In this episode, Vance and Zoe chat with Peter McGowan from Storyland Studios on what he has learned from building and creating immersive "worlds" and experiences at the Disney and Universal Theme parks, expanding visual vocabularies, and what the church can do to create unbelievable guest experiences and tell even better stories.
This podcast is presented by Overflow, the most powerful giving platform on the planet. Giving cash, stock, or crypto to your church or non-profit has never been easier. Visit overflow.co to experience and step into future of giving.
If you want to receive even more insights on church innovation, culture, and giving, now you can sign up for free to be an Overflow Insider, where you'll receive exclusive content, discounts, direct access to Vance Roush to get your questions answered, and also invite-only access to our monthly Fundraising Leadership Forums! Head to overflow.co/insider now!
Did you know we are also on YouTube? For those that prefer the visual version of the podcast, click here!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Ultimately, when you wind things up with user
(00:02):
experience, that's when you havea really good, successful
result. So the same thing withstorytelling map out the story,
and just is the story believableand you kind of beat it up and
you make sure that those thingscome together. And when all
those things align, then youknow, it really is magic. Our
thing is not like, hey, everyoneneeds make Disneyland. It's not
true. I mean, it really is.
Everyone just needs to beintentional about their story.
(00:22):
What's unique about them,a pastor, turn tech leader and a
millennial churchgoer, explorethe intersection of technology,
culture and faith, equipping youwith innovative strategies to
support you as you live out.
You're calling leader churcheswith competence to step into the
future together. This is thegive it up podcast.
(00:43):
My goodness XO, another episodeof The give it a podcast and
this whole volume has beendedicated. Yes. Because we've
been dedicating this wholevolume two inviting our friends,
our partners in crime, peoplewithin the flow fam network, to
come on and speak innovationtechnology, especially as it
(01:06):
relates to the faith space. AndI couldn't think of a better
person for this conversationthat we're about to have today.
Then my friend Peter McGough,when really quick, I'm gonna
give a quick intro. He is one ofthe founders of plain Joe and
Storyland studios, champion ofbringing clients unique stories
(01:29):
to life. By I love thislanguage, Peter broadening their
visual vocabulary beyond words,that actually has been done
through you and yourorganization, at brands like
Infiniti, Nissan, IBM, Johnson,and Johnson. But what's most
exciting to Joe and people likemy wife, Kim, as you've worked
(01:51):
with brands, like Disney,universal, and Lego, as well,
which is super cool. But you'rea family man. Married to
Jennifer and also have threekids, right? Is that right? Yep.
Yeah. Welcome to the pod Peter.
Wow, man, humbled must be here.
Yeah, this is gonna be anexciting conversation, because I
(02:12):
feel like the church has so muchto learn about creating
incredible experiences andbecoming better storytellers.
But before we dig into that, Iwould love to know Peter, how on
earth does one get into thisentire niche industry? And how
do you become passionate aboutcreating these kinds of
(02:32):
experiences?
It starts with that you have tohave some sort of passion to
kind of go after it, becausethere is no kind of, you know,
class or major on like, youknow, hey, this is how to, you
know, get into experientialstorytelling or design or
anything like that. And peoplehave followed pathways going to
Cal Arts and stuff like thatfun. Yeah, the footsteps of
certain Disney Imagineers andwhatnot, but it's not
(02:55):
straightforward. You really haveto kind of hunt it down and kind
of make it happen for yourselfand connecting with people. And
for for me, and my brother,really, it was about friends,
friends, who kind of, you know,opened up and like, took us
along side them and taught uswhat it was to just be, you
know, good storytellers. Andwhat it was to kind of put
yourself aside and think of theempathetic but the people who
(03:16):
are on the receiving and sowhen you say broadening visual
vocabulary, make that practicalfor the listeners, because maybe
they're not familiar withStoryland studio and all the
work that you've done with someof these clients. But what some
examples of what you guys havedone to broaden that visual
vocabulary, what's that worklook like? Yeah.
So I mean, it's quite simply,like most people are used to
(03:37):
stories being an oral or writtentradition, you know, something
you read in a book or somethingthat you hear even watching a
movie, let's say, and watching amovie and creating film sets, or
any of those things, that'sthis, that's really scratching
the surface of a visualvocabulary. Okay. And it's a
spectrum too, because it's notthat one is better than the
other. In fact, I mean, some ofthe greatest stories are stories
(03:58):
that you read, and your mindfills in the gaps. That's why
it's people always say like,man, the book was better than
the movie. It's because their,their imagination is so charged
and actually can be even better,more visceral. But then, you
know, when movies came along, itkind of spoon feeds people into
things. And what Walt Disneyreally kind of hooked onto was
this idea that man, people couldactually immerse themselves in a
(04:21):
story. And that really was theidea of Disneyland and the rides
there was actually put you kindof in the story itself. But, you
know, a mentor friend of mine,Dan, Cathy, I think, I love what
he shares. He actually says inthis aspect of service or
storytelling, he says thatthere's hardware and software,
the hardware is that physicalenvironment. So yeah, yeah, that
(04:44):
that broadening of the visualvocabulary there. But then
there's also the software andthat's the customer service
side, the culture, the ritualsof the brand. So at Chick fil A,
it's the it's my pleasure. Buthow does that software kind of
align with that? And thatbroadened vocabulary really
helps the whole story come tolife. And there's a whole, like,
I can go down a rabbit holetalking about, like, story in
(05:05):
this suspension of disbelief andtaking people into that.
Well, well that's so interestingbecause what you're saying here
is that you've helped companieslike Disney build experiences,
some of that are actual physicalstructures. Right? But if I'm
hearing this right, even helpingthem think through the service
layer of how that physicalstructure interacts with the end
(05:27):
consumer, is that right? Yeah.
And a lot of our work withDisney just to be transparent. I
mean, like, a lot of our teamcomes from you know, Disney and
Pixar and universal and stufflike that. So a lot of guys
worked on things but then wethen because relationships get
pulled into doing things likelike we were mentioning earlier,
we built Hogwarts Express thetrain at Universal Studios there
when takes their picture infront of Yeah, and like helping
(05:51):
bring those stories kind of tolife is pretty exciting. Even
just have a small part in thisbroader thing. So I people
thought like, oh, yeah, theycreated Harry Potter is now we
didn't write the books. Wedidn't make the movies. We
didn't. We just worked oncreating the physical
environments that you walk intoit your reader,
you you are, you're far toohumble. Because the train is
(06:13):
like the flagship piece, right?
When you walk in, we're justthere to universal last week,
right? When you walk in thefirst thing that you see is this
life like train that mydaughter, we have been reading
Harry Potter to her for the lastthree months to get her ready
for this experience. And, youknow, religious church folk
(06:34):
don't ask me, okay, yes, I readHarry Potter alongside a couple
of Bible verses she, but but shewhen she saw that, because her
imagination matched up to animmersive experience. It was
actually so cool to see. Yeah,it is pretty remarkable. And
actually, I'm a huge fan of JKRowling and Harry Potter. It
really ignited a passion forliterature in my kids. And I
(06:57):
think it's one of the biggestmisses of the church, because,
you know, yeah, the wholeboycott, everything was all
bogus. I mean, because she waswriting it as a Christian
allegory. And when she wasquestioned, like, hey, is this a
Christian allegory, she's like,I'm not going to tell you that.
They'll give you the ending,you'll know that Harry is gonna
die and rise from the dead, andhence the Christian allegory.
But they took it as Oh, it'sfrom the devil. And like, oh,
(07:18):
spells are rules. And it's like,no, it's Latin. She's actually
kind of poking fun at a lot ofthis stuff. But you know, it's
just as much magic and is Lordof the Rings or Chronicles of
Narnia, or any of those things.
But what it really does is itgives you a perspective on this
spiritual world and the physicalworld or the modal world in the
magical world. And it's a greatChristian allegory. And I was
(07:42):
like, you know, whenever peoplelike, Oh, your kids read that
I'm like, Yes. And they read CSLewis, and they all you know,
talking everything but that's awhole nother conversation go
down. Ya know, humbled must be asmall part of that man, because
it is it's pretty magical story.
Pretty powerful. Movie, thevideo game just got launched the
platform high forget with it.
(08:03):
Broke record, it was like 800million in three weeks. This is
like, yeah, it's staggering.
People are so hungry for story.
And people are so hungry toconnect. And one of the key
things in stories that we callis layers to the story. So it's
not just a veneer. It's just notsurface. It's when they can dive
down deeper into things. Andthat's one of the great things
about Harry Potter's there's,it's so deep.
(08:25):
I want to hear more about thistension of creating what is in
people's imagination, even ifthey aren't able to articulate
it until they see it. Like thatmust feel like a lot of pressure
sometimes. Because you have toweigh what's in our imagination
versus everybody else. And howdo we align that? So how do you
guys think through matching upwhat satisfies someone's
(08:48):
imagination when it comes to anexperience, and
that's a great thing, I'm gonnaback up really quick and just
kind of give an analogy of ourprocess and kind of even how we
work. I equate it a lot toeating. And it's kind of like
what you just said, everyoneknows what good food tastes
like, right? You don't have tobe a chef to articulate, like,
you know, how it was created. Imean, people have different
(09:10):
opinions on whether they like itor not, it's too spicy, or
whatever. But usually good foodtastes good to everybody, right?
Or two people are used to atleast that. But same thing with
good design, you know, peoplerecognize it, they can't always
articulate what's good or what'sbad. People can't explain why,
you know, Disney is better thancertain other unnamed theme
(09:30):
parks. But it's like, it's thetime to actually get to know the
reader understand the story.
Understand that the the guestsexperience the user experience,
the user journeys, and thenmaking sure that the story makes
sense. And that is actually alot of work a lot of effort.
Steve Jobs is actually one of myfavorite quotes from him that
he's like in this. I don't knowif you've seen that interview.
He's like on stage and someoneasks a kind of a punchy question
(09:52):
about why the iPhone doesn't usecertain technology. I think it's
like Java or flash or something.
And Steve Jobs basically He justkind of points back and says
never about the technology. It'snever about like whatever flashy
thing. It's always about theuser experience, you have to
start with user experience. Formore start with the story. So
(10:13):
for the in the case of theiPhone, it wasn't about the
technology of whatever flash,whatever Java, whatever Keyboard
Event, it was about the userexperience and the user
experience, the iPhone was thisnarrative of imagining someone
taking a call, then, then makinga note or looking up directions
or looking up restaurantreservations. And in that
narrative, it disclosed to youthat the 10 key, the buttons
(10:35):
were in the way. And then out ofthat came the idea that we have
to have a plastic interface, aphone with no buttons. And the
reality is, once it gotlaunched, everyone was like,
This is gonna be a flop, noone's asking you for phone with
no buttons, every marketingsurvey, every you know,
everything said that it wasgoing to help people not only
want to attend to you, theywanted a full keyboard, right.
And that's why I call Qualcommand blackberry were always going
(10:57):
to dominate. And they justmissed it. Because ultimately,
when you line things up withuser experience, that's when you
have a really good, you know,successful result. So the same
thing with storytelling, you mapout the story, and just is the
story believable, and you kindof beat it up, and you make sure
that those things come together.
And when all those things align,then you know, it really is
magic.
(11:19):
Well, when you're discussinglike the element of
storytelling, blending it withan experience, I'm just curious,
because I'm thinking throughsomeone who maybe is a church
leader is listening to this. Andthey're like, that all makes
sense. But it's way more simple.
With people that come to church,they walk in the door, they get
greeted, they walk, they mightgo to the bathroom, they might
get coffee, they sit down, done.
(11:40):
But what you're saying isthere's way more and so many
more layers to this. So if youcould summarize or kind of give
us like a snapshot, what aresome elements that are
absolutely necessary to createan incredible experience, no
matter what type of experienceit is.
So story always taught us, youknow, really starts with three
(12:02):
core components, what we say ischaracters, plots and settings,
understanding the characters ofthe story, understanding the
character of your church, youknow, what is it to walk up and
shake the hand of your church,who you are and everything like
that? The plot, what is what arethe specific journeys that you
want to map out, because thoseplots don't happen by accident?
And a lot of times people thinkplot points are just, you know,
(12:22):
you know, things you check off,I'll get back to that in a
second. It's so much moreimportant, like, oh, yeah,
advances, this whole thing islike, do you have giving? Oh,
yeah, we have giving check.
Forget the fact that the givingprocess is painful, or that
young kids think it's totallyinane, or, you know, they're
ready to give with Bitcoin. Andyou don't even do that. But in
their minds are thinking, Oh,giving check. It's like, Nope,
that's it. That's the thirdthing is the setting,
(12:44):
understanding the environmentsin which this is all taking
place on their phone, orphysically in person, stuff like
that. But going back to thecharacter part, I remember one
time I walked up this church, Iwent to their website to look up
their directions. First off,there was no like, there was the
address, I couldn't just clickon it open up Google Maps and
navigate to it, I copy theaddress, and they open it up and
do it or I pull into theaddress, it's on their website,
(13:05):
it's like, feels like a shoppingmall, I look up, I go to what
looks like the big main entranceas like the big high arch. But
there's nothing that sayswelcome or anything other
websites said, like a church,anyone can come to everyone's
welcome just like that. But Iremember walking up, and the big
glass doors in big six inchletters do not enter. And it was
like, oh, okay, this isinteresting. You know, when I
(13:27):
got to know the guys there, andthe thought process was some
facilities guy was like, Hey,these are gonna be the entrance
doors over here. These are exitdoors over here. But rather than
putting exit or entrance to theright, or even better, just take
the handles off, just likeinstead, they put big letters do
not enter. And like that. It'slike when you add too much salt.
It's just like, that's likesomething doesn't, right?
(13:49):
Because when you're saying, oh,everyone's welcome. But then
they're walking up. And it's notreally feeling welcoming. But
it's so hard for people just toactually take a step back and
actually see what their storyreally is, and talk to people
who've never who's outside ofit. Because so many people in
the church are regulars, andthey know where they're going,
or whatever it is. But what doesit mean to that first time
person who's already under a lotof stress and under a lot of
(14:11):
pressure, anxiety, and all thesethings. All those subtle little
things like yet takes aboutthree seconds to realize, Oh,
those are exit doors. But it'sthe subtle layers to the story
that builds in is this really awelcoming place. And there's a
bunch of movies out there.
There's one movie out how I'mtotally drawing a blank on the
(14:32):
it was like a whole con manmovie, but it's like getting a
guy to guess the number and atthe end, he was 21. But
throughout the whole movie, theykept putting this number 21 and
21. In his mind, he kept seeingit. So when they asked him to
pick a number he goes, Oh 21It's things like that the
subliminal things actually domatter.
To me, I love that. Oh, it makesit makes a lot of sense because
in our little narrow layer inwhich we serve the local church,
(14:57):
and other charitableorganizations, we I hear things
like this a lot. And you kind ofreferenced it. Where? Oh, yeah,
we we accept stock already. Andthen I go to their website, and
it says, If you want to donatestock, email cfo@church.org.
Yeah, nobody wants to email theCFO of a church take some stock.
(15:21):
And it's kind of like to me interms of giving, and that slice
of which we serve best that donot enter sign. Yep. Right. And
so I love what you're saying.
It's kind of like, how do Ichallenge ourselves as faith
leaders, as honestly, leadersthat are meant to be taking
people on an experience in ajourney? And how are we paying
attention to the subtleties? Howare we challenging ourselves to
(15:41):
refresh ourselves on? Okay, whatis a new I mean, Silicon Valley
is famous for this, right?
Silicon Valley is famous forbeing really stringent on user
testing. I mean, in the SiliconValley that's built on software,
primarily, one change to alayout, or even one change of a
(16:03):
button positioning could equalmillions of dollars of revenue
for some of the softwarecompanies, right. And so there's
this discipline in the SiliconValley of being maniacal about
user experiences. What do youthink Peter? is stopping
organizations like the localchurch to actually start caring
about that?
Man, I'm gonna be sacrilegioushere probably. No, it's good. I
(16:27):
think it's a stewardship thing.
I think it's a lack ofunderstanding of what Proverbs
I'm going to say. Actually,Matthew 25 really means what
what is it in the parable of thetalents and what we do? And
yeah, so it's not about savingmoney. And a lot of people go,
Oh, we're ministry. So we haveto save money, we have to be
prudent with our dollar. It'slike, Man, when I read the
(16:48):
parable of the talents, the guythat saved his money, it was
better that he had never beenborn. You know, it was the guy
who took the risk, right? Andwho was not lazy, and actually
had the higher return oninvestment that was blessed. And
my my problem is, most churchesdon't are they're afraid to take
risks, and they're afraid tohave these great return on
(17:08):
investments. I literally haveseen churches have success in
areas just to shut it downbecause I won't say who it was.
But we had a church that wasdoing an online church platform.
And we actually in early as wesaid before, Facebook Live was
like a predecessor to FacebookLive. And when Susan will login
we've captured all theirFacebook information is pre
Cambridge Analytica. So we wouldliterally hand back, okay, hey,
(17:30):
you had 3000 viewers thisweekend. 1500 of them logged in,
here are their names here, theiremails here, their ages, this is
how long they stayed on. And wejust a treasure trove of data.
And the biggest thing is, we'dhave some churches that would
sit there and go, Oh, my gosh,we have 1000 people who just
gave us their emails with asimple Okay, click and would
(17:51):
follow up with them. And theyactually capitalize that we had
other churches who literally,they were like, What do I do?
Every week? I'm getting like,hundreds of emails. Am I
supposed to follow up with thesepeople turn this off? We don't
want to do that. And we're like,like, literally, could you
imagine if you had hundreds ofguests coming, like turning in a
visitor card and you're like,stop taking visitor cards. It's
(18:11):
like, it's too much work for us.
And it's just like, it's justthe thought process is so
dysfunctional, because they'reso focused on key performance
indicators, versus, you know,objectives and key results. And
I use the analogy of driving.
It's like they're so focused onHey, do we have gas in the car?
Are you are you driving thespeed limit? You're not
speeding, right? Are you makingcomplete stops? Because we don't
(18:33):
want to get a ticket. They're sofocused on those things. They're
missing the whole point of whereare you going? Like, what is the
GPS setting? And they're drivingin circles around the mall, and
they're just going like, hey,roll the windows down, make sure
people know we're excited. Yeah,we're all and they're not,
they're not getting on thefreeway. They're not heading
north and going on the roadtrip, that the whole journey is
(18:55):
getting missed, because they'rejust driving in circles. And but
hey, they're not running out ofgas. They're hitting all
subsets. They're not gettingspeeding tickets. And they're
all happy with that. And we justlike, man, yeah. And the whole
thing about Silicon Valley, andthe lessons that we learn there
is, you know, it's not a one anddone. It is an iterative
process. Yeah. Constantly. Yeah,there's 10,000 versions of
Facebook out right now, like,and they're constantly testing
(19:17):
and iterating figuring out, butwe have people come bring us all
the time. And they think, oh,yeah, we hired them. We're done.
And it's just like, man, it'slike cleaning your garage. I
mean, yeah, I Yeah. I know, alot of people that only ever
clean the garage once. It islike, yeah, if you have kids,
you know, man garages are likemagnets, and they just gather
things. And it's a constanteffort to keep your garage
(19:39):
clean. And that's the truth isit's a constant effort to make
sure your story is on track andtrue. And as any story it's an
iterative process. You have tokeep re editing it and
sharpening it and is it relevantand how are things progressing?
But does that am I totally off?
Ladies? No. Ladies andgentlemen, ladies and gentlemen.
(20:00):
If you just heard the last fiveminutes that is worth the price
of admission, I know you didn'tpay anything I listened to this
podcast, but I will say, Oh,that's so My mind is blown. No,
I legit just got chillslistening to that concept. And I
think what's so important aboutwhat you just said is it's an
iterative process, because thisis really a sentence I've been
chewing on lately is resultsnever last. Like I can't think
(20:24):
of one thing other than death,where there's actually a
permanence to a result, like youhave to keep fighting to
continue getting a result. Andnot only is that like an area of
growth for the church, but Ikind of want to ask you, your
thoughts on churches who havetried stepping into creating
immersive experiences, I'm noteven going to get into online
(20:46):
church as much as examples I'veseen over the past decade of
some churches doing in the kidsarea, kind of creating like
storefront situations to createthat more magical area for them.
Is that a good example ofcreating an experience? Or where
(21:08):
is the church still fallingshort?
Yeah, a couple of things aboutthat. First off, and there's a
good friend Roberta Amundsen isactually writing a book on kind
of art and architecture and theinfluence on religion in those
things. And she really opened mymind to this whole thing of just
when you talk about churchhistory, when you talk about
(21:29):
like, the original churches thatwere built in Europe, and the
Abbey's and the monasteries. Andhave you ever traveled through
Europe had guys been to any ofyou really like? Yeah, oh, for
sure. Italy, especially, oh,incredibly, Vatican not built
for worship on a Sunday morning.
They were actually built asexperiences. They were
experiential locations, theywere built as embassies of the
(21:51):
new city of Jerusalem. They werebuilt for pilgrims who were
making their journeys back toIsrael. And, and they were set
up along these pilgrimageroutes, whatever. And people can
come into them, and actuallyhave experiences with God. And
the way that they were lined uplike was it usually there are a
lot of there, certain ones werelike we're facing east so that
(22:12):
over the, the over the altar onEaster Sunday, the sun would
rise through that stained glasswindow, you'd usually enter on
the north side, the north side,but then have, like all the
chapels that were set up withall the stories of the fallen
man, because the north side wasthe darker side, the colder
side, you go around the altarand the Passion of the Christ,
(22:33):
and redemption. And then you godown, exit out of the south
side, which is the side with allthe sun and the warmth. And
those were all the stories ofyou know, redemption, and all
the stories of hope. But peoplewould actually come into the
early churches for experiencesfor holy experience. And that's
why people gathered around them.
And that's why the cities grewaround them. And it's just like,
(22:53):
but they started off asexperiential places. All around
the story of you know,redemption, which you know, I
just love it. It's so much apart of it, but it's about
experiencing God. So in churchesare kind of going back and
really for 2000 years, Ibelieve, like, I believe Jesus
came to this earth as astoryteller. I mean, yes, he was
(23:14):
a teacher, you know, he was ahealer. But man, he wasn't just
a teacher on the steps of thetemple, you know, he was a
teacher along the way, thatactually use story to connect
the scriptural truths. He didn'tjust teach from the Scriptures,
And He use story, and to teachthe parables to relate and
connect. You know, when hehealed somebody, it wasn't like,
go to church on Sunday. Now itwas now go share your story, or
(23:36):
even better build show yourstory, right? So storytelling is
really how the church led for2000 years, and you look at all
these different mediums in theembracing of technology to help
tell story, I don't think it'san accident that Jesus didn't
write the New Testament, theonly time he ever wrote anything
down was temporary and sand. Andthat was because the limit of
the technology, you know, itwasn't about it. I mean, there
(23:58):
and I read things about thisbefore about how like the the
finger, he was probably writinglike the Eighth Commandment or
whatever is like, because hisfinger is the finger that wrote
the 10 commandments, who likeall these things are, but just
like the 10 commandments thatwere written in stone, and then
that was became the ark, andthey held in such high regard. I
think Jesus intentionally, Imean, he was educated, he could
have wrote the New Testament, Hecould have carved into stone,
(24:20):
but he didn't, because at thetime, the best way to convey
story was an oral tradition. Andthat's how you equip the
disciples. And that's why theydidn't write things down until
like, years after he leftbecause the best way was an oral
tradition. But they would usethe technology, the technology
of the Roman roads. And then asyou fast forward in time,
whether it was the printingpress or you know, radio or
television, you know, thechurches always use technology
(24:43):
to get the gospel out. But itreally wasn't until after the
Industrial Revolution and thisidea of this assembly line
approach to things that thecurrent church model really took
shape, where you have a buildingthat's used one day a week. I
mean, that is such badstewardship. I mean to have a
building is one day a week. TheDisney a lot of people say
Disney's extravagant smells,right. But they use these
facilities, you know, seven daysa week. And, you know, even
(25:06):
Chick Fil A's least six days aweek. Like, they really kind of,
you know, one day a week.
Really. That's it, and you havethis great facility, you're kind
of putting things through. Ilove that churches are pretty
intentional about creating theseenvironments that engage kids,
because they're being engaged,whether it's at Disneyland, or
whether it's at, you know, allthese different places that they
go, they're being engaged, andreally right now in the digital
(25:28):
world. My issue is when thatstory doesn't relate to who they
are. And it's like, when we talkto them about it and ends like,
oh, no, it says this biggerchurch did this. And this bigger
church did that they're justcopying what they think other
churches do, rather thanembracing their own local story.
And, you know, whenever we lookat really successful, successful
churches, it's hard not to getaround the personality of the
(25:48):
senior leadership, right, andthe stories that kind of revolve
around them, and how things haveended up telling come come to
shape with that. And that's ourthing is not like, hey, everyone
needs make Disneyland. It's nottrue. I mean, it really is,
everyone just needs to beintentional about their story.
And what's unique about them,because story is what gets
passed on from one generation tothe next, we talk about story, I
(26:11):
mean, it is core to the humancondition. It is how culture is
conveyed from from onegeneration X. And right now, the
biggest disconnect is the storythat's being conveyed. The next
generation is not being like thepeople were being intentional
about it, or the people thatwere complaining about it. This
was like, there, there's betterat telling story.
(26:32):
So interesting. I mean, we'regonna we're gonna get
supercharged in elevating thisconversation even further into
tectonic platform shifts thatwe're starting to see, and how
that might impact story. Right?
So what I'm talking about is AI.
And the metaverse, right,obviously, with AI, some of the
(26:52):
narrative right now is that, youknow, creatives such as
animators are starting to becomedisplaced, because some of the
tools that AI can now do, youknow, can replace 10 animators,
which is, you know, a coupleprompts, type of situation,
obviously, Peter, you're closerthan to this than most people. I
(27:13):
would love to hear your take onthat. But also, I'd love to hear
your take on the metaverse aswell, these platform shifts that
we might be facing. I mean, youknow, the verdicts still out,
we're still in the midst of it.
But if these truly are platformshifts, is this going to enhance
creativity? If so, how? If not,what's your skepticism around
(27:33):
it?
Yeah. So I mean, really, to thecore of just understanding what
is creativity? And yeah, theidea that it's more than just
divergent thinking it's it's,you know, divergent thinking of
ideas with value, and how do youactually enhance the life and
stuff? And I think you metillustrators and animators, but
probably Yeah, we're on theforefront of AI trying to
(27:55):
replace animation. And there area bunch of different things. And
there's a bunch of levels to itthat we're looking at. But you
know, we the reality is, we'vebeen immersed in AI for decades.
I mean, really, I think one ofthe key things why Google is
successful is because they wereusing machine learning to come
up with better algorithms, we'vebeen totally indoctrinated into
it. And Google has actually hadsome of this stuff out for
(28:17):
years, they were actuallyholding back. Things just really
blew up when this practicalsense of chat GPT came out, and
expose really what's coming out.
Now, the reality is the churchhas not embraced AI, because
we've worked with churchesbefore. And just I mean, like,
literally, something as simpleas having a website, that to a
first time visitor would welcomea first time visitor. And then
(28:37):
if they came back, you know,just a session cookie, direct
eyes and say, welcome back, likeliterally, and we'd get pushback
from people going like, oh,there's privacy stuff or
whatever. It's like, we justneed an online brochure. It's
like, you got to be kidding me.
It's like that idea that youwant to track somebody and say,
like, oh, they were on yourwebsite, looking at like divorce
(28:57):
care, or looking at junior high.
The next thing Okay, come back,maybe we should put like, hey,
there's a divorce class, or youhere's information about Junior
hires on there. And the ideathat we get pushed back from
that from customers is likebizarre, but churches would push
back on that because of, yeah,different reasons. Because a lot
of was they didn't want to makean investment in something when
they could get a website forfree or for $9 over $2,000 just
(29:18):
not understanding, like whatmachine learning was really the
benefits of it and differentresults. But when we talk about
Metaverse as well, I mean, forus it's kind of a foregone
conclusion. And a lot of peopleI guess they don't realize this
but when we talk about videogames when we talk about like
Minecraft Roblox fortnight, Imean, these immersive worlds
(29:41):
really is the is the contentthat will be first on the
metaverse and the metaverseplatform. These people are not
pining to get to three hours ofpeople's times a month. You
know, they're in the dozens tohundreds of hours. And it's like
the film industry. People think,oh, it's about film. That's the
thing. The video game industryis estimated 10 times the size
(30:03):
of the film industry. It's atleast four times, if not six
times. But the video gameindustry is where the next
generation is, is where they'reengaging. And yeah, the idea
that there's going to behardware that will catch up that
allow the extension of that tohappen is all we're waiting for
is the same thing of like, youhad movies, you've had movies
for, you know, decades now,right? When you took from the
(30:25):
film, to VHS to DVD tostreaming, it's like, that's
just the platforms that it'scoming out on. The Metaverse is
kind of there as far as thesethe content, the story, it's
just the platform, is it gonnabe on the Oculus headsets? I can
pretty much guarantee you not,is it gonna be on because
there's just too big and bulky.
(30:46):
But yeah, right now, though, ourillustrators, our animators on
our team, who literally we workwith guys who are just like the
best in the world, I mean, fromPixar, and Disney and stuff like
that. It's just a tool, that AIYeah, mid journey, all these
things. It's just helping themin the creative process. But
really, AI is almost areflection of what already
exists truly new, innovativeideas. It's not good at coming
(31:09):
up with at least yet. But thecollaborative process and how do
you bring things to life thatare actually of value to people?
That's, that's the that's thecreative process. I think God
created us. For me, our God isthe God of creativity. And I
think when we look atinnovation, all these things,
that is the death knell for theassembly line process things, no
assembly line goes unpunishedfrom innovation. And that's
(31:30):
really where the church is at.
If it doesn't innovate, it'sgoing to become irrelevant. And
that's what you know, the way ofautomotive industry, telecom
industry, railroad industry,steel industry, but it doesn't
matter. You have to innovate.
Wow. Am I totally off track? I'msorry? No,
this is you are blowing armor.
Perfect.
Yes. So with quite a call toaction like that, let's get
(31:55):
granular. What is one thing,just a springboard that you
would love to see every churchimplement immediately to get
better at creating anexperience? Oh, man,
take a take stock of what theirstory is, what is their story,
the characters thoughts andsettings, and be intentional
(32:16):
about it? Because a lot of timespeople think it's Oh, it's
values. It's this is thatwhatever it's like, you know,
and if you can't sit down anddocument what your story is,
like, it's the stories of thatfirst time visitor coming to
your church. And like weliterally go through and say,
Okay, pick a random targetaudience. It's a single mom.
She's in a grocery store. She'sstruggling, she just had a
(32:37):
miscarriage she something somecrisis just happened. She's
gonna go to her phone, she'sgonna look up. What is it that
she sees on phone? Oh, onechurch main locations. What does
that mean? It wasn't mean toher. But what what is the first
thing that you would say to her,Hey, we care a church that
cares? How do you find us? Okay,she gets into her car, she's
gonna drive there this Sundaymorning at 11 o'clock, she's
(33:00):
going to meet you. They're like,okay, so when they get into
their car, like, what is it whenshe pulls up? What is it that
she sees when she gets out ofher car when she walks in
through those front doors? Likeliterally what is the story,
because her having a greatexperience can be kind of a
random happenstance of justhappy things coming together for
her. And I think that's how somepeople believe the Earth was
(33:21):
created this all thisrandomness, or it can be an
intelligent design, it's sittingback and say, Hey, for that
story, this is how it's going tounfold. We want her to walk in,
we want her to see that, hey,this is clearly where the kids
go. This is where the restroomsare. And this is where you get
coffee, like and then from orwhatever, those things. But
yeah, I don't know if that makessense. But oh, man,
I am chuckling insideunderstanding her story. And
(33:45):
going to a website thatliterally like probably half of
churches have right now onechurch many locations. What does
that even mean? That is so eyeopening and this conversation,
Peter, every time I get to speakwith you and get to learn from
you, I get so energized.
Because, you know, Zoe and I arepart of a company that in the
giving space, at the very least,right now are trying to push the
(34:08):
bounds of what's possible.
Right. And, you know, in somecases, we do feel that we're
pioneering some things. And youcould always tell a pioneer by
the arrows on their back, right.
And so in some cases, we do feellike we're pioneering some
things, but it's so gratifyingwhen there are certain churches,
partners, early adopters, thatsee it, that understand the
(34:30):
story that understand the nextgeneration that's coming up,
that have a very specific storyof how they think about money,
how they think about generosity.
And even more than that, howthey think about their
discipleship journey, right? Andthey start seeing the big
picture of cool, like, becausewe understand those stories.
This is the fuel that we need tobe intentional. And really I
(34:54):
love how you talk about thingsfrom a first principle
standpoint, because you'realmost agnostic. Technology,
right? There's always going tobe platform shifts, there's
always going to be newtechnology. There's always going
to be new tools and things thatwe can leverage. But at the end
of the day, from oral tradition,to Metaverse tradition, the
(35:15):
underlying facts about all ofthat is that those that
understand their story, areauthentic to it, and are able to
tell it the best are the onesthat captivates society. So I
love that what a great combo.
Thank you so much, Peter. Yes.
I'm gonna have a conversationwith you guys and let the hang
(35:38):
out soon. At Disneyland. It'llbe fun.
Let's go. Well,we'll start planning out some
Hangouts. XO, any last wordsfrom you?
Know, I mean, this has been achallenging conversation just
for me. Because when you'retalking about experiences,
you're not just like, oh mygosh, that was so fun. This is
like, all five senses are beingoverloaded and transported to a
(36:00):
different world. And if thechurch can captivate people,
like Jesus did, you know, likethe gospel does, and we could
turn it into an experience likethat, then we can transport
people to a taste of what heavenlooks like and feels like and I
think that is so beautiful andso convicting, and I'm pumped
(36:21):
right now. I'm hyped up by thisconversation. So thank you. Hey,
give it up. podcast listeners.
Give it up for Peter McGowan.
Shout out to Storyland yourteam, everything that you guys
are pioneering. We appreciateyou.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks so much for listening tothe give it up podcast if you
(36:42):
want to receive even moreinsights on church innovation,
culture, and giving. Now you cansign up for free to be an
overflow insider, where you'llreceive exclusive content
discounts, direct access toVance Roush to get your
questions answered. And alsoinvite only access to our
monthly fundraising leadershipforums, head to overflow.co
(37:03):
backslash insider, or just clickthe link in our bio to sign up
for free today. In order to getthis podcast in the ears of even
more church leaders. Could youplease subscribe and leave a
review for the show? This tellsthe podcast players what people
are enjoying and want to hearmore of and we are adamant about
providing maximum value to evenmore church leaders. Thanks so
(37:25):
much. We'll see you next time.
Ultimately, when you wind things up with user
(00:02):
experience, that's when you havea really good, successful
result. So the same thing withstorytelling map out the story,
and just is the story believableand you kind of beat it up and
you make sure that those thingscome together. And when all
those things align, then youknow, it really is magic. Our
thing is not like, hey, everyoneneeds make Disneyland. It's not
true. I mean, it really is.
Everyone just needs to beintentional about their story.
(00:22):
What's unique about them,a pastor, turn tech leader and a
millennial churchgoer, explorethe intersection of technology,
culture and faith, equipping youwith innovative strategies to
support you as you live out.
You're calling leader churcheswith competence to step into the
future together. This is thegive it up podcast.
(00:43):
My goodness XO, another episodeof The give it a podcast and
this whole volume has beendedicated. Yes. Because we've
been dedicating this wholevolume two inviting our friends,
our partners in crime, peoplewithin the flow fam network, to
come on and speak innovationtechnology, especially as it
(01:06):
relates to the faith space. AndI couldn't think of a better
person for this conversationthat we're about to have today.
Then my friend Peter McGough,when really quick, I'm gonna
give a quick intro. He is one ofthe founders of plain Joe and
Storyland studios, champion ofbringing clients unique stories
(01:29):
to life. By I love thislanguage, Peter broadening their
visual vocabulary beyond words,that actually has been done
through you and yourorganization, at brands like
Infiniti, Nissan, IBM, Johnson,and Johnson. But what's most
exciting to Joe and people likemy wife, Kim, as you've worked
(01:51):
with brands, like Disney,universal, and Lego, as well,
which is super cool. But you'rea family man. Married to
Jennifer and also have threekids, right? Is that right? Yep.
Yeah. Welcome to the pod Peter.
Wow, man, humbled must be here.
Yeah, this is gonna be anexciting conversation, because I
(02:12):
feel like the church has so muchto learn about creating
incredible experiences andbecoming better storytellers.
But before we dig into that, Iwould love to know Peter, how on
earth does one get into thisentire niche industry? And how
do you become passionate aboutcreating these kinds of
(02:32):
experiences?
It starts with that you have tohave some sort of passion to
kind of go after it, becausethere is no kind of, you know,
class or major on like, youknow, hey, this is how to, you
know, get into experientialstorytelling or design or
anything like that. And peoplehave followed pathways going to
Cal Arts and stuff like thatfun. Yeah, the footsteps of
certain Disney Imagineers andwhatnot, but it's not
(02:55):
straightforward. You really haveto kind of hunt it down and kind
of make it happen for yourselfand connecting with people. And
for for me, and my brother,really, it was about friends,
friends, who kind of, you know,opened up and like, took us
along side them and taught uswhat it was to just be, you
know, good storytellers. Andwhat it was to kind of put
yourself aside and think of theempathetic but the people who
(03:16):
are on the receiving and sowhen you say broadening visual
vocabulary, make that practicalfor the listeners, because maybe
they're not familiar withStoryland studio and all the
work that you've done with someof these clients. But what some
examples of what you guys havedone to broaden that visual
vocabulary, what's that worklook like? Yeah.
So I mean, it's quite simply,like most people are used to
(03:37):
stories being an oral or writtentradition, you know, something
you read in a book or somethingthat you hear even watching a
movie, let's say, and watching amovie and creating film sets, or
any of those things, that'sthis, that's really scratching
the surface of a visualvocabulary. Okay. And it's a
spectrum too, because it's notthat one is better than the
other. In fact, I mean, some ofthe greatest stories are stories
(03:58):
that you read, and your mindfills in the gaps. That's why
it's people always say like,man, the book was better than
the movie. It's because their,their imagination is so charged
and actually can be even better,more visceral. But then, you
know, when movies came along, itkind of spoon feeds people into
things. And what Walt Disneyreally kind of hooked onto was
this idea that man, people couldactually immerse themselves in a
(04:21):
story. And that really was theidea of Disneyland and the rides
there was actually put you kindof in the story itself. But, you
know, a mentor friend of mine,Dan, Cathy, I think, I love what
he shares. He actually says inthis aspect of service or
storytelling, he says thatthere's hardware and software,
the hardware is that physicalenvironment. So yeah, yeah, that
(04:44):
that broadening of the visualvocabulary there. But then
there's also the software andthat's the customer service
side, the culture, the ritualsof the brand. So at Chick fil A,
it's the it's my pleasure. Buthow does that software kind of
align with that? And thatbroadened vocabulary really
helps the whole story come tolife. And there's a whole, like,
I can go down a rabbit holetalking about, like, story in
(05:05):
this suspension of disbelief andtaking people into that.
Well, well that's so interestingbecause what you're saying here
is that you've helped companieslike Disney build experiences,
some of that are actual physicalstructures. Right? But if I'm
hearing this right, even helpingthem think through the service
layer of how that physicalstructure interacts with the end
(05:27):
consumer, is that right? Yeah.
And a lot of our work withDisney just to be transparent. I
mean, like, a lot of our teamcomes from you know, Disney and
Pixar and universal and stufflike that. So a lot of guys
worked on things but then wethen because relationships get
pulled into doing things likelike we were mentioning earlier,
we built Hogwarts Express thetrain at Universal Studios there
when takes their picture infront of Yeah, and like helping
(05:51):
bring those stories kind of tolife is pretty exciting. Even
just have a small part in thisbroader thing. So I people
thought like, oh, yeah, theycreated Harry Potter is now we
didn't write the books. Wedidn't make the movies. We
didn't. We just worked oncreating the physical
environments that you walk intoit your reader,
you you are, you're far toohumble. Because the train is
(06:13):
like the flagship piece, right?
When you walk in, we're justthere to universal last week,
right? When you walk in thefirst thing that you see is this
life like train that mydaughter, we have been reading
Harry Potter to her for the lastthree months to get her ready
for this experience. And, youknow, religious church folk
(06:34):
don't ask me, okay, yes, I readHarry Potter alongside a couple
of Bible verses she, but but shewhen she saw that, because her
imagination matched up to animmersive experience. It was
actually so cool to see. Yeah,it is pretty remarkable. And
actually, I'm a huge fan of JKRowling and Harry Potter. It
really ignited a passion forliterature in my kids. And I
(06:57):
think it's one of the biggestmisses of the church, because,
you know, yeah, the wholeboycott, everything was all
bogus. I mean, because she waswriting it as a Christian
allegory. And when she wasquestioned, like, hey, is this a
Christian allegory, she's like,I'm not going to tell you that.
They'll give you the ending,you'll know that Harry is gonna
die and rise from the dead, andhence the Christian allegory.
But they took it as Oh, it'sfrom the devil. And like, oh,
(07:18):
spells are rules. And it's like,no, it's Latin. She's actually
kind of poking fun at a lot ofthis stuff. But you know, it's
just as much magic and is Lordof the Rings or Chronicles of
Narnia, or any of those things.
But what it really does is itgives you a perspective on this
spiritual world and the physicalworld or the modal world in the
magical world. And it's a greatChristian allegory. And I was
(07:42):
like, you know, whenever peoplelike, Oh, your kids read that
I'm like, Yes. And they read CSLewis, and they all you know,
talking everything but that's awhole nother conversation go
down. Ya know, humbled must be asmall part of that man, because
it is it's pretty magical story.
Pretty powerful. Movie, thevideo game just got launched the
platform high forget with it.
(08:03):
Broke record, it was like 800million in three weeks. This is
like, yeah, it's staggering.
People are so hungry for story.
And people are so hungry toconnect. And one of the key
things in stories that we callis layers to the story. So it's
not just a veneer. It's just notsurface. It's when they can dive
down deeper into things. Andthat's one of the great things
about Harry Potter's there's,it's so deep.
(08:25):
I want to hear more about thistension of creating what is in
people's imagination, even ifthey aren't able to articulate
it until they see it. Like thatmust feel like a lot of pressure
sometimes. Because you have toweigh what's in our imagination
versus everybody else. And howdo we align that? So how do you
guys think through matching upwhat satisfies someone's
(08:48):
imagination when it comes to anexperience, and
that's a great thing, I'm gonnaback up really quick and just
kind of give an analogy of ourprocess and kind of even how we
work. I equate it a lot toeating. And it's kind of like
what you just said, everyoneknows what good food tastes
like, right? You don't have tobe a chef to articulate, like,
you know, how it was created. Imean, people have different
(09:10):
opinions on whether they like itor not, it's too spicy, or
whatever. But usually good foodtastes good to everybody, right?
Or two people are used to atleast that. But same thing with
good design, you know, peoplerecognize it, they can't always
articulate what's good or what'sbad. People can't explain why,
you know, Disney is better thancertain other unnamed theme
(09:30):
parks. But it's like, it's thetime to actually get to know the
reader understand the story.
Understand that the the guestsexperience the user experience,
the user journeys, and thenmaking sure that the story makes
sense. And that is actually alot of work a lot of effort.
Steve Jobs is actually one of myfavorite quotes from him that
he's like in this. I don't knowif you've seen that interview.
He's like on stage and someoneasks a kind of a punchy question
(09:52):
about why the iPhone doesn't usecertain technology. I think it's
like Java or flash or something.
And Steve Jobs basically He justkind of points back and says
never about the technology. It'snever about like whatever flashy
thing. It's always about theuser experience, you have to
start with user experience. Formore start with the story. So
(10:13):
for the in the case of theiPhone, it wasn't about the
technology of whatever flash,whatever Java, whatever Keyboard
Event, it was about the userexperience and the user
experience, the iPhone was thisnarrative of imagining someone
taking a call, then, then makinga note or looking up directions
or looking up restaurantreservations. And in that
narrative, it disclosed to youthat the 10 key, the buttons
(10:35):
were in the way. And then out ofthat came the idea that we have
to have a plastic interface, aphone with no buttons. And the
reality is, once it gotlaunched, everyone was like,
This is gonna be a flop, noone's asking you for phone with
no buttons, every marketingsurvey, every you know,
everything said that it wasgoing to help people not only
want to attend to you, theywanted a full keyboard, right.
And that's why I call Qualcommand blackberry were always going
(10:57):
to dominate. And they justmissed it. Because ultimately,
when you line things up withuser experience, that's when you
have a really good, you know,successful result. So the same
thing with storytelling, you mapout the story, and just is the
story believable, and you kindof beat it up, and you make sure
that those things come together.
And when all those things align,then you know, it really is
magic.
(11:19):
Well, when you're discussinglike the element of
storytelling, blending it withan experience, I'm just curious,
because I'm thinking throughsomeone who maybe is a church
leader is listening to this. Andthey're like, that all makes
sense. But it's way more simple.
With people that come to church,they walk in the door, they get
greeted, they walk, they mightgo to the bathroom, they might
get coffee, they sit down, done.
(11:40):
But what you're saying isthere's way more and so many
more layers to this. So if youcould summarize or kind of give
us like a snapshot, what aresome elements that are
absolutely necessary to createan incredible experience, no
matter what type of experienceit is.
So story always taught us, youknow, really starts with three
(12:02):
core components, what we say ischaracters, plots and settings,
understanding the characters ofthe story, understanding the
character of your church, youknow, what is it to walk up and
shake the hand of your church,who you are and everything like
that? The plot, what is what arethe specific journeys that you
want to map out, because thoseplots don't happen by accident?
And a lot of times people thinkplot points are just, you know,
(12:22):
you know, things you check off,I'll get back to that in a
second. It's so much moreimportant, like, oh, yeah,
advances, this whole thing islike, do you have giving? Oh,
yeah, we have giving check.
Forget the fact that the givingprocess is painful, or that
young kids think it's totallyinane, or, you know, they're
ready to give with Bitcoin. Andyou don't even do that. But in
their minds are thinking, Oh,giving check. It's like, Nope,
that's it. That's the thirdthing is the setting,
(12:44):
understanding the environmentsin which this is all taking
place on their phone, orphysically in person, stuff like
that. But going back to thecharacter part, I remember one
time I walked up this church, Iwent to their website to look up
their directions. First off,there was no like, there was the
address, I couldn't just clickon it open up Google Maps and
navigate to it, I copy theaddress, and they open it up and
do it or I pull into theaddress, it's on their website,
(13:05):
it's like, feels like a shoppingmall, I look up, I go to what
looks like the big main entranceas like the big high arch. But
there's nothing that sayswelcome or anything other
websites said, like a church,anyone can come to everyone's
welcome just like that. But Iremember walking up, and the big
glass doors in big six inchletters do not enter. And it was
like, oh, okay, this isinteresting. You know, when I
(13:27):
got to know the guys there, andthe thought process was some
facilities guy was like, Hey,these are gonna be the entrance
doors over here. These are exitdoors over here. But rather than
putting exit or entrance to theright, or even better, just take
the handles off, just likeinstead, they put big letters do
not enter. And like that. It'slike when you add too much salt.
It's just like, that's likesomething doesn't, right?
(13:49):
Because when you're saying, oh,everyone's welcome. But then
they're walking up. And it's notreally feeling welcoming. But
it's so hard for people just toactually take a step back and
actually see what their storyreally is, and talk to people
who've never who's outside ofit. Because so many people in
the church are regulars, andthey know where they're going,
or whatever it is. But what doesit mean to that first time
person who's already under a lotof stress and under a lot of
(14:11):
pressure, anxiety, and all thesethings. All those subtle little
things like yet takes aboutthree seconds to realize, Oh,
those are exit doors. But it'sthe subtle layers to the story
that builds in is this really awelcoming place. And there's a
bunch of movies out there.
There's one movie out how I'mtotally drawing a blank on the
(14:32):
it was like a whole con manmovie, but it's like getting a
guy to guess the number and atthe end, he was 21. But
throughout the whole movie, theykept putting this number 21 and
21. In his mind, he kept seeingit. So when they asked him to
pick a number he goes, Oh 21It's things like that the
subliminal things actually domatter.
To me, I love that. Oh, it makesit makes a lot of sense because
in our little narrow layer inwhich we serve the local church,
(14:57):
and other charitableorganizations, we I hear things
like this a lot. And you kind ofreferenced it. Where? Oh, yeah,
we we accept stock already. Andthen I go to their website, and
it says, If you want to donatestock, email cfo@church.org.
Yeah, nobody wants to email theCFO of a church take some stock.
(15:21):
And it's kind of like to me interms of giving, and that slice
of which we serve best that donot enter sign. Yep. Right. And
so I love what you're saying.
It's kind of like, how do Ichallenge ourselves as faith
leaders, as honestly, leadersthat are meant to be taking
people on an experience in ajourney? And how are we paying
attention to the subtleties? Howare we challenging ourselves to
(15:41):
refresh ourselves on? Okay, whatis a new I mean, Silicon Valley
is famous for this, right?
Silicon Valley is famous forbeing really stringent on user
testing. I mean, in the SiliconValley that's built on software,
primarily, one change to alayout, or even one change of a
(16:03):
button positioning could equalmillions of dollars of revenue
for some of the softwarecompanies, right. And so there's
this discipline in the SiliconValley of being maniacal about
user experiences. What do youthink Peter? is stopping
organizations like the localchurch to actually start caring
about that?
Man, I'm gonna be sacrilegioushere probably. No, it's good. I
(16:27):
think it's a stewardship thing.
I think it's a lack ofunderstanding of what Proverbs
I'm going to say. Actually,Matthew 25 really means what
what is it in the parable of thetalents and what we do? And
yeah, so it's not about savingmoney. And a lot of people go,
Oh, we're ministry. So we haveto save money, we have to be
prudent with our dollar. It'slike, Man, when I read the
(16:48):
parable of the talents, the guythat saved his money, it was
better that he had never beenborn. You know, it was the guy
who took the risk, right? Andwho was not lazy, and actually
had the higher return oninvestment that was blessed. And
my my problem is, most churchesdon't are they're afraid to take
risks, and they're afraid tohave these great return on
(17:08):
investments. I literally haveseen churches have success in
areas just to shut it downbecause I won't say who it was.
But we had a church that wasdoing an online church platform.
And we actually in early as wesaid before, Facebook Live was
like a predecessor to FacebookLive. And when Susan will login
we've captured all theirFacebook information is pre
Cambridge Analytica. So we wouldliterally hand back, okay, hey,
(17:30):
you had 3000 viewers thisweekend. 1500 of them logged in,
here are their names here, theiremails here, their ages, this is
how long they stayed on. And wejust a treasure trove of data.
And the biggest thing is, we'dhave some churches that would
sit there and go, Oh, my gosh,we have 1000 people who just
gave us their emails with asimple Okay, click and would
(17:51):
follow up with them. And theyactually capitalize that we had
other churches who literally,they were like, What do I do?
Every week? I'm getting like,hundreds of emails. Am I
supposed to follow up with thesepeople turn this off? We don't
want to do that. And we're like,like, literally, could you
imagine if you had hundreds ofguests coming, like turning in a
visitor card and you're like,stop taking visitor cards. It's
(18:11):
like, it's too much work for us.
And it's just like, it's justthe thought process is so
dysfunctional, because they'reso focused on key performance
indicators, versus, you know,objectives and key results. And
I use the analogy of driving.
It's like they're so focused onHey, do we have gas in the car?
Are you are you driving thespeed limit? You're not
speeding, right? Are you makingcomplete stops? Because we don't
(18:33):
want to get a ticket. They're sofocused on those things. They're
missing the whole point of whereare you going? Like, what is the
GPS setting? And they're drivingin circles around the mall, and
they're just going like, hey,roll the windows down, make sure
people know we're excited. Yeah,we're all and they're not,
they're not getting on thefreeway. They're not heading
north and going on the roadtrip, that the whole journey is
(18:55):
getting missed, because they'rejust driving in circles. And but
hey, they're not running out ofgas. They're hitting all
subsets. They're not gettingspeeding tickets. And they're
all happy with that. And we justlike, man, yeah. And the whole
thing about Silicon Valley, andthe lessons that we learn there
is, you know, it's not a one anddone. It is an iterative
process. Yeah. Constantly. Yeah,there's 10,000 versions of
Facebook out right now, like,and they're constantly testing
(19:17):
and iterating figuring out, butwe have people come bring us all
the time. And they think, oh,yeah, we hired them. We're done.
And it's just like, man, it'slike cleaning your garage. I
mean, yeah, I Yeah. I know, alot of people that only ever
clean the garage once. It islike, yeah, if you have kids,
you know, man garages are likemagnets, and they just gather
things. And it's a constanteffort to keep your garage
(19:39):
clean. And that's the truth isit's a constant effort to make
sure your story is on track andtrue. And as any story it's an
iterative process. You have tokeep re editing it and
sharpening it and is it relevantand how are things progressing?
But does that am I totally off?
Ladies? No. Ladies andgentlemen, ladies and gentlemen.
(20:00):
If you just heard the last fiveminutes that is worth the price
of admission, I know you didn'tpay anything I listened to this
podcast, but I will say, Oh,that's so My mind is blown. No,
I legit just got chillslistening to that concept. And I
think what's so important aboutwhat you just said is it's an
iterative process, because thisis really a sentence I've been
chewing on lately is resultsnever last. Like I can't think
(20:24):
of one thing other than death,where there's actually a
permanence to a result, like youhave to keep fighting to
continue getting a result. Andnot only is that like an area of
growth for the church, but Ikind of want to ask you, your
thoughts on churches who havetried stepping into creating
immersive experiences, I'm noteven going to get into online
(20:46):
church as much as examples I'veseen over the past decade of
some churches doing in the kidsarea, kind of creating like
storefront situations to createthat more magical area for them.
Is that a good example ofcreating an experience? Or where
(21:08):
is the church still fallingshort?
Yeah, a couple of things aboutthat. First off, and there's a
good friend Roberta Amundsen isactually writing a book on kind
of art and architecture and theinfluence on religion in those
things. And she really opened mymind to this whole thing of just
when you talk about churchhistory, when you talk about
(21:29):
like, the original churches thatwere built in Europe, and the
Abbey's and the monasteries. Andhave you ever traveled through
Europe had guys been to any ofyou really like? Yeah, oh, for
sure. Italy, especially, oh,incredibly, Vatican not built
for worship on a Sunday morning.
They were actually built asexperiences. They were
experiential locations, theywere built as embassies of the
(21:51):
new city of Jerusalem. They werebuilt for pilgrims who were
making their journeys back toIsrael. And, and they were set
up along these pilgrimageroutes, whatever. And people can
come into them, and actuallyhave experiences with God. And
the way that they were lined uplike was it usually there are a
lot of there, certain ones werelike we're facing east so that
(22:12):
over the, the over the altar onEaster Sunday, the sun would
rise through that stained glasswindow, you'd usually enter on
the north side, the north side,but then have, like all the
chapels that were set up withall the stories of the fallen
man, because the north side wasthe darker side, the colder
side, you go around the altarand the Passion of the Christ,
(22:33):
and redemption. And then you godown, exit out of the south
side, which is the side with allthe sun and the warmth. And
those were all the stories ofyou know, redemption, and all
the stories of hope. But peoplewould actually come into the
early churches for experiencesfor holy experience. And that's
why people gathered around them.
And that's why the cities grewaround them. And it's just like,
(22:53):
but they started off asexperiential places. All around
the story of you know,redemption, which you know, I
just love it. It's so much apart of it, but it's about
experiencing God. So in churchesare kind of going back and
really for 2000 years, Ibelieve, like, I believe Jesus
came to this earth as astoryteller. I mean, yes, he was
(23:14):
a teacher, you know, he was ahealer. But man, he wasn't just
a teacher on the steps of thetemple, you know, he was a
teacher along the way, thatactually use story to connect
the scriptural truths. He didn'tjust teach from the Scriptures,
And He use story, and to teachthe parables to relate and
connect. You know, when hehealed somebody, it wasn't like,
go to church on Sunday. Now itwas now go share your story, or
(23:36):
even better build show yourstory, right? So storytelling is
really how the church led for2000 years, and you look at all
these different mediums in theembracing of technology to help
tell story, I don't think it'san accident that Jesus didn't
write the New Testament, theonly time he ever wrote anything
down was temporary and sand. Andthat was because the limit of
the technology, you know, itwasn't about it. I mean, there
(23:58):
and I read things about thisbefore about how like the the
finger, he was probably writinglike the Eighth Commandment or
whatever is like, because hisfinger is the finger that wrote
the 10 commandments, who likeall these things are, but just
like the 10 commandments thatwere written in stone, and then
that was became the ark, andthey held in such high regard. I
think Jesus intentionally, Imean, he was educated, he could
have wrote the New Testament, Hecould have carved into stone,
(24:20):
but he didn't, because at thetime, the best way to convey
story was an oral tradition. Andthat's how you equip the
disciples. And that's why theydidn't write things down until
like, years after he leftbecause the best way was an oral
tradition. But they would usethe technology, the technology
of the Roman roads. And then asyou fast forward in time,
whether it was the printingpress or you know, radio or
television, you know, thechurches always use technology
(24:43):
to get the gospel out. But itreally wasn't until after the
Industrial Revolution and thisidea of this assembly line
approach to things that thecurrent church model really took
shape, where you have a buildingthat's used one day a week. I
mean, that is such badstewardship. I mean to have a
building is one day a week. TheDisney a lot of people say
Disney's extravagant smells,right. But they use these
facilities, you know, seven daysa week. And, you know, even
(25:06):
Chick Fil A's least six days aweek. Like, they really kind of,
you know, one day a week.
Really. That's it, and you havethis great facility, you're kind
of putting things through. Ilove that churches are pretty
intentional about creating theseenvironments that engage kids,
because they're being engaged,whether it's at Disneyland, or
whether it's at, you know, allthese different places that they
go, they're being engaged, andreally right now in the digital
(25:28):
world. My issue is when thatstory doesn't relate to who they
are. And it's like, when we talkto them about it and ends like,
oh, no, it says this biggerchurch did this. And this bigger
church did that they're justcopying what they think other
churches do, rather thanembracing their own local story.
And, you know, whenever we lookat really successful, successful
churches, it's hard not to getaround the personality of the
(25:48):
senior leadership, right, andthe stories that kind of revolve
around them, and how things haveended up telling come come to
shape with that. And that's ourthing is not like, hey, everyone
needs make Disneyland. It's nottrue. I mean, it really is,
everyone just needs to beintentional about their story.
And what's unique about them,because story is what gets
passed on from one generation tothe next, we talk about story, I
(26:11):
mean, it is core to the humancondition. It is how culture is
conveyed from from onegeneration X. And right now, the
biggest disconnect is the storythat's being conveyed. The next
generation is not being like thepeople were being intentional
about it, or the people thatwere complaining about it. This
was like, there, there's betterat telling story.
(26:32):
So interesting. I mean, we'regonna we're gonna get
supercharged in elevating thisconversation even further into
tectonic platform shifts thatwe're starting to see, and how
that might impact story. Right?
So what I'm talking about is AI.
And the metaverse, right,obviously, with AI, some of the
(26:52):
narrative right now is that, youknow, creatives such as
animators are starting to becomedisplaced, because some of the
tools that AI can now do, youknow, can replace 10 animators,
which is, you know, a coupleprompts, type of situation,
obviously, Peter, you're closerthan to this than most people. I
(27:13):
would love to hear your take onthat. But also, I'd love to hear
your take on the metaverse aswell, these platform shifts that
we might be facing. I mean, youknow, the verdicts still out,
we're still in the midst of it.
But if these truly are platformshifts, is this going to enhance
creativity? If so, how? If not,what's your skepticism around
(27:33):
it?
Yeah. So I mean, really, to thecore of just understanding what
is creativity? And yeah, theidea that it's more than just
divergent thinking it's it's,you know, divergent thinking of
ideas with value, and how do youactually enhance the life and
stuff? And I think you metillustrators and animators, but
probably Yeah, we're on theforefront of AI trying to
(27:55):
replace animation. And there area bunch of different things. And
there's a bunch of levels to itthat we're looking at. But you
know, we the reality is, we'vebeen immersed in AI for decades.
I mean, really, I think one ofthe key things why Google is
successful is because they wereusing machine learning to come
up with better algorithms, we'vebeen totally indoctrinated into
it. And Google has actually hadsome of this stuff out for
(28:17):
years, they were actuallyholding back. Things just really
blew up when this practicalsense of chat GPT came out, and
expose really what's coming out.
Now, the reality is the churchhas not embraced AI, because
we've worked with churchesbefore. And just I mean, like,
literally, something as simpleas having a website, that to a
first time visitor would welcomea first time visitor. And then
(28:37):
if they came back, you know,just a session cookie, direct
eyes and say, welcome back, likeliterally, and we'd get pushback
from people going like, oh,there's privacy stuff or
whatever. It's like, we justneed an online brochure. It's
like, you got to be kidding me.
It's like that idea that youwant to track somebody and say,
like, oh, they were on yourwebsite, looking at like divorce
(28:57):
care, or looking at junior high.
The next thing Okay, come back,maybe we should put like, hey,
there's a divorce class, or youhere's information about Junior
hires on there. And the ideathat we get pushed back from
that from customers is likebizarre, but churches would push
back on that because of, yeah,different reasons. Because a lot
of was they didn't want to makean investment in something when
they could get a website forfree or for $9 over $2,000 just
(29:18):
not understanding, like whatmachine learning was really the
benefits of it and differentresults. But when we talk about
Metaverse as well, I mean, forus it's kind of a foregone
conclusion. And a lot of peopleI guess they don't realize this
but when we talk about videogames when we talk about like
Minecraft Roblox fortnight, Imean, these immersive worlds
(29:41):
really is the is the contentthat will be first on the
metaverse and the metaverseplatform. These people are not
pining to get to three hours ofpeople's times a month. You
know, they're in the dozens tohundreds of hours. And it's like
the film industry. People think,oh, it's about film. That's the
thing. The video game industryis estimated 10 times the size
(30:03):
of the film industry. It's atleast four times, if not six
times. But the video gameindustry is where the next
generation is, is where they'reengaging. And yeah, the idea
that there's going to behardware that will catch up that
allow the extension of that tohappen is all we're waiting for
is the same thing of like, youhad movies, you've had movies
for, you know, decades now,right? When you took from the
(30:25):
film, to VHS to DVD tostreaming, it's like, that's
just the platforms that it'scoming out on. The Metaverse is
kind of there as far as thesethe content, the story, it's
just the platform, is it gonnabe on the Oculus headsets? I can
pretty much guarantee you not,is it gonna be on because
there's just too big and bulky.
(30:46):
But yeah, right now, though, ourillustrators, our animators on
our team, who literally we workwith guys who are just like the
best in the world, I mean, fromPixar, and Disney and stuff like
that. It's just a tool, that AIYeah, mid journey, all these
things. It's just helping themin the creative process. But
really, AI is almost areflection of what already
exists truly new, innovativeideas. It's not good at coming
(31:09):
up with at least yet. But thecollaborative process and how do
you bring things to life thatare actually of value to people?
That's, that's the that's thecreative process. I think God
created us. For me, our God isthe God of creativity. And I
think when we look atinnovation, all these things,
that is the death knell for theassembly line process things, no
assembly line goes unpunishedfrom innovation. And that's
(31:30):
really where the church is at.
If it doesn't innovate, it'sgoing to become irrelevant. And
that's what you know, the way ofautomotive industry, telecom
industry, railroad industry,steel industry, but it doesn't
matter. You have to innovate.
Wow. Am I totally off track? I'msorry? No,
this is you are blowing armor.
Perfect.
Yes. So with quite a call toaction like that, let's get
(31:55):
granular. What is one thing,just a springboard that you
would love to see every churchimplement immediately to get
better at creating anexperience? Oh, man,
take a take stock of what theirstory is, what is their story,
the characters thoughts andsettings, and be intentional
(32:16):
about it? Because a lot of timespeople think it's Oh, it's
values. It's this is thatwhatever it's like, you know,
and if you can't sit down anddocument what your story is,
like, it's the stories of thatfirst time visitor coming to
your church. And like weliterally go through and say,
Okay, pick a random targetaudience. It's a single mom.
She's in a grocery store. She'sstruggling, she just had a
(32:37):
miscarriage she something somecrisis just happened. She's
gonna go to her phone, she'sgonna look up. What is it that
she sees on phone? Oh, onechurch main locations. What does
that mean? It wasn't mean toher. But what what is the first
thing that you would say to her,Hey, we care a church that
cares? How do you find us? Okay,she gets into her car, she's
gonna drive there this Sundaymorning at 11 o'clock, she's
(33:00):
going to meet you. They're like,okay, so when they get into
their car, like, what is it whenshe pulls up? What is it that
she sees when she gets out ofher car when she walks in
through those front doors? Likeliterally what is the story,
because her having a greatexperience can be kind of a
random happenstance of justhappy things coming together for
her. And I think that's how somepeople believe the Earth was
(33:21):
created this all thisrandomness, or it can be an
intelligent design, it's sittingback and say, Hey, for that
story, this is how it's going tounfold. We want her to walk in,
we want her to see that, hey,this is clearly where the kids
go. This is where the restroomsare. And this is where you get
coffee, like and then from orwhatever, those things. But
yeah, I don't know if that makessense. But oh, man,
I am chuckling insideunderstanding her story. And
(33:45):
going to a website thatliterally like probably half of
churches have right now onechurch many locations. What does
that even mean? That is so eyeopening and this conversation,
Peter, every time I get to speakwith you and get to learn from
you, I get so energized.
Because, you know, Zoe and I arepart of a company that in the
giving space, at the very least,right now are trying to push the
(34:08):
bounds of what's possible.
Right. And, you know, in somecases, we do feel that we're
pioneering some things. And youcould always tell a pioneer by
the arrows on their back, right.
And so in some cases, we do feellike we're pioneering some
things, but it's so gratifyingwhen there are certain churches,
partners, early adopters, thatsee it, that understand the
(34:30):
story that understand the nextgeneration that's coming up,
that have a very specific storyof how they think about money,
how they think about generosity.
And even more than that, howthey think about their
discipleship journey, right? Andthey start seeing the big
picture of cool, like, becausewe understand those stories.
This is the fuel that we need tobe intentional. And really I
(34:54):
love how you talk about thingsfrom a first principle
standpoint, because you'realmost agnostic. Technology,
right? There's always going tobe platform shifts, there's
always going to be newtechnology. There's always going
to be new tools and things thatwe can leverage. But at the end
of the day, from oral tradition,to Metaverse tradition, the
(35:15):
underlying facts about all ofthat is that those that
understand their story, areauthentic to it, and are able to
tell it the best are the onesthat captivates society. So I
love that what a great combo.
Thank you so much, Peter. Yes.
I'm gonna have a conversationwith you guys and let the hang
(35:38):
out soon. At Disneyland. It'llbe fun.
Let's go. Well,we'll start planning out some
Hangouts. XO, any last wordsfrom you?
Know, I mean, this has been achallenging conversation just
for me. Because when you'retalking about experiences,
you're not just like, oh mygosh, that was so fun. This is
like, all five senses are beingoverloaded and transported to a
(36:00):
different world. And if thechurch can captivate people,
like Jesus did, you know, likethe gospel does, and we could
turn it into an experience likethat, then we can transport
people to a taste of what heavenlooks like and feels like and I
think that is so beautiful andso convicting, and I'm pumped
(36:21):
right now. I'm hyped up by thisconversation. So thank you. Hey,
give it up. podcast listeners.
Give it up for Peter McGowan.
Shout out to Storyland yourteam, everything that you guys
are pioneering. We appreciateyou.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks so much for listening tothe give it up podcast if you
(36:42):
want to receive even moreinsights on church innovation,
culture, and giving. Now you cansign up for free to be an
overflow insider, where you'llreceive exclusive content
discounts, direct access toVance Roush to get your
questions answered. And alsoinvite only access to our
monthly fundraising leadershipforums, head to overflow.co
(37:03):
backslash insider, or just clickthe link in our bio to sign up
for free today. In order to getthis podcast in the ears of even
more church leaders. Could youplease subscribe and leave a
review for the show? This tellsthe podcast players what people
are enjoying and want to hearmore of and we are adamant about
providing maximum value to evenmore church leaders. Thanks so
(37:25):
much. We'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.