WEBVTT 00:00:00.860 --> 00:00:07.680 All right. Hey, we are live here with Beta, Episode 3, Beta Show. Once again, Jeff Reed 00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:11.940 here with the Church Digital State of Church Planning. I got Ray DeArmas jumping on here, 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:15.320 digital pastor over at Christ Fellowship Miami. Ray, you want to say hey to somebody? 00:00:15.940 --> 00:00:20.640 It's so good to be with you all. Special shout out to Tua Tagladova. I can't even pronounce 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:24.620 his last name. Starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. We know you're watching. So 00:00:24.620 --> 00:00:25.240 glad you're aboard. 00:00:26.020 --> 00:00:29.860 Yeah, Tua. Well done, man. His stock rose quickly this week, and this is not a sports 00:00:29.860 --> 00:00:34.100 show, but when I see the Dolphins win, it was an away game too, right? It was an away 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:35.080 game 24 to nothing? 00:00:35.580 --> 00:00:36.060 It was. 00:00:36.060 --> 00:00:36.520 Was it a home game? 00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:41.340 It was against our hated rivals, the Jets, which is always, it was a home game whenever we get 00:00:41.340 --> 00:00:42.300 Oh, it was a home game against the Jets. 00:00:43.040 --> 00:00:48.380 But God bless you, Miami Dolphins. God willing, you'll finally do something right. We'll see. 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:52.820 Guess what? It's the Miami Dolphins. They'll find a point at some point this year, they're 00:00:52.820 --> 00:00:56.860 going to end up making me cry. So we are not going to talk about the Miami Dolphins. We've 00:00:56.860 --> 00:01:01.580 got far better things to talk about here on the beta show. Up front, remember here with 00:01:01.580 --> 00:01:07.520 the beta show, we are quite literally answering your questions on digital church, online church, 00:01:07.700 --> 00:01:15.360 online ministry. So if you've got questions, go ahead and text us here. 484-324-8724. 00:01:15.360 --> 00:01:21.000 It's literally number for the church. If you speak telephone alphabet, that's awesome. Text 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:26.560 your questions for us. Just even this morning, I had somebody contact me with this incredible 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:30.260 question. We'll tease it. Maybe it's into the show, but we're going to get into that next week. 00:01:30.320 --> 00:01:35.920 As a matter of fact, the show last week, we had a question that popped up from Christian here 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:42.000 in the conference. By the way, while we're doing this, if you're on Facebook, go ahead and comment 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:47.960 your questions, your thoughts with us here with the magic software that we're using here, StreamYard. 00:01:47.960 --> 00:01:52.660 We're going to be able to put some of those comments here on the air. So go ahead and do that. But 00:01:52.660 --> 00:01:58.580 Christian asked this great question. Can you talk about ways that your attendees can engage 00:01:58.580 --> 00:02:05.380 that's outside, that's beyond a physical location? So we're feeling this tension. Every church across 00:02:05.380 --> 00:02:09.560 the country is. We've got to open up. We've got to open up. All these pastors are pushing towards 00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:17.720 getting back in the building, but 30% maybe are going back to the building. And oftentimes it'll drop down 00:02:17.720 --> 00:02:22.060 before it drops, before it goes up again. I don't know that I've heard anybody say a number 00:02:22.060 --> 00:02:28.980 over 50% right now that's attending. It's usually 30 to 40. And so how do we get that engagement to 00:02:28.980 --> 00:02:33.980 come back? As a matter of fact, another question was asked here in light of seeing churches come back 00:02:33.980 --> 00:02:40.920 with 50% attendance is this. How can we reach new people while not in the building? And Ken here, 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:46.820 Ken Cavanaugh continues on, I think we need more to double than double what we're currently seeing, 00:02:46.940 --> 00:02:53.120 or it'll feel discouraging to kind of come back to that very small building. So we're trying to 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:58.780 figure out how do we engage with people in the digital space when they're not in the building 00:02:58.780 --> 00:03:04.680 to get them back into the building if we're doing kind of this digital approach here. And so Ray, 00:03:04.760 --> 00:03:09.120 just kind of hearing those questions, what thoughts kind of come to your head, just intro level? 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:13.080 Hey, you know, Jeff, we were talking about this before we went live. And for many of us, 00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:17.180 we're going to have to kind of scrap what we had done before, even over the last few months, 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:22.020 then kind of take a pause and kind of rethink because in many ways, we're relaunching again, 00:03:22.140 --> 00:03:25.720 we're kind of going at things from a new perspective. And if the goal is engagement and 00:03:25.720 --> 00:03:29.620 not necessarily attendance, then we have to ask ourselves, well, how can we get our people involved 00:03:29.620 --> 00:03:36.080 and not necessarily just attending? And so we have to really go beyond just Sunday and think about, 00:03:36.220 --> 00:03:39.840 well, what are other times, what are the opportunities for folks to engage? Because many times, 00:03:39.900 --> 00:03:43.780 we're still stuck in the mode of kind of like what you mentioned, Jeff, here comes Sunday, 00:03:43.780 --> 00:03:48.640 we keep thinking about that over and over and over again. If that's our thought process in terms of 00:03:48.640 --> 00:03:52.000 building followers of Jesus, then obviously we kind of got to pause. And I think many of us, 00:03:52.100 --> 00:03:56.020 even prior to this broadcast would have said that, but now we've got to ask ourselves practically, 00:03:56.200 --> 00:04:02.320 okay, are our people engaged in things like small group Bible study? Are they engaged in those 00:04:02.320 --> 00:04:06.780 things? Are they engaged in reaching their community? Are you doing anything that allows a 00:04:06.780 --> 00:04:12.060 volunteer, not staff, volunteers? Are you providing opportunities for them to engage 00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:15.560 their community, whether it's masked up in some kind of socially distant manner? 00:04:15.920 --> 00:04:19.860 But we've got to provide more than just Sunday opportunities for folks to exercise their spiritual 00:04:19.860 --> 00:04:20.200 gifts. 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:27.540 I love that. Ray, man, I could listen to you talk like that all day long because it feeds so well 00:04:27.540 --> 00:04:32.440 into what I wanted to say here. Pastor, don't be upset your people are not in your building. 00:04:32.960 --> 00:04:38.780 Be upset they have no spiritual purpose when they're not in your building. So much of Ray's talking 00:04:38.780 --> 00:04:45.800 about serving and being in the community and engaging with people. Like for me, this is the lesson of 2020 00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:51.980 because the building stopped working. And when the building stopped working, we discovered, honestly, 00:04:52.340 --> 00:04:58.140 and I don't mean this rudely, many Christians didn't know what to do. Like they had so defined their 00:04:58.140 --> 00:05:04.240 Christianity by that one hour on Sunday when that was taken away from them. Christians were walking 00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:12.940 around without purpose, without figuring out how to exist, how to do things in that world, which 00:05:12.940 --> 00:05:20.060 honestly kind of brings up this point that I would say. The goal is not the building. It felt like in 00:05:20.060 --> 00:05:25.580 this COVID season, the goal was, hey, let's get back to the building as quickly as possible. And even still in this 00:05:25.580 --> 00:05:32.440 COVID season, churches are struggling to get back to the building. It's not the building. It's not 00:05:32.440 --> 00:05:38.220 physical. And honestly, like even as a digital guy, I'll tell you, it's not digital. It's the Great 00:05:38.220 --> 00:05:44.020 Commission. It's Matthew 28. It's disciple making and figure out how to do that. I would suggest 00:05:44.020 --> 00:05:50.940 physically and digitally. So as much as we want to, hey, you know what? We've only got 30% attendance. 00:05:50.940 --> 00:05:56.740 It's embarrassing low in the building. I mean, even within my own family, we're having conversations 00:05:56.740 --> 00:06:01.360 as our church is going back to the building. And it's just starting to open up November 1st. 00:06:02.140 --> 00:06:05.860 My wife and I are having conversations. Do we trust that environment? Nothing against the church, 00:06:05.860 --> 00:06:10.140 but do we want to go back to that? Do we want to hold off a little bit and wait towards later? 00:06:10.680 --> 00:06:16.420 So many people across the country are wrestling with that. And if we church are putting all our 00:06:16.420 --> 00:06:21.580 pressure on the building, but our people are not there, we're missing a great opportunity. Go ahead, Ray. 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:26.160 Yeah. And, you know, speaking of that, Jeff, like just being completely transparent as a staff, 00:06:26.260 --> 00:06:29.500 as a staff member of church, and even though I oversee our digital and church online, we, 00:06:29.820 --> 00:06:33.580 my family has not physically gone back to church as of yet, even though our church campuses have 00:06:33.580 --> 00:06:37.660 reopened. And part of the reason is because I have a lot of family with preexisting conditions. 00:06:37.660 --> 00:06:42.900 So the thought of us catching COVID and then passing it on to them and being a risk factor 00:06:42.900 --> 00:06:48.060 for them, it's not fear, it's practicality for us. And so we're not there yet for right 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:51.320 now. That's not to say we'll never be there again. That's where we're not there yet for 00:06:51.320 --> 00:06:54.960 right now. And if that's me as a leader, then I can only imagine that other people don't 00:06:54.960 --> 00:06:59.480 feel that comfortable either. But then it kind of also goes back to, well, you know, beforehand, 00:06:59.640 --> 00:07:03.620 we thought that folks were really taking steps spiritually when they were, you know, in the worship 00:07:03.620 --> 00:07:07.620 center, arms raised up and singing along. And we thought, man, that person is 00:07:07.620 --> 00:07:11.880 engaged. Well, that's one form of engagement, but that's not complete engagement. And I think 00:07:11.880 --> 00:07:17.060 that's what we're finding now, because as you said, Jeff, once we took that part of church 00:07:17.060 --> 00:07:22.160 away from them, now, what are the other aspects of their faith that they're practicing in? And 00:07:22.160 --> 00:07:25.540 how are they growing together with the family of God? Because that's what church is supposed 00:07:25.540 --> 00:07:30.700 to be. It's a local recognition of the family of God, wherever you're at. And, you know, 00:07:30.700 --> 00:07:34.940 if I couldn't meet with my parents physically right now, I wouldn't cease being part of the 00:07:34.940 --> 00:07:38.940 family either way. And so we've got to check in. We've got to see how those folks are integrating 00:07:38.940 --> 00:07:39.200 in with the family. 00:07:39.200 --> 00:07:45.740 Yeah. And so as much as we want to make it about the building, let's get back to the 00:07:45.740 --> 00:07:50.160 building. We want to get more energy into the building. You got two guys here giving coaching 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:55.060 here, giving, giving some direction. We cannot make it about the building because people are 00:07:55.060 --> 00:08:00.100 going to be hesitant to go back to the building and to judge either one of our spiritual walks. 00:08:00.460 --> 00:08:04.100 Forgive me, Ray, I'm going to speak for you, but I know you pretty well to judge either of 00:08:04.100 --> 00:08:10.480 our spiritual walks because we're not sitting in a pew at Sunday, nine o'clock. That's not the right 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:17.400 direction to go, which would lead us to number two. Don't push us into a building. Don't push people 00:08:17.400 --> 00:08:24.040 to a building. Take this opportunity in engagement to train them in evangelism, to train them in 00:08:24.040 --> 00:08:29.940 disciple making. What if we flip the script on this whole COVID season, instead of making it the 00:08:29.940 --> 00:08:35.080 struggle to get back to the building, make it the win of where we took this opportunity of engagement 00:08:35.080 --> 00:08:42.920 to train people on how to share Christ, to hold people accountable on sharing their faith and to 00:08:42.920 --> 00:08:50.860 do things much more towards this style of let us empower you to reach the people that are in your 00:08:50.860 --> 00:08:57.140 life, your circle of influence. It's a completely different approach, but it's one, instead of being 00:08:57.140 --> 00:09:02.100 negative because I'm not in the building, I'm taking advantage of the season where people may 00:09:02.100 --> 00:09:07.180 or may not be in the building and using engagement outside the church to do something far more 00:09:07.180 --> 00:09:10.720 healthier, I think, for the church overall, right? What are you thinking on that? 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:15.100 Well, I mean, you know, and there's so much truth in that, Jeff. And the big thing is, is that we have 00:09:15.100 --> 00:09:18.860 an opportunity to equip people to do ministry where they're at. And I think that's another thing that 00:09:18.860 --> 00:09:23.160 COVID taught us was, it's not so much about the church, you know, taking that away from them, 00:09:23.160 --> 00:09:26.820 because then it's just a one-way broadcast, right? Which is what many of us were afraid of. Oh, 00:09:26.820 --> 00:09:30.920 it's a one-way broadcast. There's no interaction. There's no engagement. How are people going to be 00:09:30.920 --> 00:09:34.160 able to serve? How are people going to be able to do that? But we thought that just in context of 00:09:34.160 --> 00:09:37.960 Sundays, we weren't necessarily thinking about that in terms of how are they serving the community? 00:09:38.060 --> 00:09:43.100 How are they engaging their community? And so for many of us, maybe it's time to go back to even 00:09:43.100 --> 00:09:48.800 the Saddleback style of small groups, right? The 1-4-1 or the 4-1-1, depending on how Steve 00:09:48.800 --> 00:09:51.900 laid and versed it to you once upon a time, but it was four weeks of Bible study, 00:09:52.400 --> 00:09:57.360 one week of get together and party, and one week of serving your community. And if you've got that 00:09:57.360 --> 00:10:01.540 kind of structure as a small group, then the idea is, is you can spend one week inviting people who 00:10:01.540 --> 00:10:05.480 aren't Christians to come and take part in your small group and see that you guys are normal and 00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:09.300 invite them to come back for Bible study the next week. And then you spend four weeks of Bible study 00:10:09.300 --> 00:10:12.540 with them, just kind of journeying with them on a spiritual journey. And then the last week you serve 00:10:12.540 --> 00:10:17.060 your community together. That's an easy, basic structure in which you've got evangelism. You've 00:10:17.060 --> 00:10:21.160 got discipleship, you're reaching out to your neighborhoods. And at the same time, if they come 00:10:21.160 --> 00:10:28.500 to Christ, guess where they're connected? At your church. Love that. Cause we get that. That's where, 00:10:28.580 --> 00:10:33.200 that's where we connect. That's where we win by getting people into church, but the church is, 00:10:33.260 --> 00:10:40.940 is not the pew. Like let's not kid ourselves in 2020. The church is not that physical seat. Hopefully 00:10:40.940 --> 00:10:46.420 over the past eight to 10 months here, however long COVID has been so hard for me to keep up. 00:10:46.840 --> 00:10:52.280 Yeah, it's, it's, it's a thing, but listen, it's, it's, it feels like it, right? Here's the deal. 00:10:52.340 --> 00:10:56.120 Some of you, some of you out there, pastor, you're telling me right now, but Jeff, we're already doing 00:10:56.120 --> 00:11:01.420 this disciple making. We're, we're, we're already focusing on that. I would ask, take a section here 00:11:01.420 --> 00:11:06.720 and Ray was kind of hinting at it. Pause and ask yourself some of these questions. Honestly, is it 00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:12.900 working? Are you seeing results? Are you seeing multiplication? Are you seeing not people getting 00:11:12.900 --> 00:11:19.220 saved in a building? But were you seeing even pre COVID or mid COVID? Were you seeing people within 00:11:19.220 --> 00:11:24.920 your church reach out to others? You know, here in stadia, we use the language of, of the 99 and the 00:11:24.920 --> 00:11:29.940 one, the nine, and it's a parable of the, uh, the shepherd that leaves the 99 sheep to go after the 00:11:29.940 --> 00:11:34.920 one lost sheep. And so the, the idea is, okay, the 99 people, these are people that are warm to Christ. 00:11:34.920 --> 00:11:38.960 They're, they're warm to your church. They're your faithful following your, your, your core. 00:11:39.140 --> 00:11:43.980 And so the one is that lost person that doesn't know Christ. Are you seeing situations where your 00:11:43.980 --> 00:11:53.260 99 are going after your one or your 99 consuming a product? Or are they just being part of the church 00:11:53.260 --> 00:11:57.880 without necessarily reaching out and being aggressive in the community? 00:11:59.160 --> 00:12:03.160 It's true. And you know, the last big thing is, is that we need to make sure and try and keep 00:12:03.160 --> 00:12:06.440 the church body together. There's a lot of division. There's a lot of things that are, 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:11.080 that are dividing us right now. Uh, we're being divided along all sorts of lines and all sorts of 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:15.480 opinions, and we have to do with the best that we can to keep the family together. And so it's not 00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:18.580 that I want you to change who you are as a church family, but you also got to recognize that this is 00:12:18.580 --> 00:12:22.960 a tough time to disciple your church. This really is because you've got to kind of bring up the fact 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:27.480 that, Hey, listen, I understand that there's all sorts of reasons to divide right now, but the one 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:31.840 thing that Jesus prayed for before he went to the cross was unity. Will you stay united with us? 00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:35.840 Will you be one with us? Whether you're pro coming into the services or whether you're pro staying 00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:40.480 at home, this is a time now more than ever for the sake of our witness to be united as one. 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:46.480 Yeah. Yeah. And so it was really, even with that unity, if we were focused in unity towards the 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:53.680 cause of, of sharing Christ, of being serious about disciple making and, and empowering people 00:12:54.240 --> 00:13:00.480 towards this idea of reaching their ones, um, what, what would unity in this season look like? 00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:06.320 You know, so often I hear, I, I, I, and this is crazy to me. I don't understand 2020 because I'll 00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:12.960 talk with a pastor and I've had this conversation at least a dozen times where a past in this COVID 00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:17.360 season where a pastor tells me something to the extent of Jeff, I think my church is going to split 00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:23.840 because of masks. There is so much passion within the church centered around this idea of 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:32.160 masks of race, of, of political, like 2020 has been a very bifurcated year, totally recognize that. 00:13:32.560 --> 00:13:39.120 But even in the context of all of these different ideas, what we really are looking at are people 00:13:39.120 --> 00:13:45.280 who are passionate about something. And as much as we're separated right now and are not able 00:13:45.280 --> 00:13:51.920 to engage in, in physical space together, what if we, the church, what if we figured out how to redirect 00:13:51.920 --> 00:13:59.280 that passion towards masks or not masks to redirect some of the outspokenness that we have and get 00:13:59.280 --> 00:14:06.240 that directed towards helping people evangelize, helping people understand disciple making processes, 00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:13.280 what Matthew 28 calls us to do, and then unleashing them out. Church, what, what if the call for COVID 00:14:13.280 --> 00:14:19.600 in this season isn't get back to the building, but it's create an army of disciple makers and unleash them 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:25.760 to reach their people, mobilize them to go. And we've got incredible opportunities in this season 00:14:25.760 --> 00:14:31.680 looking at like rooted is, is a platform that exists online. Disciples made no place left. 00:14:31.680 --> 00:14:40.160 Like these are all evangelism, disciple making, disciple training systems that allow people like me, 00:14:40.160 --> 00:14:47.600 pastors to train others on how to share their faith and through that process, releasing them out. 00:14:48.320 --> 00:14:55.120 What if instead of being worried about how do I get, you know, max capacity in the building and force 00:14:55.120 --> 00:15:00.240 people into a situation they may or may not be comfortable with, or even I'm trying to reach out 00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:04.800 to ones to get into the building where the ones don't necessarily want to get back to the building. 00:15:05.520 --> 00:15:11.040 What if we stopped in this season and said, Hey, let's intentionally train up our 99. 00:15:11.680 --> 00:15:17.840 Let's focus on the people, whether they're in the building or at home, and let's disciple them. 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:24.160 Let's engage with them and hold them to a higher standard so that we can now release them out. 00:15:24.160 --> 00:15:29.280 So they can be released out to reach the people that God's called them to reach. 00:15:31.040 --> 00:15:35.680 Yeah. And it creates a different sense of raising the bar, right? In terms of maturity. And it's 00:15:35.680 --> 00:15:40.320 ironic because, and many of us know this, somebody who comes to faith brand new is usually most excited 00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:45.200 about sharing their faith. Why is it that we try to squelch some of that by saying, well, we want, 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:49.360 we want to get you into our different system or try to mold you into our thing, as opposed to saying, 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:52.480 all right, let's equip you to share your faith wherever you're at, because this is the most 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:56.480 excited you're ever going to be about it. And the reality is, is in this COVID season, 00:15:56.480 --> 00:16:00.480 you have lots of people who are coming to Christ. Lots of people are coming to Christ online, 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:04.560 digitally, or even someone who are showing up in person. It's possible. So if that's the case, 00:16:04.560 --> 00:16:08.400 why not equip them with the basics of the faith, turn them around and send them right back into their 00:16:08.400 --> 00:16:12.000 workplace, send them right back into their zoom rooms, into their, their places where they have 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:16.400 influence and saying, guys, here's this Jesus that I found. Here's this forgiveness that I found. 00:16:16.400 --> 00:16:21.200 Come with me, come and see, come and taste and see that my Lord is good. Find all those things. 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:25.760 It's real. Why do we want to stop all that? The answer is, is because we don't, but at the same 00:16:25.760 --> 00:16:29.120 time, we feel like we're ill equipped. It doesn't matter if you're going back to some of the stuff 00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:34.240 that Jeff talked about or evangelism explosion, like go all the way back and dig up whatever evangelism 00:16:34.240 --> 00:16:38.720 training you were taught when you were a teenager and train somebody else in how to do that and figure 00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:42.800 that out. Because right now it's not about, oh man, we do great worship here. Oh, 00:16:42.800 --> 00:16:46.400 hey, we got great production. Hey, we got wonderful guest services. It's not really about 00:16:46.400 --> 00:16:50.960 that right now. And it might not be about that over the next six months. So what can it be about 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:57.120 right now? Reaching somebody for Christ. Yeah. Love that. Hey, what can it be about right now? 00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:03.680 Well said, Ray, let's use right now, right now, not the right now network, you know, whatever is that. 00:17:03.680 --> 00:17:10.480 Okay. Maybe anyway, let's let right now, let's use COVID to get people off, uh, spiritual milk and to 00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:15.760 get them on solid food. Now I'm paralleling here. First Corinthians three, two, I gave you milk, 00:17:15.760 --> 00:17:20.800 not solid food for you. You're not ready for it. Indeed. You are still not ready. Swing over here to 00:17:20.800 --> 00:17:27.200 Hebrews 5, 12. In fact, by this time you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you the 00:17:27.200 --> 00:17:32.960 elementary truths of God's word all over again. You still haven't gotten it. Paraphrase, uh, you need 00:17:32.960 --> 00:17:39.520 milk, not solid food. So there, there's, there's a call I think for us to understand, Hey, there's an 00:17:39.520 --> 00:17:44.800 opportunity for people to be on milk, but we need to grow them towards a solid food point. And I would 00:17:44.800 --> 00:17:50.240 suggest here sitting in your, well now virtual pews because your physical buildings are relatively empty. 00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:56.240 There's an opportunity for us to aggressively engage with our people outside of the building 00:17:56.240 --> 00:18:02.080 or inside of the building, but to create them, to be the disciple makers, to get them on this 00:18:02.080 --> 00:18:10.640 biblical solid food to the point where they can now feed themselves and maybe even take care of feeding 00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:14.720 and leading someone else to Christ. Ray, what are you thinking on this? Well, I love that, you know, 00:18:14.720 --> 00:18:18.720 Jeff, but so often so many folks that I've talked to about these particular verses have taken this 00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:23.200 and think, well, my folks need more knowledge. And the reality of it is, is that there's enough 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:27.200 books. There's enough material. There's enough content out there. Now, uh, many of your churches 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:30.480 have access to right now media, kind of like how Jeff joked about a little bit earlier, you know, 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:34.880 you have access to all the content in the world. And yet we have very knowledgeable Christians, 00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:38.800 but not a lot of Christians that are putting into practice some of the things that they've done. 00:18:38.800 --> 00:18:44.400 And that's really where the issue of spiritual health comes into play and really meet because it's, 00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:48.400 listen, if you can give me a full discourse and a background on Corinth 00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:52.880 or on the book of Hebrews or anything else, hey, all of that's wonderful. But is it really 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:58.240 pushing somebody forward in terms of practicing their Christianity? Are they really loving their 00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:03.520 neighbor as themselves more because of it? That's what we're talking about in terms of moving them 00:19:03.520 --> 00:19:07.840 through the pipeline in terms of discipleship making, not just in terms of knowledge. Knowledge is great. 00:19:07.840 --> 00:19:11.360 But once again, just like we learned in scripture, knowledge can also puff up. 00:19:11.360 --> 00:19:14.960 And so we have to be careful that we're not just trying to create knowledgeable Christians, 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:18.240 but we're trying to create people who actually practice their faith actively, 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:22.480 loving the people that are around them, bringing them to Christ, and then discipling them right 00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:23.760 after. That's the important thing. 00:19:23.760 --> 00:19:29.360 I love that. You know, it's James 1:22. Don't just be hearers of the word. 00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:33.680 You know, I paraphrase online and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:38.720 Once again, paraphrasing in the real world. Don't just hear the word, do what it says. 00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:44.240 And so having that executed. Love, love that there. Hey, look, we're, we do a show beta and somebody 00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:48.000 called me out. They were like, well, Jeff, you're not giving us any, any practical insights on how 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:54.640 to do this. So here's your beta moment for the show. Run some test groups through a disciple 00:19:54.640 --> 00:20:01.200 making process. Disciples made, rooted, no place left. Alpha, even as it is an opportunity to engage with 00:20:01.200 --> 00:20:08.320 that platform. Test this out, test this out. An intentional disciple making initiative. Run it in 00:20:08.320 --> 00:20:13.840 small and did it work? What do you need to improve on? Like you can grab 30 people right now, break 00:20:13.840 --> 00:20:19.520 them up into groups. Some of the leaders of your church and start to do this even in a, in a skunk 00:20:19.520 --> 00:20:24.000 works, even in a small situation, experiment with it and then, and then see where you get. 00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:29.840 Right. Or start very small. You know, I, I did a program called growing up by Robbie Gallaty 00:20:29.840 --> 00:20:34.880 with three guys intentionally at my church and I hand selected them. I, and then when it came time, 00:20:34.880 --> 00:20:38.160 when we were done, I told them that they had to hand set, select somebody too, and intentionally 00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:42.160 let them know that they were in a discipleship relationship. I told them there's no ninja 00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:45.760 discipleship. There's no, Hey, I'm going to do this. And they're not even going to know it. This 00:20:45.760 --> 00:20:48.800 is going to be like, Hey, you know, sand the floor. And then, all right, I'm going to teach you 00:20:48.800 --> 00:20:52.720 how to block. It's not going to be any of that. You have to make sure that they identify that 00:20:52.720 --> 00:20:56.880 they're in an accountable relationship and that you are going to keep them accountable to things like 00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:03.520 reading your Bible, praying evangelism, et cetera, because then it's understood that there's 00:21:03.520 --> 00:21:08.240 expectations. Then it's understood that you guys are going to live in conversation about these things. 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:12.320 It's not going to be something that's all, and by the way, no, no, no. We're meeting for an 00:21:12.320 --> 00:21:17.920 explicit person purpose to move you forward in terms of being a follower of Jesus, disciple people 00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:21.840 on purpose. Start small like the master did, and then over time, go big. 00:21:23.600 --> 00:21:27.520 Well done on the Karate Kid reference. That was great. I got to tell you, I'm a little disappointed 00:21:27.520 --> 00:21:31.440 we made it to the end of the show without working in a back to the future reference since today is 00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:36.640 back to the future day when it went in the future. I feel like we failed a little bit here in the 00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:41.440 show. We'll have to work harder on that next time. Hey, listen, we Stadia, we want to help churches 00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:47.280 like you figure out how to develop a digital strategy, a fidgetal strategy, one where you're 00:21:47.280 --> 00:21:52.320 creating those disciple makers and unleashing them fidgetally in digital and physical space. 00:21:53.520 --> 00:21:57.520 If you are interested in more of these types of conversations and how we can practically help 00:21:57.520 --> 00:22:05.360 your church, check out stadiachurchplanning.org/fidgetal. Next week, we are talking about 00:22:05.360 --> 00:22:10.960 Christmas. I don't know, seriously sitting here today, October 21st, I don't know that I have an 00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:15.360 answer for Christmas. We're going to work on it this week. We're going to ask around and see what some 00:22:15.360 --> 00:22:20.720 churches are doing to figure it out, but how do you do Christmas in a fidgetal environment? What is 00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:27.760 that going to look like, December 23rd, 24th, 25th, 2020? It's going to be crazy. Text in your questions 00:22:27.760 --> 00:22:36.000 here to For The Church, 484-324-8724. We would love to hear your questions. I went a little long 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:40.960 this episode, but loved every second of it. I knew this was going to be a rich conversation. Ray, any 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:45.760 closing thoughts as we land in the plane? No, much love to you all. Don't forget, hey, it's okay to try 00:22:45.760 --> 00:22:50.480 things. We haven't mastered these things. We're not in a new normal. Jeff and I talked about 00:22:51.360 --> 00:22:55.040 there's no sense of new normal because what we're facing right now, we've not been doing long enough 00:22:55.040 --> 00:22:59.920 to be normal. I want to just encourage you, church pastor, it's okay to experiment right now. It's 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:04.720 okay to try something. Try and make sure that the mission stays the same, but the way that you're 00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:12.240 accomplishing that mission, keep loose hands with that. Awesome. Love that. Hey, for Ray, I'm Jeff with 00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:19.200 The Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning. Thanks for jumping on this episode of Beta 3. We'll see you next 00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:22.520 time here at the beta show y'all have a good day see you later