UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your Backstage Pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and today I'm joined by Brother Aaron. How's it going? Fantastic. How are you? Good. It's been a little while since you've been on. It

SPEAKER_01 0:45

has been. I've been

SPEAKER_02 0:46

busy. Yeah, I've been busy and schedules and everything. So, all right, well, what are we talking about today? Today, we're going to talk about The Cliffhanger. The Cliffhanger. So, I think that might be a movie title or something, but we're not stealing it. It sounds like one, like a 1980s. Yeah. So, when I was growing up, speaking of 1980s, I read a lot of the Hardy Boys series. And so, the Hardy Boys, they were like a couple of detectives or whatever. And so, I remember many times a chapter would end in suspense yes and so like before I could read my mom would read them to me and then you know before bed right and then we have to end yes at the end of a chapter I'm like what

SPEAKER_00 1:29

no one more chapter please so

SPEAKER_02 1:32

it's a cliffhanger you know and so it would always leave in suspense wondering what was going to happen to them or whatever so it made you want to turn the page keep reading yeah so in Sunday school we want kids to have such a good time that they want to come back and one of the methods we use We use many different methods for this, but one of the methods we use is cliffhangers. Yeah. So we have theme storylines that are continuous. So we'll talk a little bit about that today, but we have the theme storylines that are continuous and the kids become so invested in the story. They want to know what's going to happen next, what's going to happen to the main character or whatever. And so today that's what we want to kind of talk about is cliffhangers in the context of Sunday school.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yeah. It's good. It's important too, because especially, maybe not especially, but when you're dealing with children that only come to Sunday school that aren't members of the church, it kind of gives them something to, especially when it's done well, it gives them something to be like, oh man, I can't wait for next Sunday. I can't wait to see what happens to whoever. Can't wait till we come back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

I remember one year at our conference, which we just had recently, but one year at our conference, we do children's church on the night services and we got cut short on the second night. We do two nights and Friday night we got cut short and we couldn't finish Yep. And one of the kids from another church, he was so disappointed. He was like, what's going to happen?

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah, I think we had to blow out that service in the sanctuary. So it wound up lessening the...

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Yeah, it shortened it up the children's church. And so he was just so disappointed because he wanted to know what's going to happen to him. Yeah, I got to know. Yeah, it made me happy. I was like, okay, so he's invested. It's funny. And Brother Arter was saying, it's Kind of funny because it wasn't even a main character, but he had a character named Theophilus and he was like an old man. This is a couple of years ago, I think. And he was an old man that like. He was like wise, you know, but he had like this brown robe. He had an eye patch. He had a cane or a staff or whatever. So he's like almost maybe a biblical character, but he didn't really know. Yeah. But he had this wisdom and he'd be like, that reminds me of this Bible story, you know, whatever. Well, somebody, a kid from another church, like saw him at a meeting at a rally or something and was like, Theophilus. It's like, whoa, they recognize, you know, his character. That's funny. So anyway. That's kind of cool. So let's talk about continuous theme storyline. And I put in the notes, what is a continuous storyline? And the reason I did that is because I've been working with some people on some curriculum and from different backgrounds and stuff. And it seems like, I'm sure there's somebody that does, but it seems like almost nobody does the continuous theme storyline. Like there's a lot of Sunday schools that do themes and everything. I I mean, themes are, you know, I mean, David C. Cook, that curriculum way back in the day, they had themes and a VBS kind of is strong on themes. And so, um, so themes is not necessarily a new thing, but we do, it's a storyline and we usually do 16 weeks. And so we'll do 16 or 13 or nine, but we typically do 16 weeks. And so it's a story from beginning, beginning all the way through and it's got chapters and everything

SPEAKER_00 5:05

well the cool thing about that too is it creates you know continuity yeah kids the kids like even my kids especially my daughter my daughter still i miss me to sunday school but like jackson especially my youngest he just he will come especially if i'm not up here on like every other sunday or whatever yeah he'll come running out and he's he'll be 11 in november and he's still oh man oh guess what they did he'll explain the whole thing and next week i think they're gonna do this oh that's cool there's this anticipation already because they're very invested in this prolonged 16 week story.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah. And that's a big reason why we do it is it's, it's, it's a cliffhanger in a way, even if it doesn't, even if it doesn't end on a suspenseful note, it still is that like creating that anticipation, like, well, what's going to happen next week? What are we, you know, we're going to come next week and see what happens. So I, I wrote a couple examples down and I was thinking maybe we could even think of some of the older ones because you've been in SS for a while but if we think of like we did the pirates not too long ago so William was the main character and that one was kind of cool because William basically in week one week one or two I think is week one he gets kidnapped so the whole like for 14 of the 16 weeks he's stuck on the pirate ship right and so that thing went back and forth almost every other Sunday. It was, you know, just depended on the story, but it was almost every other Sunday you would come onto the Navy ship or the pirate ship. And so, and we did a quick turnover for that. It wasn't major, but we had, we built a big ship and everything and playground, but we had, what was some of the flags were the big one. Yeah. We had the flags. We had pirate black pirate flags. What was the Navy version of that? I can't remember. American flags. It was American flag. Okay. And then we had the big, big ropes like one inch yeah ropes for the pirates and then they were all frayed on the end so they look you know they're yeah dangling down and then we had netting we threw up over the so we had a mast and we had like four lines going from each side so it was eight total and then we had a net dangling so tattered looking and then on the mast we had this black uh it's actually it's actually a black um fabric you use for landscaping

SPEAKER_01 7:33

oh yeah so i

SPEAKER_02 7:33

got it at home depot and then it We just ripped it and shredded it. Yeah. And then I had that dangling down too. Yeah. And so... Side note, if you can hear kids screaming in the background, it's right after Spanish service. And this is a Sunday school podcast, so it's kid friendly. But anyway, so yeah, we would have that. And then we would just wrap those up and tape the American flags over and then change out the robes for white, like thinner white robes for the Navy side. So it was, usually we would just do that Sunday morning right after practice. We'd be in our suits and stuff, but it would just be, If we all ganged up on it, it was really quick. It was like five minutes and we had to change it over. Yeah. So the kids would come up and they'd be like, Oh, today we're on the Navy ship or, Oh, today we're on the pirate ship. Yeah. And so that was really cool. And that was easy to do. Uh, real cliffhangers like suspenseful. Oh yeah. Because like, I don't want to get way off track on the storyline, but like the evil mate Scar would confront William, you know, and then we'd be like, oh, what's going to happen to him? You know? And then what's some of the ones we did? Oh, I threw this Dilbert in space. This is the space, the original one. The one way back when. Way back when.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Man.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

What? So Dilbert was Joey, right? Dilbert was Joey. That was your brother.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Brother Joey Boggs. And... What did you did you have a main character? I did. Man, I can't think of his name. I can't remember either. But yeah, so we, that was back when we had to set up Saturday night. Every Saturday night. Take down Sunday morning after church or after Sunday school. Yeah. But that was a big one. And that was a, we weren't nearly as scripted, I guess, as we are now, but it

SPEAKER_00 9:25

still had a continuous line. It feels like those days, the storylines went longer than 16 weeks. I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

They probably did. Yeah. Yeah. And then slowly he grows and then there's a big fight at the end, you know, big climax and everything. And so, yeah, I think I have a video of them like. So that's

SPEAKER_00 10:18

kind of the same as Captain John. He was. Oh, yes. Kind of the same deal.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Captain John. Yeah. Yeah. Man, we haven't had him in a while. We need to have Captain John back. He was Captain John for a while. Yeah. And then, oh, remember our first spy thing? So we're in a spy theme now. And the last time we did it was 2016. Yeah. About the same time of year. I was just looking at the old script. Yeah. And it was about the same time, like September-ish. And so it's about the same time of year. I

SPEAKER_00 10:51

wasn't in that one. I think we had just

SPEAKER_02 10:52

moved back. I think we... No, I think you were. I thought you were. Maybe... Oh, maybe I'm thinking of... I was here, but I wasn't in here. You know what I'm thinking of is this is the third time we've done a spy theme. Oh. So I was probably in the original then. Yes. Yes. Because you were QRS. That's right. I remember that specifically.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah. He was the nerdy...

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Yeah. The nerdy scientist or something. Something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because didn't you do... Like when we were trying to figure out clues or something, you always had some kind of scientific process. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you had these glasses and yeah, that was cool. So... Yeah, that's crazy. Now I think about it. So the 2016 spy theme was CIA, Children's in Action, or Christians in Action.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

And

SPEAKER_02 11:46

that's the same one we're doing now.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

So it's the same story and everything, which is a really cool story. We'll get into that in a little bit. And then, yeah, but the very original one, and man, we're getting off track, but the memories. The very first one is when, that's when we invented Ruthless.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

oh man it was that long

SPEAKER_02 12:07

ago Ruthless yeah so her name is Ruth last name Les so Ruthless and so Ruthless what happened it wasn't even it was like an off the cuff invention it wasn't a character creation really what we did is I reveal it for Maya who's now like 19 or something she had nightmares of Ruthless but I thought it would be funny to have her be Ruthless because she had nightmares about it but she, but Rochelle was the very first. She was the original Ruthless. Yeah. And so what happened was I just wanted her to be this thief and I kind of loosely, I don't even know anything about this character, but Karen San Diego. Yep. Have you heard of that? I remember playing the game, yeah. Oh, really? On a computer. So I like saw it somewhere and I was like, ooh, that looks cool. She wears red,

SPEAKER_00 12:59

I think. She wears red, has a red fedora and red trench coat. Yeah, red

SPEAKER_02 13:01

hat, trench coat. So I wanted the same thing, but black. So we just did all black. And then we had the I think we might still have some but we had these masks that were like I guess they were for like they're like probably Halloween demon masks or something but they're like just the the plain black almost like a nylon material

SPEAKER_00 13:19

in the front like a Zorro almost mask

SPEAKER_02 13:21

yeah but you could see no no no not the eye holes though it's just a flat but you can see through it but it's like a

SPEAKER_00 13:28

black screen yeah kind of like almost what we use for

SPEAKER_02 13:31

puppets almost yeah yeah and it's like got a hood it is a hood in fact you pull it over and you can see Well, she put that on and then put the hat on. Oh man. And so you couldn't see her face or anything. And so I told her it was, I remember specifically, I was there, I might have a picture, but I was there, had a black trench coat that had a hood and I had that on and I had sunglasses on. And then I had a briefcase, I think. And it was like, I think it had the Bible in it. And I set it down and I'm talking to the kids and I stepped forward just like one step. We she comes rushing in behind me and the kids of course are all screaming she grabs it I turn around she's gone yeah and so it was so cool they were like oh let's let's make this a character yeah and then the thing that we just never even like really realized is because the kids didn't know who acted it it made her even more mysterious yes

SPEAKER_00 14:30

yeah they guess they tried every woman in the church oh yeah yeah they would try

SPEAKER_02 14:35

and

SPEAKER_00 14:35

then

SPEAKER_02 14:36

then one time they were starting to get it and so we had Rochelle who was playing Ruthless be the staff and then like Echo or somebody yeah someone else came in and did it and look on their face and Rochelle tried to catch her and they were so confused oh yeah so anyway Ruthless is coming back she's in this theme cool so she's in fact yeah she's right in the beginning of it yeah so the evil Mr. King hires her because she's a world-renowned thief so Oh, boy. We're getting way off track. Anyway, so we're trying to create a cliffhanger right now. Yes, exactly. Part two. All right. So that's enough on the continuous storyline. That's kind of what we do is a continuous storyline. And so we have a story and we work through it in the 16 weeks. Yeah. And so I guess we kind of talked about this a little bit, but getting investment in the story. Yeah. And so one of the ways that we do this, and we've talked about a little bit before, but so we're sitting, we have this on video and we'll see when we post it but we're sitting um we're not backstage today we normally are backstage cramped up by the refrigerator in the backstage um but today we're uh in our office overlooking the city yes so um but you can't really see it but there's some a couple slides right here and a climbing wall and um and then of course we got all these scene setters with city and we got graffiti and We got some custom ones inside the main room. So we go all out on our sets. It's big. And when people walk in, if they've never seen it before, they're usually kind of shocked. The kids love it. They get to play on the playground, climb the climbing wall. There's a maze up on the second level up there. And so it's just, it's really cool. And it, I'll admit, it's kind of over the top. And so there's a lot of work that goes into it, a lot of investment and time and money and all kinds of stuff. But the thing is, along with the story, all the decor and stuff, when a kid walks in for the first time, they're just like in awe. Yeah. Last, I think it was last week, there was a boy that was new and he, my wife sat down by him cause he, he looked like he was a little scared and he wasn't real young, but he, you know, he was maybe 10 or something. And, um, He said he was like he liked it, but he was a little bit scared because of all the noise and all the everything that was going on. Yeah. And he ended up staying. And I think he enjoyed it. Hopefully he'll be back. But when kids first come, they're overwhelmed and in awe. And they usually they want to come back. Oh, yeah. And then the kids that are regular, whether they attend church, you know, like my kids, your kids, or even we have a lot of regular kids that come on the bus that come every Sunday. Yeah. Even then when they walk in, I think that they have this sense, even though there's a familiarity, they still have this sense of like, oh yeah, this is cool.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yep. They immediately, when you could see it as they're coming up the stairs, but when they walk in, even if it's, you know, week 10 of the same theme, they're like, oh yeah, we're in this. And they immediately, it's almost like they get into character. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that investment part. They just kind of snap into.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Yeah. And some of them do get into character. Literally last theme we had on our news theme, we had a boy that was dressed in that's true that's true yeah so yeah so we get investment and and then um so we go out all out on themes and our characters we have characters um one thing that's cool i'm gonna send it out i don't know if i'll get it done tonight i'm almost done but is on this one i made character profiles i mean they're brief they're really sure they're just like one sentence but it's like a character profile and then i'm going to try to use the pictures from the last one Oh, yeah. that might just be random for a segment, like offering or something. But then we have these characters that are quote-unquote main characters. They're not necessarily the star of the show, but they're our main character. You're going to see them a few times throughout the theme, maybe five or six times throughout the 16 weeks. So the kids get to know them. They get to know, oh, there he is again, or whatever. And so that's some more investment in cliffhangers.

UNKNOWN 19:37

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Okay, so I have another note. Cliffhangers on a micro level in our segments. So I don't remember, maybe you might remember this, but somewhere we did a transit. This is a long time ago, back when we were in the fellowship hall. We changed how we did our segments in that we had our segments interrupt almost. Yeah. The previous

SPEAKER_00 20:05

segment. Yeah, it was an overlap.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yeah, it was an overlap. And sometimes, sometimes even now, sometimes it's really blatant, like they're coming in and they are kicking that previous segment off the stage, so to speak. Yeah. And then other times we use timers a lot now. So other times it's just, it's really precise. It's like right at this time, you know? And so, um, And one thing to demonstrate, it would be kind of cool to maybe add this to the audio, but to demonstrate, we use soundtracks basically 100% of the time. Yeah. And so we use those, a lot of times they're the cue. Right. So when you hear the music change, that's when you go out for your segment. And so we will... like say Bible story or something, often what happens is when the scene transitions, we do what's called a crossfade and the music, the track changes, but it's subtle. It's like one track, track one fades down, track two is fading up and it just blends together. Right. So to demonstrate the opposite of that with our other segments, like if we're going from offering to say praise, it's a hard cut. Right. So it's like boom. And then it's just like a toe change in music

SPEAKER_01 21:24

yeah

SPEAKER_02 21:25

and so that's a jarring interruption and i always i always say like i want kids to get whiplash you know because they're looking because our characters usually come from the back yeah so um it's like whoa what's going on what's happening and so we that's kind of a way that we do these many uh cliffhangers in a way i guess

SPEAKER_00 21:46

um yeah i like how you wrote like the dynamic opening is perfect example of that because yes especially with the Like one that goes back, even though I don't know if this was in the middle of a theme, we might've been in between themes and building things, but we did Good Samaritan a couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Oh yes. Oh, this is, yeah, this is good. Yeah. Explain that. This is a good idea for somebody.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Yeah. So the Good Samaritan was part, I can't remember what the, the storyline or the theme of that particular Sunday was or the member verse or anything, but I remember we were going to be doing the story of the Good Samaritan in, in Sunday school that day at some point. And so when the kids came up, went around the corner, went into the room, it was me, John. Brennan? can't remember there's three or four of us yeah we're on stage or around stage plotting yeah we were like yeah we were the bad guys we had the black on we had you know mask or something i don't know we're plotting like hey oh this is the one where we okay i know why you remember this so we were up there plotting about how we're going to kidnap or beat up this guy and take his money on the road yes but me and john went out and brennan wasn't ready yet because he came in for vibrant praise and so he was late he was late so me and john are like, but where's that third guy? Well, Brendan just comes walking up and joins the conversation. Well, it's just natural. We're so good on the fly like this. It's just naturally me and Brendan to start walking together. And we just continue the conversation. We're like, man, where's that third guy? And John's over here. And he was the original guy out there. And then me and him teamed up and walked around like, dude, where's that third guy? The whole dynamic opening. We were looking for the third guy. We were all up there. But eventually that ends and we're like, ah, we got it. We're rubbing our hands together. We got it. And we walk out and then you know I think you come out and do the rules or whatever opening yeah so it was a mini cliffhanger within a Sunday because they knew oh they're going to do that story they knew so it was starting to build that anticipation

SPEAKER_02 23:42

yeah so yeah and for those that maybe are new to the podcast or whatever but our dynamic opening is basically we want something happening when the kids come in to be seated and so we have a we start and you know we have an outside welcome or whatever where they are getting the attendance and all that stuff and then they come up so that's like four minutes I think and then they come up and they're getting seated so when they're getting seated we'll have some kind of action happening so it's not like this quiet room where they come in and sit down it's there's something going on yeah often it's it's the plotting like you said or sword fights or whatever but it's usually a preview yeah and like you said it's a mini cliffhanger because it's a preview usually of either the Bible story or the theme right and And so, and, and what I was thinking too, is like the good idea is, um, I, I don't know that everybody has done this, but we, with the Good Samaritan, most often we, we started with the bandits and we kind of give the perspective of how the bandits were always on that road between Jericho and Jerusalem. And, and that's what, it was a bad area. It was like a bad, you know, neighborhood, you know? And so anyway, yeah. So that creates the cliffhanger. And then, yeah. And then when I come out, I'll do opening or something and then I'll be like did somebody see some bad guys or you know or something like that and then of course like I said the interrupting of the of the segments it's not exactly the same thing like cliffhanger but it's like so there's there's a saying or I don't know what you call it I guess saying but like where leave them wanting more like it's better in speech or again or anything to cut it off a little bit early where they want more rather than like okay are we done yet yeah and so that's what we're trying to do with our segments our segments are pretty short there are two or three minutes most of them except for like about story or themes get there 10 or 12 but boy there's some yelling happy birthday so anyway we'll we'll do these segments and then it's like where they're yeah they're all almost done maybe kind of and it's like whoa wait what were they finished you know that's kind of what we want it's like we want to leave them like wait I thought that wasn't done yet mm-hmm And then, okay. So then I have a macro level. So that was a micro level and a macro level. So a couple of things we do is like with new themes is like this one. What we did is we kept it top secret.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Like even for my son who was like wanting to know, even when we started building it and he was up here helping me and he didn't know. And so we kept it top secret and it used to be easier because we would would during our transition we would do Sunday school elsewhere yeah we would do that downstairs we had more facilities at the time and we would basically kind of like lock up the upstairs you didn't get to see it and it was like boom one thing so now it's harder because they get to see it progress as we're doing it but we can kind of do like scene setters or main things like that all at once right and so then they show up and it's like oh wow yeah and then the the The other way that you can do it, though, is the opposite, is you can build the anticipation for it. Like, we haven't done a poster in a while. I would like to do one, like in

SPEAKER_00 27:26

the best of you. Do we still have the old CA poster hanging in the back? Yes. His brother, Brian Critcher, when he's, what, 15? Something. Well, yeah. I

SPEAKER_02 27:36

don't know. How old is he now? Because that was in 2016. Oh, I don't even know how old he is now. Yeah. So- Eight years ago. And Brother Keech is on there. Yeah, Brother Keech is on there.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Do you still have, do you still have, I know for my, back before you could like share your contact photo through messages or through whatever, you could like send a photo. I remember asking you, hey, I need, when I got a new phone or something, it didn't transfer. Hey, I need a contact photo. And you sent me the CIA Sunday school picture of you standing there with the glasses on. So I still have it on my phone. Oh, really? That's funny. I have that picture. Yeah. And I think Joey is he still that on your phone

SPEAKER_02 28:14

yeah so he Joey had like three characters but I have Mr. Tom who is like a burglar a bad guy and he taught the bad spies how to you know be burglars yeah so that's my contact picture for him you know what and for Brennan we're going off the cuff Brennan the contact picture I have for Brennan is is Radigan from Survival Quest where he's got like the bow and everything yeah that was the coolest series. Yeah. And that was a poster. So they're, they're look, they almost look like movie posters in a way. Yeah. But I remember like that survival quest when we had it right outside of pastor's office, this is way back before we turned the sanctuary. Right. And, uh, yeah, I remember brother both saw that he was here and he saw that and he was asking about it. Yeah. But we used to do the, we did Narnia and we did, I did, I found the Narnia font and everything. And I had a Narnia poster. And then, um, yeah, this one, The spy one was a vertical. So most of the posters were probably three foot tall by two foot wide, roughly. But the spy one, the last spy one was a tall vertical one. It was like five feet tall or something, a couple feet wide. Yeah, that was really cool.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

So with the CIA, so we just got our four screens up just a couple of weeks ago before conference, right? And then did you have it halfway showing or partially showing? There was a Sunday day to where you had something showing unintentionally to see if they caught it. Jackson caught it and someone else did. Did you kind of do like a sneak almost on the screen or am I missing that? Oh, yes. A couple weeks before the theme

SPEAKER_02 29:53

started. Yes, I did. You had something up. Yeah, and I actually think it wasn't on purpose. It was a mistake. I think I was messing with something Sunday School had already started and I was trying to, I think it was the first day after we got the screens set up. Yeah. And I did something and it, and it popped up and I was like, Oh yeah. Cause Jax came home. He's like,

SPEAKER_00 30:17

cause he'd been trying to guess what the theme was. He's like, is it CIA? I'm like, I can't tell. He's like, it's CIA. Like I saw it. You didn't see nothing.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

That's funny. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And last week, um, was our final, we wrapped up what we, the story we did at conferences. So that was our final, um, basically like before the, the theme starts, you know? And so I did, I, I had made a promo video that's like all glitchy and the CIA logo and everything. So everybody kind of cheered and they were like, Oh yeah, that's, that's awesome. Yeah. So, um, Okay. Well, just to recap a little bit is cliffhangers. The whole reason we're kind of talking about it is if you can think of any kind of books or anything like where you want to know the rest of the story, or even you think about a preacher. Yeah. That is preaching and they tell a story and then they go on to something else. Yes. And you're like, get back to the story. And he does it right before I call. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, well, what I was going to say is. Yeah. Yeah. And so it keeps you invested. Right. And so. So we do that and we do it through, and this is why, um, this is, I guess, I think really the main reason why we do continuous storylines is for that investment as we want to kids to want to come back. And there's other reasons for them to come back. We do all kinds of cool stuff and, and, you know, we have good altar services. We have good worship. Um, we have fun, uh, we have snacks, you know, so there's all kinds of reasons for them to come back, but we, But this is one that we feel like is a pretty good hook. Yeah. And they want to come back just to see what is the rest of the story.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

So a little point on the way here, I was thinking about it and I just remembered it. We were talking about like Hardy Boy books and the cliffhanger on each chapter. Yeah. So I'm a huge, probably too much, but I'm a huge audio drama guy.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Just love audio dramas.

UNKNOWN 32:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

And your daughter, Anisha, is huge in audio. So we've shared, in fact, recently we shared a couple of different ones. Yeah, she was telling me about

SPEAKER_02 32:31

that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

And so they're good for that. They're really good for, especially if they're like an episode style, like 30, 40 minutes. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 32:38

that keeps you guessing.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

You're like,

SPEAKER_02 32:41

oh, I can't wait till next week when the

SPEAKER_00 32:43

episode comes out. Because back in the, now we don't watch television, but back in the day before like streaming services, like Netflix, where you can, what they call binge watch, where you can watch like a whole- Series or something. Old school box TV. If you're in the middle of a TV show and you're watching it, it was like you had to wait till next week.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

To see if your character really died or whatever. So audio dramas are good for that because they keep you want to keep you hooked. Keep you hooked. So they'll put out like one a week or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Yes. Oh, man, that's cool. That's cool. You know, this is way off the subject. But before we wrap up is I we did one long time ago. Remember the Western? We did an audio drama.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

And And it was pretty decent. It's good. It's about, it's, I think it's a little bit under a half an hour, but I really want to do, I think we could do

SPEAKER_01 33:32

it. I think we could.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

I really want to do it. It would be super cool. What would be really cool is to do, and it's too late probably now to get, put this together, but like in a theme like this, I've thought about this before is like finish the Sunday and then right after, instead of, it would only take a few minutes. Yeah. And then step backstage with, you know, we got the equipment right here, you

SPEAKER_00 33:58

know, and

SPEAKER_02 34:01

just, yeah. And use the script and it's fresh in our mind. We just did it. And dude, that Sunday is worth just that Sunday. And then if we did that every, for 16 weeks, we got a full on audio drama. Wouldn't that be awesome? That would be cool. You know, there's a lot of behind the scenes editing and sound effects and all that stuff. But if we just got it recorded. Yeah. That's a cool idea. Yeah. I think, I think that might be pretty neat. That would be. Maybe, maybe we'll have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Just jump into it and go for it. See what happens.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Yeah. I mean, if it's trash, we just don't air it.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

You won't know about it. We'll cut this part out of the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Cut it out. Yeah. All right. Well, so, yeah, getting investment in the story. Cliffhanger's on a micro level. We use them in our segments. We interrupt in our dynamic opening. And sometimes we'll do a Bible story part one and two.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

And that's Cliffhanger or theme skit part one, two. And so we'll split it up with other segments or whatever, and then we'll continue it on. And then, of course, week to week. And then on a macro level, just our themes are, you know, we'll build up that anticipation and that expectancy of like, what's the next thing? Okay, well, we are over time, so that's a wrap. Absolutely.