Digital Parish: Creating a Safe, Sacred Digital Space for Faith

Ryan Dunn [00:00:02]:

This is Pastoring in the Digital Parish, your resource and point of connection for building digital ministry strategy and bringing your congregation into the digital age. Hi. My name is Ryan Dunn. I'm the proctor for this podcast, which seeks to be the digital ministry class that you just didn't get in seminary. This episode is part of our How It Started versus How It Going series, and I brought those questions to Brandon Robertson, who is a pastor who has found success with engaging content on platforms like TikTok. In this session, we discuss the importance of authenticity in today's media landscape and how cultivating a sense of community can be a powerful tool for evangelism. We also delve into the challenges and pitfalls associated with digital ministry, such as the negative impact that it can have on our spiritual health. And finally, we explore the unique calling that has led Brandon to become a bridge builder between different versions or views of Christianity, and how he confronts theological disagreements with empathy and love. Let me tell you about another key factor for forming community safety for the most vulnerable, safer, sanctuaries, nurturing Trust Within Faith Communities is a new and comprehensive resource that continues the tradition of safe, sanctuaries ministry by building on its trusted policies and procedures. If you want to learn more, go to safersanctuaries.org or call 1809 720433. And as long as I'm giving you some info, here's some on our special guest for this session. Reverend Brandon Robertson is a noted author, activist, and public theologian working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal. Robertson is most known for his work as the TikTok pastor, creating thousands of TikTok videos on inclusive theology, which have garnered over 215,000 followers and 5 million views. So let's see how it started with Brandon Robertson and how it's going. Brandon Robertson, thank you so much for joining us. I'm pastoring in the digital parish. Can you describe for us what the shape of ministry looks like for you right now?

Brandan Robertson [00:02:23]:

Yeah, well, thanks for having me. And as most pastors have had to experience over the past three or four years, I started off ministry in a brick and mortar church, doing very minimal online ministry. In one sense, our church at the time had a cell phone that occasionally did some live streaming videos and we recorded our sermons but didn't put them up until like a week later. And it was that period of the pandemic that for me, I've always been engaged in social media. I grew up in the social media landscape. But really when the pandemic happened, my church situation gave me a little bit more space to just have some time to experiment. And I noticed some clergy in my area starting to get on this app called TikTok that I refused to get on because I thought it was for teenagers doing dances and was like, this is just not me. I was going to be a stubborn millennial, but I started getting on, and my first few TikToks were dances in clergy college. Really glad people can't find those anymore.

Ryan Dunn [00:03:31]:

I was going to ask if they're still available, Dang.

Brandan Robertson [00:03:33]:

They're far, far down the TikTok feed. But I started just talking about theology, and that's kind of my sweet spot. I'm primarily a teacher. That's how I see myself. And so I just started talking about progressive, inclusive Christianity. And really within a matter of a month, we got up to like 10 00 20 00 30 00 followers on TikTok, and it just kept growing. So I sat down with my church team at the time and said, we need to utilize this. And we started seeing hundreds of people coming from TikTok over to our now iPhone Camera Sunday services that we were doing at the start of the Pandemic. And really the long story short for me was after seeing the growth of TikTok and then that feeding over into our Live Stream service and then also feeding over into other social media platforms, a couple of factors led me to make the decision to leave my brick and mortar church ministry. It was kind of the end of my contract, and I said, I'm going to kind of jump into seeing if you can do digital ministry full time. And so in 2021, maybe I launched Metanoia Church, which was a fully digital online community. We started off with a bang. We had 500 people show up on our first Zoom Sunday service, and I was blown away. But I think what we've seen over the past few years is that those numbers have started to dwindle and online engagement has started to change significantly in the Pandemic. I thought ministry in the digital world is the future. I think that's what we all thought. And I still think that digital ministry is vitally important. But now, obviously, lots of people are returning to brick and mortar churches. People are longing for physical connection. And so I'm also starting to reengage in a traditional ministry while also trying to figure out how do you bring this virtual hybrid digital component into the brick and mortar ministry space? And there's a lot we can get into of what I think that will look like. But right now I'm kind of balancing both of those worlds.

Ryan Dunn [00:05:45]:

But can you tell us a little bit about it? You used air quotes on the traditional ministry, and I guess we would probably also refer to that as kind of like an embodied ministry or brick and mortar. I think that's a good term for it as well. Can you tell us about what that looks like?

Brandan Robertson [00:06:01]:

Yeah. I mean, for me, I'm about to I don't know when this will air, but on July 1, I'll be stepping into a traditional pastorate position in New York City. And so stepping back into 150 year old building with all the problems that come with that, but also recognizing that the digital component of my ministry has not gone away. People are discovering progressive, inclusive Christianity through my and many other progressive clergy's platforms. But the question that I'm getting in my inbox now isn't so much, is there a digital space we can connect with you, but rather, are there churches, like what you're teaching, that teach what you teach in my community? And so really trying to discover, like, okay, we're going to do the traditional Christian ministry thing in a Sunday service with real people. But my 200,000 followers on TikTok obviously are not going to show up to my church most Sundays. And so it's, how do we begin to take this digital platform that I have and that so many others have cultivated and start plugging that in in unique ways to not only real church communities? But I also think the Pandemic taught us that every Sunday. Church attendance, I think, is a thing of the past. I think most people don't see showing up every Sunday as vitally as they would have even five years ago. And so even thinking about things like how do you do gatherings across the country or cultivate small groups that I might not actually be present at, but are connected through my digital platform where people can once a month get together in a coffee shop or a pub or in a church basement and talk about faith and do Christian rituals. And even without my digital ministry component, right, I think those kind of gatherings are already happening. They were already happening before the Pandemic, and it's just, again, playing with how do you take this vibrant community online and ensure that people can actually find tangible, physical, embodied support in the communities where they live?

Ryan Dunn [00:08:09]:

Well, let's go back in the story just a little bit. It sounded like TikTok was really kind of the blossoming factor in your expansion in ministry, at least in terms of exposure and meeting new people. When you first started on the platform, did you have a strong sense of what you were building? Like, were you hoping that, oh, I might get on with a couple of dancing videos and then we'll get to the theology, or did you have a clear content ideation in mind?

Brandan Robertson [00:08:39]:

Yeah, I mean, not really. Okay. At the time that I got on TikTok, I can't say that I knew of anyone that was doing kind of theology talk. Not to say that I started it, but I think a bunch of us around the same time were like, let's just see what happens if we talk about the things we care about. And I do think I realized early on that something was happening. I think the biggest thing I realized in the Pandemic and many other sectors realized this was that there's been this myth that our society and that younger generations are getting dumber, so to speak. Like we're getting shorter sentences and not really concerned about deep education and I.

Ryan Dunn [00:09:20]:

Think seven second attention span.

Brandan Robertson [00:09:23]:

Right? But TikTok proved to me that that wasn't true because, yes, I was talking in 62nd videos, but I was talking about in depth deep theology. I was quoting the Bible, quoting theologians, and thousands of people were engaging. And then those thousands of people were asking, hey, can we come to an online Bible study? Where I would sit with them for an hour and a half and dig deep into the Scriptures. And then I would do online seminars once a month for an hour where we would talk about the Bible and homosexuality or universalism or whatever, and hundreds and hundreds of people would show up. And so I was really excited because I discovered that many people who are interested in faith are actually also theology nerds, but they've never had a way to have an accessible conversation about theology. And so if I had to sum up what I'm doing, I see my goal, my ministry as popularizing, so to speak, some of the deeper theology that we talk about in seminary classrooms and among pastors all the time. But laypeople are often excluded from because we just assume they're not interested or can't handle the capacity of it. And the truth is, people want the depth, they want the meat of theological discussion and spirituality and spiritual practice. And so I've leaned into that and continue to lean into that with great joy.

Ryan Dunn [00:10:44]:

Yeah. And it's so much fun to think about that happening on TikTok, which just has this reputation of being a little bit frivolous. Right. Something that is in depth is occurring there. Being a TikTok pastor, have you ever felt a poll or a demand to create the Glitzy kind of Glamorous style videos?

Brandan Robertson [00:11:16]:

Yeah, I mean, I think anybody who's been addicted to TikTok, like me, has tried many forms over the years. And I think there was a moment where early on, I was like, to my church, hey, we need to cut out a big budget and buy good equipment, and let's dive into this. And we started to do that. We did buy some cameras and some audio equipment. But the beauty of TikTok and I think most social media people will tell you this and I work as a social media manager for a nonprofit on the side as well. So I'm in this space all the time. The highest performing videos and content on TikTok and even on Instagram these days, is not the polished, edited, hyper, well done content. It's the authentic content people. If you look at a lot of my videos, it's kind of cringeworthy. Looking back, I don't realize it in the moment, but when I look back at them, I've got, like, my last round of videos, I had a feather sticking off of my hat, and the video lighting quality was not good.

Ryan Dunn [00:12:15]:

And that feather wasn't there on purpose.

Brandan Robertson [00:12:18]:

No. And embarrassed at that happening afterwards. But people want to see. In one sense, I think there's a niche category of people that want to see pastors as real people. And so just to get on and be like, hey, this is me on a Wednesday morning thinking about theology, here's what I'm thinking that makes it all the more accessible rather than the very polished, very expensive to create videos that do feel a little cold and isolating and inaccessible. And so I think my goal on TikTok and the most successful folks on TikTok have cultivated this feeling among audiences that they know you. And that's also been one of the biggest delights of my experience on TikTok is that virtually every week I will walk down the street and bump into somebody who says, oh, my goodness, I found your videos. And it's not the ego celebrity thing that I'm going for. It's that these folks actually feel like they know me and that I also know a lot of them. I've cultivated relationships through the Internet with them. And so there is a real sense of a global community of people that feel like I'm one of their pastors. And I feel like we have this interesting spiritual, theological relationship. And so it's been beautiful to see that for all the frivolousness I guess that's the word on the Internet, that there are deep, meaningful connections coming out of it, and people are really growing in their faith and their spirituality through these apps.

Ryan Dunn [00:13:55]:

Let's talk about that relationship cultivation a little bit, because the beginning of your relationship with a person is kind of a broadcast of ideology and theology. So how does that broadcast then? How does that start a conversation, and how are you engaging in those conversations?

Brandan Robertson [00:14:18]:

Yeah, I mean, it's hard on one sense because capacity as an individual is limited. During the Pandemic, I was spending 1015 hours a week on Zoom calls with people, phone calls with people, and really doing, like, one on one pastoral counseling. And when I launched Metanoia Church, which was a fully digital community, we created avenues. We had in that community a number of people that were either ex pastors or people who were still pastoring in the Pandemic time, but didn't have quite as much on their plates, who were able to kind of help out and engage. And I would point people to other clergy when I didn't have the capacity, but there really was space to do one on one counseling and consulting and all that good stuff. I think now it's shifted to the more sustainable thing that I do, is a lot of folks have come over to my patreon community, which is kind of a pay to play community, but for as low as, like, a dollar a month, you can join this space. And we do have these monthly Zoom calls where it literally is just, hey, let's get together and talk about our lives. And so we'll have 20 or 30 people show up and really get into what's going on in people's lives and helping guide people for resources and whatever kind of questions they have. So it's really been like how do I create sustainable places where I can help people as best I can, but also realizing the goal of any church ministry. I don't want to replicate the evangelical world that I came from, which is pastor centric and making the pastor the goal. So it has been elevating other clergy's voices and other folks in the community that are experts in theology that have masters of divinities degrees and saying hey, connect with this person because they're brilliant and they have resources that they can offer you. So on one sense it's creating spaces where we can come together as a community and do deep conversation. But a lot of it is also channeling people to resources because the other good side of the pandemic is that so much of Christianity has gone online, there are so many books and resources, videos and courses that are now available and so just really helping people connect to all of that.

Ryan Dunn [00:16:33]:

Have you had to be very intentional about inviting people from the TikTok space into these other spaces of connection?

Brandan Robertson [00:16:42]:

Yeah, to some degree. I think one reality that I'm sure we'll dive into a little bit more is there are a lot of oppositional people in these spaces that make some of these spaces unsafe for the kinds of people I'm trying to invite. In part of my TikTok almost uniquely. Like I have such a degree of kind of hateful comments and trolley comments on my TikToks that I don't see in very many other videos. And so there's a lot of nuance in how I open up these pastoral spaces. Patreon, for instance, just requiring that people pay a dollar a month to get into the space. Again, I'm not in this for money, I never started this for money. But that is even a low bar that can kind of weed out the folks that are not serious or that would come in and try to be oppositional in that kind of space, but also just simple things like when I create and cultivate a space online, asking people for their social media so that I can go through and do a quick look through to make sure that they're a real person and are going to show up to the space as authentically as they can. I think as churches are in this space, this is something we have to be really careful about. A lot of folks found out early on in the Pandemic that if you do an open zoom church, you'll get zoom bombs with people showing up and doing inappropriate things in the middle of a church service. We've all had to figure out how you put some barriers around who can enter while still being as inclusive as possible as a way of protecting the sacredness and safety of the online space we're trying to create.

Ryan Dunn [00:18:25]:

I'm going to jump in here with a quick reminder that this season of pastoring in the Digital Parish is being sponsored by a group that takes community building seriously. Safer Sanctuaries. Safer Sanctuaries Nurturing Trust Within Faith Communities is a new and comprehensive resource that continues the tradition of safe sanctuary's ministry by building on the trusted policies and procedures that have guided churches for over the past 25 years. This resource contains theological grounding for the work of abuse prevention psychological insights about abuse and abuse prevention, basic guidelines for risk reduction age level specific guidance step by step instructions on how to develop, revise, update and then implement an abuse prevention plan in your church or organizations. As Christians, resisting evil and doing justice are ways that we live and serve Jesus Christ. Safer Sanctuaries provides help to do just that kind of work by framing it as a life giving, community enhancing and proactive endeavor. It enables communities to be empowered and flourish as they develop and implement policies and procedures that make everyone safer. To learn more, go to Safersanctuaries.org or call 1809 720433, check them out and build a little more care and safety into your community. And now let's get back to how it started and how it's going in Digital Ministry with Brandon Robertson. Well, let's talk about that opposition a little bit. We hear in the church world that leaders will say, well, I can't talk about that because it'll make people mad. And part of your authenticity is that you'll talk about some of the issues that do in fact make people mad and they'll voice that because this is what we do on social media. It's a free range for all of that. So do you engage with some of the detractors or do you just kind of proverbially dust the sand off the shoes and just focus on those who are there for, I guess, the positivity?

Brandan Robertson [00:20:47]:

Yeah, I felt for most of my ministry over the past decade a unique calling to be a bridge builder. I come from a very conservative evangelical world. I was trained in a very conservative evangelical world. Now I'm very liberal on the other side of things. And so a lot of those folks obviously very much disagree with what I teach and who I am and how I exist in the world. But I also have a deep sense of empathy. A lot of the people on TikTok that are the most vitriolic, if I scroll to their profile, I'll find out that this is a 16 year old kid or like early Bible college student. A lot of these folks are young people who've only been exposed to one version of Christianity. And because of that, they really do believe that if somebody's teaching something that disagrees with their faith, they're going to go to hell and they're leading other people to hell. And so instead of just writing them off which I think a lot of people have to do and should do for their own health and wellness, sure. But for me, I feel uniquely called to say, wow, I remember being the arrogant kid on the Internet. I can go back to my Facebook from 2010 and the stuff I was saying was very similar, not very kind. And so I tried to engage, and I tried to engage sometimes most of the time in good faith with empathy. I do admit that part of the pandemic social media thing that we've all leaned into is that polarization can happen to the best of us. And I do find myself sometimes getting a little too snarky or whatever, and I do have to reel myself back in. But I really do want to confront what I see as theology of fear with a theology of grace and love. And if nobody's willing to speak to those people, or if we're only willing to mock them, I don't think we can actually have a good witness for Christ. I don't think we can actually change anyone's heart or mind. And so I would say probably three fourths of my content these days is responding to people that disagree with me, sometimes very nastily so. But I really believe that if we can show up with grace and love, we can change hearts and minds. And I feel like that's what I'm called to do.

Ryan Dunn [00:22:59]:

And those responses don't result in a snowball effect.

Brandan Robertson [00:23:04]:

They sometimes do.

Ryan Dunn [00:23:05]:

Okay.

Brandan Robertson [00:23:06]:

I think one of the things and anybody engaging in digital ministry, this is something I would recommend they really think through our country. Clearly the United States speaking to folks that are here is in a really unique moment of divisiveness, of demonizing and hatred across the divides that we have. And so in the last year in particular, I've seen the level of hatred ratcheting up. And because, like you said, I do dive into most of the controversial topics. Headfirst a lot of that has been directed at me, and a lot of it has gotten to levels of threats and violence. And I've had to spend a lot of time with my local police department turning over comments and things like that. So that's not something to wipe off lightly. That's something that will happen if you seriously engage in this digital space. And I do have to be mindful of if I'm going to respond to a certain comment, I kind of want to know who I'm responding to. Again, it's a little bit of research to make sure that this isn't just kind of a troll with hyper anti LGBT views, for instance, that is just going to use this as fuel to their hateful fire. I try to engage with people that are engaging in good faith, and I've had to do a lot of work in my own life of setting up rhythms of disconnecting because as much work as I've done to make sure I'm psychologically healthy as I'm doing this work. When you spend hours every day reading hundreds of comments telling you you're a false teacher that's leading people to hell and are going to burn in hell for eternity, that will get to the best of us. And so setting up rhythms of I'm going to pull back. I'm going to focus on my well being. The world doesn't need my TikToks every single day, and so I'm going to be fine if I disconnect and center myself a little bit. So those rhythms, I think, are really vital for anyone engaging in this space.

Ryan Dunn [00:25:01]:

Cool. Well, let's talk about that pullback rhythm then. Do you put almost like, office hours around the time that you'll spend on digital media?

Brandan Robertson [00:25:11]:

I'd love to say that I did that. There are periods in the past four or five years that I have done that very successfully. My life now looks just so many, so scattered because I'm spinning so many plates from a work perspective and a life perspective. And so what I do is I will limit content creation and engagement to no more than an hour or two a day. And there are like, up until last week, I was off TikTok for an entire month because things got very vitriolic and there were just a lot of concerning things I was seeing, and I was like, this is not good for me. And again, the other side of social media that I want to make clear is it can be very bad to our spiritual health in the sense of ego and in the sense of feeling like you're building an audience. And you need to keep building an audience, and you need to compete with other creators that are in the space to get a bigger audience. And whenever I find that rising up within myself, I really try to be disciplined enough to say, wow, this is not what I'm called to do. This is not who I'm called to be. Let me step back, let me disconnect, and let me make sure that I'm engaging in this work with authenticity and for the right reasons. And so, again, the digital world, it's a beautiful impactful space, but it is a cultivator of narcissism. It's a cultivator of divisiveness. And so we've got to own that, name that and create practices and boundaries around that to protect ourselves.

Ryan Dunn [00:26:47]:

Yeah, that's such a good reminder. We get caught up in the metrics of it. All right. Really, the key metric is making that relationship happen. Important reminder. Well, you're in such a wonderful position right now in terms of having built this platform, and I'm going to be fascinated to see how this translates over into your brick and mortar practice of ministry, for lack of a better way of putting it. But as you are kind of crossing this threshold now, is there something that you wish that you could kind of tell your younger self the Brandon Robertson who was just starting out on TikTok or just starting out as a blogger, whatever that may have made this transition of ministry easier.

Brandan Robertson [00:27:37]:

It's a good question. I think, on one hand, I would have told myself to start with more intentionality earlier. And so I do think and I recently had a book building your Digital sanctuary. And in the final chapter, I talk about how a failure to engage digitally right now, I think is a failure to live into the Great Commission. I don't think you can be a Christian pastor right now. That is not in some way engaging digitally, at least in the United States or in the Western world, because there are so many billions of people online. There are so many billions of people hungry for the good news of the gospel and for the Christian faith. And I never thought of myself as an evangelist, but I realized that, wow, if I utilize this tool in a serious and intentional way, I can reach people with good news. I can help people that are looking for God and haven't been able to find a path that works for them. And so I did spend so much of the first year of TikTok just kind of playing around. And yes, I was talking about theology, but I wasn't engaging intentionally. And I wish I would have thought through that earlier and better. But the other side of it is back to the boundaries like TikTok, social media, live streaming, zoom. This is not the only way that the world will continue to exist in the pandemic. I think. I know. I definitely talked as if digital was everything, and this is going to be the future, and we had to all get on board. The truth is, I think we're on the brink of a social revolution of disconnecting, and we're already seeing it in little ways. Like, the flip phone is coming back, and people are buying flip phones instead of smartphones. People want to be connected to nature, to the world, to the stuff around us, and not just on screens. And so I do look back at the last five years in particular and think about how many hours, if I could quantify it, I would be horrified how often I've been stuck to a screen. And I just do think we need to not lose sight of the fact that we are embodied human beings. The incarnation speaks to this. We need to be in the world. We need to be with each other. Screens are amazing. We have unprecedented opportunities to reach the world. But if we're not cultivating practices of incarnate reality, I think we're missing out on how we're supposed to experience life as human beings. And so I would start those practices and disciplines of disconnecting way earlier.

Ryan Dunn [00:30:24]:

All right, well, you're moving into this time in July of very directional incarnated ministry. I didn't know where to take that word. With that, though. You've already built these connections and these communities in digital space. Are you going to keep some of.

Brandan Robertson [00:30:41]:

That going totally with everything I just said? I would also say, like, again, every church needs to engage robustly in a digital ministry. I think every church that has the resources to do so should hire a digital minister. Our church, this church I'm going to is very small, and so I will have both roles of the in person minister and the digital minister, like many others, will have to do as well. But I do. And I have talked to this church of like, you're hiring me. And I want to carve out time to continue to cultivate this space because it does benefit. And I don't like to use that language, but it does. Benefit the brick and mortar community to know that we have this group out here that will be benefiting from our Sunday morning services and that many of the folks on my digital platforms I know will start showing up to our virtual services and want pastoral counseling and want to engage in Bible studies in the brick and mortar church. And so I haven't been doing it for a few years, so it'll be a little bit of a learning curve to reenter. But I am really excited to say the church that I'm the pastor of, we're not just in this building, there's community outside of it, and they want to belong. And I really look forward to finding ways to introduce the Incarnated congregation that will be with me in New York to the people that are outside of our walls. And it may not be the hundreds of people that were showing up during the pandemic, it might be twelve people, but there are twelve people out there that want to be a part of a community that don't have access to a community near them. And I'm excited to invite them into our space.

Ryan Dunn [00:32:17]:

Awesome. You may have just answered this question, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway. What are you dreaming of doing next in ministry?

Brandan Robertson [00:32:26]:

It's a good question. Technology changes so quickly, we all know that. And I'm already seeing the stuff about TikTok. All of this. This is old news now. There are new ways of doing digital ministry, and I'm already behind. And so I'm just really excited for the opportunities that continually pop up in this space. I think AI and Apple announcing virtual reality this week, this is stuff that back in the early 2000s, there were some Christians that were playing around with this. I think that's going to be an interesting new experience. What would it look like if we all have Apple goggles in a year and people can sit at their home but also be with me in my sanctuary in New York? And how does that change things? So I'm excited to continue learning and playing and experimenting, and I don't mean to sound trite. I think what I'm most excited about is continually harping on the good news of Jesus and watching people the best comments I get. And I would say any pastor, if you can get online and do some level of digital ministry, you will see this too. People showing up saying, I was about to leave the faith, but because of this sermon, because of this tweet, because of this blog post, you've shown me a different way of following Jesus and I want to learn more. And that's what gets me up in the morning. That's what makes me log on to TikTok, and I'm so honored to be able to do that.

Ryan Dunn [00:34:00]:

Well, where is the best entry point for people to start to follow along with what you're doing?

Brandan Robertson [00:34:07]:

Yeah, I would say if you're a pastor or a church worker interested in digital ministry, I edited this new book called Building Your Digital Sanctuary and it just came out a couple of months ago. I brought together some of the best people that I found across the Internet that were engaged in this digital space, and they wrote very accessible chapters on, just like here's some advice on what equipment to buy or how you should engage on Facebook or TikTok. So that's a great resource. And then Brandonrobertson.com has all of my stuff, all my social media, if it's helpful. And most importantly, if you're a pastor in this work, I just love sitting and talking with people and dreaming. So if I can be helpful, please reach out.

Ryan Dunn [00:34:49]:

Cool. Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us and for sharing the number of times that you've dropped the word good news. The words good news has been uplifting and it's wonderful to hear that kind of hopefulness and positivity moved out in that space. So thank you for offering that as well.

Brandan Robertson [00:35:09]:

Well, thank you for your good work and for uplifting this conversation because it is so important in this moment. So thanks.

Ryan Dunn [00:35:15]:

And that's going to put a wrap on this session of pastoring in the digital parish. Some good follow up episodes for this include our previous iteration of how it started versus how it's going with J earhart that was released in May of 2023, or if the TikTok info was super interesting to you. Well, then give a listen to our episode titled TikTok for Church. That was from February of 2023. Again, I'm Ryan Dunn. I'd like to thank Resourceumc.org, the online destination for leaders throughout the United Methodist Church. They make this podcast possible and of course, they host our website, Pastoringinthedigitalparish.com, where you can find more online resources for ministry. I also want to thank Safer Sanctuaries for their support. Again, a note about them. Safer Sanctuaries Nurturing Trust Within Faith Communities is a new and comprehensive resource that continues the tradition of safe sanctuary's ministry by building on its trusted policies and procedures. This resource contains theological grounding for the work of abuse prevention, basic guidelines for risk reduction, age level specific guidance, and step by step instructions on how to develop, revise, update and implement an abuse prevention plan. Contact them@safersanctuaries.org. If you want to connect with the Pastoring in the Digital Parish community, well, check out our Pastoring in the Digital Parish Facebook group. You can also send me questions and ideas for future sessions at digitalparish@umcom.org. Another session comes out next week. In the meantime, peace.