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Stories That Move
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Stories That Move
Understanding FILO with Todd Elliot: First In, Last Out
In this conversation, Todd Elliott shares his journey from a childhood immersed in church activities to becoming the president of Fusion Productions and the founder of the FILO Conference. He discusses the importance of building trust between tech teams and church leaders, the challenges faced by tech personnel, and the evolution of church productions. He shares insights on writing his book, the impact of technology on church services, and the need for authentic engagement in church missions. Todd emphasizes the significance of leadership in guiding tech teams and the potential of technology to enhance church outreach and community involvement.
FILO Conference, church production, Todd Elliott, Fusion Productions, community, technical artists, nonprofit, AV, church leadership, encouragement, trust, technology, church production, leadership, communication, book writing, church events, tech advancements, community, future aspirations
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If I don't try this now, I probably will get stuck into an engineering job that I don't love, and I can remember my parents were not super thrilled, honestly, with my choice at the time. You know why did we spend all this money on you going to engineering school? If you're going to work for a church, every decision point along the way. That's kind of how I've approached it. There's an opportunity here and I want to go after it, and if it falls on its face, then move on. But yeah, why not give it a try?
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of Stories that Move. I'm Mason Geiger and, as always, I'm here with my co-host, matt Duhl. Today's conversation is going to be a great one, especially for those who live at the intersection of faith, creativity and production.
Speaker 3:Our guest today is Todd Elliott, the president of Fusion Productions, founder of Philo Conference and author of I Love Jesus, but I Hate Christmas. Todd has spent his career shaping and leading in the world of church production, helping creatives and technical teams navigate the challenges of their roles while staying connected to their faith and purpose.
Speaker 2:This is gonna be a special episode where Matt will be joined by our chief of staff, alexis Grant. They'll dive into Todd's journey from the founding of Philo to the lessons he's learned in leadership, creativity and faith.
Speaker 3:This episode is packed with insights for creatives, leaders and anyone who has ever struggled with balancing faith and work, so let's jump in. Please welcome Todd Elliott to Stories that Move. Welcome back to Stories that Move. I'm your host, Matt Duhl. Thank you so much for joining us with me today. I've got Alexis Grant Alexis.
Speaker 4:Hello.
Speaker 3:Good to see you again. Good to see you too. Thanks for joining us on this episode, and we could not be more excited about our guest today, todd Elliott, who is the president of Fusion Productions, founder of the Philo Conference and president of Philo Community, which is a nonprofit organization, and Alexis, you know Todd.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that I do. We are best friends from way back then. But you know what? I've been able to see the work and impact of Todd through similar circles. We both attended Willow Creek Community Church years ago. We've Todd through similar circles. We both attended Willow Creek Community Church years ago. We've run in similar circles. He's been able to come alongside as a partner in past projects that I've done through an agency that I was employed with. And it's just so cool, todd, to see you here, to be able to talk to you outside of just what I'm reading in your book, what I'm reading on your post, what I'm hearing, all the great comments from our mutual connections and, yeah, I'm just really excited to have you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for having me. It's good to see you again, alexis.
Speaker 4:Likewise.
Speaker 1:Nice to meet you too, Matt.
Speaker 3:Yes, Great to meet you and thrilled to have you. So for our listeners, Todd, just dive in. Tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you're doing about yourself, who you are, what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, as you mentioned, president of Fusion Productions, a small production company in the Chicagoland area doing all different kinds of events, but mostly where my heart is is the Philo conference and the Philo community, so I've been doing both those things. This is year 11, turns out, since I decided to quit my job and try something new. There's a whole story there. But yeah, the Philo community our goal really is to equip and encourage church technical artists around the world. That's what we're about.
Speaker 1:And so that's been something that has been part of my DNA for the last 25 years at least, and it's been an interesting journey, not necessarily maybe around the world 25 years ago, but just that idea that here's a group of people that, wherever they are, well, most churches have a tech team, a tech person volunteer, a staff that feels alone and misunderstood and kind of overworked, and so mostly that's how I felt when I was doing that and so that we get to be able to provide some of that encouragement and maybe help them get better at a skill. But we're really hoping if we can help create more effective humans that will make them better at being a tech person at their church, but also a better spouse, a better coworker, just better at life. So that's sort of what we're about so cool.
Speaker 3:I feel like I hear a collective amen from around the country, all the people who are in the trenches of AV for church world. That hits home for me for sure. What does Philo stand for?
Speaker 1:So Philo stands for first in, last out, which is mostly an accounting term, or maybe, if you're a Marine or a firefighter, all those people kind of use that term, but for us that's how most church tech people feel. Know they they get there before uh anybody else to turn the lights on, unlock the door and then, uh yeah, shut the lights off at the end. You know, when everybody's having sunday brunch they're still there, kind of shutting things down. So, um, yeah, it was just uh, um, honestly, it was a blog that I wrote back when you know, blogs were a huge all the rage back in the I don't know 2000s Pre-podcast days.
Speaker 1:That's right, yes, and I'm not sure where I picked it up from, but yeah, it just sort of became the name of what we're doing now, all these years later.
Speaker 3:I love I mean, I really don't know if there's a more perfect term for that group of people Just yeah, so true, so true.
Speaker 4:Yeah, even on our end as producers, right, like that's kind of the motto that we go by as well without knowing it. It is that first and last out mentality that often goes either unseen, unheard or unappreciated. So I love that you're providing an outlet for that to be known.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like it's just from the name itself. Somebody who's doing production in their local church can be like oh, that's me, that's who I am, just from the name. And then, like I said, because everybody who's producing the conference or being a part of our cohorts or whatever it is we're doing, we're all doing church production, so we all understand it and so it's real easy to feel seen and understood in a group of people that are kind of doing the same thing. You are, yeah yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:So just hearing a little bit about who you are, what you're doing, your journey, I mean, what stands out to me is clearly you are probably someone who leads with a servant's mindset, of a lot of behind the scenes and what it means to come and support people who are standing on the stage and kind of getting that spotlight. Todd, I'd love to take it back and just kind of rewind a little bit back to your childhood and just understand, maybe, where some of that comes from. So where are you originally from? What did life look like for you growing up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm originally from the Detroit area, grew up in a place called Rochester, michigan. My childhood, I mean, I was kind of into more of the arts than I was sports. So I was into music and painting, whatever as a little kid and my mom would sign me up for art classes or whatever. But really one of the defining moments of my childhood, or just things we were about, is that my mom served at church. That was her, that's what she did. So she was in the choir, she helped you know hospitality stuff, and so I would just go with her.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting, I have a, I had an older brother. He didn't, he didn't really ever go with, so it was just my mom and I and we would go do this stuff every week, every weekend, just part of what we did. And somewhere in the early 80s just to date myself my mom decided it was time to go to a different church. She didn't really like she and a group of people were like, yeah, this is getting a little too more social issues than the Bible being preached, and so they all ended up eventually starting a church. We met in a middle school band room and it was like 30 or 40 people and with no know, it was just a bunch of people doing this thing together and that just became part of the routine. Was my life that just kept growing from that young age.
Speaker 3:Wow, wow. So at what point for you did that move from hey, this is kind of the world I'm growing up in, this is just kind of natural. I'm pulling in a lot of things, just osmosis of being around it, to kind of pivoting, to like hey, I think this is career for me, I think there's some lane for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's interesting to think about.
Speaker 1:You know, if I remember the very first moment I did production stuff at church, and it was at this church that we had started, we'd moved from the band room to the cafetorium, so it's like a cafeteria with a stage, lots of fluorescent lights and by this time I think we had a pastor, we'd hired somebody and I had a friend that he was responsible for the one microphone that the pastor had on, which was actually it looked like a handheld microphone on a necklace, so like a physical. You know it was ugly as all get out, but you know it worked it's amazing. And we had Like picturing it right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know, so awful, but we so we had that one microphone and we recorded the message on a cassette recorder, and so I would just sit next to my friend and he would control the one mic and I would hit record on the tape deck.
Speaker 1:That was my job, but then one day he didn't, he didn't show up, he just didn't come. And I thought, oh my gosh, I mean I only know how to put in record, I don't know how to like make this mic work. But that was sort of the beginning of how it all started. From then I just kept doing it and as that church grew, I grew with it. So we're adding a keyboard or adding a guitar or two mics, or just.
Speaker 1:I kept growing with it and, yeah, found that I had kind of a knack for this production thing, which you know. I had no other inclination that that was going to be what I was going to be about, or that I really enjoyed it. And but I also didn't have a, a frame of reference for like, oh, you could do this for a living, I was just doing it because I loved it. And a frame of reference for like, oh, you could do this for a living, I was just doing it because I loved it. Yeah. And the other thing I realized about it was that when I was in the back, you know, controlling the sound or whatever, that things seemed to go relatively well.
Speaker 1:And when I wasn't there, usually I'd hear about it Wow, yeah, you know like, oh man, things fell apart last week. I'm like I don't understand, Like that's never happened. When I'm there, I don't get it and so, but something about even people looking in the back of the room this is what I figured out eventually was that I would just stay calm and solve the problems and so I wouldn't panic and I'm just like a high school kid. But when the people on the platform saw me back there, they'd be like, oh, everything's gonna be fine. Thank goodness Todd's there.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, exactly. So I don't think I fully appreciated it as a high school kid, but looking back I was like, oh, this is who God made me to be, and yeah, it would be nice to do this for a career. But I had no real Back in those days. No churches had a tech person. Yeah right, even in the professional world of production, I didn't know anybody. I didn't even know it was a thing, and so, honestly, hopefully the story isn't too long but I decided to go to college. Mostly my parents decided for me. It was just kind of the thing we're going to college.
Speaker 1:And so I felt like my parents were sort of pushing me to get an engineering degree. That was sort of the expectation.
Speaker 1:And so I went to school for engineering and in the back of my mind I kept thinking well, maybe if I do electrical engineering or something like that, it would give me a leg up on this production thing If I could figure out how to actually do that. But still had no idea. But it turns out electrical engineering was way outside of my like. I was lost from the very beginning okay, like I did not get this at all, it's too theoretical.
Speaker 1:Um, anyway, so I ended up switching to industrial engineering, which turns out very much how I'm wired up, and I mostly picked it because it was the it was, was I was still in engineering, but it felt less theoretical, like you know, instead of switching to a business major or something. I'm like still in engineering but, you know, more hands-on. Yeah, anyway, all this to say, I'm, uh, one day I was sitting in my room, uh, my, at my apartment eating lunch. I was by myself, I was listening to some music on this little tiny boom box. I think it was a CD, yeah, I was like maybe it was a cassette tape, this is a long time. Yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was listening to the mix and how the sounds were all coming together and I thought I got to be crazy not to want to do that, like to be about making stuff like this, not this engineering thing. And I had, again, still no idea how to actually accomplish that. But I'm like, I think I need to go after this, and for me it was a very kind of spiritual holy moment for me. And so, yeah, I don't the steps I took. I still had no clue how to actually do this, but the church that I was a part of in high school. A group of people decided, hey, we're going to start our own church and our church was about church planting, and so this felt very natural. And they're like it's going to be a Willow Creek style church and I'm like I don't even know what that means. Yeah, what is that? Yeah, yeah, this is in the eighties still.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, okay yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, willow Creek was kind of this huge sensation through the eighties and nineties. And so in 1989, I was home on school, you know, from a school break or something, and these friends of mine decided, hey, let's go to Willow Creek to a service. And I'm like, oh sure, all on the inside of this van and we I don't know six or seven of us go down to drive from Detroit to Willow Creek for a Wednesday night service. And it was the. I just had no concept of what church could be like. Just the size of the building itself. Which ridiculous. It was less than half the size it is today. But back in those days I was like what is this place Just so huge? And even then, experiencing the service from a production standpoint the full band, a horn section, lights, colored lights Back in those days they had this big screen that came out of the floor that filled the whole stage opening and they did a nine slide projector slideshow across this huge thing and it changed my life, I mean it seems so ridiculous now.
Speaker 1:But I was like, okay, this is what I wanna be about, yeah, and so this church that we went to visit Willow eventually started and that was kind of our goal was to do this kind of seeker, targeted, you know very topical services.
Speaker 1:And so I ended up my senior year of college helping kind of with the launch services and this sort of thing. And then eventually, when I graduated, I ended up working there doing not only very little production actually, I was doing the audio part of it, but the rest of it somebody else was handling and I was doing all kinds of other stuff like service planning. I was writing out charts for the band, listening to music and writing it down. I had no experience doing that, but why not learn, anyway? So that sort of was the kind of how it all happened. And I ended up working at that church for 11 years in the Detroit area and went from meeting in a high school well, first meeting in a junior high cafetorium that seems to be the theme here yes, yes, on air conditioned, by the way, I just couldn't believe that that was still a thing and then, yeah, high school theater, and then to our own building, yeah, yeah, but I love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love it. Thank you for sharing that. And to me it's such a throwback to my childhood. So I mean, just quickly I remember so the church that we went to I think we started when I was in third grade was meeting in a roller skating rink, right, and it was that like carrying the aluminum chairs and again that was like the gauge of your spirituality as a young, like how many chairs can you carry?
Speaker 3:Like that was like the gauge of your spirituality as a young, like how many chairs can you carry? Like that's how that meant something and this is how insane this was. This is again back in the 80s. So roller skating rink. Someone from the church owned a childcare facility that was a couple miles down the road. We'd come together as a family, you know kind of the intro worship moment, and then all the kids and again it wasn't many people at the time, but we'd all leave and we'd go climb in this dude's VW van and he would drive us to the childcare facility for, like, our kids.
Speaker 3:And it's like that would never happen today.
Speaker 3:Like, just like, hey, kids go out to the parking lot and get in a weird van and go down to the childcare facility, like, again, this was before the mega church, where everything was found in one roof, and so, yeah, thinking back to those days like that just feels so, so familiar, and I think that the AV setup at the time was like a bullhorn right.
Speaker 3:So I mean it was yeah, yeah, oh, that's so cool. Well, it's so cool to see you lean into just some God-given DNA, right, and to really uncover those as passions. And I think, yeah, just as people you know, as we get to talk to younger people and we have interns that come through Dream On Studios and we work with the local high school and people are talking about trying to figure out their place, I think what you just laid out to me is such a perfect path of just try some stuff right, just get in the mix, get in the booth, let it be messy, and all of a sudden it's like oh my gosh, I actually love this, and people are saying I'm really good at it and they're happy when I'm in the booth because things work well. So really really cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think, even on top of that too, just this ability to lean in even when it's hard or awkward, like you know with your friend. Well, he didn't show up that one Saturday morning and you're like, it's okay, I've got this you know, I may not know everything, but just that that stance of humility, of like, okay, it'll all be all right, it'll turn out just out just fine you know, and then even pressing in further and asking those hard questions of like is this something I could do with the rest of my life?
Speaker 4:you know, yeah, um, yeah, that's just awesome yeah, I.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I felt very much like if I don't try this now, I probably will get stuck into an engineering job that I don't love. And I can remember my parents were not super thrilled, honestly, with my choice. Sure, yeah, at the time, you know why did we spend all this money on you going to engineering school, if you're going to work for a church, but, honestly, I wouldn't have changed anything. But, yeah, I told them I didn't want to live a life where I was just working to get to the weekend. I had enough money. I'm making enough money that I can enjoy the weekend. I'm like I want to enjoy all the days.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so okay if that means I don't have a boat or a second home or whatever that's fine, yeah, but to really, yeah, to enjoy going to work and loving what I get to do and um, I mean, you know, when I think about it as a 20 I think I was 23, 22, something like that just, I mean, I had no idea what I was telling my parents, you know right yes, yeah, um, but yeah really felt like I need to try this and if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, and I think there's been so much in my life that that's how I've approached it.
Speaker 1:I'm like, if I don't try this, I'm going decision point along the way. Is that's kind of how I've approached it, that that there's an opportunity here and I want to, I want to go after it and if it, if it falls on its face, then move on. But yeah, yeah, yeah, why not give it a try?
Speaker 3:That's awesome. That's awesome. So, coming back to Philo, what have you found? Because, as I'm thinking through that and what you're doing there and your mission there, my mind's going to the reality of just churches across the country are coming in a lot of different places, right? I mean, I think here in our county we have small 80,000 people, but there's 200 churches. Okay, there's a handful of churches that are larger, that have a production team, some sense of people. There's some other ones that have more of a volunteer based team, and then there's a lot that it's just like there's just kind of one person. That's this hand.
Speaker 3:So, talk to me about that and just how you are helping to kind of connect with people in all those different spaces, and just how you are helping to kind of connect with people in all those different spaces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I think it's so interesting because there are people that are coming to Philo from all different sized churches. And you know, just like you were saying, and the thing of it is, in my experience I think it was a big eye-opener for me when I moved from the church that I was at in Michigan to working at Willow Creek Church, who I think arguably at the time you would look at them and say they've got it all figured out Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just by looking at what they're doing, Once I got on the inside, I'm like, oh, they have as many problems as we did at the church in Michigan. There's really no difference, other than scale. They've got more zeros behind their budget than I do. But the reality is that the issues I had with my relatively small church, relative to Willow Creek small church experience, to what Willow was doing, it all boiled down to a lot of the same things that this system is going bad and we need to upgrade it and I can't afford it. So I'm gonna make do with what I have. I'm having a conflict with my worship pastor and I don't know how to resolve it. I feel like I'm being asked to do more than I have time for or the resources to do All the things. They're all the same and it's just a scale issue, and I would even maybe take it one step further.
Speaker 1:So in the Philo world we have these things called cohorts, which are online small groups essentially, so usually about 10 people, and I led one recently that there was one person from Hawaii in the group and two guys from Germany in the group and then people all over the rest of the United States, and the only difference was the guys in Germany spoke German as their first language. I mean, otherwise it was the same experience. You know the pastor doesn't know what he's asking for, we don't have enough time, we don't have enough resources. You know just all the same things. And so I think it's unfortunate part about that disparity between small churches and big churches is that it's real easy for both ends of the spectrum to kind of say I have nothing to learn from that, from your experience, and I think it just requires us. We usually encourage our community like open your mind up to learning from everyone, because there's really less difference here than you could imagine. And just maybe a short story I was doing a conference years ago in this little Canadian town and there were like 50 people came production people, production people, and we were talking about that relational disconnect that sometimes exists between the production booth and the stage and how to bridge that gap.
Speaker 1:And in the middle of the day we took a break and a couple of guys came up to me and they're like we're from a really small church and this really isn't hitting what we were hoping it was going to be about. And I'm like what we were hoping it was going to be about. I'm like well, do you have a question? Let's talk about what it is you are looking for. And they're like well, we're wondering if we should go to electric drums because the acoustic drums are too loud. I'm like oh, interesting, so have you talked to the drummer about playing quieter? No, like, this is what we've been talking about all all morning. You know this idea of like building this relationship so that you know you're getting what you need and they're getting what they need. And yeah, anyway, I just thought it was so funny that it's real easy to just sort of feel like oh, this doesn't apply to me because you're a mega church, or this doesn't apply to me because you only have a hundred people coming to your church. I think it's all similar, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's good. How would you say, I think, kind of going along that relational line, what would your encouragement be on the other side, like if you were speaking to the senior pastor or the worship pastor or the elder? Again, I've sat in elder meetings where it was like they're being critical of the sound and one elder is having a DB meter in the back of the room and it's like it's just too loud and that's a real story. So it's like it's just too loud and that's a real story. So it's like what do you do in those instances to just encourage that side of the relationship?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think it's real interesting because the senior pastor or pastoral leadership or you know you talk about an elder board most of those people have no concept of what it takes to do, what the production person is doing, how much time it takes, how many resources, how much programming time all these things they just don't really have a concept of. And so I would just encourage leaders to, yeah, find out, ask questions, because I think what generally ends up happening is, if a pastor has an idea, I'll just speak for me. This is how I operated. Pastor has an idea, I say, yes, I work all night, I make it happen, and then, if one little thing goes wrong, somebody's telling me about that, but not about how amazing the rest of the stuff was. And so you add up those experiences over enough time.
Speaker 1:You start to get a pretty defeated tech person. Yeah, because the only time you're talking to me is when you want something or when I've, when something's gone wrong, whether it's my fault or not, and so one of the things that that is so important in this relationship is trust. Like I talked about it earlier, like when people saw me in the production booth, they're like it's gonna be okay. That's what most churches need is that level of trust, and I would say in most churches it doesn't exist. And for us at Philo, we do a lot of teaching and communicating and encouragement on the tech person to say there's a lot of this that's up to you.
Speaker 1:You can make a difference in this trust relationship. This isn't out of your hands. And so what can you do differently? How can you be different? The reality is that trust is a two-way street, and so a tech person can do everything in their power to build that bridge, but if there's nobody building it in the other direction, then it is not going to work. And so I would say for church leaders how well do you know your tech person or your teams outside of the services or the things that aren't going well? Do you know their family's names?
Speaker 1:Do you know how long it's taking them to do your request taking them to do your request and now part of it is the way God has designed the body of Christ.
Speaker 1:That, hey, everybody has a role to play, and so I wouldn't ever ask the senior pastor to know in detail everything that needs to get done to pull off a service, but at least to have some level of empathy for what your production team is going through.
Speaker 1:And I would say too, it's always helpful to, if you have an idea, if you're a senior pastor and you have an idea of something to do, to ask questions about, okay, now, what will this take and what's involved? And help me understand, Because, like I said, for me I would always just jump in and get it done and not consider I should be home with my family tonight, but instead I'm going to pull off this, what seems like a ridiculous idea from the senior pastor. I like to think that most people are reasonable, and so it's something for me as a tech person. People are reasonable, and so it's something for me as a tech person. I started realizing like, oh, I'm just going to tell you what is involved, and then if you say, absolutely we should do it, then I know it's important. Or if you just say, oh gosh, it was just an idea.
Speaker 4:Nevermind that those questions get to that point of not everything is stay up all night to get done kind of priority, yeah, yeah, yeah, that level of yeah prioritization, because everything can seem urgent, right, and depending on the tone of how it's presented too, and so what I'm hearing is all right. Pastors or leaders, read the room.
Speaker 4:And not just read the room, but remember that I too am human, or I too have a family, or I too have other thoughts around this, and so how can we openly communicate about that right and have that level of empathy that you mentioned?
Speaker 1:I mean I feel for you yeah, just real quick too that one of the challenges and this is a super generalization I'm about to make. But most tech people are super introverted and tend to be a little awkward.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm one of those people.
Speaker 3:Let's raise our hands. I'm just talking about myself.
Speaker 1:And so part of what happens is that I feel like a lot of senior leaders don't know how to lead that person because it's awkward, and so they end up not leading that person. They do a horrible job of engaging in a meaningful leadership way, and so what ends up happening is the tech person just kind of left to their own devices, maybe doing what the church needs, maybe not. Maybe saying no to things they should say yes to. And because it's awkward, nobody really knows how to lead that person. I would just encourage church leaders.
Speaker 1:That tech person is desperate for direction and leadership and the reality is they are as passionate about the church's mission as anybody at your church and it just comes off a little awkward. And so if you can lead them and harness that I mean I'm biased because I'm a production person I feel like if you can harness that, the church is unstoppable. I mean I'm biased because I'm a production person. I feel like if you can harness that, the church is unstoppable. I mean what technology can do for the message of Christ around the world is like, yeah, incomparable.
Speaker 3:No, that is gold, what you just said and I think you know, because again you kind of took the words out of my mouth and I'm thinking through just some of my different experiences of, sometimes, the tech people. They're just known as the grumpy person, right, it's just like they're like.
Speaker 3:I don't want to ask them for anything because I'm afraid of them, like they're going to be mean to me and go back to your office that's in the closet behind the kitchen, you know, like whatever and it is. It's just that it's this group of brilliant people and again, we're kind of generalizing in broad brushstroke here, because there's different personalities, but, yeah, a lot of them they do have that engineer mind and that internal and this deep passion and this deep passion. And so I think a challenge to just say, hey, you gotta step in and lead, you gotta step in and develop relationship is just so key. And here's what I love about this we're talking a very specific lane right now in church, world, church production, but we're talking about stuff that applies to any business, right, we're talking about stuff that applies to any organization of.
Speaker 3:You could say the same thing maybe towards, like, the accounting department of like, oh, these are the scary people that I don't want to, and it's like, no, they're numbers people, hr. Right, no, these are the people. So I just I think for, for anyone listening right now, what? What a great, great call and reminder to just pause in the midst of what's going on in your world and say, hey, hey, are we checking in relationally, are we taking a moment to just take stock of, like God-given DNA and personality and respecting that? So I just I love that, I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I think to me the other big part of it is that the so as somebody that leads an organization now, so I feel like I'm in a different role than I was as a production person, where a lot of times I'll have the idea I'm the one with the crazy idea, and so I've learned that it's important for me to just say I sometimes preface my before I tell my crazy idea. I'm like this is just a thought and an idea, this is. I don't want to derail anything or make anybody work late, here's the idea. And just to give people the permission to be like yeah, you're right, we don't have time for that.
Speaker 3:But let's put it on a list somewhere. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I just think that's something that I've learned know more of an organizational leader. Is that? Oh, give people the option of you know, be honest with me right now, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been helpful language for me so good, so good.
Speaker 3:So, todd, you wrote a book called I Love Jesus, but I Hate Christmas. I love that. Tell us about the book.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I had a when I was working at the church in Michigan. We were doing a Christmas party and the youth group leaders were in charge of the staff Christmas party and so one of the things they had done was done some mock books that some of the staff people had written, and so that was the book that I had written that they had, you know, they'd come up with that name and I still have. Like they had wrapped a book, you know, with a new book cover and I love Jesus but I hate Christmas and it got a ton of laughs. So this is like in the maybe the 90s.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:I mean a long, long time ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And we'll eventually come back to the title, but the yeah, the writing of the book. It's kind of a long story, but the short version is I had a meeting once a week in the maybe 2006. So this is going back a long time. I'm working at Willow Creek at a weekly meeting that was two hours long and to me it felt like it could have been 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:It was just like the most boring drawn out meeting and I thought I need some way to seem like I'm engaged with what's going on here. And in that meeting everybody had their laptops open. So I was like, okay, I'm going to be working on something. What should I work on? Like I need something to do here.
Speaker 1:Okay, if I ever wrote a book, what would the chapter titles be? That was my first. I don't know why that idea, but I just started writing in this Word document and writing, and writing, and writing. And so every time there was one of these two-hour meetings, I would just keep adding oh, that's a good story, or this is a good chapter title, or I just started compiling and pretty soon it's like I don't know, I have like 25 pages of stuff. I'm like I think this is actually something, not just a way to stay, not just journal entries. Keep from being bored. Yeah, right, right, um. So I just I kept writing um, uh, and it dragged on for years and years and years and I thought, um, I'm not something I've learned about myself. Uh, I've been taking the um, um, oh gosh, now I've totally forgotten what the personality profile is called.
Speaker 3:Enneagram.
Speaker 4:Miles.
Speaker 1:No, it's the one with the Patrick Lencioni Working genius, working genius Widget, yeah, widget. And one of my working frustrations is tenacity. So I'm just horrible at finishing stuff, and so this book was one of those. Okay, I probably had an 80% written for 10 years. Okay, and yeah, just finally, with the team at Philo, got it across the finish line. But when it came time to you know, actually have a title for the book. You know, I love Jesus, but I hate Christmas still was the winner after 20 years or something, I actually have a title for the book. I love Jesus, but I hate Christmas still was the winner after 20 years or something. And so I reached out to my friend who came up with the title. I'm like, do you mind if I use it? And I think I even gave him credit in the kind of acknowledgement section. But yeah, I just think it says so much about you. Know, most tech people can identify with that statement.
Speaker 1:You know, Christmas services are a huge weight to carry and, yeah, usually it kind of ruins your life in December and so, anyway, yep, still love Jesus, but, man, I could do without Christmas.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, so good so good, and I think too maybe just to get to the point of like why I even wrote it the reality was that for me it was a very spiritual experience of the you know, feeling like I had things that I believed about doing production in the local church that I the writing them down really helped solidify. What do I actually believe about these things. But then I felt like you know what, if somebody else could benefit from this exercise, then that would be a bonus. And so if I could write all this down and, you know, one person could benefit from this, then I think that would be a worthwhile pursuit. And so that was really trying to get it across the finish line to say this let's just try to help as many people as we can.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love it Really good, we will. We'll certainly link to that and point people towards that. So curious from you, like you've been around a lot of environments from you know churches, church productions, other productions what would you say is just the most over the top? And maybe it's inside the church of like, as we've seen churches grow and getting more mega, you know they've kind of really pushed the envelope of what a service looks like. What's the most just over the top moment. You're like I can't even believe this is happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I would say the very first thought that has come to mind is that back in 2009 or something like that, we had sort of a new creative leadership at Willow Creek as far as how to do services, and so we were in a room, probably in September or August, something like that, to talk about what are we doing for Christmas. And I've learned over the years that I need to keep my mouth shut in the early stages of creativity, because I will just start shutting them down Like I will tell you exactly why that can't work. So I just learned most of these ideas are never happening. So, just like, keep your mouth shut and be a team player. And so this particular year, I mean the ideas were insane and I just thought these are never happening. So, just like, keep it to yourself.
Speaker 1:I think we did all of them. We did all every crazy idea we threw in there and you know it was. It was probably it was before churches were doing it Seems like I see it a lot now, but like flying people in the air aerial.
Speaker 4:Yes, I think that was my first service at Willow. Yes, I think that was my first service at Willow, actually.
Speaker 2:Oh really, oh my gosh 2009.
Speaker 4:Yep, that sounds about right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean you can have all kinds of questions about why do that and that sort of thing, and I would say it was a very attractional event. I mean people came. It was like their Christmas event that they went to as a family. So, in that regard, you know, people coming to church that wouldn't normally be there, which was kind of our jam. But yeah, I just can remember that year. I'm like I can't believe we're doing all these things. On one hand, should we have done them all? Probably not, but it was like I think we were trying to prove something to ourselves and to you know I don't know the man who knows yeah, that, yeah, we're going to do all these and yeah, it all went great and everybody who was involved in it, you know, super proud of the work we did. I don't think it would work today, certainly, Right, right, yeah, I just remember we're going to do what now. Yes, this is actually happening.
Speaker 4:Circus de Soleil.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah that's right. Yeah, well, todd, as we are wrapping up here, what are you excited about for the future? What do you got coming up, things that you are leaning into?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we've got another Philo conference coming up, may 6th and 7th, I believe, in the Chicagoland area. So that's sort of we're very deep into that preparation for that. So that's kind of our most immediate thing on the horizon. And I would say the thing I'm most excited about just we've been talking about it a lot in this podcast just the idea of for Philo for the last 11 years we've been doing, focused our attention on okay, how can we help the tech person become more effective? How can we help that individual turn a corner?
Speaker 2:and become more effective.
Speaker 1:How can we help that individual turn a corner, learn a new skill, feel like they're not alone, feel seen and understood, and how can they start bridging the trust bridge to their platform? What can they do? And I think maybe it's because I'm older or whatever, but thinking about, we have all these people coming to Philo and at the end they're going to go back to a situation that they can affect the world in their immediate vicinity. Turn not only the tech person, but turn like how a church, what their expectations are for the production and their production person.
Speaker 1:You know, honestly, the role of the technical artist in the local church is new. Yeah, right, yeah, I was just trying to even think. Is it like 2010 when it seemed normal that people had a TD at their church, a technical director? And so I think a lot of technical directors don't really know what their job is and I think a lot of churches don't really know what the job is. And so, looking for ways to okay, how can we change the perspective of the church on what it means to have a production team and how to lead them? And because, like I said before, I feel like if there's a well-led production team at a church and they are on board with the mission of the church, I mean it feels like unstoppable. There's nothing that can't be figured out and solved and people reached through technology.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love it. I love it. So, for people who are hearing this, if they want to get in touch with you, connect with some of what you're doing with Philo, what's the best way for them to connect?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so philoorg is our website. It has everything about what we're doing. So the Philo Conference cohorts, we do some coaching. We sell the book on our website in larger quantities, so we encourage a lot of teams. Yeah, buy 10 copies and go through it as a team. Every chapter is pretty short and every chapter ends with three or four questions, just to ask yourself. So as an example, there's a chapter on excellence versus perfection, and so, all right, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1:It's just a great way to start a conversation with your team and the other way to be connected with us is at phylocommunity is our Instagram and Facebook handle. So I would say underscore Todd Elliott is my Instagram. I don't do a whole lot there, but I do respond to DMs and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, that's sort of the bulk of what we're about. Well, todd, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time and, yeah, being willing to dial in with us today, you bet, yeah, thanks for having me. Awesome and to all of our listeners and viewers, thank you for joining us today on Stories that Move and we look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Stories that Move brought to you by Dream On Studios.
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Speaker 2:Yeah, we believe every story has the potential to inspire, to move and to make a difference. Let's make yours heard.
Speaker 3:Until next time, keep moving forward and keep telling those stories that matter.
Speaker 2:Take care everyone. We'll see you next time on Stories that Move.