00:00:00:00 - 00:00:02:01 Isaac Sutton all of the students in the room, who were watching unscripted, had bingo cards that coordinated to stuff that was. Nick Clason Yes. 00:00:08:19 - 00:00:09:23 Darren Sutton digital integration is not a luxury. It's a necessity. 00:00:12:09 - 00:00:18:24 Sam Vos it was probably I probably felt God's hand more in like my career, my life in that moment than a lot of other moments. 00:00:18:24 - 00:00:25:04 Nick Clason unscripted played a really major role in like the catalyst to especially my podcast and everything like that. 00:00:25:04 - 00:00:31:04 Nick Clason I would say the reason for that is simply realizing and understanding that students live online. 00:00:31:04 - 00:00:39:22 Darren Sutton there's a lot I've messed up in my years of youth ministry, but that is one thing that I'm really proud of. Like in the middle of the pandemic, there was not a blank ministry kept going. 00:00:39:22 - 00:00:41:06 Sam Vos we're going to try something different 00:00:50:00 - 00:00:55:02 ABC News president's words come after the World Health Organization today declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, 00:00:55:02 - 00:00:57:19 Darren Sutton I remember this very clearly. 00:00:57:19 - 00:01:01:24 Sam Vos I mean, obviously, I came down to Parkview in February of 2020 00:01:01:24 - 00:01:06:06 Darren Sutton the Thursday before we went home, we're like, yeah, there's something happening in the world that's not going to affect us. On Friday it became clear that 00:01:07:24 - 00:01:10:05 Nick Clason which for context I started on Monday. 00:01:10:05 - 00:01:13:06 Darren Sutton that maybe we'd miss a couple of weeks of meeting together. Yeah. And I have been toying around for a while with, like, a YouTube show. like, in my mind, that there was like, we were just not speaking a digital language at all. 00:01:24:06 - 00:01:25:12 Sam Vos going there, Darren had a very kind of a new perspective on what he thought ministry would be. Right. So he was already kind of starting to talk about like, how do we take digital and kind of infuse that with what, you know, historically, youth ministry has been. 00:01:38:21 - 00:01:41:22 Darren Sutton you know, in the grand scheme of the engine of ministry, there is no time to dream a dream, right? Well, Covid forced us to do that. I kind of laid out this idea for, basically a variety show, some kind of YouTuber And I said, you know, if we decided to do this, I think we probably need to do a week or two and a big a beta test. So could we, could we film a show? Yeah, right. And over the weekend we came up with a whole concept for the for the YouTube show and shot it on Monday. 00:02:04:22 - 00:02:07:23 Sam Vos Well, I'd only been there for like 3 or 4 weeks, right. Yeah. Which I'm fine with. So then obviously it happens. You'd only been there 3 to 4 hours is kind of like, hey, we need somebody to be the guy. And obviously I was like. the same day we started filming was the same day that they were like, "hey, everybody's got to go home" and 00:02:20:04 - 00:02:31:04 Isaac Sutton everybody was packed in tightly into a room and they had a like, Nick Clason as we're in this like, hey, don't go by people time, like and then cram all these people into a room. 00:02:31:04 - 00:02:33:11 Nick Clason remember, like, everyone was like on vacation? 00:02:33:11 - 00:02:34:10 Nick Clason getting married. 00:02:34:13 - 00:02:35:20 Nick Clason had was took PTO 00:02:35:20 - 00:02:37:06 Nick Clason I was the new guy. 00:02:37:06 - 00:02:40:02 Nick Clason Right. You were like the longest tenured person in the room. 00:02:40:02 - 00:02:46:15 Sam Vos it was probably I probably felt God's hand more in like my career, my life in that moment than a lot of other moments. 00:02:46:15 - 00:02:47:07 Darren Sutton And that was your first day in the office? Yep. We all came and I was like, hey, Nick, no time to onboard you. We're filming the show 00:02:52:21 - 00:03:00:20 Sam Vos then on our first day of filming this digital piece of it where there was, worship element in kind of this hosting element and stuff like that, filmed the first episode of unscripted at the church. 00:03:03:12 - 00:03:05:24 Nick Clason not socially distanced whatsoever 00:03:05:24 - 00:03:07:06 Isaac Sutton was a choice. 00:03:07:06 - 00:03:09:19 Darren Sutton and the whole student ministry team got in there. We filmed the show, and at 11:30, we got a message from the, executive pastor saying, bye, everybody. We'll see. You 00:03:18:21 - 00:03:22:20 Sam Vos that was this the same day we started filming was the same day that they were like, hey, everybody's got to go home and just for two weeks 00:03:25:14 - 00:03:27:21 Darren Sutton Everybody thought at that point, probably till Easter, 00:03:27:21 - 00:03:35:03 Isaac Sutton but nobody really knew how crazy it was going to get. Everybody was just in the. It was the rumor phase of Covid. 00:03:35:03 - 00:03:40:08 Nick Clason but making fun of it. Basically. Darren Sutton Yeah. For sure. Like, this is so stupid and and so much so that like, things were changing so quickly that we filmed that thing not socially distant. On Monday by the time it aired on Wednesday, we had to put out a statement that said "this was filmed before socially distancing was a requirement." 00:03:56:03 - 00:03:56:19 Sam Vos You know, time goes by. Maybe 3 or 4 days. Three people show up to my house with equipment being like cameras, microphones, a table, chairs, Now all this planning vision is starting to happen. Like, we're doing this right now on a zoom call 00:04:10:10 - 00:04:15:14 Darren Sutton how much we had to pivot in that time is I still just a little bit crazy when I think about it? 00:04:15:14 - 00:04:17:24 Sam Vos and then my wife and I looked at each other and we go, we don't have we don't have room in this spot. Right? Because we're live in downtown Chicago in a high rise, 00:04:22:04 - 00:04:25:13 Darren Sutton 700 square foot apartment with his kid and his wife. 00:04:25:13 - 00:04:27:19 Sam Vos every single week. When we would film, we would have to move the couch out, move that, move the chairs out. Right. We'd have to bring everything kind of stacking on top of each other by the kitchen, do the set, do the show, 00:04:36:09 - 00:04:46:18 Darren Sutton you know, we were filming group stuff on zoom calls and trying to figure out where is the most appropriate place to set up a studio where only one person can press play. 00:04:46:18 - 00:04:46:23 Sam Vos And, then put it all back together and send it. So then I'm running over to the camera, right. I'm getting out. I'm looking at the screen. Right. Because I turn the screen around, I'm looking at it. I'm like, okay, it looks good. And I'm running back to the camera, clicking record that I'm running back to the chair and starting. 00:04:59:06 - 00:05:10:00 Isaac Sutton heart of Covid era for unscripted, which I didn't even like, start working. Working on unscripted until episode like 22. Yeah, something like that. I was kind of, later after some of the kinks had been fleshed out, I guess. 00:05:14:00 - 00:05:23:04 Nick Clason yes, it went through the completely remote, like everyone from their houses, every bit via a, like cell phone camera. But I remember, Darren sent us all, like, desktop tripods so that we could like via Amazon so that we could have stable, you know, pictures and not like this 00:05:35:08 - 00:05:38:12 Sam Vos I mean, the hashtag, the world's greatest drink kind of happened out of nowhere, What happened was I was also like, I'm just going to have to just pull everything out that I can think of and hopefully something sticks. It's kind of like when you're just, like throwing everything you can at something. You're like, one of these things works great, 00:05:51:12 - 00:05:57:05 Darren Sutton So students were tuning in because that was the only connection with humans. They had 00:05:57:05 - 00:05:59:15 Nick Clason which I think was like the only live anything. 00:05:59:15 - 00:06:05:06 Darren Sutton Yes. Was gone. Like, yeah, everything was gone. Everything was gone. But we were still having church and we were one of the few. And I will tell you, like, there's a lot I've messed up in my years of youth ministry, but that is one thing that I'm really proud of. Like in the middle of the pandemic, there was not a blank ministry kept going. And that wasn't just me. That was a large team that made that happen. I could have never done that by myself. 00:06:20:19 - 00:06:21:10 Nick Clason Yeah. 00:06:21:10 - 00:06:26:11 Isaac Sutton And I remember that being a big part of me joining unscripted was like, we want to we're making this the thing. It went from being the Covid strategy to being, the way they were going to move forward with youth ministry. 00:06:37:03 - 00:06:41:10 Sam Vos Now I will say in, during Covid and when I was filming at my house, right, there were some there were some moments there too, where I was like, oh, this, this feels like God's doing something. Covid and unscripted allowed us to say, hey, what? Maybe this is what church youth ministry could look like. Maybe it's it could be more progressive thinking. Yeah, sure, sure. I think it also be 00:07:00:16 - 00:07:03:12 Darren Sutton what I remember most was just innovative thinking, 00:07:03:12 - 00:07:06:01 Sam Vos I think there needs I think churches need to make a shift. And I felt like unscripted was a vision of what that shift could look like. 00:07:09:19 - 00:07:27:03 Darren Sutton then it was so successful and also super a lot of fun. And also it became very clear that we had not been speaking the language of our constituency, that it became something that we permanently added to what we do 00:07:27:03 - 00:07:28:12 Isaac Sutton was a really cool thing to do. It was something that got into people's houses. it was something that engaged students with, students on a level that they were already familiar with. I mean, students know about YouTube, YouTube shows. 00:07:41:02 - 00:07:42:10 Sam Vos Lacroix is all I got. So I guess hashtag world's greatest drink. I don't even really like Lacroix. 00:07:47:12 - 00:07:51:03 Sam Vos my favorite drink, Lacroix. I am one of those guys. So, it's just so it's so refreshing every time. 00:07:54:23 - 00:07:59:19 Darren Sutton But then we started like building that into the nomenclature of what we did. And 00:08:00:07 - 00:08:03:12 Sam Vos world's greatest people, but this is actually hashtag the world's greatest drink. 00:08:04:00 - 00:08:10:15 Darren Sutton every semester, we would do a hashtag world's greatest drink bracket, and kids would get to vote on what that season's drink we're going to be like. 00:08:11:01 - 00:08:15:17 Nick Clason Where when we hit the duck squeak, they had to play duck, duck, goose to it. 00:08:15:17 - 00:08:16:24 Sam Vos hashtag world's Greatest drink. And then all sudden we would start hiding Lacroix in spots and stuff like that. 00:08:20:17 - 00:08:24:04 Darren Sutton did an episode on pets, which is why I'm wearing this shirt. and I loved it because kids were so engaged with sending in pictures of their pets, we couldn't be in person yet. 00:08:30:13 - 00:08:33:23 Sam Vos I think another very absurd thing that we did was that whole duck thing. 00:08:34:24 - 00:08:37:10 Nick Clason the search for Chuck, the search for Chuck. 00:08:37:10 - 00:08:44:23 Darren Sutton Chuck, is he in there? He's not here. 00:08:44:23 - 00:08:49:02 Darren Sutton have a mascot also something that came accidentally. Chuck the duck, 00:08:49:02 - 00:08:53:19 Isaac Sutton sci fi saga was was a blast. I know that was going so fun. So, Minecraft server was a tragic affair. I spent probably like so long. It's trying to set up a minecraft server for 00:09:09:03 - 00:09:16:15 Darren Sutton So Chuck got lost or kidnaped or. I don't even remember now what the exact story was, except we just spent all summer looking for him, right? 00:09:16:15 - 00:09:25:22 Isaac Sutton We if you found the duck and text it into a certain number in a certain amount of time, you would win a prize that coordinated to a theme, because each week was themed 00:09:28:00 - 00:09:40:10 Sam Vos all sudden Covid happened and it kind of felt like, okay, this is the reason that I'm supposed to be here. so for me, it was a very fulfilling time. Covid was, I would say, where I think for a lot of people it was not that. However, when we got students in there filming and students in there doing audio, I think when these students all sudden like kind of took, you know, they grabbed on to this idea of unscripted and they felt like they owned it and belonged to it. That's the thing that was actually worth everything that we did. 00:09:57:16 - 00:10:02:05 Isaac Sutton yes, there was a lot of trial and error with unscripted, especially in, in, in all areas of unscripted. There was tons of trial and error. Right. I don't think we ever fully came out of unscripted with like this was the best format and we kept it the whole way through. 00:10:15:07 - 00:10:28:15 Darren Sutton you know, the interesting thing, which I don't think is actually that interesting, but really kind of blew people away, was how much more open kids were on zoom than they were in person. Yeah, because they're in their room. They're in their natural environment. They may or may not have to be on camera. but there was not the intimidation factor of sitting in a room and wondering what you're thinking about me. There was some kind of invisible protection for them being on camera, which worked pretty well. 00:10:44:07 - 00:11:00:15 Nick Clason But as we look ahead to this next wave of generation, like we have to find a way to find ourselves online with with Gen Z, definitely with Gen Alpha, like, it's all they know, right? And they, they can shift between in-person and online into that hybrid space back and forth as if it's nothing. 00:11:00:15 - 00:11:06:17 Isaac Sutton the ones that we filmed in a bunch of different locations, yeah, that was that. They were great. They were so well done. And it was a series over the course of four weeks about the impacts you can make on the world. Yeah. 00:11:21:00 Nick Clason and we were like on location and like, that was that was so fun. I thought 00:11:23:06 - 00:11:25:06 Darren Sutton in that I would end up carrying into the future was pre filming talks. And, you know, even when we ended up in a context where that wasn't necessary anymore, it really helps you frame exactly what you want to say the way you want to say it, in a medium that's going to live in perpetuity beyond you. 00:11:45:08 - 00:12:09:10 Isaac Sutton Yeah. I think the other benefit to this is that whole part of it. Right. was that it democratize like the week, the day that you come from as well like that I was able to serve, like I was able to work as the guy who produced unscripted and made sure everything was running on Wednesdays. And then I could still also volunteer on Thursdays as a small group leader. 00:12:15:06 - 00:12:39:04 Nick Clason after three years or however many years of us doing it, once restrictions started lifting, once people started coming back in the room and frankly wanting to be back in the room like we needed to find a way to to pivot and adjust. And I still think we did. But again, like I was telling you before we started hitting record was we we started at that point then with the baseline of online. And so then we were like, how much do we sprinkle in in person because of how good online is? We're like a church. Where I'm at now is like, we started with in person. And so now we have to try to like add the hybrid moment, the digital pieces to it to help create that good. Like intersection between both in-person and online. 00:12:58:10 - 00:13:10:14 Sam Vos relationships start in person and then they can transition to digital. Meaning you live in the same state as me or friends and then you move away. But we still continue being friends, 00:13:10:14 - 00:13:23:02 Isaac Sutton even if, your hybrid experience doesn't, kick off in the room like you want to, it might reach 1 or 2 people that wouldn't, that you wouldn't have reached otherwise. 00:13:23:02 - 00:13:30:24 Nick Clason Yeah. And like, now my like, the adaptation, like, we have a fully in-person model, essentially. Right. Yeah. However, I still see the value in the content, the teaching content in particular, like having a home beyond just when it when it's preached. Right. And we don't have the live streaming capabilities, which is why we do the, the pre film. But that can also that, that that anchors our social media strategy. 00:13:52:17 - 00:13:57:02 Darren Sutton we learned that social media is for interaction, not for advertising. I think that we learned that, digital, what we call in our context, digital integration is not a luxury. It's a necessity. You have to figure it out. Our students are not just digital natives, they're digital dependents. And if we are not harnessed in whatever level of digital medium we can harness, then we're missing. We're missing an opportunity to speak the language of the people that we're working with. so I don't view everything through the lens of how does this translate digitally, but I definitely view our ministry through the lens of where is the digital expression of what we're trying to communicate to, to kids long term. Yeah. So, 00:14:44:10 - 00:14:50:05 Nick Clason the argument I felt at the time was should we do in-person or should we do online? And I was like, how about both right. And the tension in all of that is both takes resources. 00:15:02:01 - 00:15:17:15 Nick Clason my learnings right. For the in the room side of things was like it probably needed the show, probably needed a refresh and a rebrand to, distance it from Covid and not make it the Covid thing anymore. because while it was still good, it's still carried all those connotations. And then on the, the YouTube side of things, we just needed to double down on some like titling keyword and research like artistic thumbnail renders 00:15:31:09 - 00:15:32:21 Sam Vos means that churches exist 00:15:32:21 - 00:15:37:14 Sam Vos for two groups of people, correct? 00:15:37:14 - 00:15:38:16 Nick Clason Insiders and outsiders. There we go. 00:15:37:14 - 00:15:38:16 Sam Vos I wonder if those those things being digital and in-person. Interact with those two groups differently. 00:15:45:18 - 00:16:05:22 Nick Clason like, it's more accessible than I thought it was to create a digital like moment, like, you know, once we shifted away from the show into a new church and we were here, like, we did an entire, like, six months worth of content off of a cell phone. 00:16:05:24 - 00:16:07:11 Darren Sutton Yeah, yeah, 00:16:07:11 - 00:16:12:04 Nick Clason The church exists to change the world. and to be a family and to create a place for people to find meaning and belonging. Okay. I think that there can be entertaining elements within church. I encourage youth pastors and youth ministries to create entertaining elements on their social media. That's why most people get on social media nowadays is to be entertained in some form or fashion. 00:16:32:18 - 00:16:35:20 Darren Sutton So some kind of message or whatever on the regular? I think it's super important to post regularly, whether you know how to do it or not, you play dumb for a student because there is a student who definitely knows how to do it. investing in that. And I wouldn't know what these are. But this guy well investing in some subscription services or whatnot that can help you do this easier. 00:16:58:13 - 00:17:10:14 Nick Clason servicing millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, by the way, middle schoolers and on down. And so the church has to figure out how to speak their language because they're the next generation. 00:17:10:14 - 00:17:13:18 Darren Sutton I subscribe to your TikTok and your YouTube. He didn't pay me for that. I really would, and I am, so you should be too.