Hey everybody, this is John, your senior pastor at Englewood
Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.
Thanks for joining us for this episode.
I hope that you're listening across our spectrum of podcasts.
We're trying to record several things for you to give a a
varied menu, everything from prayer to Bible study.
We also have our sermons and our midweek Bible studies on podcast
as well. So I hope that you're tuning in
and listening to some of these these episodes that we're doing.
We have various guests who come in and and work with us today.
Today we're going to do an interesting podcast.
We're going to do a podcast about podcasts, which is a
little ironic because if you can find this podcast to listen to
this podcast, I don't know why you need help finding other
podcasts in order to listen to those podcasts, but perhaps you
still do. But we're also going to talk
about why podcasts in the 1st place.
There are millions of them. I shared with you in a previous
episode, how many podcasts exist in the world today?
I mean, there are millions and millions of them.
And why in the world are we doing this?
And I'll be honest with you, one of the main reasons we do this
here at Inglewood is because our members sometimes need
supplemental material to listen to you.
Also, we have folks who serve in so many different areas that
sometimes they miss some of the teaching that we might be
conducting and some of our normal weekly experiences as
well. So we want to make sure they
have the opportunity to hear that.
But we've also heard from people outside the church who are being
blessed by it. So we're thankful for that and
we hope that you enjoy this time.
If if nothing else, you're going to learn why we at Inglewood are
doing podcast. I have with me in the studio.
Justin Long's always with us run the show, which we always
appreciate. Justin, he would just waved at
you. But we also have with us our
director of communication, Avery Garrett's with us.
Welcome. Thanks for having me.
And then my administrative assistant who actually, I think,
runs my life and everything else, Michelle Farrell.
Thank you for having us. And these two work together a
lot in my office to help tell the story of Englewood and
Avery. Why in the world does a church
need an Office of Communication? Do you have anything?
Any thoughts about that? I think the church needs a
communications office to create the story of Englewood and to
bring awareness of the events and all the things we have going
on. It helps keep things organized
and us on the same page. We also have, you know, in
today's world we, you know, obviously have web pages and
social media platforms, apps, etcetera that that our our
members use. And you can also access us who
are very much aware of the fact that when we have visitors,
they're often looking at us through those portals first
before they physically show up. So what use are some of those?
What what what are what are the usefulness of apps, emails,
social media, web presence, podcasts, etcetera for
Englewood? They help communicate the
mission and vision as well as reaching people in places they
are every day. We are a part of a tech savvy
world, so it's important for the church to have a presence in
these places and it allows people to find information
easily and quickly. Michelle, you've been at the
church for a long time. So over the years the church
didn't always have these things, correct.
So have you, have you sensed from any of our people or or any
outside people about the usefulness of these things?
Yes, I think it's, it's very helpful.
For one, they don't have to wait until they arrive at church on
Sunday morning to get the information that they're looking
for. It's as we say, at their
fingertips and so and there's just so many different avenues
and options for them to to receive their communication and
news from the church. And there is a story that we're
trying to tell. We have we have mission
statements and vision statements and various goals.
We have wall art and logos and things like that.
You can come to Inglewood and probably get a ball cap or a
T-shirt, but but there's a story behind all of that symbolism and
those statements that we make. Avery, what do you think the
story is that we're trying to tell?
I think it ultimately boils down to the transformative power of
Jesus and how that changes how we live our lives.
And, and Michelle, think about, think about it over the years,
has that story ever changed here or has that been pretty
consistent? No, the story has not changed.
We have always saw the Lord's will and purpose to to glorify
Him through our lives and through the body of believers of
Inglewood. The faces have changed, of
course over the years quite a bit, but I say the story remains
the same because we consistently strive to to live and be
disciples who share God's story above our own.
And it's always interesting to me because, you know, I have a
background in church consulting and so I've just been exposed to
a lot of churches. You see a lot of statements and
bumper stickers and banners and, and bulletin headers and things
like that. But you know, and, and you ask
people, you know, describe your church to me.
You know, what are the five words you'd use to describe your
church? And so you, you have things like
friendly and prayerful or missions minded or different
things like that. But sometimes those things are
hard to communicate with people who don't, or it's hard to
convince people those things are actually true until they
actually come and visit. And so the impressions, which
are often the first impressions that we make are through these
portals, especially in our world today.
So, so Avery, how do you think we're trying to tell that story?
I think we're trying to do it through testimonials, live
capture of all the events that we have, just to share the story
and the impact that they have on people and why others should
come. Yeah, didn't take the place of a
hug, but, but, but if we can create a, if we could create a
digital hug, you know, a little bit along the way, but also the
seriousness of the message that we stand for and, and and and.
Are there any new ways that we think we need to adapt?
Are there some new ways coming up that we need to talk about
that that maybe we could reach out in a better way?
I think more multi generational concepts could be coming into
play, getting the students involved and just interacting
with the adults. And then obviously more
testimonials, but probably through video.
Because it is interesting, you know, if, if, and I'm going to
put this as a test so y'all get ready.
Justin can come in from a distance if he wants to.
But if I were to ask you, you know, one or two words to
describe Inglewood, one of the strengths of Inglewood, which is
interesting and sometimes people don't see it as a strength, but
it is, it's our multi generational dynamic.
And the fact that, you know, some people look at us and
they'll, they'll, you know, if they're from a if they're from a
church made real college kids, they're going to think we're an
old church, but we're, we're a balanced church.
And so we have a lot of kids, we have a lot of students, we have
a lot of their parents and then we have senior adults.
So we have all these generations, which I I love
because I think you get the the wisdom and the exposure to the
older Christians who bring us a stable, balanced perspective at
times. But you also have the energy of
the younger folks. And so if you're looking for a
family church, a multi generational church, you'll need
to come to Englewood. You all throw a word out.
Englewood is what any word from the past or the present I was.
Going to say well-rounded. Yeah, that's good.
We're known for a couple of things.
I think we're known for our missions efforts and mindedness.
We have several missionaries who have gone out and are still out
from the church. We do multiple mission trips
every year. We're involved in both North
American and international missions.
What are other adjectives? Michelle, you got an adjective
for Inglewood. I think within the community
we're known as a friendly body of believers and people who love
genuinely love one another and as a family and love our
community and desire to serve it well.
Yeah, and we're, we're in, we're a church known for its, I'll use
the word conservative, I guess, perspective on the Word of God.
We believe in the inerrancy of God's Word and we and we teach
it and preach it very expositionally and exegetically
here in both our small groups and in our pulpit time.
And so part of that's the story, you know, part of that.
How do you communicate that on a website or how do you
communicate that in a social media post?
And, and again, the idea of testimonials and reflecting on
live experiences are going to be helpful.
So one of the things that we want to do is we're, we're going
to actually walk you through and I'm going to be quiet for a
while and let these two ladies really take over.
How do you access all that we offer in the digital realm?
And so I don't know, Avery, you're going to go first or is
Michelle Michelle's going to go first?
I got the signal. Well, there are many, many on
ramps to reaching all the options that we have to
communicate. One of those of course is our
website. You know, websites have been
around for a long time. Pretty much everybody now are
very familiar with those. Our our website address is Ingle
www.inglewoodbaptist.com And from there you can click any tab
and find out any information that you need to know what about
Inglewood from if you're a brand new guest, we have a way that
you can walk through and learn where would you take your
children on Sunday? Where should you park on Sunday
was how do people dress at Inglewood on Sunday?
So that's, that's very helpful. We also have a church app that
we probably had now for maybe 8-8 or nine years.
I guess that's something that I personally love is very helpful
and it's it's very easy to use and you can access any and all
information about Englewood there as well.
To find our church app, you can go into your favorite App Store
and the name of our app is EBC Rocky Mt.
So just search that in your App Store and download it and you'll
be moving on towards finding out all things Inglewood.
The other Ave. that we rely heavily on in our culture is
social media. And here at Inglewood Baptist,
we have chosen to focus our social media efforts on Facebook
and Instagram as our main platforms for which we post
content on. And you can find us on Facebook
and Instagram as well at by searching EBC Rocky Mt When you
do find us and follow us to stay up to date on everything that's
happening around Inglewood and how we're telling our story and
sharing testimonies that Avery mentioned earlier, all for the
one purpose of sharing the gospel and the you can also, if
you would follow us. And we also love it when you
also share our post that helps helps us greatly to get our
message out into further reaches of the the the world.
So, and then also the the hot topic on tap today is podcast.
You can find podcast on our app. You can find podcast on our
website. You can find our podcast on your
favorite podcast player. So there's just many, many
options for reaching those things.
And I guess it really boils down to what what's your individual
preference for how you seek those things?
But I strongly encourage you to at least try one and find it,
and whatever you're comfortable with, use that.
And for some of you who might be listening to this outside the
church, you know, when I mentioned earlier, we're multi
generational, you know, it, there are generational
perspectives on communication and and generational
perspectives on digital usage and platforms, etcetera.
But it's been it's been interesting to me anyway, I
haven't sensed and I'm sure maybe at one point there was
before my arrival here. But you know, we, we have senior
adults and they and they've adapted fairly well, I feel like
to digital communication. And so even internally within
your church, we don't do, I mean, we don't do any hard copy
Mailer unless it would be a rare exception.
And I know that may just seem like a dust statement to some of
you hearing this, but for some churches, it's not.
And to be able to make that transition to where you can get
information out much faster and much easier and obviously much
cheaper in ways. And so, yeah, even even even the
old fashioned way of e-mail at this point, because e-mail and
Facebook are old fashioned at this point to a lot of
generations. But for a multi generational
church, they're still grandma's way of keeping up with the
grandkids. And so we try to utilize all the
platforms that we can. Avery, you got anything to add
to that? I can walk people through the
easiest way to find the podcast and if they're going to use a
podcast platform, how to get to where they're going.
The easiest way to find podcasts is to go to our app and you look
under the media tab at the bottom and navigate to the
Listen on Demand section of that page.
And then you'll be able to pull up all the past podcast sermons
by series. And they're all organized by
date, so it's easier to find information there.
But if you prefer using a podcast platform, the easiest
way to find Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights is to search
Inglewood Baptist Church and they all populate there and
you'll have to scroll to find the episode you're looking for.
But for the special series, you will will have to search that
series by its name to find that podcast since it's not part of
the Sunday and Wednesday night platform.
So again, you might find it interesting that we're doing a
podcast about how to find podcasts on a podcast where
people should already be able to find the podcast in order to
learn about podcast. But what we're going to do,
believe it or not, is we're going to advertise how to get to
this episode of a podcast very specifically so that then they
can follow the rest of this to get to the other podcast.
Because I'm not sure about you, but I want people to cast their
pods. And so I hope, I hope that this
makes sense to you and, and I hope that the questions that we
often get on where can I find that podcast can finally be
answered a once and for all. And so I appreciate so much you
all helping out and thanks for all that you do.
If anybody really wants to know behind the scenes at Inglewood
and how things really work, these three people are key parts
of that and they're appreciated very much.
And I hope you'll join us for other episodes.
Seriously, we have all kinds of teaching.
I'm getting ready to do a series in the Book of Romans coming up,
and also a series on heaven, hell, and the hereafter that
you'll enjoy. We're going to talk about what
happens the second that you die and what happens for eternity.
So we're going to be talking about that coming up and some
episodes coming your way. So thanks for joining us.
If you're in the area and you don't have a home church, come
see us at Inglewood on Sundays at 9:15 or 10:45.
We'd love to see you come up and introduce yourself to me and
tell you tell me that you heard me on this podcast.
Thanks for joining us.