Should You Trust a Church That Markets Itself? | Brady Sticker

Brady, new friend of mine. We just met about 30 seconds ago. Uh I'm excited to have this conversation on the Provoke

and Inspire podcast. But first, thank you, dude. Thank you for Thank you for taking some time and uh talking to me.

Of course, man. Of course, dude. Uh love your setup, by the way, man. Like your camera quality, the whole background. It

is looks great. Thank you. Thank you. I was saying before we recorded that I always find it surreal when I talk to guys who do a lot

online because I see them in the space that they typically record in. So then there's this like, you know, am I in a

simulation? Am I really watching them live? Are we having this conversation? So dude, your setup looks dope, too. Uh,

it's very uh looks alive. You got a nice plant in the background. You got the great fake Home Depot plant.

It actually It still has the tag on it. Let's see how much Dustin, my producer,

paid for this. Oh my god. This fake plant from Home Depot, I'm embarrassed to say it was

$150. We still have the tag on it. And so I'm going to find the receipt. I might return this. Uh

well, dude, you probably still can. This is America, man. It's the greatest returning society that's ever lived.

Of course. Uh that's great. I don't know how many how much my plants cost. They're in it. You can't really see them. Just a little

bit of a leaf there kind of poking below the logo. But we won't look at the price because maybe I'll feel equally uh

disturbed by how much plants cost in this economy. Uh but hey, so

like I was saying before, I our whole heart and passion is to reach people outside of the church and uh I would

love to hear a little bit about what you're doing through your company, through your initiatives in digital

marketing, working with churches, um because I think it's a very profound and

interesting conversation. There's even some areas of uh tension, I think, around how some people view it. And I

would like to get into all of it, dispel some myths, uh have some have a robust

conversation about digital marketing, the church, the the world we're living in, and all of it. So, do you want to just hit us with a quick introduction

about who you are, what you do, and then we can just see where this thing goes? Yeah. Yeah. Uh my name is Brady Sticker.

I'm the founder and CEO of Church Candy. Uh we help churches turn online views to butts and pews. Uh it's it's really what

that looks like is Facebook and Instagram ads for churches focused not on like clicks or likes or followers.

It's just like how do we get more people inside a local church? I've made it my personal mission. I want to see a

million people connected to the local church from what we're doing. And we track that like every week we're seeing

about 2500 to 3,000 people get connected to a local church somewhere across the

country out of one of the I mean we've worked with over a thousand churches at this point. Um, but all of this started

because I was a youth pastor. Our church couldn't afford to have me on staff

full-time. So throughout that season, uh, I was actually working for my dad's company.

And it was great because I was working for his company. We were doing Facebook and Instagram ads for chiropractors of

all people. Interesting. And that allowed me to serve in ministry

without like depending on a paycheck from church to provide for my family. Ironically, now I depend on a lot of

churches for paychecks to be able to provide for my family. Yeah. Uh but you know, in that season, my

pastor was like, "Man, like I I I love what you're doing at work. I would love like here's your church credit card. You

have $500. We have this event coming up next month. Uh let's see how many people we can we can get. You have a $500

budget on ads." Bro, I was ecstatic. I was like, "Man, we're getting so many people. We're going to reach the loss.

People are going to be saved. Like, this is going to be awesome." I I set up these ads. I'm spending hours. I'm

watching YouTube tutorials. And keep in mind, I had already ran ads for like

hundreds of chiropractors at this point. So, like I knew my way around. Uh it wasn't even called Meta back then. It

was Facebook and Instagram ads, right? And man, I'm pumped. I'm so excited. The day of the event comes and not one

single person comes from the ads. Interesting. And I'm like, man, we just like burned $500 just out the door. And

like I had watched these podcasts and my friend Brady Shear had been talking about Facebook ads and how like you

spend a couple hundred bucks and get all these people. And now it I'm seeing like, oh wow, it's not

as easy as it looks. Uh and luckily my pastor wasn't like didn't shame me or

like he gave me a lot of grace. He's like, hey, let's try again. So, and it took a while, but finally like I

remember one Sunday, I think it was Memorial Day weekend, uh because I had preached and that's like Memorial Day

Sunday is like National Youth Pastor gets to preach Sunday, right? It's when everyone's out of town.

Yeah. And lowest risk opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. So, I get off the stage, I'm in the

lobby, and someone comes up to me and they're like, "Pastor Brady, Pastor Brady, man, it's a guy I never met

before." And he's like, "Man, I knew God was calling me here because every time I

turned around on Facebook, I just kept seeing you guys." Oh, funny. And man, like inside, I'm like ecstatic.

I'm like, "Yes, yes, finally." Because up to this point, I had never really met anyone that found our church that we

could directly point to and say, "Oh, this person like found our church from Facebook and Instagram." And so, like,

I'm just smiling like, "Amen, brother." Like, we're down here in Texas. So, I'm just like, "Amen, brother." like I believe God was calling you here. Like

that's so exciting. Tell me about yourself, man. Like and so we get to talking and um

that was kind of like the the chrysalis or the beginning of um you know what has

birthed church candy because then we kind of doubled down on Facebook and Instagram ads at our church. And then uh

COVID happened, church shuts down. Uh like I said, we're in Texas. We were able to meet again back in like May of

2020. So, like we just had a couple months off of church. Uh, but then once we got back into meeting in person

again, uh, my pastor's like, "Grady, people were hurting. Uh, depressions,

loneliness at an all-time high right now. Uh, people need the Lord. People need God." And so, um, he gave me like a

monthly budget to run Facebook and Instagram ads. And we started seeing all these new people come to our church. And

within 12 months, by 2021, we had doubled our church size what it was pre-COVID. H.

And this was 2021. And that's when my Facebook DMs started getting flooded because people, other

pastors and ministries would see that our church was growing throughout COVID

when most churches attendance was like an all-time low where they couldn't even meet in person. Uh, and my pastor was like, "Yeah, our

youth pastor, he's doing our Facebook ads." And like that's how most new families are finding us.

And I PE pastors would be like, "Hey, could you help me too? Could you help me too?"

And that's kind of how Church Candy started, man. And so it just all started from me being a youth pastor, helping

our church, and God just like was super faithful and blew it up. And now like

we're like I said, we've helped uh just over a thousand churches. I have like a full staff of 30 people. Uh, and dude,

it is crazy the testimonies that I'm getting from pastors that's like, man,

there was this guy Tyler. Um, he was a drug addict, alcoholic. He didn't have

any custody of his kids, wasn't allowed to see him because his life was so messed up. Um, saw an ad for a church,

like got connected to them, and he says he doesn't even remember filling out the the info form because he was so strung

out on drugs and alcohol. But the pastor connected with him, introduced him to Jesus, now he's six months sober, he's

in his kids life. Uh, and all of that happened because he saw an ad on

Instagram or Facebook, got connected to the church, and then that allowed Pastor Brandon Holmes and Waco, Texas to do

some really cool ministry with Tyler and his life. That's just one of the hundreds of thousands of people that

we've connected to churches all across the country. Man, you know, it's hearing you describe it

this way. It seems so obvious and it feels as though it should be universally

celebrated. But as I was saying before we recorded, I was looking through some of your content and inevitably on the internet you're going to get criticized.

That's just that's the nature of the beast. And and and yet there is a sentiment I think and

to what degree or what percentage I don't know. I don't care. But there is a there is skepticism, there's cynicism,

there's criticism. Given what you just explained and how obvious it seems, why what is it that

people don't understand about it? What is the common push back you get or objections you get and and just how

would you speak to the skeptic if I'm like I don't know man like really Facebook ads like is that really leading

to to church fruit? How would you how would you convert me? Not in a CTA Facebook Meta Insta ad way but as a as a

skeptic of your approach here. Man, I get that question a lot. And if

you ever want a good laugh, if you ever see an ad from me or church candy on Instagram or Facebook, go read the

comments cuz they're like people are Oh, yeah. They're either like, "Oh my gosh, they're charging money for this.

Like, it should be a work for the Lord." And it's like, man, I got 30 people that were employing. Let me call up Gabe, uh, one of my

account managers, and be like, "Hey, man, I'm going to take your salary away. This is just a work to the Lord, man, because John on Facebook says so."

Right. So, right, that's one of the things. Um but uh a a big criticism that

I get is why should churches need marketing?

What just preach the gospel? Is the gospel not go is the gospel not enough? Right? And I I hear where they're coming from.

The thing is all that like we do and that I teach churches to do, it's not

replacing preaching the gospel, right? People will say like, "Oh, like just preach the gospel and people will come."

I hear that. All we're doing is letting people know, hey, we're preaching the

gospel here. Yeah. Hey, there's good news. There is a God that created you and loves you and we want to tell you about it. We're just

helping churches like tell more people about that. That's all we're doing. And

it people feel icky when they hear the term marketing in churches, right? But

it's no different than 20 years ago. It was really common for churches to do um

boots on the ground door knockocking campaigns, right? You and I might not

remember that as much, but our parents generation definitely do where that was super common. And I guarantee you that

people were a lot less critical of why would we go knock on these doors? Like

isn't preaching the gospel enough? It's like no, we're sharing the good news. We're letting people know that there was a God that created them and loved them,

right? Uh our LDS cousins, I don't even want to call them brothers, but like Mormons,

step cousins, the beliefs are crazy, right? But one thing they were really good at

is prostilization and evangelism. They're sending people boots on the ground, knocking on doors. I started

getting ads for Musl not Muslims, from for Mormons. Those guys are Muslims are like distant cousins broke off from

Abraham like way. Anyways, um but one thing that Mormons do really, really

well is evangelism and marketing from boots on the ground to now I

started getting ads from Mormons and it takes you a while to realize that it's

actually like LDS. Oh, interesting. Because they're like, "Hey, are you looking for a community of people that

want to grow in their relationship with?" It's like you would think it's just like a regular non-denom church out

there until you like click on it, engage with it, it's like, oh, these guys are Mormons and like because it's just very

invitational, right? They're just trying to reach people. And so, uh, that's one thing that we can

take from the Mormons is, hey, let's be better about inviting people into our spaces. And um whether it's boots on the

I'm not like anti like some people will think I'm uh anti- mailer or anti boots on the ground. It's like no do whatever

you can to make the gospel known. Let people know like hey there's a God that loves you. Hey we meet here. This is our

church. Uh we would love for you to come and join. All of that is great but I'm also all about efficiency and

what's going to get you the most bang for your buck and the most bang for your effort. Right. Right. Um, and so yeah, those are

a lot of the criticisms I get is like, is the gospel not enough? Uh, and then

another thing that I've gotten is are Facebook and Instagram ads for churches

just transfer growth? Are you just stealing people from other churches? Yeah, I was going to ask that. Yeah.

And here's the truth is transfer growth happens whether you use Facebook or

Instagram ads or not. People are going to leave your church to go somewhere else. people are going to leave another church to go to your church. That is

that has happened way before Facebook and Instagram ads. Now, that being said,

from the pastors that I have talked to and from the churches that are using

Facebook and Instagram ads and seeing fruit from it, they are not seeing transfer growth. what they are see now

here's another thing is they're not necessarily reaching the lost of what you would think of as like an atheist or

satanic person that like sure but what they are reaching is that person that was plugged into a church

and then co happened and they had to move and they just like walked away from God and they just haven't found a new

church since they moved into a new area or they stopped going during co if you want to consider I went to a church 5

years ago then co happened and I just haven't really gotten back into If you want to consider that transfer growth,

okay, maybe, right? But it's a lot of the times people that had that foundation, they were plugged into a

local church, they had a relationship with the Lord, and whatever reason, they walked away. Right. So, you've got the prodical sons

in that aspect. Yeah. And then on the other side, you have the

seekers, right? There was a study um that the New York Times did showing that

for the first time in American history, young men under the age of 30 are more likely to go to church than young women

under the age of 30. That has never happened, right? Uh Wall Street Journal reported that Bible sales are at an all-time

high. Uh we even saw like culturally a shift in Gen Z voted more conservatively

in this last election. Now I'm not necessarily saying oh if you vote Republican then you vote for Jesus. That's not what I'm saying. But what I

am saying is that points to a shift in culture. And with that comes a lot of young

people wanting to go back to more traditional values. And that includes

getting plugged into a local church, believing in God, reading their Bible. And so there are things that point to

this in society. The stats show, and that's a lot of what we're seeing, too,

right? People that are younger, they're hungry for the Lord. Uh maybe they just graduated from

college, moved to a new city, and they're not plugged into a local church yet, right? Um, and then another group

of people that we're seeing are broken. I mentioned the testimony of Tyler who got connected to a church in Waco. Man,

this guy he he in Waco, Texas. Bro, bro, in Texas,

everyone's a Christian. We we we got our Bibles and our 12 gauges. Like, everyone's a believer. Right.

Right. But that doesn't just because you call yourself a Christian doesn't mean you have a relationship with the Lord. Obviously, he wasn't living that out.

And with that, he was able to get connected to a church and have his life turned around. So, we're seeing a lot of

like single moms who don't have a place to turn. Uh we're seeing a lot of people that are grieving that lost a loved one

or someone close to them recently and they're they're searching for answers

and the local churches that we're connecting them to are able to be that answer and connect them to the one that

made them, which really God is the answer. The local church isn't the answer. That's just the vessel getting them connected is the answer. You know

what I mean? Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So many different directions I could go in. I think part of the

challenge from my perspective and I'd love to hear how you approach this is first of all the the transfer growth

thing is like in the end of the day we have a hyper individualistic culture, right? Where everyone comes into

everything as consumers. And unfortunately, that's true sometimes of church culture where people are always

shopping around and if the music isn't exactly to their tastes, boom, now they they they see a really cool trendy looking ad and maybe they'll go to a

different church. But in the end of the day, that's kind of a personal problem. It's a cultural problem. And you know,

in theory, you'd hope that whatever churches you are drawing to the drawing them to would be places of real

disciplehip where that would be confronted. And if it's not being confronted at their current church, may maybe they should move. But the question

I have is, you know, you must feel a little bit of a weight of responsibility, right? Like

if I'm taking on these churches, I'm helping bring people to them.

So, how how do you navigate the vetting process?

And again, I'm not putting a trip on you, but at the same time, man, if I'm going to get a million people to sit in church, I better be sure I know what

church they're sitting in. And and we know, right, as we know well, not all churches are exactly what you and I

would call a place we'd want to send someone. Yeah. So, h how do you navigate that? Yeah. Um

and I'll tell you right now, we probably turn away close to 200 churches a month.

Okay. Yeah. Uh it's tough though, I bet. Yeah. And then people And then that's another thing. People will complain in

our ads saying like, "Oh, Church Kenny, they don't want to work with us." like they they they declined our church and

we know that not everyone's a good fit. And here's here's a couple of reasons why we would turn a church away. Like

some churches I would say like I don't want you to market yourself because of

the heart of the pastor. Like one time I was at a conference and this pastor

comes up to me and he's like, "Man, Brady, I've seen your stuff. I love what you guys do. Uh how many giving units a

month can I expect from uh Church Candy to bring? And I was like, give giving units? I was

like, um, man, so on average, we're seeing churches get,

you know, 30 to 50 getting connected like 30 to 50 families a month. Um,

but like that question revealed the heart of that pastor, right? Jesus said

that out of the abundance of the heart, your mouth is going to speak. And so that that's one of the things where like

if if that's the heart of the church is like we're going to grow so we can get more giving units and so I can uh be

like Kenneth Copeland and get myself a private jet too. Like I if that's the thing like we'll tell churches straight

up like hey I don't know if we're the best fit in like in the secular world. You would never do this. Like I've straight up just given our competitors

websites and like hey here's three other companies you can reach out to. I don't know that we're the the right fit to work with you guys. Um, but you can go

that way. And so that's one of the things is I want to make sure we want to make sure the heart of the pastor uh is aligned with ours. Uh, the second thing

is we'll oftentimes turn churches away because they are too small and they get

so offended. And it that sounds bad. It's like why would you turn a church away if they're too small?

There a couple reasons. Um, number one is oftentimes I feel like a doctor.

Almost like a patient will go to a doctor and be like, "Hey, I saw an ad for Ozmpic on TV. I want to lose weight.

Uh, can can I get this OMIC?" Right? And it's almost like, okay, cool. You want

Ompic, but what you need is a healthy diet and exercise, and so I don't know that you're the best

fit for Ozic. Because sometimes churches will come to us and say, "Hey, there's five I we've got a house church. There's

five of us meet in the living room. We want to sign up for church candy. Can we can we talk about that?" And I'm almost like, "Hey, I love what you guys are

doing. That is awesome. I don't know that church candy is the best fit for you guys right now. I don't think you

guys need Facebook ads and stuff if you're wanting to grow right now." Like

it and because here's the thing. If I was all about the money and like I want to make as much money as possible, I'd

be like, "Yeah, buddy. Come on. Sure. We'll give it a shot." But it's like, "No, at the end of the

day, I know that like you guys don't need church handy right now." Like, if you're want to grow, there's some organic things you guys can do. There's

some systems and things you can implement organically to grow. Don't waste your money on Facebook ads and

paying us right now. So I thought whenever we like implemented this people

would think it it's honorable and it's it I have the view of like I'm using integrity of like I'm not going to take

your like do not give me your money like you don't need Facebook ad you need systems and I I'll refer them to some

other programs and networks and resources that are free and I we have free resources on like all of this as

well that we will give to them. Uh but then they're like I don't know if it's pride

or what and then it's like they only want to work with big churches and it's like no and then it puts me between a

rock and a hard place and I'm like okay I want to do what's best I I want to do and so um sometimes

if there is like a church plant to where they went through like uh the Assemblies of God has uh church multiplication

network or there's ARC the association of related churches they have some really good resources and these are

church plants where they might be small, right? But they've got really good systems and they have a plan and and and

funding and all of this to where we know, okay, great. There's some things we can do with Facebook and Instagram

ads to get you connected with people and help you guys with your church plan. But if it's Bubba and five pe not to

quote Brandon Lake, it's Bubba and five people in a uh in a living room like I don't you guys don't need Facebook ads

right now. There's some things you guys can do. So, so we'll often times turn people away because they're small and it

they get upset about it and and I'm like, "Fine, give me your I'll take your money, whatever." Like, I don't think

it's going to work. Like, I don't think our process and the things that we've found that work good for churches, like you have to have a little bit more

footing and be a little bit more established. That's just what we've seen. And then, and then people turn around

and make me the bad guy. And it's like, dude, I'm just like, if you were my brother or cousin and you were a pastor,

this is what I would recommend for you to do. Yeah. Is do some more organic things. Here's

some resources. Go through this first, then let's let's chat. We can talk about Facebook ad. Then you'd be ready for

that. Um, so that's another thing. And then the third one is like doctrinally.

Um, they got pride flags out outside of their church and and a lot of these things. It's like, hey, I don't know if

I feel comfortable sending people there, right? Um, and with that, man, we we have

hundreds of churches that reach out and apply to work with us every single month. It's hard to approve every little

thing that they believe and kind of go through that and like vet them. Um, and

I and I've spent a lot of time in prayer about that, like, "All right, Lord, how how do I be a good steward of this?

How do we do we turn people away? Like I'm scared if I turn people away. One,

we're not a nonprofit. We are a set up as a forprofit uh LLC or escorp. I don't

know. My tax people know that better than I do. Um so I'm not exempt from the like

religion discrimination. Yeah. Interesting. And so then there's the whole argument of like, okay, if I

decline someone because they're LGBT affirming, can they turn around and sue me? And now

I'm having to go to court and pay all these le and so then it gets me stuck between and then it's like, okay, sweet.

I was just set up as a nonpr. And so man, like I've I've done a lot of research on this, but what I've

basically come down to is um I have four people on our team that kind of handle the vetting and onboarding. um basically

like a sales department to where it's like, hey, everyone's interested, talk to these guys. Um Abraham, he's a youth pastor and he's

volunteer youth pastor and then full-time for us. Uh Alex is an associate pastor at a church plant. Anna

leads leads their churches, young adults life group at their church. Uh Gabe is a

pastor's kid. Uh was a youth pastor for several years. Him and I went to uh Bible college together. Uh now he's

full-time with us. So, every single one of these guys and gal, they have an

extensive ministry background and I trust them. And I've told them, I was like, "Look, if you guys don't have a piece about working with someone to say,

"Hey, I love what you guys are doing. You're bringing people to Jesus. I don't know that we're the best fit.

Here's some resources. Here's some other companies we can get you connected to. Uh, have a blessed day."

Yeah. So far, we haven't had anyone sue us because of that. Now, if you're listening to this podcast, please don't

sue us if if we turn your church away. We'll send me a DM on Instagram or shoot me an email, brady churchy.com. We'll

work it out. But, man, that's one of those things that um I struggled with, like how do we how do we steward that?

And there's some like other projects and things we're working on um

that would open us up to more churches and that we have to like look at okay

how does some of these other organizations vet like how does ARC how do they vet these church planters and

that ARC has a network now and you can go to ARC and go to like find a church and it's got all these churches that are

ARC affiliated right um how do they do their vetting process so I'm trying to look and like learn

from what they're doing uh for that for some other projects and things that we're rolling out that um

would would open us up to some of those like liability things too that

so anyways I don't know if that even answered your question no no it did it's uh man it's complicated because again as you said

it's not an exaggeration to say that what you are what you have developed yourself and built your team to do is to

literally get people into these places where they are then going to be influenced very heavily by what

what'sever being said there and so that is a that's a big weight as you said and the whole added component of being of

course for profit and the liability that comes with it I mean again I I yeah I as

someone who does get to operate in the nonprofit space I I'm grateful that I don't have to contend with that because

that's that's significant and that's not to say that you don't deal with backlash no matter what realm of society you find

yourself in if you're willing to stand up for Jesus. So, um can I tell you about a one of the new projects we are

working on that is like around this? Sure. Go ahead. One of the things that we have found

that works great for churches and I'll recommend those small churches, those five people that have a house church, go

run this ad campaign. Like this is this strategy is great for small churches, big churches all alike. Um basically

instead of running ads inviting people to your church's Sunday service, you run an ad and say, "Hey, do you have

questions about God? Are you curious about the afterlife? Or maybe you're looking for a local church. My name is

Brady. I'm a local pastor in the area. I'd love to grab coffee with you. Uh hear your story and share my testimony,

what God said on my life. Tap below to schedule a time. We'll meet at Third Gen Coffee right here in the Woodlands. And

uh we'll see that. And so it's like a coffee with a pastor campaign. And we're just seeing God move like

dramatically through this. That's brilliant because there's so many people that are

driving by your church every single day that are lost, broken, and they're so ashamed of what they have done

and they're telling themselves like, "Man, I would love to like I would love to go visit this church, if they even

know your church exists. But I I want to go to church, but I'm ashamed of my past. I I'm embarrassed of what I've

done." Right? And like recently I I've been wanting to go to the gym and my

sister used to do CrossFit and she swears by it. She loves it. And I'm nervous. There's a CrossFit gym

local to me and I'm like, man, I want to go check it out. I just don't know anyone there. Like, I don't know. Is it weird? Like when I show up, I have a 6

a.m. class. Like, is it going to be weird? Are people going to look at me? Like, I'm not in the best shape that I have been. Like, I

wife had a couple babies. I had I added some sympathy baby weight and so like

and I'm like oh my gosh this is what people feel like when they go to church.

They're they're embarrassed. They're maybe a little nervous. They they

they're maybe ashamed of their past. Yeah. Uh so now I'm like, man, these CrossFit gyms need to do uh coffee with a

trainer. So, you go meet one-on-one with a trainer first and so you're more uh because I was like, man, I wish I like

could connect with someone first so I would know someone when I go and visit this CrossFit gym for one of the

sessions. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is what churches need. Like, this is, uh, it's the same thing. And so, uh, we bought

coffeewiththepapastor.com and we're in the process of getting our

like paperwork with the IRS for having a 501c3 to where basically anyone that

wants to get involved, find a local church, but maybe they're embarrassed or maybe they just have questions about God

and they might not go into a church, but they would love to go grab coffee with a pastor. um they can go on there, enter

their zip code and find a local church in their city uh and go grab coffee with

a pastor and like schedule a time with them. And with that, it opens up that

can of worms of, okay, what churches do we allow on coffeewiththepastor.com? How

do we vet them? How do we what level do we do we run this at? Um, and like we I

have a vision like I want to have a Super Bowl commercial and like almost to com compete with the He gets us campaign

that's like the woke Jesus, but it's just like, hey, do you have questions about God, man? There's a there's a

pastor in your city that wants to meet with you and share the good news of Jesus. Go to coffeewiththepastor.com to

to grab coffee with him. Right? So, that's the long term what what we want to build it up to be.

Um, but there's all the like back in logistics of like how do we vet them and yeah that situated.

Huh. Yeah. You know, it that hits at a different question I was going to ask which is that

you know obviously our culture and society while I think you're right. There is a rise in spiritual curiosity.

There is an a hunger. I think that's a unique moment in time right now. I I do think at the same time there's a

skepticism of institutional religion and geographically it might be stronger or

weaker. You know, here in Minnesota it's definitely not Texas. Um but in general

there's a rise in spiritual curiosity especially among younger generations and a sort of a coinciding or parallel

skepticism of religion and that would seem to me to cap or limit the market

for hey come to my directly from Instagram to Facebook to my church right because barrier mentally in terms of not

even the things you were just mentioning about maybe feeling uncomfortable or ashamed of your past but just literally

like do I have to be vote this way politically. Do I have to look like this

to go there or aren't they all just abusers and want my money and all of the things that come up in people's minds

when they think of church is going to limit a pretty I would say growing percentage of the population. So, well,

I mean, you answered it already, but how are some ways that well, let me say it like this. What limits have you found

given that paradigm in terms of what the the more baseline approach that you take

in terms of, you know, add get someone to be interested in a church to go? How have you gotten around that? And it

sounds like one of the ways that you're getting around this is this brilliant concept of meeting people outside of the

church to create that point of connection. Um, but just in general, how have you navigated that? Have you found

that you kind of hit a ceiling in terms of the type of person or is that overplayed? This idea that people are

not interested in coming to a church? How have you wrestled with all of that? Yeah. Yeah, it's a great question. So, I

guarantee you there are so many people in your city that would love to visit your church, but just like if you were

nervous about going to a CrossFit gym because you don't want to embarrass yourself, you don't know anyone, they don't know anyone in your church.

they they don't want to be embarrassed or ashamed of their past, right, walking into the church. And so,

one way you can overcome that is coffee with a pastor where you go and and grab coffee with them beforehand. But let's

be real, pastors, church staff, they're already overworked as it is. Like, whenever I I pitch this to them, the

number one is, "That's great, Brady. There's not enough time in the day. I would love I would love to do that, but we got BBS next week. I I got I got a

plan for that." Right? There's all of these things that pastors will fill their calendars with that aren't just

like one-on-one across the table ministry. And that's a conversation for another day, right?

But one of the things that we have found that works well that is another way is invite people to plan a visit to your

church and use this verbiage. Say, "Look, I know it might be intimidating. You might be nervous visiting a new

church where you don't know anyone." That's why if you plan your visit below, like you say this in the ad, you say,

"If you plan your visit below, I will reach out to you." Like if you're the pastor staff or say, "Someone from our

team will reach out to you. Make sure you feel welcomed whenever you show up. Get connected before you show up. That

way you know someone when you come. Have a blessed day and we'd love to see you Sunday." Right? So you invite people to

plan a visit to your church beforehand. So, even if you're not connecting over coffee, you can at least connect over

the phone, text message, phone call. Like, even if the CrossFit gym down the street had that, bro, I would plan my

visit to a CrossFit gym and I would already been there because I could have planned my visit and then got connected and then that's an opportunity now that

I'm connected with Michael, the trainer at CrossFit. he he he would have an opportunity to

basically sell me on the idea of actually getting up at 6 am and going to the right going to the gym, right?

Because then that gives the opportunity for pastors and their staff. If someone plans a visit to their church to because

right then just because someone plans a visit to your church doesn't mean they're going to show up. They're just interested. They're seekers. And then

let's face it, I got young kids. Life is busy. Like I it's it's easy to see

something out on Monday and be like, "Yeah, I think we might visit this church. Um, fill out the form." Well,

then Tuesday comes around Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, life happens and then they're like, "Oh man, my

I don't know. I'm just going to sleep in Sunday." Or like they get busy. They forget about it, right?

And so with like the plan your visit ads, you're able to make that personal

connection and basically sell them on the idea of like, hey, I love you. God

loves you. We'd love to meet in person. Like I think it would be so great for you and your family to join us and get

them to actually make that next step, right? Because the thing is like um like

that what we'll see too is when we'll running when we're running ads for churches is they'll say man like we're

getting a lot of new guests that see our ads but they didn't necessarily plan a visit and a lot of the times people that

plan a visit aren't showing up and I'll like work with the pastors like okay what are you doing to follow up with

them? It's like, oh, like, uh, we schedule a text to go out as like, they get a text as soon as the they plan a

visit and then they get a text the night before Sunday and then Sunday. It's like, yeah, I wouldn't show up either. Right.

They're planning a visit because they want to be seen. Yeah. Right. And so if you're just sending out

automated texts that say, "Hey, this is New Life Church. We'll see you Sunday."

Yeah. No, they're just a number, right? But if you get on the phone with them or you like

just have a conversation with them via text or starts with text and it goes to a phone call or like some of the pastors

what they're doing is um they're like recording a video where they're like,

"Uh, hey John, this is Pastor Brady from Vibrant Church. Man, so excited to see you on Sunday. Uh, let me know if you

have any questions. If you have have any questions, you can use my phone number, give me a call, and we'll see you then."

Right. Bro, that is like the fact that a pastor would take time to record a video

for for them and like Yeah. go above and beyond that's like you say

their name. Dude, little things like that are going to make people feel welcomed and then that's going to

actually like get them in the door because the reason people plan a visit

and don't show up. It's either because number one they life happens busy. they

kind of forgot or two is they're a little nervous and hesitant about visiting your church. The

thing is there's power in the personal and so if you can make and really create

an authentic personal connection before they ever pull up onto your church's parking lot, you're going to eliminate

those two objections and dramatically increase the number of people that actually show up. Um,

yeah. So yeah, this uh really odd mental picture came into my mind that I think kind of

describes this and I'm going to just go for it. Uh it's to me it's almost like

you know people think they're in the sea and like something like church is us pull trying to pull them out of their

natural environment. It's weird. Yeah. Like come to our weird thing. I think the inverse is true. I think

that they're swimming in nothing. Like they're not in the sea and they're they're they're not in there what they

should want. They want community, but they're not in it. So, they're on their phones and we're trying to actually pull them in to the water. Like, this is what

you want. This is what you crave, but you're stuck here in this dry land and and you're not in your natural habitat.

So, the problem is the more we are congruent with the dryness, the less

we exhibit something new, something like, "Wo, this is real. This is authentic. this is actually going to

lead to what your soul desperately craves, the more likely they are to ignore it because it's just the digital

noise that's all around them, right? Like they need they what they crave even if what people crave even if they're not

able to express it consciously is real community to be seen as you keep saying.

And so all of the things that you are utilizing and probably all of the criticism is rooted in this

misunderstanding that you're not claiming to be the thing. the conduit to

get people to the thing and this is where they live. This is where they are

and we need to get them to the thing. And so again, the more that the approach can be personal, the more the follow-up

can be real and not automated, the more that there can be time made in schedules

perhaps to actually follow up in person with these people and meet them on their ground in their territory. But again, I

imagine you run into all sorts of naive people, not to be rude, but who just say, "Hey, just slap 500 bucks down and get me a hundred people at my church."

Like, boom, boom. Right. And they just don't understand that it's Yes. It's digital amplifying the real.

It's not Yeah. Or they're like, "Hey, can't we use like one of those cool AI chat bots like to

follow up with people at our church?" And it's like, bro, you're missing the point. Like people

go read the comments when you see like posts online about AI and stuff. People are already tired of it.

Slot, baby. Everyone's done. Yeah. Us us as the church, we have an opportunity to counter culture. It's

like, look, everything's automated. Everyone's robots here. We are real people that really love you and there's

a God that really loves you. And like

that that's one of the things that we're always trying to solve, right? Because we have churches and I will be honest like the churches that work with church

candy and don't get good results. Typically it's because that we can't bridge that gap between we're getting

people to plan a visit but the church their staff's overworked. They don't have anyone that can invest time in

following up and connecting with people and so they end up having to cancel their account with us. So me and my team

like that's one of the suggestions like what if we have like an AI bot that can follow up with them on behalf of the

churches and I'm like guys no because I will be honest with you I have competitor there are competitors there

are companies out there I have no doubt I have no doubt that help churches get new people in the door that do their marketing that use AI

chat bots to talk talk to people and it makes me sick to my stomach and I

I never want to be the reason why someone never goes back

to church because I guarantee you that there is someone out there that found a

church running that play and texted with what they thought was the pastor

and then found out that it wasn't the pastor they were texting, that it was AI

and That is someone that who know there might be someone out there that has left the church and has

left the relationship with God and all of that because

one church staff member or a pastor wanted to phone it in and sacrifice

personal connection for what comes easy. Yeah. And that is a soul that

we don't know what's going to happen for the rest of eternity because you make that decision. Yeah. Right. And and I don't trying to get

like super deep and spiritual with it, but the thing is we're we're in the world of being super deep and spiritual.

Yeah. It is super deep and spiritual. Our actions have consequences, man. Um

anyways, and so like one of the solutions we are looking at is hiring Bible college interns to do the follow-up on behalf of these churches

for them. uh that way it's at least a real person and and so like there's there's things that

we're we're looking at there to to bridge that gap, but um man, it's one of

those things that like if you're going to use AI in your church, use it to replace things on your calendar that are

administrative tasks that you as a pastor don't need to be spending time doing, right? Don't use AI as a pastor

to replace personal connection like following up with people in your church and connecting with people or like hello

using it to write your sermons for you right don't use AI for that use it as

like for me I'll use chat GBT like how I used to use Google 5 years ago when

correct sharing a message when it's like oh I need an illustration that talks about that so like um like I it's not a

sermon but on Friday I am teaching my we

have our staff retreat and I'm doing a session all on one of our core values on pursuing excellence and I'm looking for

an illustration I want it to be like from the corporate world like a story about Steve Jobs doing something really

cool that was just going above and beyond or like from true Kathy from Chick-fil-A. So I'm just having Chad GBT

is like, "Hey, find me a story that matches this." Right? I'm not having Chad GBT. It's like, "Oh, write me a

inspirational talk on pursuing excellence and how my team could do it." No, no, no. It's like I'm doing that,

but I'm just using it as like supplemental tool to help me in that. So

that that's one of the things with AI and like there's all these AI tools now that write messages

for the pastor and it's like same thing. If I knew my pastor was just

using chat GBT to write all of his content for him, I

I would have questions and that might cause some church hurt. Yeah, it's it's there's an irony to the idea that, you

know, I think a lot of people would probably accuse you of of being sort of, you know,

the exact thing you're you're sort of wary of and critical of in the sense of you're just leveraging digital tools and

it's all about numbers and it's all about units. And I think to me, you seem like someone who is very soberminded

about what it can do and what it can't do, what it should do, and what it should not do. And it's far from just

sort of a crass means to an end. It it's a recognition that we live in this

unique time with unique access that we need to take advantage of that, but that we need to be cautious like with any

tool. I mean, in my context, I'm part of a band that we go all all over the world and we use this very creative show to

share the gospel. And for a while, we've been trying to use digital ads as a way to get people to come. And we kind of

had a breakthrough because we'd we'd throw ads out and we'd get a lot of sort of superficial engagement, but nothing

super tangible. And then we came up with this idea that, you know, we need to we need to gather their information so we

can continue to, hey, this show's coming up. You got to come. It's going to be in Munich. It's going to be in Berlin or whatever. And so we had this idea, hey,

sign up for this official tour bracelet. And that little bit of like tangible CTA

related to the ad, the whole thing changed. Yeah. So now now we are getting thousands of these perfectly targeted

you know like 17 to 30 into punk rock music into live shows signing up signing

up for these bracelets and dude when we dialed this in I we were start we're not a famous band

I mean we our whole our whole model is get into a big city square somewhere in Europe or Latin America where a lot of

people naturally gather we have this really visual really compelling show and thousands of people come but it's not typically because they know who we are

but we having people, bunches of people show up two hours ahead, an hour ahead

because of the digital ads. Yeah. And then those those young people, those they were hearing the gospel and they

were getting connected with a church in this city. And so, dude, I am like I totally see the power of that. Like that

is profound power. Now, at the same time, we still had to preach the gospel. We still still needed to work with local

churches. We needed a follow-up strategy. They still needed to be discipled. All of that. So, it's not like I'm going, "Well, I do a digital ad

and I'm done." But, man, to discount the power of that, there are people who know

and love Jesus today because of digital ads. Jude, there's a there's a guy in Argentina.

Yes. Saw an ad. Oh, do you like Blink182? Come see this thing. Shows up, gives his

life to Jesus. We baptize him in a bathtub in the apartment where we're staying during that tour. Digital ad.

That's crazy. So, so I'm I'm all about it, man. And I just Yeah, there's limits, but dude, it's so powerful, too.

Yeah. And I know people who they're like people on staff at their church, found

their church, and found the Lord because they saw an ad on Instagram for the

church. They were not believers. They showed up to the church one Sunday, gave

their life to the Lord, got plugged in, got so plugged in, now they're on staff there, right? And so there's so much power in

it. And like one of the things that I love doing and this is like this was this this

if you were listening to this podcast and you were hoping for some really tactical things on how I can use digital

ads. Um this is going to be one of the most tactical things that you can take away. Okay. There's a strategy that you can use

called retargeting and uh go to YouTube. There's tutorials on it. I have tutorials on my YouTube channel on it.

But basically the the concept is like when you're going to Amazon and you're looking for a podcast microphone,

then you go to Instagram and you see ads for the microphone you were just looking at. It's like, okay, how can I do that

for my church? Because this is something that we started doing at our church and it's super powerful because people might

overspiritualize it, but like I really believe that the Lord works through this. Uh, of course,

because what you do is you set it up to where anytime someone goes to your church's website. You set it up anytime

someone engages with you or if you're uh putting videos out on your Instagram, like preaching clips, you can set it up

to where anytime someone watches that. You put them in what's called a custom audience. And then you target that

custom audience of anyone that is engaged with us, whether went to our website, watched one of our videos, engaged with us online.

if they live within a 10 mile radius of our church, show them these ads inviting them to church. And that's whenever you

have people that it's like, "Oh my gosh, Pastor Brady, every time I turn around Instagram, I just kept seeing you." Like

that's whenever they say those things. Is my phone listening to me? Right. Yeah. And then what it is is it's

Holy Spirit. I believe like we shouldn't put God in a box. And it's like Holy Spirit can work through social media,

of course. And they they All we're doing is planting those seeds and they just keep getting invited to

church, invited to church, invited to church, and then I'm just letting God do the rest and work on these individual

people's hearts. It's like, "Hey God, if you're calling into the church, you're going to use this to make it happen."

Yeah. And so my prayer is, going back to your question earlier, it's like, okay, maybe

a church signs up and they're not preaching good doctrine and they're a heretic and they're leading people

astray. I would pray that if that's the case and God doesn't want their church to grow that they would get terrible

results with church candy. Like straight up, it's like God, if this is not your will for the church to grow, if it is

not your will for people to go to this church, I would pray that they would get terrible results. I would pray that they

would hate us. I would pray they would go leave negative reviews saying, "We tried church candy. It did not work."

And and I'm not saying that anyone that they tried church candy didn't work. like, oh, you must be a heretic and God

didn't want you. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm praying that like, God, if this isn't your will. If you are not

wanting people to go here, then let it fail. Yeah. That's something that whenever I was a

intern at a youth camp, the director used to always pray uh at our like uh

pre-ervice rallies, he would say, "God, we did the planning uh but God, we would pray that it would all fall apart if

it's not your will. if you're not getting glorified, God, I pray that all of our plans fail, that nothing goes right, if you are not the center of

everything we do. Uh, and so that's the prayer for what we do here at Church Candy, bro. It's like

if if God's not being glorified, if people aren't being brought to the Lord, if lives aren't being changed, then I

don't want it to work. Yeah. Yeah. And I can feel that. I can honor that in you. You know, I know we

don't know each other well, but I can feel that. And you know, at the end of the day, you know, it's a recognition

that even the most well polished five loaves and two fish are still just that. Like God has to do the multiplying. And

men are not convinced by human wisdom, but by God's power. And and yet I think of Paul and and describing how he would

do anything. I'd become all things to all men, right? And and I'm pretty sure, and don't cancel me for this, but I'm

pretty sure Paul would have a pretty dope Instagram account. And uh I'm pretty sure that social media would have been part of the part of the plan like

this the world that people are living in. And and so like we continue to say don't want to you know beat a dead

horse. There are limits. We have to be cautious like with any tool that exists and also obviously

people are so inundated with content and ads and and there's that weird tension of that is where they are but we also

want them to like throw their phone in the trash and live life. So, it's all that tension, but while it's still a

thing, let's let's be calling people to to encounter Jesus like you're doing. So, Brady, dude, I appreciate this

conversation, man. I uh I knew this would be entertaining, and I Yeah, I I'd hope we can do this again. I'm I'm

cheering you on. Keep doing what you're doing, and uh yeah, hopefully we can find ways to partner together for the

gospel going forward. Amazing. Yeah. Uh if I can plug anything. Yeah. Plug plug away.

Yeah. So, one of the number one questions I get is like, okay, I want to run ads for our church. Where do I like

how do I even like what do I say in the ads? Like, what should we do? Um, we took our framework for the best ads and

we made an AI bot that you basically give the bot your church's website.

It'll scan the website and all the verbiage you use and your vision statement and all of that and it'll

write ads for your church using our framework. Uh, and so to check that out,

it's just church candy.ai. Uh, it's free, doesn't cost you anything

to use, but you can basically use our chatbot to write the proven ads that

we've used for over a thousand churches. Um, yeah, church.ai. Sweet. Well, dude, we'll put all the

links and all the stuff in the show notes and in the descriptions and all all those good places. But, uh, I

appreciate it, dude. This has been a fun conversation. Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me on. All right. Peace.

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