Inspiring hope for kids of all ages.
Project Date: 2020–2022
Team: Trinity Grace Church
During the pandemic, I produced, wrote, and directed weekly one-hour episodic children’s shows for Trinity Grace Church (TGC), a non-denominational church in New York City, providing a seamless experience for households to stay connected to their local neighborhood community. Since March 2020, the episodes have received 350,000+ views and resulted in over 800 new subscribers on YouTube.
Working alongside the church staff — including my wife, Elisa, host of Kids Digital Lab — and a team of professional filmmakers, we transformed our offices into a full-service production studio with flexible set pieces for a wide range of needs to create grownup and kid-friendly programming.
“Missing human interaction, but I’ve been loving the online version of church because the whole family can participate, creating more opportunity for discussion.”
PRODUCTION TEAM
Michael Castillejos / Justin Estrada / Gillian Fritzsche / Ryan Fritzsche / Emily Gebel / Oliver Hickman / Rickey Kraemer / Jeremy McDaniel / Jonny Ryley / Daniel Vestal
Pushing the envelope.
The pandemic abruptly and dramatically shifted everyone’s lives in many ways. Starting in March 2020, I had the good fortune of stepping into a completely new creative pursuit through my daily work for Trinity Grace Church.
We started producing a weekly online broadcast for families almost overnight. Like many churches around the world, we found ourselves pivoting from in-person gatherings to a fully remote experience as we navigated the realities of quarantine.
As the pandemic wore on, the world had to answer a big question: what happens to audience participation when you transition from a rich and inviting in-person experience to a digital facsimile? If you build it, will they come?
Thankfully I wasn’t alone on this journey: a small committed band of professional filmmakers, editors, directors, audio engineers, and digital producers — all members of our local church community — stepped up to the challenge of stitching together each episode and encouraging and training me in the director’s chair, because very often I was the only one in the room with the on-screen talent.
350,000+ views
via YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook since March 2020
with 70% of audiences in the NYC metro area and over 60% of subscribers are parents
Staying connected and engaged.
Zoom fatigue is real. Screen time for young eyeballs is an issue. And when it comes to a church environment, it’s hard to recreate emotional resonance and the bonds of friendship through a flat screen, no matter how much production budget and human capital you have available.
The experiment of Kids Digital Lab is an ongoing success story. With over 350k views to date, 70% of audiences tuning in from the NYC metro area, 10% international viewers, and over 60% of subscribers on YouTube are parents, we achieved our goal of sustaining a large number of families as regular participants in the church.
Even as countless lives in New York City were upended, our team received compliments and positive anecdotes of how the online broadcasts helped foster deep connections to the community, even after transitioning back to in-person experiences in Fall 2021.
Kids Digital Lab continues to uplift and inspire families to stay connected and explore important themes like gratitude, confidence, honesty, patience, and teamwork.
“Digital Lab has been such an encouraging lifeline. Our kids have come to love and expect the amazing videos each week! Thank you!”
