The MxU Podcast

So you actually went from 18 to 50...50?

Volunteers.

If you include.

He hesitated, he hesitated.

If you're if he made us lie in the title.

Okay. It's Cody's fault.

It's mostly volunteers. Okay.

That's like my overall team number.

18-50. What-What time span?

Two years. Two years? Yeah.

I mean, we made
we maintained around 50 years after that,

but yeah,
the first two years were 18 to 50.

That sounds near impossible.

Did the church explode in that time too?

The church did grow.

But our team was one of the only ones
that grew exponentially.

Okay, so your team grew at a faster rate
than your church grew.

Yeah.

Tell us how you did it.

We got to know.

We obviously have this conversation
on this podcast all the time.

You don't have enough volunteers.

We hear it all the time.

How do you how do you get from?

A lot of people it's like,
how do I get from 2 to 3 volunteers?

Or like, yeah, 3 to 4, not from 18 to 50.

So most people would kill
to have 18 volunteers.

But tell us how you did.

I would have killed at 18 to have any more
because we had four services,

nine roles that needed filled.

At that time,
this is just tech production, right?

Okay.

So we had we had nine production
roles at our church at that time.

And for services one was on Saturday,
three were on Sunday.

So if you look at the numbers 18 people

but nine roles to fill, that means most.

Math is easy. Okay.

That’s good. This is good. Okay.

So so people were serving a lot.

A lot.

So we should be able to figure this out.

So at least every other
at least at least every other week.

Okay. But also the whole weekend.

So they were volunteers were spending
Saturday and Sunday at the church.

Yeah.

Which little pushback.

Like, I don't think there's anything too
horrible about serving

twice a month across
four services is a bit much.

Yeah.

If it's based services on Sunday morning,
I think that's a different story.

Yeah.

But yeah, you were at higher RPMs.

Like you couldn't afford
to lose one person, right?

Or else you're asking somebody to.

Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. And those nine.

I say nine roles.

But we really should have had more
at that point.

For what our, like what
we were trying to accomplish as a church.

Yeah, multiple camera ops. Yeah.

Video director, lighting, front-of-house,
broadcast, producer maybe no.

Yeah. We didn't have one that. Yeah.

ProPresenter yeah, yeah, it adds up.

Right?

And so 10 or 11 would
have, would have been cool.

12 gets us to the producer really is
where we're at now.

We have 12.

But I

if you were working all week
and then on Saturday,

you're at the church for six hours,
and then on Sunday

you're at the church for seven hours.

Like, you have no time for your family.

I don't want to do that
to volunteers. Yeah.

And so I felt bad when I got there.

And the thing
was, the previous production director,

they knew that
they shouldn't be a production director.

And so they were
they were trying to move out of that role

into an audio specific role
because audio was their thing.

But like, they would sit in the studio
and mix and be away from the team

that they're leading.

And so that the team didn’t have a leader.

And so, I mean, of course, like,
that's not going to help people

grow a team to get past that 18 number
because there's no one to lead them.

Yeah.

So so there's obvious to you
like the moment you in that moment

like it was obvious.
We need more volunteers.

Yes. Okay.

But it wasn't just needing volunteers.

It was looking at the team who I inherited

and seeing that they were button pushers.

There was no community.

They there was no vision on the team.

So there was no desire for them

to go find friends or bring family
to join them in, volunteer with them.

Okay.

Huge thing there if you didn't pick up

listening.

There's this there's this immediate.

When we have this revelation,
I need more volunteers.

The action we often

then take is, “How
do I get one more volunteers?”

But what I hear you saying is, like,
before we add more volunteers,

we might need to solve
our community problem.

We might need to solve the problem
that our team is just button pushers.

Yeah, right.
Is that what I'm hearing you saying?

I am a problem solver,
but not by just like.

Just like,
oh, let's just solve the problem.

It's like, let's solve
the problem in its core

that's causing the problem that we have.

And so that's what I saw was I came in
and it wasn't just how do we recruit

more people, it was what's causing us
to not recruit more people.

Like what's causing us
to not not naturally attract people?

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

Because some churches, I hear these
stories often, they don't have to recruit.

Yeah. They just. It's nice.

They just they just they get they
get people because it's so contagious.

So that's what it became.
But we'll get there.

Right.

So, it's possible
it's on. It is possible.

For those listening. It is possible.

And at different levels of size

of church, all of this context changes
for how you accomplish this stuff.

Of course.

Yeah.

But for me, we had 18 people
that the church was running.

I think when I started,
it was like 15 or 1700.

So the with the amount of people
attending versus the amount of people

serving in production,
it was like there wasn't enough people.

So I went back.

That math kind of checks out.

Hold on one second.

So you had 18 people

overall service attendance 1700.

Yeah.

Do you have like a
a statistic for, for people.

So so you're like in production alone,
you're like 1%.

1%. Okay.

Right. Yeah. Okay.

So if we're looking at 20%,
do 80% of the work.

No, no. Like like

I'm trying to debunk the like.

Okay, well, but Cody was part of
1,700% church like.

Sure.

And sometimes people have a hard time
taking these conversations and

translating them to their own environment.
Yeah.

So instead of focusing on numbers,
just look at 1%.

Cody had 1% of his congregation
size on his team for a 200 person church.

What's 1% on a production team.

Two people. Two people?

Yeah.

Which is actually very typical.

Yes, that is what I'm trying to say.

I started off well.

You're giving me the question eyes.

You're like, what are you trying to say?

What? I'm trying to say.

I started off in a similar place there.

They they would be starting off of
that is what I'm saying

is most people would listen to this
and go, “18 people?

That dudes crushing.” And I'm like,
okay, he's a part of a 1700 person church.

Actually, 18 people in a 1700 person
church is not very much.

So don't write off everything
that's going to follow this,

because you 200 person church
that have two people,

the pain you're feeling is the exact pain
that Cody was feeling at 17, at 1700s.

Right.

So it's just a good
metric to go off of like.

And I have had those exact experiences
because I've been a part of church plants.

So I've been a part of the church
that was 200 people with two people.

And I had to raise it to 7 or 8 people.

And the church, that was 400 people,
that we had four people on the team.

So like if we were going off that
same thing, it's exactly the same.

I had four people
and then left with like 12 people

on the production team
at that church. So,

small numbers.

It sucks to be there, but we all start
somewhere.

18 is small numbers.

For that church size,
it was a small number. Yeah.

And it was a struggle for the team.

And it was a struggle for me
when I came on board,

because I had to do
so much to, to manage that.

Yeah. So

if we go back to all the things
I was saying that we were missing,

like community,

just the relationships with the people.

There was a lack of vision
from above previously,

and so I had to bring vision to that.

That didn't exist.

And so I had to bring that to the table.

A desire to do more than just push

push a button
to actually, like, care about it.

There's a reason for me doing this

and to want to learn more
and not just do what I've always done.

Like, all those things didn't exist. Yeah.

And, all that, I mean, there's
there's a lot more things there.

Like trying to find the right technology
to make people excited and all this.

And so I go back to the very first thing
I did

when I kind of put all those mental things
into a picture of, like,

this is our
this is what we're missing here.

Where do I start?

Those were all things I could work on.

But there was also, like, practical

things behind the scenes of why

was there systems in place
to bring people onto the team?

Were those systems also failing?

So like, yeah,
there was like the community side,

there was the team side,
but also the system side.

What was going on on that side of things.

So I had to work on systems, I had to work
on the team, bring vision in.

There was a lot to do. Yeah.

And so the first system I realized was

our church does growth track,
which is like the Arc model of church.

Next step, next steps,
whatever that Sunday class is.

Yeah, maybe church has it. Yeah.

If not, figure out one. Yeah.

Because it's a great way to. Yeah.

Get onboarded. Yeah. Yeah.

Even some churches, they'll do membership.

And part of your membership
is you serve our body.

Yeah.

But I realized
our church had that in place.

We had our next steps program,
and at the end, people

would say, hey, I'm interested in
in this team or this team.

Now, production is usually one
that they don't say they're interested in

unless someone points in that way.

But, the that did exist.

And so I went on Planning Center
and there was a workflow

that was assigned to me,
and it said there are 35 people in queue.

And, and I that just I
probably would have never been reached out

to, you know,
they were never reached out to.

It had been six months of those people.

No, I can't do this.

And so.

In my mind,

if someone signs up,
why would you not reach back out?

I mean, that just seems like a simple
first step, at least.

And so I know I've heard
you really hurt me.

All right.

Keep going, keep going.

Now, unfortunately,

there were plenty of people on that list
who had either moved on from the church.

Maybe because they were never contacted.

Yeah. Sounds right.

Or they,

I had already started serving on our team
because they were never contacted.

Whatever.

So it wasn't like I could take those

35 people all of a sudden be like, oh,
we just grew our team by 35 people.

Okay,

can I interrupt for a second?

Yeah.

Before you got into that mode,
I just need some really quick

because I'm sure you did a lot.

You said systems,
processes, community building.

Like, just.

Can we break down that a little bit?

Like, what are some things that you did
immediately to

to up the camaraderie of your team

and start building a community
before going and finding new people?

Yeah.

So on the team side, community side,
we did team nights.

They didn't exist previously.

And so immediately when I got there,
I was like, hey, I want people to know me.

I want to get to know people.
Anyways, let's do a team.

Anyways, really quick,
if you don't know what a team night is,

we have a free download.

We'll put it in the description below.

Link for you
so you can learn how to do a team.

It's a great idea.

Keep going.

Wow. So,

I just wanted a time for us
to relationally get to know each other.

It wasn't even me casting vision
for the team or anything like that.

It was like, let's just get together
because they don't.

Yeah. So let's start that process.

So we got together, we went to Roses,
which is like a taco place in Texas,

and we just ate food together.

Okay. So relational. Eat. It's biblical.

What was the average age
of your team at that time?

I mean, it was spread.

It was it was very spread.

There was a few students,
but most of it was like 20 to 60s.

People there for a long time.

Yeah.

Well, did you almost kind of feel
like new kid on the block?

Yeah.

Like, who's this new guy
who's trying to get us go eat tacos?

Yeah, exactly. Kind of.

We kind of feel that.

Yeah, but if I had started off with, like,
here's my vision

and this is what we're doing,
I wouldn't have turned out well.

So it was like,
hey, let's just build relationships.

Okay. Yep.

But but more than that,
even those people who had been there

a long time
didn't have relationships with each other.

Yeah. And so I was like,
we we need to fix this problem.

And so that was just the initial step.

Let's let's gather let's do that.

We started adding pre-service huddles
for the production team specifically.

The worship team and production team
would get together

and pray, and sometimes
someone would do it, like devotional.

But there wasn't like a time
for the production team to do that.

So they would usually just show up
for their role and just do it.

And so we we would get together,
we would pray together.

I would do a devotional
with them specifically.

And it wasn't always production
specific devotion.

It could just be like,
here's what I read this week.

Yeah. And here's some practical.

Really honest question.

And I don't know which way
this is going to go,

but I'm curious in those community
moments.

Did you enjoy that or did you dread that,

like going out
and eating tacos with people?

Was that something
that you genuinely like?

You're telling Rebecca,

like, I'm excited to do this this week,
or are you like,

this is just something
I know I need to do.

I'm an introvert.

Okay.

And so the idea of setting some
this was less about like the actual eating

and more about the setting up
something as a leader that I have to

oversee with multiple people
that are talking to each other.

I was like, yeah. You're not excited for
it is what you're saying?

At the time no,
because, I didn't know the people.

And I, as an introvert,

I didn't even want to necessarily,
like, just be out there all the time.

Yeah. Talking. Yeah. Okay.

I didn't know
which way you were going to answer.

I think that's a really helpful answer,
because I think

I hear more often that people err on
that side in our community.

How did you muster up?

Because for those to be successful,
you have to care.

Yeah.

In those settings,
or else people will see right through

you and be like
this guy doesn't care about me.

So how do you muster up the the,
the excitement and the ability

to pursue those moments
and do it wholeheartedly?

Because I know the end

result of us forcing
community is us actually having community.

And so as much as I disdain, like,
I don't want to go in the lobby

and talk about the weather.

Yeah, that's it is not for me.

Small talk is not my thing,
but real relationships is my thing.

Like I want real relationships.

And as an introvert,
that doesn't mean I don't talk to people.

I just want it to be real. Authentic.

Yeah. So it's almost like

having to be incredibly intentional.

Like, I will not fall back to small talk

because that is what is expected
in an environment like such.

Yeah, right.

Like as a leader, it's really hard
if you've got 18 people even

and you're going out to eat, you're like,

oh, I'm not going to be able
to actually have legitimate.

Yeah, relationship
with all 18 of these people.

Yeah.

But eventually you can.

But there's got to be a starting place.
Yeah.

And I and I

as much as I hate those moments in church
where some churches will have you

stand up and talk to your neighbor,

it's like it forces you to do something
you probably wouldn't have done.

Yeah, well,
and this is this is this is huge.

You you gather those 18 people.

And what if you shared just that, like,
hey, just so you guys all know,

if you haven't know
if you haven't learned this yet.

I'm kind of an introvert,

but I genuinely love
having deep relationships with people.

Historically,
these gatherings would kind of

give me some because, like,

I feel like I need to bounce around
and get time with everybody.

It just feels at the end of the day,
we didn't do anything

but talk about the weather,
and I'm sure there's some of you here

that feel that exact same way.

So just know, like the
the heart behind this is

I just think we're supposed to break
bread with one another. Yeah.

And I think that, like,
I get just as excited about you

all getting time together.

Like, John,
you never get to serve with Amy

because you guys both
do the same position or whatever.

But just know that, like,
this is the start.

This is like a start of of what I really

want to try to build around here,
which is genuine relationship.

And we all know that that's probably
going to happen on one on ones and stuff

that we're not gonna have the chance
to do here. Right?

Like, people aren't that honest.

If we could just be that honest
as leaders,

it actually might do some good
for our soul in the process and feel like,

oh, this is a good thing, instead of
trying to you get what I'm saying?

Anyways. Yeah.
You're kind of smirking at me.

So I was like – no
it's like the exact thing I said to them.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah it works.

That was great to get us going.

Yeah. And then

some of the other things
that were just kind of practical was.

Yeah, I did do one on ones of people.

So for me to get to know people,
I had to do one on ones,

but that also showed them
that I cared about them.

So it wasn't like the previous

kind of situation where, like,
they just weren't ever talked to.

Yeah.

Showed that I actually cared about them
and wanted them to succeed and grow.

And so one on ones for me is like,
I'll take guys out to Chick-Fil-A.

With girls I'll either do Zoom call
or just meet at the church.

Yeah. Just practically speaking.

Don't want to have any problems.

Go on a Chick-Fil-A date with a woman.

That's a good idea.

But my wife and I – except Chick-Fil-A
is, like, the closest thing to a church.

Chick-Fil-A might count.

I don't know.

I think there's full time
pastoral oversight behind the counter.

Joking.

But I will say,
my wife and I have gone and taken either

couples or just two girls or three girls.
Yeah.

There's there's
so many ways you could do it. Yeah.

And so that's that's cool too.

But it also helps them
see my wife and and her be involved,

and that's cool.

I this again,
this is just a practical thing,

but I feel like it's important as a church
to care about the next generation.

And if you can find 1 or 2 people
that are excited

in the next generation, they're going
to bring other people on board, too.

And that's the same case with anyone.

I mean, if you find adults,
they're super excited.

They're going to find other ones too.

But,
the youth seem to have the most energy.

So it's just like,
yeah, the youth, they're like a virus.

Like, you just you get one
and all of a sudden you get five more.

Yeah.

And if you can also find
one of the influential ones that helps.

Yeah. Like, of course.

And in the nature like,
this doesn't mean that

like, folks in our generation
and up like, can't be a of course

they could be a part,
but I'm just saying like it's an amazing.

I do believe like it's a superpower
of the younger generation technology

just from generation to generation.

It always tends to be a superpower
of the younger generation.

Yeah, we deal with technology,
get them involved.

Right? Yeah.

So anyways, so,
we worked on the community as a whole.

We added more opportunity for community
on the weekend with our huddles

and getting to talk to each other
before service, instead of

just coming to press the buttons
during service.

And then the one on ones built
the relationship, that sort of thing.

And so that that all of that helped
with the team side of things.

But then there were the practical

how can I equip the team so that they feel
they feel like they're in a good spot?

And MxU was one of those things.

When I first came on board,

we started doing MxU trainings,
so it gave them videos.

Some of these people
had never been trained in their life.

They were just told, you press this button
to go to the next slide.

Like, yeah.

So like people being empowered to go to
the next step gets them more bought in.

And so they got excited about it.

So there was like
the community was feeling better.

People were getting more bought in
about like doing their role

because they were being trained
and someone was talking to them

and hanging out with them and helping them
get better at their thing.

But then I also started thinking through,
okay, well,

what are the things that are holding
back us in the technology side of things?

And I don't even just mean like, cool.

I mean, more like we had Canon C300s

and we had heavy lenses on them,
and our 12 year old, 13 year olds

who started on the team
could not do roaming cameras

because they could not hold the camera.

They weren't strong enough.

I mean.

That's wild.

I haven't heard that one,
but it totally makes sense.

Yeah. So. Wow.

Started looking at other camera systems
because I was like, we can get lighter.

We don't need a weight.

Like a heavy weight
being, like, carried around. Yeah.

And so we bought Komodos

because at the time it was just small box
like you.

Couldn't we. Yes.

We didn't want, like, a robot
looking thing inside our building.

So like, no easy rigs allowed, no easy
rigs allowed,

no red on the LED wall, no easy rigs.

No red lighting.

Was that you guys?

You guys are no red lighting.

Two guys were part of that club.

Okay, cool. Continue.

It looks demonic.

I know the blood of Jesus, but

also like it looks.

Good. Friday's exception.

Good. Okay.

Just so you guys all know,
you can have red lights on Good Friday,

but no other time in the church
should should read lighting.

You could probably get a discount.
You could find some lights with no red.

Probably discounted
because you don't need it. RG.

No B W, yeah, yeah yeah.

Anyways, G B W.

G B W lights

yes GBW

20% off at ChurchGear.com they have them.

G B W yeah, because Red doesn't work.

Red doesn't work.

Yeah there is no red. It's G B W lighting.

It's used RGB lighting with the
R not working.

Used G
B W lighting at ChurchGear.com 20% off.

Go check them out. It's a great deal.

Back to the show.

You got to clip that one.

We bought Komodos.

Who doesn't buy Komodos?

Who doesn't buy Komodos?

Let me think about that.

Chad Vegas.

Everyone.

Chad Vegas?

No Komodos for Chad.

But everybody else.

Yeah, they're using Komodos for sure.

Yeah, just about everybody.

After I think about it,
everyone's got a Komodo.

Anyways.

Komodos are really light, really small.

So you sold the C300s?

Well, we sold the C300s,

but we also. Yes. Yeah.

You sold the C300s and get Komodos.

Yeah. He's really losing it.

I mean, we spent, like, three hours
together. He hasn't lost it like this.

All started talking about Chad Vegas
and RED Komodos and he's dead.

He can't even get a word out.

We broke Cody.

I love Komodos.

This man is tearing up

because he loves RED Komodos so much.

I don't understand
the backstory here at all.

I don't understand. It’s the LaCroix.

The LaCroix.

All right, we're breaking.

We have a long day ahead of us, bro.

Sorry. Pull it together.

So I wanted our 12 year olds

to be able to hold the camera.

The plot thickens.

That's a great ad for RED honestly.

Like 12 year old’s can’t hold your C300s?

I'm sorry.

That was a really practical thing, though.

Yes. Like, no. It's great if I want my.

What a fun moment,
if I will have my middle schoolers

to feel like
they can actually do all the roles.

Why don't I make it possible
for them to do all the roles?

Yeah. Yep.

I can train in other things, but
I couldn't make them hold a heavy camera.

Yeah, for 20 minutes. Yeah.

No, it really is like a great practical
note that,

you know, we have conversations like this
and often around here, but

always trying to connect the dots

on some of these practical pieces
that you only learn by doing it right.

And so that is a great one, bro.

That really is maybe don't like

I mean, somebody could take that
the wrong direction to in a lot of ways.

But you know,
be discerning. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

when I got
to the church and the other thing was we,

we had for a long time
paid people to run audio always.

Contractor. It was always audio.

Broadcast and front-of-house
were both always paid roles.

Yeah.

Whether it was a staff member
or a contractor,

we would always pay a contractor if
we couldn't get a staff member to do it.

Okay.

And I have always been big on
let's raise up the saints for ministry.

Like that is literal scripture. Yeah.

And when I was in junior high,
I was given opportunities

to do things like run sound, lead
worship, sing.

I maybe I shouldn't have had
the spiritual authority to be the worship

leader, but like, yeah,
I was given the opportunity.

And I think there

are boundaries
we can set to maintain healthy

spiritual boundaries
and relationships and everything,

but I wouldn't be doing
what I'm doing today

if someone hadn't
given me the opportunity.

And so that was the same thing for me
for the next generation.

Like, I always want to empower
the next generation to do more, but

I also want to make it possible for people
to actually learn how to

how to run sound,

because we're running out of people
to run sound because we're not

letting them do it anymore.

We're just paying people to do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I started like vision casting that
to our leadership of, hey, I know that

if we have volunteers doing these things,

it won't be 100% of what you expect.

But here's the reason
why I want to do this.

I want to raise up saints for ministry

so that we're not stuck in this hole of
We have to pay people to do this.

Now, can we pay people? That's great.

I want to give people the money
they're due.

I'm not saying don't do that.

And I'm even for potentially, like,
you know,

someone gets better and better and better
and we end up paying them.

But, like,

I don't want to just stop
someone from serving

just because they don't
know what they're doing yet.

I want to be able to teach them
how to do it.

And I know that there are certain
environments where we can start them in.

Maybe we start them in youth or whatever,
but if we never give them the chance

to try an adult services

because we only pay the professionals,
yeah,

then they're never going
to grow to the spot we need them to be in.

Yeah.

So that also helped us

grow our team because I was opening
more opportunities to serve,

I was giving more opportunities.

Like now people can run
audio as a volunteer.

Yeah.

You're unlocking

you're unlocking the gates
that have been shut for a long time.

Yeah.

Which also gives people motivation to

it gives a

motivation, especially young people
who who are motivated by challenges.

And, you know,
I don't want to call them stepping stones.

But yeah, just like the the journey
of getting better at your craft

and when you get better at your craft
opens new opportunities,

like
we should be doing that in the church.

I so much of my experience in the church
was watching

other people and dreaming of the day
that I'd get to do some of those things.

Right,
like if we if we say, oh, by the way,

only staff
people get to run front of house,

how many people have it in their mind
like, okay, so well,

I really want to do that.

So I guess I need to be on staff here.

Like it's just kind of it puts people
in a weird position when we start,

like putting these rules on positions.

You're only allowed to do this
when you're this old.

You're only allowed to do this
if you're paid.

Yeah, you know it.

It's strange.

So I think that's a great point.

Okay. 18 to 50.

What else what else was the the

any any other like so.

I mean the other big unlock moment.

Oh well two, two kind of remaining things.

One, going back to the practical side of,
hey, we reach out to people that

that reach out to us.

If someone initiates, hey,
I'm interested in this thing.

We contact them back.

We–pretty
easy thing to do–coffee zoom call.

We just need to make a connection
and talk with them.

Maybe we could use to do that. Yeah.

And a lot of a lot of the church
ministries,

the ministries at my church,
they will do like a group orientation.

So they'll wait like a month or two

and then invite everybody
and do it all at once.

And first off, production
doesn't get enough people to do that.

Oh, but even when I did do that,
I found that those people

didn't want to actually join afterwards

because they're like,
this is a group conversation.

I'm not really in this,

but if you have a one on one conversation
with someone that dramatically changes

their desire to to be a part
because they feel heard, they feel seen.

So I do one on one conversations
with everyone who's interested,

and I initiate the conversation right away
so that they know that I got there.

You did that? No one else.
What do you mean?

Like you were the only person to do that?
Like that. You.

That was first
that was so important to you that, like,

you wanted to do that
with every single new person?

Yes. Yeah.

The other leaders at my church,
they do like a group orientation.

I think some of them
have actually changed that now.

But when I started the church, all,
all ministries

were expected to do group orientations
and I said, hey, I'm not doing that.

Yeah. You rebel you.

I'm an enneagram eight.

So yeah.

Enneagram eight is the only production
Windows user on the face

of the planet,
and Enneagram eight is a challenger.

I'm going to challenge every norm.

I don't use Windows.

I have a Mac.

The biggest red flag in any human is like
you meet them

and they're like, by the way, I'm
an Enneagram eight, so,

you know, just no, I'm not going to
I'm not going to be super likable to you.

Just heads up.

Oh my goodness.

I’m an enneagram eight, wing seven.

There you go. I feel like you're a one.

Oh, you've said this to me
a long time ago.

And why does it. I'm
not even a big Enneagram guy.

I don't even want this
to be a conversation on this podcast,

you just talked about
how you had to make sure

you're so OCD about things
that's perfectionist.

Yeah, I, I don't know, maybe I am
I don't care enough.

It's sorcery.

I feel like a mix of one and it's terrible
perfectionist.

We're not going to this pathway.

We're not going down this pathway.

I bit too I bit too hard on that one.

Continue.

Okay.

So yeah, do one on ones.

But then also on the leadership
side of things,

once I've built relationships with people,
I've discovered who could be leaders.

I started empowering people
to actually lead things.

That normally I would do myself.

And so it gave people like
the sense of it's my responsibility.

Part of that is it's my responsibility.

So I need to find other people.

Part of it's my responsibility.

So I'm excited about it,
which gets other people excited about it.

I think all of these ideas of community
relationships,

giving them the right technology,
the things that are going to help them,

empowering people, like all of that
was just a significant change

from what it was. Yeah.

And so that's what dramatically went from
yeah, it almost seems like the hard

work is all the hard
work is not finding the people.

It's preparing.

It's preparing the team for more people.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Like that
I think because the intimidating work,

especially depending on your personality
type, especially if you're an introvert,

the idea of going and getting new people
sounds horrible, sounds impossible.

And just like we're going to make,

we're going to come up with every reason
why we can't do that.

And I get that.

But it's actually that's the easy part.

Like you,

you could put yourself in a position
where you'd never have to

recruit somebody,
but you just have such a dialed rig.

Hey, we can use our terminology here.

You have such a dialed rig for your people
to be able to come in and be successful

when it comes to community engagement
with one another.

Excellence in our craft.

Yep. Dependability. All of it. Right.

So it's like, look inward before.

We people we die on the hill of of
for volunteers around here.

Like that's what we've been doing
for the last five years.

Sometimes people are like, oh, volunteers.

Like I don't want to hear it right now.
I can't do it.

Like the idea of new people.

My I know I can't do it.

I'm like, shift your thinking for a second
and just think, no,

the work is in front of you
with your existing team

and all of that will fall into line.

Yeah, we see that over and over again.

Yeah.

This is really great.

If Cody tell him about tell him about MxU.

I want to hear your elevator pitch.

People need to know what we've built
so they can understand

why we're even talking about stuff
like this.

Because ultimately, yes,
we care about this.

We want to get you to the podcast
because we

we want to make a difference out there
in the worship and tech community.

But the primary way we've done
that is through this platform called MxU.

Yeah.

MxU is the place for you to go
where you can host your whole team,

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to build healthy teams, to run
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And it's easier than ever now
that all of these tools are in one place,

because instead of us having to have
all these different tools separated,

confusing our volunteers, confusing us,
making it more difficult,

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including communication, checklists,

all of those things
so you can do all that.

at getmxu.com.
Thousands of training videos.

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We're already doing it better than anybody
and we're shameless about it.

And so check it out if it interests you.

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or audio only as well.

Thanks so much for joining us.

If you made it this long,
hopefully this has been helpful.

Some practical takeaways for you and
we'll see you next time on the podcast.