’s great. Well, tell us, we’ve had Dan Ryland, who’s also part of the staff at 12Stone, on our podcast before, but for the folks that are listening or are tuning in here and watching the video, give us a little bit of an overview of 12Stone. Tell us a little bit about the church, and then kind of tell us about the team that you lead at 12Stone.

[00:03:06] So 12Stone Church is about thirty-five years old, in the Greater Metro Atlanta, I would say a suburban church. So it’s not a downtown or inner-city church, we’re in suburbia. We have seven campuses there, and of course, an online presence, especially in COVID, kind of like a little bit more, have a big YouTube presence. But seven physical campuses, and my team, so I lead the marketing and communications team, I would like to say that because we also try to do marketing, not just communication. And actually, I’m really grateful to have a team which is, I have specialists for different areas, social media, physical items, also website, of course, and different things, where I’m grateful that my team is mainly professionals that used to be in corporate and felt a call to ministry at some point. Actually, like me, and most of my team, we always had the thought that we were called to ministry, but we’d never fit in because none of us were like typical pastors. Right? We weren’t like, oh, I want to be on a stage and teach, or I’m a worship guy or something like that, but everyone had marketing, or social media, or website, or programming gifts, and we just didn’t know what to do with it, right?

[00:04:31] But now, with what’s been happening with the church in the last, you know, years, even going digital, being online, thinking also different a little bit more outside of the box of what we did before, was like, no, this is something where I can use my gifting, you know, on a full-time professional basis for the Kingdom. And that’s just great, I really enjoy that.

[00:04:57] So a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are in communications. And communications church staff, we throw out the word marketing without really fully understanding what that means for the church, and here, you know, you’re in a position where you did this in corporate. And I said this in a podcast earlier, we’re so far behind, the church is always the last one to the party when it comes to technology advances or anything that the corporate world is doing. Like we’ve been talking lately about gated content, and the church is going, what’s gated content? You know? No, it’s about generating a lead, and they’re like, what? So when you think about marketing, when you said that before, like you surrounded yourself with people that were in the corporate space in marketing, explain a little bit about what that means. What are you talking about there?

[00:05:47] So when I think about marketing, I think a little bit more than just promotion, you know when you say the four P’s, you know, product, price, placement, and then promotion. And oftentimes when I also talked to churches, it’s like, oh, just promote something, so make a marketing campaign, they actually talk about make a promotion campaign. Whereas I do think marketing is a little bit more than that, it starts just a little bit earlier and thinking about who’s my target group, where I’m actually at, like, we’re in suburbia, it’s very different than inner-city. So we need to maybe talk different, we need to look different, like what are the colors we’re using, right? What is actually the brand we have? What are we known for? That’s already starting to go into marketing, like what is…Also, I would say, what is the actual product? We kind of like, well, the Gospel is what we have, right, you know, but then we have to package the product. How do you package the product, the Gospel now, in a space which is a kind of like post or in the end phase of COVID, suburbia in the south? It’s very different than I would package the product, probably in Germany. I’m from so far away, and I’m like, oh, this would never work in Germany, but here in the South, that’s amazing, this works, actually.

[00:07:05] So when you think about that in marketing, there’s a lot of what’s actually going on in culture? What is the time and space you are in right now? And a word I use a lot, and I don’t know if we have time to dig into that is zeitgeist, it’s a German word, and it means the spirit of the time. So if you want to be a, I think, effective marketer, you have to think about the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time, what is happening right now in culture, what’s going on around us. And I’m an Xer, you know, the spirit of the time for me was a lot, you know, like it’s heavy metal, you know, it’s like, I’m against everything, I’m going to break something, I want to have freedom and go out there, you know, so there was a different spirit at the time. Millennials came around, you know, and there’s Coldplay and everyone’s going, hey, just have a great experience. And I actually think that’s a part where the megachurch actually hit the spirit of the time really well because we built great experiences for people, and that was a motivating factor of people alive at that point, I just want a great experience. But the spirit has moved on, so Gen Z is there, and Gen Z is creating that spirit, and I believe everyone is affected by that spirit of the time, everyone alive right now, and they’re about belonging and an impact. So marketing means thinking about that, oh, people are looking for belonging and impact. So how do we as a church, create our environment, our messaging, our product, even our teaching, to focus on belonging and impact the things people are looking for in this time and space?

[00:08:34] So your department, your job, is really not just your little slice, because you got like students, and children, and care ministry, and worship, and communication, you’re impacting the entire of what you might experience or the brand of what happens. And your job is to say, hey, guys, it’s shifted, we have to shift as a church if we want to stay relevant. Now, the Gospel is always going to be relevant, but the way you package it up has to shift and change, right?

[00:09:02] Yes, absolutely. So I would say marketing there is the lens you look through, and the lens changes, you know? But it’s the lens you look through, how do I do kids? How do I do students? How do I do worship? How is it going to feel? How do we need to change and adapt? Because one thing, and that’s maybe when you asked with the question, started with the question, corporate versus church, in corporate, we always have to come up with a new product, we’re looking for a new need. So what’s going on in the people? What need is there? Let’s build the product for that need, and then let’s package it and promote it so they will buy it right now. So we, as the church, we’ve had the same product for two thousand years, it’s the Gospel. And we know everyone has that need, so therefore, we are a little bit slow sometimes to adapting to how do we need to package it with time changing and with things moving on, because we have the ultimate solution to every everyone’s need, right?

[00:10:01] So it does fulfill, right?

[00:10:03] We know there’s a need, it didn’t change for two thousand years. And we know there’s a solution, which is Jesus Christ, and that didn’t change. So we’re like, why should we change, right? So that’s a big difference to a corporation, which is always like, no, this is not working anymore, let’s change, right? Blockbuster didn’t change, you know, so see what happened, right? So they had a product, there was a need, you know? So you need to go with that a little bit without changing the Gospel, without changing there’s a need, but how do we package it? How do we talk in a way that people today understand it and can receive it? Which is very different to in the 80s, right?

[00:10:44] Oh yeah.

[00:10:45] Let me press into that a little bit. In your role, how do you lead up organizationally to help the leaders at 12Stone see the need for the shift, or see the need for repackaging this age-old, timeless, never-changing message? You know, how do you lead up in that? How do you help them see what you see to be flexible, and to be able to adapt to the zeitgeist?

[00:11:14] Mm-hmm, well done, good use of the word. So, I’m fortunate our leadership is so open to be like, no, we want to reach people for Jesus. We’re not stuck on our system, we’re not stuck on how we do it, or what we do right now, we actually were always on the lookout for how do we reach the most people for Jesus? And that’s, I’m just really fortunate to be in a position like that, where they’re saying, like, help us, help us do this, help us do this better. And that’s what, especially in COVID, was let’s be innovative, let’s start thinking new. let’s start doing new things.

[00:11:58] And one thing we did during COVID was we built what we call 12Stone home. So we actually built a product, I would call it, which is not just an online church or someone watching online at home, but we said, no, we don’t believe that’s enough. Like campuses are great, you know, but campuses are very limited, and in COVID, you couldn’t go to a campus. So how do you actually have church in a smaller environment? And then thinking about what I just said, the zeitgeist of belonging and impact. So how can you make a church focused on belonging and impact? So let’s start 12Stone home gatherings all across the country, where people actually engage in our worship and in our teaching, but not alone, but in gatherings which are led. So we’re coaching and training leaders all across the country who are meeting with a group of people in bars, and coffee shops, and living rooms. And is not just here, look, watch something, but we’re actually coaching, we’re training, we’re helping them understand. So it’s a group that’s focused on belonging and making an impact in their neighborhood where we, with our physical campuses, could not reach.

[00:13:11] Mm-hmm. Now, so your leadership embraces this. Did you have to educate them, or were they already open to, like knowing your background, and knowing what experience you bring? And I’m thinking about a lot of the people who listen to this podcast and they are going, my lead pastor is so focused on this, how would I ever get to them to explain what we need to focus on? I mean, how did that work for you?

[00:13:36] I think it was the reason I was hired, so they knew me and they knew what I was doing, and I think it was, we were already a megachurch at that point, so I think there was an intentional desire to be like, no, we need to go in that direction, so let’s hire someone who’s been successful outside and corporate marketing and get that expertise inside. So I think I had a foot in the door to do that, which is not like, oh, I have this brilliant idea how you can get your leadership to do this. But also it’s just I do think it’s education, it’s really education, there’s a lot of, and rightfully so, a senior pastor does not need to be a marketing professional. How could he? You know, he’s so busy, and he’s supposed to be the guy, you know, like connecting to Jesus, looking like what’s going on? What do I need to teach on? What’s the heart of this church? And pastor people and all that, so I don’t expect them to understand that. I don’t expect everyone to be like, oh yeah, this is marketing and this is how it works. So I do think there’s a lot of education that can be done and it’s something which is, you know when you look at the church where we’re growing and we all have puzzle pieces we’re putting together, right?

[00:14:59] A couple of decades ago, no one would have thought you can do IT in a church, and now we have great IT people building all this and making it able to stream to campuses and online and everything. So suddenly, IT is part of ministry. Then you’ve got social media going on right now, like, there’s a lot to learn about social media and it’s something new, and a new thing, that the church is being educated on. And you need education, how to use social media, which is a lot what we’re trying to figure out, how to use it well. Especially because social media is more social than media, but we often just put media out, right? It’s actually about connecting, it’s talking to people, it’s liking, posting, and me sharing. If you don’t answer on social media to a comment, it’s kind of like a pastor not answering you when you ask them a question. You know, like, we always do that, right? Like if you’re a pastor in a room and you are asked a question, you’re always going to say something back. On social media, we’re kind of OK with just putting out our content and not answering. So there’s really education where we have to be able to catch up with what the industry is doing. Because now we’re out there in a world which is disconnected from people, and if you’re disconnected from people, we need to be like, oh, what did other people do who were there?

[00:16:17] Let me step back, normally the Gospel is always connected to a person, right, always be in a relationship. So if you’re in a relationship and sharing the Gospel, you have a person to connect to, we can answer, or you can see, like, no, he’s not living like that. You know, that’s a reaction where is like, wow, yeah, I want to have what he has, but now we have the Gospel out there without relationship to people. So let’s learn from the people who’ve been using that, and who’ve been delivering their product without relationship, let’s learn from them. How did they do that? How did that work? And then let’s how do we then bring it back into a relationship?

[00:16:52] Interesting.

[00:16:54] We were talking, before we started recording, about the fact that you have this corporate background, which you have then sort of transplanted into the church and into local ministry. And I find it very intriguing, the fact that the leadership at 12Stone went out of their way to find a guy who would use terms like zeitgeist in the context of the local church. Because you don’t come across, and even when I was reading your profile, you know, months ago when I was like, hey, I’m going to reach out to Peer. I’m like, this is not a guy who has a prototypical church communications background, you’ve done a lot of different things. And obviously, you know, you’ve probably had to make some adaptation personally in terms of how you lead and how you manage communications in the context of the church. And one of the things that is always very different is that in the local church, we place a large emphasis on both internal communications as well as external communications, or internal marketing versus external marketing. In the corporate environment, those are often very, very different things, right? You might have a communications department whose focus is making sure that staff and employees and people within the company know what’s going on and know what they need to know, but the people that are doing the external marketing, it’s a completely different department with completely different objectives and a completely different budget, but inside the church, it tends to be the same team of people. So as you lead the communications efforts at 12Stone, both internal and external, how do you prioritize those things? And you can get as granular as you want to in terms of how you have built and designed your team to focus on internal versus external communications, maybe how you budget differently for internal versus external. But I would just like to hear your thought process on, when you have initiatives coming up in the context of the church, how you think about your own church body and the 12Stone family, and what’s important to communicate, and how you’re communicating to them, versus what you’re trying to communicate outside the context of the church and the people that you’re trying to reach.

[00:19:05] Yeah, that’s a good question. I would start with, I like communication to be very focused, so we try to be as focused as possible in communication. I’m a very big fan of simplicity, clarity, and alignment, so if you get a simple thing, and it’s very clear to understand, you need to align it across all the things you are kind of doing. When I think about external versus internal, I more think about promotion versus account management. So in a corporation like internal, what you would call internal, like your congregation, like those are those are your key accounts, right, in a normal corporation. So you manage those accounts, you want to keep them informed, and you want to keep them felt cared for, but you don’t need to tell them about everything you’re doing because they’re part of your system. Versus external, what I would call promotion, is you want new people to see it?

[00:20:10] So I think those are the two distinct things I would say. Like one is more actually key account management, and key account management in the corporate world is often very relational. So like if you have your key accounts, you don’t just send them an email and that’s it. So it’s more like, how do we build also a system of one-to-one communication? How do we get people together? How do we talk? How are we not just giving out more and more information? I don’t think that’s very helpful. So for me, the internal communication is very much built around actual engagement, one on one, person to person.

[00:20:52] So if you want to go back to why am I saying that? I try to lead off values versus opinion, and my values are based out of something like zeitgeist, we talked about. Zeitgeist, as when we think about belonging and impact, one of the things that has changed in the zeitgeist is that I would say people are valuing time over stuff. So if you have a value, and this is a value we go after, which is time over stuff, it’s like, ok, how can we make it instead of let’s have another mug, or like some swag, or whatever it is, give them stuff, or just give them another email, or another bulletin, let’s actually have a coffee with that? You know it’s like give them time, give them five minutes, is way more impactful than giving them another email or another something. Especially because these are your people, don’t treat them like their new customers that you have to somehow get into your system. No, they’re your people, you know, like, give time over stuff. That’s like a focus, I would say, which we put as a value out for the internal communication.

[00:22:06] Wow. So what’s the strategy on communicating to the staff, and maybe volunteers, that it’s about time, not something else. How do you implement that?

[00:22:22] How do you give time over stuff? Or how do you…So one is, education again, it’s like, guys, this is a value we’re putting out, let’s get together as a staff and we’re going to emphasize time over stuff. So it’s more important to reach five people personally with five minutes than to reach 50 people with something impersonal because in the end, you’re going to have a trickle-down effect. Because if you care well for five people, they’re going to care well for five people, they’re going to care well for five people, versus if you care not well for 50 people, you didn’t reach anyone.

[00:23:03] So if people were actually looking for something personal, belonging, it’s the reason why… And this is, you’re going to laugh about this one, but it’s kind of like the reason why Twitter works. I say one thing to my five friends, they trust me, they retweet it to five of their friends. Those five friends, they don’t even know me, but they retweet my thing because someone who they trust said that too and trusted me, and that goes on. So it’s a bit slower, and belonging and impact is not mass marketable, but actually what you need to do is you need to care for five people, who care for five people, who care for five people. And that’s the way better way to care for your congregation than just to blast them with stuff. Does that make a little bit of sense?

[00:23:56] It does.

[00:24:00] That’s quotable Peer, that’s quotable, I like that a lot. I’m going to use that one.

[00:24:04] Ok, go ahead.

[00:24:05] And that’s ministry, that’s ministry right there. Yeah, it’s loving on people.

[00:24:09] Yeah, I think that’s a good point to make, Jason. Because one of the things that you were hitting on a minute ago, Peer, is the fact that we have IT in the church now. And you have all this team of people who have these gifts and these talents and these abilities that they felt called to ministry, but how do I use them in the context of ministry? And I’m thinking back, Jason, to the conversation that we had with Caitlin Van Wagoner at Watermark and just this framework of understanding that communications and marketing is ministry. And the more personal we can make it, the more we can realize that it’s not just about social media posts and YouTube videos and pieces of printed material that we’re mailing out or handing out, but there’s actually people on the other side of that whose stories matter, people who Jesus died for, and who Jesus is now calling us to connect with in some way to help them in their spiritual journey, it really changes the perspective on what we’re doing and why we’re doing what we’re doing. It’s not all about clicks to the website, right?

[00:25:12] I love that, relationship is the product because it’s the Gospel, it’s what Jesus did for us, it is what God did, it is the product. And so I love…yeah, it’s like we get so focused on, oh, we got to get people into our Christmas Eve, or we got to get them into our harvest festival event, or whatever, which is fine, but if you don’t have that relationship element, you’re failing, right? Because that’s that is ministry, it’s the Gospel.

[00:25:40] And I would say I completely agree with what you said. For us, I have a social media pastor, you know, it’s like that’s what he does, he’s a social media pastor, he’s not a content poster, that’s not what he’s doing, he’s actually pastoring people. And when you think about it more, and this is how we talk about it too, like more people will see this post and actually listen to the senior pastor’s sermon, it’s just what happens. So as much thought needs to go into this, and there needs to be as much engagement, and how are we doing this? And a thing we always say is like, let’s do less but better. You know, let’s make a post which really makes sense, which engages people, and we talk about it. And then kind of what I said before, then people comment, and you have to reply. And people do this, and you have to share their content, and then you actually build a ministry out of this where it’s like, no, we’re talking to people, we’re spending time with people. We’re not just giving them, even digitally, right, you know, but it’s we’re still spending time with them. And often they have a question, and we take them off into just direct message, so we can answer their questions so it doesn’t explode on like on the post. And so we actually always try to do that, and often that also takes out a lot of hostility, because we’re actually talking to people, because someone’s actually there. There’s time spent into it whether it’s just stuff put out there and this like, yeah, just listen to it or watch it or something like that. And that way, like you said, it becomes ministry instead of, oh, it’s just kind of like something I give to a ministry.

[00:27:22] So you learned a ton in the secular world, the corporate world, and then you hop into this ministry world. Running this department, what’s been kind of one of the biggest things you’ve had to overcome, or your greatest challenge that you’re facing, and how did you overcome it?

[00:27:41] A challenge I face is because I’ve done corporate marketing for so long, I just always want to do it bigger, and more, and get it out there. And kind of like, and then I have to pull myself back into reality and say, what am I actually doing here? I’m not trying to manipulate people into liking what I’m doing as a church, let’s not try to do that, let’s try to actually reach people for Jesus. How do we go from like, instead of just doing more and more and more, let’s be like, no, let’s go deeper, and deeper, and deeper? How do you build relationships? How do we find a way to have, even on digital ministries, you know, like online social media, but also our on site ministries, how do we use it to get deeper into something instead of just having a successful promotional marketing campaign, right? That’s kind of like something marketers can build, but is that really what we’re supposed to be doing, and that’s a question that is there.

[00:28:41] And I think a challenge for me, and what I like to work on, and what’s also an opportunity is, a phrase that we’ve been talking about is like, let’s get to a point where we never point, but we’re always present. So what we do a lot as churches, and is something I see, we always point people towards something, come on Sunday, go to this course, but people have an immediate need where you need to be present to help them. So what I’ve seen, for instance, like we post, most of the people who have problems with anxiety and maybe even suicide never have that during our office hours, they have that at midnight, right? So they go to our website, maybe they find us, and then we say, Come on Sunday, call us tomorrow, we might get back to you, something like that. But needs are immediate, but we always point. So how do we, as marketers, as a church, as communicators, how do we get to a point where we never point and we’re always present?

[00:29:56] That’s quotable.

[00:29:58] Yeah, that’s really good, that’s really good, it is a really good point. I think that we can, as a church, we can become so Sunday morning-centric that everything that we’re trying to do is aimed at driving people to a 60 minute, 70 minute, experience, engagement on a Sunday morning. When the reality is most of the people that God has called us to reach, who are not yet reached, they’re looking for a whole lot of other stuff that has nothing to do with what takes place in an hour on a Sunday morning. They weren’t really looking for a place to go listen to a live band on Sunday morning, they weren’t really looking to go and listen to some guy talk for 30 or 40 minutes about some person that they’re really not familiar with who lived 2000 years ago, they’re looking for relationship and solutions to immediate needs. And ultimately, we want to connect people to the person of Jesus, and to lead them towards a saving faith in Jesus. But just like Jesus, a lot of times we have to address other needs before we can get their attention for their spiritual needs. And we have to be willing, just as Jesus was, to help people with those immediate needs, and those felt needs, and understand that they might not choose to be with us, they might actually choose to move on in another direction, and that’s just the reality of people in ministry.

[00:31:30] We have a couple more minutes here. Go ahead, Peer, do you have something to add to that?

[00:31:33] Just kind of to that, so there’s something where we’re often trying to get people to where the message of the Gospel is, instead of getting the message, the Gospel, out to where the people are. And that’s a little bit like, how do we solve that problem as marketers, as communication, in our ministries? I mentioned something like 12Stone Home, or others, like how do we actually do a shift from inward to outward? Where we’re like, no, let’s get us, because we’re the carriers of the message, with our product, which is the Gospel in the saving grace, to people instead of trying always to get people to us.

[00:32:15] Yeah, that’s really good. A couple of minutes left, and I have one particular question, we might have some follow-ups on this. But I want to know, you know, one of the things that we note is that in the local church, a lot of times people, when they’re trying to develop a communication strategy or social media strategy, they simply look at other churches and see what other churches are doing ad they try to extrapolate from what they see other people doing online, and try to either imitate or develop something on their own out of that. You came to the 12Stone team with quite a bit of marketing and communications experience, I’m curious to know who it is that these days that you’re learning from? Who do you look to, to learn from both inside the church and outside the church? Or maybe what were some of the things that as you were learning even in the marketplace prior to being in ministry, who are some of the people that you were looking to and learning from as you were developing your skills as a marketer?

[00:33:14] So my all-time favorite is Seth Godin, he’s just my favorite, I learn a lot from him, and I still do, and I just love to follow him. And he’s also a little bit more ethereal, maybe not as hands-on as some would like to be, but I like thinking, I think it just broadens your horizon to get into that. I do love Simon Sinek. I think he’s amazing, I love listening to him. And kind of what I do too is, I have a little, I called it the Marketing Council, just marketing professionals who are not in the church world, but still the corporate world, who I meet on a regular basis with just to keep me sharp. You know you get on blinders at some point because, you know, now it’s almost three years and there are some things, but I want to stay cutting edge and they have to be cutting edge, and so just to keep me focused on that. That’s something I would recommend people doing, is just find marketing professionals, and find them outside of the church, but also some inside the church, you know, where it’s just like, how do you build a little network of people? Maybe churches, similar size or who are on a similar stage, and build a little network of those, and find help from them to actually grow together. Because again, we all just have a few puzzle pieces, you know, and we all need to put them together so we can get the maximum out of it.

[00:34:44] Ok, let me follow up that question then, with a Seth Godinism. As you look to the future of 12Stone, maybe this next year or in the next couple of years, do you have a purple cow? Do you have something on the horizon that you’re looking at and saying, like, this is going to be that thing that we’re going to do, that we’re putting a lot of energy and effort into, that’s going to be a great opportunity for us to connect with people who don’t yet even know that we exist? What kind of opportunities are you seeing for 12Stone in terms of your own marketing efforts, and communication, and social media, or whatever you want to extrapolate on?

[00:35:18] Yeah. So I mentioned 12Stone Home, and for me, this is really something I believe which can work and be a version of church in the future that can really work well. It is the idea of reaching people through even the digital medium, which we are, but we’re not leaving them digitally, we’re actually connecting them to a leader in their area. We’re not trying to get people into a big building, or a campus, we’re actually in the neighborhoods because we’re focused on making impact in the neighborhood. So we have people, let’s say in one of our 12Stone Home gatherings, it’s a cafe in a downtown area, and just Sunday mornings people walk by the cafe and come in to get a coffee, but they’re not open for business, they’re open for church. And it’s like, oh, great, you know, like, here’s a free coffee for you, actually, and we’re just listening to a sermon and we’re worshiping, you know, like, do you want to join? It’s very different to like you have to make the effort to actually show up at a physical campus, which doesn’t mean a physical campus isn’t right, and we’re still going to invest in those, and I believe in those. But also, there’s a different type of person who we want to target with a different persona who’s maybe not doing that, he wasn’t even looking, but now we’re in a downtown area, or in a living room, or in an apartment complex, and he’s like, what’s going on here? You know, it’s like, oh, we’re doing, actually, church. And I think there’s a lot of blue water out there where we can be like this is, it’s still led, we have leaders, we coach them, we train them, we go there, we get reports on how’s it going? What are your issues? What are the problems? How can we help? But there’s a lot of blue water that I see when I think in that direction of 12Stone Home having church in homes everywhere around the country that are still resourced very well from our megachurch, great teaching, great worship, we all have that. So the actual pastor at a 12Stone home gathering doesn’t have to recruit volunteers and, you know, get a worship team together, and think about how am I going to teach and what am I going to say, all that’s taken care of. So the pastor actually has time to pastor.

[00:37:40] Wow.

[00:37:41] Well, Peer, thanks so much for taking the time to be on the show with us today, this has been very insightful. One of the things I do like to highlight in each of our episodes is when a guest uses a term or language that no one has used before, and zeitgeist is it for this episode. In 18 months of podcasting, you’re the first, you’re also the first German-born guest we’ve had. You are the second from 12Stone, but the first German-born, so we appreciate you taking the time with us today. If our listeners, or our viewers, have any follow-up questions or would like to connect with you in some way, what’s the best way for them to do that?

[00:38:19] You can just send me an email at peer.jambor@12stone.com, or you can just text me at 404-997-8812.

[00:38:30] Awesome.

[00:38:31] And I will answer.

[00:38:31] All right, can’t get much more personal than that, we’ll make sure that that’s linked in the show notes. And once again, Peer, thanks so much for hanging out with us today.

[00:38:39] Absolutely. My pleasure.