The MxU Podcast

Cody recently left his church—but not because of conflict, burnout, or scandal.
In this episode, we talk about discerning God's direction, honoring your leadership, involving your family, and how to navigate a church transition with wisdom and humility.

👉 Learn more about MxU: https://getmxu.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=codyleft&utm_medium=social
Book a free demo: https://savvycal.com/mxu-team/MxU-Demo

FREE RESOURCES
Take advantage of all the free resources for worship and tech teams that MxU has to offer (growing weekly):
https://getmxu.com/resources?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=codyleft&utm_medium=social

JOIN THE COMMUNITY
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/app.mxu
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mxu.app

WHAT IS MxU?
Train volunteers, plan services, and run Sunday — from one app built for worship and production teams. https://getmxu.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=codyleft&utm_medium=social

How do you grow a production team from 18 volunteers to 50 in just two years?
In this episode, we sit down with Cody, who actually did it.
If you've ever said:
 "We can't find volunteers." 
 "The same people serve every week." 
 "Nobody wants to join production." 
...this conversation is for you.
We break down the exact mindset shifts, systems, and leadership principles that helped grow a healthy production team without relying on constant recruiting or church-wide growth.
You'll learn:
 Why most churches struggle to recruit volunteers 
 The biggest mistakes leaders make when building teams 
 How to create a culture people actually want to be part of 
 Practical ways to retain volunteers and avoid burnout 
 The leadership habits that create long-term growth 
Whether you're leading worship, production, or your entire volunteer culture, you'll walk away with practical ideas you can apply this week.
👉 Learn more about MxU: https://getmxu.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=18to50&utm_medium=social
Book a free demo: https://savvycal.com/mxu-team/MxU-Demo

FREE RESOURCES
Take advantage of all the free resources for worship and tech teams that MxU has to offer (growing weekly):
https://getmxu.com/resources?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=18to50&utm_medium=social

JOIN THE COMMUNITY
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/app.mxu
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mxu.app

WHAT IS MxU?
Train volunteers, plan services, and run Sunday — from one app built for worship and production teams. https://getmxu.com?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=18to50&utm_medium=social

About six months ago, Spencer called Cody out of the blue from a gym treadmill — and that call turned into the biggest move in MxU's history. In this episode, Spencer and Cody sit down right after the keynote to walk through the full story of how MxU and ProdLink joined forces, what Cody was actually building when he first developed ProdLink (a producer's dashboard he built for his own church, because he was running a multi-view, a stream deck, a remote iPad, and a stack of printed-out Planning Center sheets all at once), and why the answer to "is this just AI slop?" matters more than most people realize. They get honest about the tension every worship and tech leader feels — every new tool sounds nice in isolation, but volunteers are already drowning in apps, and "just another thing to download" is a real reason great products never get adopted. They unpack what's actually inside MxU now: dashboards (the old ProdLink producer view, with live ProPresenter slides, Planning Center order of service, timers, notes, and team messaging all on one screen), tasks and checklists, messaging — all rebuilt from the ground up inside MxU, not bolted on, with the full MxU engineering team behind it. Spencer makes the case that this isn't a feature update — it's MxU 2.0, and the company is heading in a new direction built around solving a much bigger problem than just training. They also talk about what ProdLink becomes going forward: a home for free production tools that don't necessarily fit inside the MxU paid platform (starting with the Draw on Slides iPad app), so churches with no budget still have something to use. They close by addressing the question everyone keeps asking — no, you don't need to download two apps, no, ProdLink isn't going away, and yes, this took six months of rebuilding because you can't shortcut the work of doing it right.
👉 See the new MxU: https://getmxu.com?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mxu-prodlink

FREE RESOURCES 🆓 Take advantage of all the free resources for worship and tech teams that MxU has to offer (growing weekly):
https://getmxu.com/resources/?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=mxu-prodlink&utm_medium=social

IMPROVE YOUR SUNDAY SERVICES 🎓 1,000+ Training Videos: https://getmxu.com/training?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=mxu-prodlink&utm_medium=social

🖥️ Volunteer Training Tool: https://getmxu.com/learning-management-system?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=mxu-prodlink&utm_medium=social

🚀 Personalized Coaching: https://getmxu.com/coaching?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=mxu-prodlink&utm_medium=social

JOIN THE COMMUNITY
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/app.mxu
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mxu.app/

WHAT IS MxU? MxU is an online training platform for church leaders to train and equip their worship and tech volunteers: https://getmxu.com?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=mxu-prodlink&utm_medium=social

Most churches don't document any of their weekend process — it lives in the heads of a few key volunteers, and that's the entire reason you can't take a vacation, can't trust a backup operator, and keep getting Galatians spelled wrong on the slides at 9:58am on a Sunday. They get into why the conversation about checklists usually loses people in the first ten seconds (it sounds like "monkey work," it sounds bureaucratic, it sounds like a pilot's pre-flight that has nothing to do with worship) and why every one of those objections is actually the point. Dillan walks through the pastor who texted him after a "train wreck" weekend — no real disasters, just a stack of small, completely avoidable mistakes that no one caught because no one was checking — and uses it as the anchor for the rest of the conversation. They unpack what should actually be on a pre-service checklist beyond the technical stuff (greeting the band on stage, confirming lighting colors match the worship backgrounds, coordinating with ushers on doors), and Dillan makes the case that the leader's checklist is the one most churches skip entirely — and that leaders who can't remember to pray before rehearsal need that prompt more than they think. They get into why putting prayer on a checklist isn't unspiritual, it's honest, and why the documented version of your process is what lets you take a vacation, lets a key volunteer take a few months off when life gets hard without you treating them like a betrayal, and lets a backup operator step in without burning down the Sunday. They close with a walkthrough of the new checklists feature inside MxU — recurring checklists auto-assigned to whoever's scheduled in Planning Center, completion timestamps visible to the leader, accountability built in — and a Chernobyl reference that, depending on your tolerance for hyperbole, is either a stretch or exactly right.

Check out our FREE Team Night Guide:
https://getmxu.com/resources/team-night-guide/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=checklists

FREE RESOURCES 🆓 Take advantage of all the free resources for worship and tech teams that MxU has to offer (growing weekly):
https://getmxu.com/resources/?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=checklists&utm_medium=social

IMPROVE YOUR SUNDAY SERVICES 🎓 1,000+ Training Videos:
https://getmxu.com/training?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=checklists&utm_medium=social

🖥️ Volunteer Training Tool:
https://getmxu.com/learning-management-system?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=checklists&utm_medium=social

🚀 Personalized Coaching:
https://getmxu.com/coaching?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=checklists&utm_medium=social

JOIN THE COMMUNITY
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/MxU.app

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/mxu.app/
WHAT IS MxU? MxU is an online training platform for church leaders to train and equip their worship and tech volunteers:
https://getmxu.com?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=checklists&utm_medium=social

Spencer and Dillan spend the next thirty minutes unpacking the honest diagnosis, which is that the volunteer almost never is the problem. Dillan opens with a story he heard recently: a congregant who finally responded to the pastor's "get off the bench" sermon, said yes to joining the summer choir, and woke up Monday morning to nine Planning Center emails and zero relational follow-up. They use that as the anchor for the whole conversation. We get into the core tension every church leader has to confront — that the leader sees their team as "my volunteers" while the volunteer sees themselves as a congregant trying to serve the church, and most of the friction in worship and tech ministry traces back to that one mismatch. Dillan makes the case that the issue isn't a recruiting problem or a systems problem or a culture problem — it's a care problem, and almost every "tactical" failure (no training, no resourcing, scheduling someone too much, scheduling someone too little, quietly stopping scheduling someone you don't want to confront) is just a care problem wearing a different costume. They also draw a clear line between two very different types of leaders who get to the same bad result: the leader who doesn't actually care as much as they say they do (and is too busy to notice), and the leader who genuinely cares but lacks the systems, execution, and follow-through to set their volunteers up to win — and how being "so nice" can actually undermine the ministry when it shows up as a complete absence of structure. They land on the sentence underneath the whole conversation: when you're praying for God to send you new volunteers while neglecting the forty He already has, you're not doing ministry — you've let your ministry get in the way of ministry.
Check out our FREE Team Night Guide: https://getmxu.com/resources/team-night-guide/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=volunteers-quit

FREE RESOURCES 🆓 Take advantage of all the free resources for worship and tech teams that MxU has to offer (growing weekly): https://getmxu.com/resources/?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=volunteers-quit&utm_medium=social

IMPROVE YOUR SUNDAY SERVICES 🎓 1,000+ Training Videos: https://getmxu.com/training?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=volunteers-quit&utm_medium=social

🖥️ Volunteer Training Tool: https://getmxu.com/learning-management-system?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=volunteers-quit&utm_medium=social

🚀 Personalized Coaching: https://getmxu.com/coaching?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=volunteers-quit&utm_medium=social

JOIN THE COMMUNITY
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MxUrocks

WHAT IS MxU? MxU is an online training platform for church leaders to train and equip their worship and tech volunteers: https://getmxu.com?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=volunteers-quit&utm_medium=social