Excellence isn't a feeling; it is a system built from repeatable habits and reinforced culture. On this major episode, the team covers recent AI news, a brand-new event for the Community, and the big reveal of this year's conference keynote speaker!

Jon catches us up on Claude Fable 5, the ChatGPT super app shift, and the Rock AI Summit on July 7 at 10-11:30am PT. He shares a security warning for anyone evaluating AI tools for their church data.

Then Emily announces the man who built the most admired service culture in the world, Horst Schulze, co-founder of The Ritz-Carlton, and RX26's keynote speaker! He turned excellence into a repeatable system and a global standard that led the Ritz-Carlton to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award twice.

Jon introduces Ministry by Design, a framework for applying that same thinking to how a church moves someone from unknown to known, engaged, serving, and leading.

Visit the show notes to find all the resources talked about in this episode. Don't forget to join the new Rock Cast Rocket Chat Channel to see what other churches are saying about this episode.

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In this Rock Cast episode, the Pope weighs into the AI conversation with a 200-page doc. We summarized his arguments for you and share more details on Opus 4.8 noting the shift of importance from models to harnesses.

Then Emily unpacks why Thinking Sideways will help you avoid the danger of acting before considering all your options. By taking a lesson from the chess grandmasters, she describes the pitfall of having false confidence that we can predict exactly how complex systems will unfold.

Nicole closes with an exciting conference update that you and your leaders will want to hear! Give this episode a listen to catch up on the latest news in the Community and in the tech industry.

Visit the show notes to find all the resources talked about in this episode. Don't forget to join the new Rock Cast Rocket Chat Channel to see what other churches are saying about this episode.

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Most church leaders know their staff training isn't as robust as it should be, but very few understand what it's actually costing them.

In Episode 214, Jon, Emily, and Nicole bring to light three real costs: lost staff productivity, missed connections with your congregation and redundant software your church is paying for because they don't know Rock already does the job.

Before diving into training, Jon walks through AI voice models coming to Rock that sound human, compute deals between major AI providers and cloud platforms, and the important distinction between chat AI and agentic AI.

The episode closes with a four-question self-assessment every church leader should run this week and actionable steps to strengthen your staff's Rock training.

Visit the show notes to find all the resources talked about in this episode. Don't forget to join the new Rock Cast Rocket Chat Channel to see what other churches are saying about this episode.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.