Gloo and the ministries and organizations it partners with, like “He Gets Us” and “Barna,” are helping the Church get its message out. Gloo’s Founder and CEO, Scott Beck, says his confidence in the company is rooted not in name recognition but in the fact that Gloo is helping churches and organizations from behind the scenes to get the message of Christ and Hope to people. In fact, for Beck, it’s the reason Gloo exists and something he’s more than okay with. In a sit-down interview with “Christian Headlines,” Beck explained why the company exists and its goal to help others hear about God’s good plan for their lives.
CH: Who is Scott Beck?
Beck: Well, first and foremost, a child of God, husband to my wife, and father to my kids. Those are the three driving purposes of my life. Fourth, I’ve been blessed to be involved in a lot of very cool activities, both in terms of for-profit businesses and ministries, over the last forty-five years. I’ve been blessed to be engaged in a bunch of really cool businesses and support many really interesting ministries.
CH: What have you learned along the way?
Beck: Well, back forty-five years are the early days when my dad co-founded Waste Management. Working alongside him, I learned a lot about how to take a very fragmented solid waste industry, aggregate it, and roll it up. The Blockbuster experience, from store one to five thousand, where I was ultimately president and chief operating officer, taught me a lot about scaling and supporting a decentralized service and system. Moving forward to Einstein Bagels, which was a similar decentralized service system, needed support. My wife and I were also involved with Family Life Ministries and started serving and helping them with technology development strategies and programs. Nearly 15 years ago, we decided to start Gloo to knit together and connect the global faith ecosystem to release the collective might of it.
CH: What is Gloo’s Mission?
Beck: We're a technology platform that does serve the church, but the way we do that is by connecting the organizations, people, content, and funding to help change more lives, give more people the opportunity to flourish, and help communities thrive. We do that by connecting them on a technology platform to release that collective might, what I like to call the collective might of the big C church. When we talk about the big C church, we're not just talking about the idea of church, but everything connected: campus ministries, para churches, community, relationships, and being able to help people on these growth journeys. The mission becomes connecting the content easily into a church, collecting and routing people to a church, exchanging data to be able to serve the church, and then allowing more donative capital to flow to the church efficiently.
CH: How does Gloo bring value to the Church?
Beck: We bring value because we create a ministry-to-ministry marketplace that makes it easy for projects like “He Gets Us “or the production series “The Chosen” or different partners to bring value to the church. So, we're the platform that allows the rest of the ecosystem to bring value to the church.
CH: So, is Gloo a more behind-the-scenes partner in helping the church?
Beck: We have a saying: we are the stage, and they are the stars. The stars are the churches and those partners like ‘He Gets Us’ or ‘The Chosen’ or a city movement serving the church.
CH: When you look at the American church, what obstacles do you see in reaching people far from God?
Beck: The church is all about serving its congregants and going out into the community to help advance human flourishing, right? It's about how we help people spiritually. Still, how do we help people vocationally financially in their behavioral health and relationships? Over a hundred thousand churches in America have a recovery program associated with it. There are so many ways the church serves the community. So, how does that continue to evolve? Obviously, we're going through a technology revolution right now, and that is causing the church to, number one, adjust. But number two is to find ways to be even more powerful in multiplying its effect to serve their communities.
CH: What would you say to the average Pastor with AI questions?
Beck: The key is to keep certain things in mind. Number one, we have a moral imperative to take the tools and the capabilities God has put into place and use them for God's purposes. God is not surprised by AI. He wasn't surprised by the printing press, television, or the internet. He knew all of this stuff was coming, right? So, how do we, as an overall body, Gloo, as a specific organization, make it easy for a church to leverage those tools? You know, not so they become experts in it. No, they're experts in changing lives. They're experts in having relationships with people. They're experts in creating community. So, how do we make it easy for them to use the technologies that God allowed to come into existence to do what they do best: Community relationships and being able to help people on these growth journeys?
#GlooHackathon #AIandtheChurch pic.twitter.com/sOUmp8teTJ
— Gloo (@gloo) October 8, 2023
Photo Courtesy: Used with permission.
Video Courtesy: CBN News via YouTube
MAINA MWAURA is a freelance writer and journalist who has interviewed over 800 influential leaders, including two US Presidents, three Vice-Presidents, and a variety of others. Maina, is also the author of the Influential Mentor, How the life and legacy of Howard Hendricks Equipped and Inspired a Generation of Leaders. Maina and his family reside in the Kennesaw, Georgia area.