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 Hey, we're going to get you to that podcast in one second, but before we get there, I, Jeff Reed, the Church Digital, Stadia Church Planning, I wanted to have a conversation with you, churches that are out there.

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 One of the greatest things I arguably think that I've done in my life, other than married and kids, okay, that aside, one of the greatest ministry things I've ever done is this idea of the fidgetal learning communities that we are offering through Stadia Church Planning.

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 We want to help you, we want to help your church learn to thrive, grow, and multiply fidgetally, physically, as well as digitally.

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 We've seen about 200 churches go through this already, and it's been a phenomenal result of it.

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 Culture is changing within these churches.

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 They're understanding what it is to thrive.

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 They're understanding how to grow people, how to grow their church, even in the midst of this COVID, not COVID, wherever we are in the season.

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 And they're even starting to understand what it means to multiply in fidgetal space.

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 There's no secret sauce to doing a digital strategy.

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 There's no secret sauce to doing a fidgetal strategy.

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 There's no secret sauce to making your church thrive, grow, and multiply.

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 It takes work.

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 I'm not going to lie.

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 But through the framework, through the questions, through the learning communities, we connect you with churches.

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 We give you some content.

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 We coach you along the way to help you make the decisions that you need to make so that your church's strategy can thrive, grow, and multiply your church along the way.

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 This is a great opportunity for your church.

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 We would love to have you be a part of it.

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 For more information, check out stadiacchurchplanning.org slash fidgetal.

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 Stadiachurchplanning.org slash fidgetal.

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 P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L.

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 All right.

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 Hey, that's it.

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 We're going to get you back to that episode right now.

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 Hey, welcome to Clubhouse here.

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 My name is Jeff Reed, and I am director of digital church planting with Stadia.

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 It's literally my job with Stadia Church Planting to help plant churches in digital-only space.

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 Now, it was funny.

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 I just got off a talk with Exponential.

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 They're doing their future church kind of thing.

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 And my talk in the Q&A was all centered around a digital-only expression of church, churches that do not have physical buildings.

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 And we're going to talk with Chesley, Angela, Daniel.

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 There's probably some other guests that will come up, and we'll take some Q&A and stuff.

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 But this is a very aggressive, forward-facing thing.

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 This is not, hey, we've got a church at the corner of XYZ Street and ABC Avenue, and we're doing digital ministry.

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 This is the conversation we want to have here is a church that exists entirely in Facebook or entirely in a digital platform called Roblox.

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 So it's an aggressive point.

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 What was fascinating was after the talk, even in the Q&A with Exponential, it was kind of stuck in that physical-digital dual relationship, which, hey, you know what?

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 That's a necessary thing to have for churches.

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 With this specifically, we want to hang on the nuance of a digital-only expression of church for the conversation.

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 And by the way, we are recording this.

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 We're very intentional towards saying that.

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 So there's lots of people with – I run a podcast with the Church Digital Podcast.

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 We've got hundreds of people listening on social media as well.

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 And there's a following of people who are very excited about conversations like these, and some of them don't have Clubhouse devices.

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 They don't have accounts, or maybe they're on Android or they're in other countries.

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 And so there's a lot of FOMO centered on a lot of the conversations that we have in context of Clubhouse.

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 So we are recording this, and I'm going to turn this into a podcast probably within a week.

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 So just know that going in advance, Clubhouse is very particular that I have to say that.

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 So I've said that.

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 Clubhouse, don't sue me.

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 All right.

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 Hey, so let's get in here and dig into the conversation.

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 We've got a couple panelists on stage that – it's interesting.

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 They're in different stages of life, even in context of planting, starting, and running a digital-only expression of church, just kind of going in no particular order here.

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 We've got Daniel Heron down beneath me on the Clubhouse chart.

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 Daniel started a church called the Robloxian Christians.

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 Maybe – I guess it's probably been about 10 years at this point now, Daniel, right?

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 And so Daniel's voice is going to sound very young in a second because Daniel's 21.

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 So if you do bad math, he started a church when he was 11 years old on a platform called Roblox.

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 And we'll get more into Daniel here in a little bit.

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 Angela Craig just popped in.

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 Angela is lead pastor of a church called Pursuit Church Live.

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 It's a Facebook-only church.

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 Arguably, I think it's the first social media church, at least for the Assemblies of God, if not in general.

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 And so Angela is impacting thousands of people a week across – last I heard, I think it was 46 countries, 43 languages, something like that, coming out of Pursuit Church Live, 1,500 small groups a week.

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 Some ridiculous stats that are happening through Angela's digital-only church.

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 DJ Soto, probably – and DJ, we'll get to this maybe, but DJ Soto, through his virtual reality church, is actually kind of well-known.

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 BBC did a story on his virtual reality church, a church that exists entirely in virtual reality, talking about the goggles and stuff like this.

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 DJ got a story done by BBC, I think Fox News, CNN, a couple news sources picked him up.

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 Even the Comedy Central daily show did a story on him.

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 But as a result of that, I think this birch baptism that was done in virtual reality, I think was actually probably the most well-known or the most viewed virtual baptism ever that year, if not even since.

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 It's because so much attention was drawn towards it, and we can have an entire conversation of whether baptism counts if it's done in virtual reality.

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 I tend to think, yes, we can dialogue through that later.

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 Chesley Lundy's in here as well, who is starting – planting a new church in digital space.

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 Chesley's wanting to plant a church through a social media network that's targeting and aimed towards young professionals.

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 And so lots of conversations here, part of Clubhouse, we want to get into dialogue.

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 We want to get into part of questions and answers.

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 And so if you've got some questions coming into this, go ahead and raise your hand.

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 I do want to let the speakers give a chance to kind of talk up front, share their story, maybe share some of the pros and cons and why they chose a digital-only expression of church, a church without a physical footprint.

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 But raise those hands, I'll bring you up to the speaker level, and then we'll include you in when it's appropriate or able to.

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 So let me ask this question up front.

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 And DJ, let me get you to go first, and then we will open it up and let the panel kind of answer it.

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 So, I mean, by far the majority, there's 330,000 evangelical churches in America today, not even talking globally.

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 Like, there's a ridiculous number of churches.

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 They all exist in physical space.

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 DJ, you decided to go digital.

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 You decided to even go avatar-based, which is a little different than digital, a lot different than digital.

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 But the idea is you kind of went a different approach by going digital.

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 Why would you go?

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 What was the motivation for you?

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 What were you seeing for you?

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 Why do you think God was leading you to do a digital-only expression of church?

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 Hey, Jeff.

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 Thanks for having me.

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 So long story short, my wife and I were pastors at a physical church for many years.

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 We led one of the campuses at a church in southeast Pennsylvania, helped launch one of their multi-site campuses.

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 And it was about 2016 where we felt like God wanted us to do something new and didn't know what that meant.

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 And so we thought that meant playing physical churches.

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 That's what we set out to do.

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 And it was about the same time that the Oculus Rift came out.

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 And that name is starting to become a little bit more familiar.

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 It's owned by Facebook.

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 You start to see it at Best Buy.

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 You can get it on Amazon.

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 And it was the first time where VR, this new technology, was available to the masses at a consumer level.

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 I mean, VR has been around for a long time, but not at the consumer level where you could order it from Amazon or Best Buy.

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 And so our family, we're a bunch of gamers, geeks.

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 We had Fortnite, Overwatch, you know, all the MMOs.

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 We just love to play all these games.

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 And so we're kind of tech nerds.

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 And so we got the virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift, you know, not thinking ministry-oriented.

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 But it wasn't too long into owning one of these where we discovered the metaverse.

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 This whole new digital universe where you can think of it like living, breathing cities where people exist in avatars, three-dimensional spaces, immersive environments.

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 It was just unbelievable the first time I experienced, it's called Altspace VR.

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 It's now owned by Microsoft.

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 And it was the first time I experienced anything like that.

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 You know, I thought I'd seen it all, but I'd never seen anything like this.

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 Went into that space.

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 And just a few days later, I was like, you know what?

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 I'd love to try experimenting with church and virtual reality.

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 So it was just an experiment.

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 A few days later, we had the first church service in VR.

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 My first visitor was an atheist from Denmark.

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 And he came in and he said, you know, man, I don't believe in God and all, but I'm just curious to what this VR church is all about.

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 And the light bulb came on at that moment.

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 I was like, this is unbelievable.

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 I've never, you know, all the churches I've been a part of, big and small, you know, launching multi-science.

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 I've never had the first guest ever been an atheist.

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 And so from that moment, we just started experimenting with church and virtual reality.

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 And it took a little bit of time.

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 It was probably about May of 2017 where, like, the light bulb fully came on.

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 And we said, oh, this is a living, breathing church in the metaverse.

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 This is no different than a physical church on the street corner.

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 And we made the shift to plant churches in the metaverse.

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 And so that's what we've been doing.

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 Ever since.

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 That's awesome.

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 I love the fact that we're planting churches in the metaverse.

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 Like, that's maybe a crazy concept or a new concept to some people in the audience.

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 But the reality is, is that there's community in these digital spaces.

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 And I've had conversations with people who are in the metaverse, so to speak,

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 where that's the only real community and the access to community that they have.

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 And so, DJ, you've got a lot of, like, you know, I've met people, Alina, as one who has medical issues that are engaging in the virtual reality church.

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 And she's one of those that it's like, Jeff, this is the only church I could get to in virtual reality.

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 But DJ, talk to me a little bit, just a follow-up question.

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 Talk to me about, like, who else is accessing and engaging with the virtual reality church?

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 You told me at some point there was a large percentage of atheists, of agnostics that you guys are engaging with in this digital church,

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 maybe in a virtual reality church, maybe that aren't engaging, not wanting to go to a physical church.

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 What is the ministry?

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 What is evangelism?

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 What does it look like at the virtual reality church, VR church, maybe doing some of this evangelism?

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 Yeah, it's just mind-blowing in so many ways.

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 The community is very eclectic, very diverse.

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 Like I said, you know, atheists and agnostics that visit, Wired Magazine did an article and the reporter, you know,

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 just started talking with a group of people and a couple of them were atheists.

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 And so it's certainly that, it's certainly people who have severe social anxieties.

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 There's reason why people physically can't get to church.

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 So I've heard some criticism, you know, more of that pre-COVID where they were like, you know,

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 people should physically go to church.

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 I was like, yeah, you know, that's great and all, but some people actually physically can't.

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 Or perhaps there's an emotional or a mental disorder that prevents them from doing so.

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 And so I think that we've seen just the whole gamut of people who are homebound,

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 severe social anxiety, some form of autism.

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 And it's just, it's just these digital online virtual reality churches, whatever you call them,

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 just provide an opportunity for many people, millions of people that, you know, just physically can't attend.

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 And so it's quite eclectic.

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 It's very unique.

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 People ask me, well, why do atheists attend a VR church?

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 And I said, well, I still think they're very interested about faith.

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 You know, many, many of these atheists, at least that I've had conversations with,

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 used to be a part of a church in some form or fashion.

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 And so it's still, it's part of their history.

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 It's part of their childhood and they still just want to talk about it.

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 So, yeah, so that's, I think that these opportunities we have for these online churches is just groundbreaking.

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 And I'm just really looking forward to see what it becomes.

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 I feel like we're just scratching the surface.

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 We've just started this whole thing.

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 And the more that the church gets on board, so to speak, with the idea of digital ministry, online churches,

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 I think that the better we'll be for it.

00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:36.240
 Awesome.

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 Love that.

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 Let's shift gears.

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 Let's keep it in the avatar world, or at least somewhat avatar world.

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 Daniel Heron is a former, I guess.

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 I don't know, Daniel.

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 You can tell me if it's still current or former.

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 But he started a church called the Robloxian Christians.

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 And Daniel actually just, I may have been like the first succession plan of a digital church,

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 at least that I know of, where Daniel has handed the church over to some other individuals.

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 And so, Daniel, I'll let you explain that here in a second.

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 But Daniel's doing a church on a platform called Roblox.

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 Now, I, as a 43-year-old person, really had no idea what Roblox was until my kids told me what Roblox was.

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 My son, who's 10, probably spends about an hour and a half a day playing on this Roblox platform,

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 talking with people.

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 He's got his iPad with Zoom up, joking around with his friends while they're engaging on this,

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 with his laptop in this platform, playing games and things like that.

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 And so, Daniel, like close to 10 years ago, started a church there and has actually successfully handed it over to another organization to run.

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 So, Daniel, talk to me a little bit here.

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 So, Daniel, kind of what was it you that stirred into starting this digital-only expression of church in Roblox?

00:14:55.460 --> 00:14:58.300
 Yeah, thanks, Jeff, for putting this together.

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 And I really like what DJ said when he talked about sort of just stumbling into it,

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 into the buying a VR headset and getting into it.

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 I mean, Roblox is not VR.

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 It's not in the headset.

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 It's like an online game that I was playing, you know, with my friends just after school when I was like growing up.

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 And like when I talk and talk about this, I don't talk about like an intentional like plan to start a church.

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 It was really a little bit more organic growth from wanting to have a place to talk about faith and pray with my friends online.

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 And I guess over time it took shape and became more organized with an actual like structure of young people coming together to care for and support other young people online.

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 And I think that's something that really defines our church because it Roblox is special because it is a platform where young people are at in mass.

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 And there's just like you were just saying, your kids are on Roblox.

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 I'm sure if you ask most parents with kids that are between 10 to 18, they would probably say, I have some recollection of what Roblox is or what Discord is and these platforms that our kids are already on.

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 I was on there too and having a space on there that's reserved and a place where they can be supported and find God and come to be loved and love each other and it's like a safe environment is really special.

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 I think contributed to the success that our church has had.

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 It's awesome.

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 If you're not, Roblox is, and I should have said this up front, if you've never seen Roblox,

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 Google it, it's worth the time.

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 I think it just went public stockwise or it's going public in the next couple of days.

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 But essentially it's a cross of maybe Minecraft with Lego and it's kind of in that environment where your kids can build virtual worlds and play around and just like be very creative within the space.

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 And so I've loved, honestly, I've loved seeing my son and some of the creativity that he's developing by programming and building some of this stuff with it.

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 And the idea that maybe, just maybe through the community of Roblox, we're able to connect with kids and students in a new way.

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 Side note, like when we're struggling in this COVID season, student ministry doesn't work.

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 I honestly would love to see more churches even get into the Roblox space and start to maybe build some of these churches as well and start to explore doing ministry in that space, going to people instead of broadcasting services, student services online.

00:17:58.100 --> 00:17:59.240
 But that's a separate thing.

00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:01.800
 Daniel, let me just follow up here real quick.

00:18:02.940 --> 00:18:04.800
 Talk to me about like the succession.

00:18:05.020 --> 00:18:05.920
 So you built this thing.

00:18:06.040 --> 00:18:06.960
 You ran it for 10 years.

00:18:07.420 --> 00:18:10.340
 By the way, reaching tens of thousands of people.

00:18:10.560 --> 00:18:11.860
 The number varies and grows.

00:18:12.040 --> 00:18:23.020
 But it's probably safe to say 40,000 plus have been influenced over time as a result of what's happening in the Robloxian Christian church.

00:18:23.540 --> 00:18:28.640
 But Daniel, you're kind of stepping away for that for a time period and you've handed over to some others.

00:18:28.980 --> 00:18:30.260
 What was some of the logic?

00:18:30.500 --> 00:18:32.100
 Why were you kind of transitioning out?

00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:35.020
 Yeah, that's a good question.

00:18:36.300 --> 00:18:48.400
 I think as funny as it sounds, a large part of why I was trying to step away is like I've been doing this for 10 years and it was 10 incredible years, like life changing and built relationships to last a lifetime.

00:18:48.400 --> 00:19:03.800
 But as funny as it sounds, I was growing too old to be leading on the Roblox church because something that made our church special was the fact that it was youth serving youth and entirely youth led.

00:19:05.460 --> 00:19:10.600
 So as I right now, I'm a junior in college graduating next fall.

00:19:11.080 --> 00:19:13.280
 I'm looking forward to like what's coming next in my life.

00:19:13.280 --> 00:19:22.460
 And I was like, you know, I don't know if I can continue to lead with the same dynamic of young people giving their time.

00:19:22.460 --> 00:19:38.740
 And because when it's when it's your peers that you're talking to and your peers that are there supporting you, there's a really different dynamic than perhaps when you're a young person in a youth group talking to a youth pastor that's 10 or 15 years older than you.

00:19:38.900 --> 00:19:41.980
 There's just a different trust and a different bond that is there.

00:19:43.060 --> 00:19:55.600
 And my stepping away is sort of wanting to respect that bond and allow that to continue on with leaders that are a little bit closer to keeping that relationship intact.

00:19:57.460 --> 00:19:57.940
 Yeah.

00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:02.100
 He aged out of Robloxian ministry at the age of 21.

00:20:02.380 --> 00:20:05.080
 I just find that beautiful.

00:20:05.800 --> 00:20:14.520
 You know, and even the ability to hand that over to others and to transition on looking at multiplication, they still got some things to work out organizationally.

00:20:14.660 --> 00:20:32.240
 But, you know, love the fact that probably the oldest digital only church, at least the oldest that I'm aware of, which interestingly, and Daniel told me this recently, like out of their church, they've actually grown and developed and multiplied into other Robloxian churches.

00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:36.440
 There are other groups and entities that exist in the Robloxian space.

00:20:36.440 --> 00:20:41.280
 And a lot of it comes from that leadership of this initial Robloxian Christian group.

00:20:41.700 --> 00:20:42.000
 Awesome.

00:20:42.380 --> 00:20:48.700
 Angela Craig is on as well from Pursue Church Live, which is this Facebook-only Assemblies of God Church.

00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:56.200
 And I've loved her heart for ministry and how she's doing things on that social media platform.

00:20:56.400 --> 00:21:01.840
 So, Angela, why did you get into the Facebook Pursue Church Live?

00:21:01.900 --> 00:21:04.360
 Maybe what was some of the motives heading into this?

00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:07.280
 Hi, everybody.

00:21:07.840 --> 00:21:09.200
 We're so glad you're here today.

00:21:09.240 --> 00:21:10.680
 And thank you for inviting me.

00:21:11.280 --> 00:21:11.820
 Oh, my goodness.

00:21:11.820 --> 00:21:15.940
 It's hard to tell you why I wouldn't have gotten into this.

00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:22.140
 Before Pursuit, Pursuit is about four years old, I was working in my local church.

00:21:22.280 --> 00:21:28.240
 And I was also a director of and coach at the Northwestern Ministry Network.

00:21:28.620 --> 00:21:30.120
 It's basically the Assemblies of God.

00:21:30.260 --> 00:21:34.500
 If you're familiar with that, we have network offices that train the pastors and leaders.

00:21:35.260 --> 00:21:41.840
 And so, I was coaching leaders and the pastors were all saying, you know, I would say, what's your biggest need?

00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:44.640
 And they'd say, getting people to come to church.

00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:57.060
 So, I was also doing some, about seven years ago, I started doing some Facebook groups because for that very reason, I couldn't get my leaders to come to in-person meetings anymore.

00:21:57.300 --> 00:22:01.180
 And so, I started using Facebook groups and to equip leaders.

00:22:01.380 --> 00:22:10.660
 And what I found through that was that there was a large percentage of people coming that said, I love Jesus, but I don't have a local church.

00:22:11.280 --> 00:22:13.240
 I don't, there's just not one in my area.

00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:21.640
 And 40% of our groups, we ended up having about 500 people join that Facebook group in six months.

00:22:21.880 --> 00:22:26.180
 And 40% of those people did not, were not attached to a local body.

00:22:26.860 --> 00:22:31.900
 And my heart was always for people outside the church.

00:22:31.980 --> 00:22:36.600
 In my local church, you know, I was asking the same question because so many people didn't feel like they fit.

00:22:37.900 --> 00:22:47.500
 Whether they were divorced or, or whatever it was, there's so many reasons that people are held back from, or maybe a religious experience before.

00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:54.180
 And so, I just went to our network and I said, hey, I want to try seeing if I could do church online.

00:22:54.940 --> 00:23:02.280
 And they were like, okay, well, the Assemblies of God is not going to approve that, but you go ahead because you have Jesus' approval.

00:23:02.760 --> 00:23:07.100
 Chesley, why don't you go ahead and share, you're starting a new church in digital only.

00:23:07.100 --> 00:23:09.120
 So, share me a little bit what's happening there.

00:23:10.240 --> 00:23:19.440
 So, I guess my backstory was, I was a church replanter in Omaha, Nebraska a few years ago, about four years ago.

00:23:19.860 --> 00:23:23.960
 I was by far the youngest pastor in the room in this particular denomination.

00:23:24.680 --> 00:23:30.940
 And I asked the question, probably a little unwisely, what if the church didn't have a building?

00:23:31.300 --> 00:23:33.640
 And I got laughed out of the room.

00:23:34.680 --> 00:23:48.340
 And I was told that I was young, thinking that I should be thinking more about the church that God's given me at the moment, rather than thinking about these silly little things.

00:23:48.620 --> 00:23:51.300
 And then, fast forward a couple more years.

00:23:53.820 --> 00:23:56.420
 Oh, there we go.

00:23:56.680 --> 00:23:57.840
 Go ahead, Chesley.

00:23:58.120 --> 00:23:58.520
 Sorry.

00:23:59.540 --> 00:24:00.440
 No, you're okay.

00:24:00.660 --> 00:24:00.960
 You're all right.

00:24:00.980 --> 00:24:03.060
 Several of us had tech issues, it looks like.

00:24:03.140 --> 00:24:03.740
 Sorry, Angela.

00:24:03.860 --> 00:24:05.140
 Angela, we'll come back to you in a second.

00:24:06.840 --> 00:24:10.260
 Yeah, so, fast forward a few more years.

00:24:10.460 --> 00:24:16.960
 I'm in a new place in Phoenix, Arizona, as a youth and young adult pastor in a much larger church.

00:24:17.560 --> 00:24:23.760
 And I began to realize that Gen Z needed interaction online.

00:24:23.840 --> 00:24:33.620
 We would have conversations in groups, and they weren't transparent on the things that they were struggling with.

00:24:33.660 --> 00:24:40.220
 But the moment we started creating a forum online for them, they would tell us things we didn't even want to know.

00:24:40.740 --> 00:24:44.780
 And so, I began to experiment.

00:24:45.100 --> 00:24:48.720
 Now, we are helping churches in three different time zones from youth ministry.

00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:56.180
 And God put it on my heart to start thinking about church planting digitally when COVID happened.

00:24:56.820 --> 00:24:59.740
 I felt like, hey, we have something here.

00:24:59.940 --> 00:25:00.860
 I'm not crazy.

00:25:01.060 --> 00:25:02.220
 There's proof of concept.

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:06.860
 And so, I went looking for digital church planting.

00:25:07.340 --> 00:25:15.020
 And I had to find – I had to go through 14 pages of Google until I found one dude, and that dude was Jeff Reed.

00:25:15.600 --> 00:25:19.600
 And so, he's not on the 14th page of Google anymore.

00:25:19.800 --> 00:25:22.500
 I think I'm pretty sure you're page number one, aren't you?

00:25:23.680 --> 00:25:24.540
 Yeah, okay.

00:25:24.660 --> 00:25:30.100
 So, maybe COVID brought some awareness up and some credibility along the road.

00:25:30.180 --> 00:25:32.860
 But, yeah, it's been fun towards that.

00:25:32.860 --> 00:25:45.240
 And, honestly, I've just really enjoyed helping plant churches, helping church planters like Chesley, even in this COVID season, plant a church.

00:25:45.300 --> 00:25:51.240
 And this is really the heart of what Stadia is wanting to do and plant a digital-only expression of church.

00:25:51.500 --> 00:25:53.660
 Angela, we cut you off.

00:25:53.800 --> 00:25:59.960
 You and I both had tech issues at the same time, which tells me there's something wrong with the Clubhouse platform with that.

00:26:00.120 --> 00:26:01.840
 So, sorry, audience, towards that.

00:26:02.940 --> 00:26:03.760
 Yeah, that's okay.

00:26:04.060 --> 00:26:06.480
 What did you actually hear?

00:26:07.360 --> 00:26:08.180
 Can you hear me now?

00:26:08.800 --> 00:26:09.040
 Yeah.

00:26:09.240 --> 00:26:14.640
 So, just maybe the heart of – I tell you what, Angela, let's shift.

00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:15.900
 I want to ask you the first question.

00:26:16.080 --> 00:26:18.240
 And then I want to ask this question of the others.

00:26:18.740 --> 00:26:19.560
 Tell me a story.

00:26:20.260 --> 00:26:24.540
 Tell me something that's happening within context of your church.

00:26:24.540 --> 00:26:33.500
 Because a lot of the people who say a digital-only church cannot be a real church because it doesn't do this.

00:26:34.060 --> 00:26:42.040
 Honestly, when I talk with you and with DJ and Daniel and some of these others, I hear the stories that actually goes against what these people are saying.

00:26:42.480 --> 00:26:51.080
 Because the relationships are authentic, because the discipleship is real, because people are willing to be open and transparent digitally and maybe not in doing so physically.

00:26:51.320 --> 00:26:53.980
 So, tell me – kind of open up here a little bit, Angela.

00:26:54.280 --> 00:26:59.200
 What's – tell me a story or two of what's happening through Pursuit Church Love.

00:26:59.300 --> 00:27:00.100
 Okay.

00:27:01.360 --> 00:27:03.060
 I'm just trying to think which one I should start with.

00:27:04.260 --> 00:27:05.860
 I – oh, goodness.

00:27:06.600 --> 00:27:09.300
 When COVID hit, I wrote a little book called Online Jesus.

00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:13.940
 And it kind of tells how to disciple and care for people online.

00:27:14.080 --> 00:27:16.220
 But – and I wrote a lot of stories in there.

00:27:16.820 --> 00:27:20.800
 But I'll – I just want to tell you – I'll tell you a story of Dee.

00:27:21.180 --> 00:27:22.440
 She sticks out in my mind.

00:27:23.120 --> 00:27:25.640
 And Dee is actually from Colorado.

00:27:25.640 --> 00:27:26.680
 She has MS.

00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:36.460
 And the way that we look – you know, we're engaging with people is when we see people engaging, they like, they share, they comment, we reach out to them.

00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:40.860
 And Dee was a person who was always on, always watching, always cheering.

00:27:41.140 --> 00:27:47.200
 And so, I invited her pretty quickly to be on our – what we call our impact team or encouragers.

00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:53.740
 Basically, they're just – they're there daily to see, you know, like, who can I encourage?

00:27:53.740 --> 00:27:54.600
 Who can I pray for?

00:27:54.720 --> 00:27:55.800
 Who can I like their comment?

00:27:55.960 --> 00:27:56.540
 That kind of thing.

00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:02.740
 And then she started – she started in one of our small groups, Bible Studies.

00:28:03.180 --> 00:28:07.420
 And she – then I asked her to lead the impact team.

00:28:08.060 --> 00:28:14.740
 And she did that for two years and was just absolutely phenomenal at it.

00:28:15.600 --> 00:28:21.000
 And just constant presence always for people.

00:28:21.400 --> 00:28:27.080
 Her and her husband came to our – I don't know if I got cut off, but I was talking about our in-person meeting we had.

00:28:27.160 --> 00:28:31.740
 And they came from Colorado.

00:28:32.740 --> 00:28:36.020
 And that was the first time we got to see them.

00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:37.140
 She has a hard time traveling.

00:28:37.280 --> 00:28:43.120
 And it meant so much to her to be part of community, to meet the people of the church that she and her husband came.

00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:48.420
 And then she has such a heart for people that have chronic illness.

00:28:48.560 --> 00:28:57.900
 She's starting – she started a micro-community, which that's, like, our next phase as far as pursuit is to have people either in person or online.

00:28:57.900 --> 00:29:01.000
 And the original vision was they would be in-person groups.

00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:08.500
 And anytime someone wants to go to a church, we always – we have a partnership with a lot of churches or we'll find someone in church to go to.

00:29:09.100 --> 00:29:10.820
 We're not opposed to that, obviously.

00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:15.000
 But the micro-groups we have had start are digital.

00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:22.340
 And so she started a micro-group serving people that have chronic illness and has gone back to school.

00:29:22.340 --> 00:29:27.560
 And she would tell you that her life has changed because she was always on the outside.

00:29:27.880 --> 00:29:29.220
 And she's written blogs about it.

00:29:29.260 --> 00:29:36.040
 And she's talked to our community about it because she was always on the outside of the church looking in because of her MS.

00:29:36.240 --> 00:29:38.420
 She wasn't always able to be in a church.

00:29:38.540 --> 00:29:40.740
 And she hasn't been to church in years now.

00:29:41.040 --> 00:29:48.240
 But she said that people just dropped her like a rock because she couldn't go to church.

00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:55.840
 But here she is, this person who's thriving in her faith and wanted to have a purpose in building God's kingdom.

00:29:56.060 --> 00:29:58.580
 And now she has that chance because of technology.

00:30:00.160 --> 00:30:04.560
 So I don't know how to sell it better than that.

00:30:04.760 --> 00:30:06.420
 But God changes lives.

00:30:07.040 --> 00:30:10.520
 And He has given us an incredible tool.

00:30:13.080 --> 00:30:23.640
 And it just is really heartbreaking to me when I've seen people kind of insult church because they're really insulting the people that I love.

00:30:23.640 --> 00:30:29.180
 When they say that digital is not real community, they really are insulting the people that I love.

00:30:29.220 --> 00:30:32.020
 And I get pretty riled up about it.

00:30:34.960 --> 00:30:37.300
 I mean, that's a powerful story there.

00:30:37.340 --> 00:30:39.740
 And I'm sure it's one of many, many more.

00:30:39.880 --> 00:30:49.980
 And it's interesting, even with the health issues, that that stands out as, man, I'm able to connect with people, reaching people that aren't able to get into the physical space.

00:30:50.820 --> 00:30:57.380
 I'll tell you, another example of maybe a physical, just yesterday, maybe it was Tuesday, sometime this week,

00:30:57.380 --> 00:31:06.840
 I had a conversation with a digital only planter, or a potential planter, who wanted to plant a digital church in ASL, American Sign Language.

00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:14.720
 The, you know, that community, the deaf people, hard of hearing people, they're scattered across the country.

00:31:14.860 --> 00:31:18.100
 They go where caregivers are able to take them.

00:31:18.180 --> 00:31:20.260
 They're distributed among family members.

00:31:20.260 --> 00:31:24.600
 And often they're not able to stay in a physical location.

00:31:24.600 --> 00:31:32.200
 And because of their conditions, they're not easily able to connect within a hearing world.

00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:50.080
 And so even looking to do things, do a church, reaching, you know, American Sign Language people that are deaf is an incredible option to do that in digital space with services and communities and tailoring it in ways to meet deaf people.

00:31:50.200 --> 00:31:56.820
 And so it was really encouraging for me, even just to hear the story of another health abnormality.

00:31:56.820 --> 00:32:04.140
 I'm not sure how to say that appropriately, but somebody who's struggling with a health issue, but we're still able to challenge them with the gospel.

00:32:04.280 --> 00:32:10.340
 We're still able to challenge them to be on mission for God, even beyond that, utilizing digital tools.

00:32:10.440 --> 00:32:11.940
 So that's a very beautiful story.

00:32:12.600 --> 00:32:14.460
 DJ, what do you have story-wise?

00:32:16.660 --> 00:32:20.780
 Yeah, there are so many just beautiful stories that, you know, we've experienced.

00:32:21.280 --> 00:32:31.880
 And one is just the nature of the technology of virtual reality allows people just to come into the space and experience it at their own pace in a very comfortable way.

00:32:31.880 --> 00:32:35.620
 And so just one guy that I think of is a gentleman from Spain.

00:32:35.740 --> 00:32:40.540
 He was an avowed atheist and just decided to come check it out as a technologist.

00:32:40.760 --> 00:32:44.520
 I'm just curious about virtual reality and what's faith doing in the space.

00:32:44.540 --> 00:32:46.820
 And then just started to come each week.

00:32:46.900 --> 00:32:49.340
 He was really connected with the community.

00:32:50.300 --> 00:32:55.620
 And just over time, you could just see his interest in wanting to help out and volunteer.

00:32:55.940 --> 00:33:01.140
 So even before coming to faith, which he did recently, he was one of our volunteers, a greeter.

00:33:01.880 --> 00:33:04.000
 And it blew me away one time.

00:33:04.080 --> 00:33:05.520
 He was like, hey, pastor, can I pray?

00:33:05.680 --> 00:33:08.980
 Was that a prayer gathering or like a small group or something like that?

00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:09.540
 I was like, absolutely.

00:33:09.740 --> 00:33:11.960
 So he prayed in his language in Spanish.

00:33:12.740 --> 00:33:14.920
 And I know Little Spanish was this beautiful prayer.

00:33:15.720 --> 00:33:20.480
 And it wasn't too much longer after that where he got me in the – we have digital offices.

00:33:21.240 --> 00:33:25.480
 He got me in the virtual office and said, hey, I just want to let you know that I've come to faith in Christ.

00:33:26.040 --> 00:33:27.780
 And that was just a beautiful moment.

00:33:27.900 --> 00:33:32.420
 You know, those stories that you have, those things that you experience that, you know, makes it all worth it.

00:33:32.740 --> 00:33:39.380
 And so this gentleman in Spain was just such a powerful story for us.

00:33:39.380 --> 00:33:42.440
 So now he's actually – I just totally forgot about this.

00:33:42.500 --> 00:33:43.380
 I just remembered it right now.

00:33:43.880 --> 00:33:46.080
 He helped our teaching team on Sunday.

00:33:46.220 --> 00:33:54.880
 Pastor Alina was preaching, and he brought up this gentleman to teach a couple of verses that impacted him in this particular chapter that we were studying.

00:33:55.500 --> 00:33:56.340
 And so, I don't know.

00:33:56.400 --> 00:33:57.360
 That's one of the ones.

00:33:57.540 --> 00:33:58.020
 Wow.

00:33:58.440 --> 00:34:08.460
 And what's fascinating is with this digital technology, it often – it looks like some of the knock against it is that it's – you're unable to do authentic relationships.

00:34:08.460 --> 00:34:14.080
 You really don't know who these people are that you're engaging with, that you're talking with online.

00:34:14.300 --> 00:34:19.000
 And here you're hearing two stories that go against that idea.

00:34:19.560 --> 00:34:21.500
 Yeah, we know these people by name.

00:34:21.680 --> 00:34:24.380
 We see the fruit of what's happening.

00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:27.500
 We know the challenges in their lives with it.

00:34:27.500 --> 00:34:35.140
 Daniel, and you've been a guy who's been engaging a lot with younger generations through these Roblox platforms.

00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:39.680
 Tell me about a story of something that you're seeing out of your church.

00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:42.520
 Thanks, Jeff.

00:34:42.580 --> 00:34:51.140
 And I think that all of us have these, like, really incredible stories that they are just the natural harvest from the seeds that we're planting online.

00:34:53.040 --> 00:34:59.800
 Before I share a story, I just want to say I think that something that's powerful is just a reminder that God gave us the Holy Spirit.

00:35:00.460 --> 00:35:07.640
 And the Holy Spirit is present online as much as the Holy Spirit is in the physical world.

00:35:07.640 --> 00:35:24.460
 And I think that just remembering that God is the Alpha and the Omega and he is present in all things has been a reminder to me and to the church that, you know, even when it seems like we're just doing this work, God is present here.

00:35:25.080 --> 00:35:39.760
 It's been a powerful reminder, but in Roblox with young people, I think one of the biggest issues with my generation, and I talked a lot about this pre-pandemic.

00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:48.120
 I think it's probably been exasperated by the pandemic, but it's just these issues of depression and anxiety.

00:35:48.580 --> 00:35:50.720
 They are just, they are killers.

00:35:52.300 --> 00:36:01.540
 And I have seen so many, how hard it is to just, just to live and just to, you know, exist.

00:36:02.160 --> 00:36:16.220
 And when they come and they get involved and they get plugged in and they, it's not that their depression is cured, but it's more that they are coming and they're talking about it, talking about it in ways that, you know, they might be hiding it in other places.

00:36:18.440 --> 00:36:26.100
 So there have been stories that I could share many, many, many, but what comes first to mind is a girl named Taylor.

00:36:26.340 --> 00:36:28.240
 She lived in Alabama.

00:36:28.980 --> 00:36:31.060
 I mean, this was back in like 2015 and 16.

00:36:31.180 --> 00:36:34.820
 And she, she plugged in like anyone.

00:36:35.380 --> 00:36:41.540
 She served on our welcoming team and just was on fire.

00:36:41.980 --> 00:36:55.440
 But what was more hidden was the family situation that was going on behind the scenes, behind the screen where her, her parents were divorced and it wasn't a pretty divorce.

00:36:55.560 --> 00:36:57.380
 It was pretty not good.

00:36:57.480 --> 00:36:59.960
 And she was hurting, deeply hurting.

00:36:59.960 --> 00:37:14.720
 And it led to her trying to kill herself, which is horrific that really that anyone, especially young people, have these thoughts.

00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:17.840
 But the issue is not with Taylor alone.

00:37:18.080 --> 00:37:20.240
 It's endemic in my generation.

00:37:20.380 --> 00:37:21.780
 I think that that's heartbreaking.

00:37:24.360 --> 00:37:32.760
 And in our church, I don't have a story that says, oh, she was healed and cured and she wasn't depressed anymore.

00:37:32.760 --> 00:37:39.160
 But I do have a story that says that she was, she found community and was able to talk about it.

00:37:39.700 --> 00:37:54.260
 And when she was in a really dark place and said, hey, I'm thinking about hurting myself and tried to hurt herself, she told someone from our church from, that was not near her, that lives, she lives in Alabama.

00:37:54.760 --> 00:37:56.360
 She told her friend that lives in Wisconsin.

00:37:57.820 --> 00:38:09.220
 And he does not, out of the relationship they had built, he was able to contact and get help for her, from her family and from the local people in Alabama.

00:38:09.700 --> 00:38:10.880
 By making those calls.

00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:23.920
 And if that is not the pinnacle definition of the kind of bond and intimate relationship that you can build online, I really don't know what is.

00:38:23.920 --> 00:38:27.160
 And I think that that is powerful in and of itself.

00:38:28.380 --> 00:38:36.160
 And that's just one small, like, that is happening in all of these online spaces and online churches every day.

00:38:37.220 --> 00:38:40.280
 And I think that Angela and DJ can both attest to that as well.

00:38:42.120 --> 00:38:42.600
 Yeah.

00:38:44.220 --> 00:38:44.660
 Awesome.

00:38:44.900 --> 00:38:53.880
 And Chesley, I know you're starting up, but even with some of the things you've been doing with student ministry, doing things with digital ministry with students online.

00:38:54.660 --> 00:38:56.240
 Man, tell me a story.

00:38:56.420 --> 00:39:06.720
 Do you find that, like, similar to Daniel, where students can engage online, where they're being transparent, even with some of these, you know, suicide on depression things?

00:39:07.160 --> 00:39:08.740
 Do you see, do you find it?

00:39:08.980 --> 00:39:11.620
 Talk to me physical and digital, because you can really speak to that.

00:39:11.940 --> 00:39:13.920
 You're doing physical ministry right now.

00:39:14.020 --> 00:39:15.660
 You're doing digital ministry as well.

00:39:15.760 --> 00:39:16.880
 You're starting to plan a church.

00:39:17.320 --> 00:39:21.020
 What's maybe the tension with that younger generation, physically and digitally?

00:39:22.340 --> 00:39:24.000
 Well, it was really funny.

00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:27.400
 So we didn't do well at the Zoom game.

00:39:27.480 --> 00:39:28.440
 Other people have.

00:39:28.940 --> 00:39:32.600
 So what we did was we started doing watch parties at our place.

00:39:33.600 --> 00:39:37.840
 One week, we had a high school student sitting on my couch.

00:39:38.180 --> 00:39:40.680
 I could tell she was having a really difficult time.

00:39:41.380 --> 00:39:43.720
 And I'm like, what's going on?

00:39:43.780 --> 00:39:45.260
 She just wouldn't open up.

00:39:45.400 --> 00:39:46.560
 There's other people there.

00:39:46.600 --> 00:39:49.560
 And I'm like, hey, why don't you DM me on our app?

00:39:49.880 --> 00:39:55.200
 Our organization has an app you can download in the app store if you're a teenager.

00:39:56.020 --> 00:39:57.280
 And so she did.

00:39:57.620 --> 00:40:02.500
 And she literally told me way more than I even thought was going on.

00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:09.440
 And it's just a reminder that they're not telling the whole story when they're face-to-face with you.

00:40:09.660 --> 00:40:12.520
 And we've got to give them safe spaces to open up.

00:40:13.220 --> 00:40:15.740
 And so we were able to have a conversation.

00:40:16.140 --> 00:40:20.920
 We got some female leaders to pray with her.

00:40:21.360 --> 00:40:23.820
 But I was reminded of a story last week.

00:40:23.820 --> 00:40:27.460
 I'm sitting in a student pastor conference.

00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:34.640
 And while one of the guys was up there speaking, the Holy Spirit said, contact one of my best friend's son.

00:40:34.720 --> 00:40:37.540
 We call him Little Jeremy, even though he's not little.

00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:41.960
 And so I texted him.

00:40:41.980 --> 00:40:45.620
 And I said, hey, when you get a chance, I got an idea to run past you.

00:40:45.680 --> 00:40:48.280
 So he literally FaceTimes me right then.

00:40:48.280 --> 00:40:58.940
 And I said, hey, if I could help you reach all of your friends in your school in the next two years for Jesus, would you be okay with that?

00:40:59.080 --> 00:41:00.800
 And he literally looks at me.

00:41:00.900 --> 00:41:02.440
 He's like, dude, I got to show you something.

00:41:03.480 --> 00:41:05.400
 He's like, he shows me his Bible.

00:41:05.620 --> 00:41:10.540
 He's like, I've been sitting here and praying and saying, hey, God, how can I reach my friends?

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:13.320
 And you just texted me out of the blue.

00:41:13.600 --> 00:41:16.460
 And we're both, like, blown away by it, right?

00:41:16.580 --> 00:41:18.260
 And I'm like, cool, that is amazing.

00:41:18.380 --> 00:41:19.320
 I've got stuff for you.

00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:19.900
 How old are you?

00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:21.360
 He's like, I'm 13.

00:41:22.040 --> 00:41:24.180
 And I'm like, that's amazing.

00:41:24.500 --> 00:41:27.240
 Like, we can get 13-year-olds in the game.

00:41:27.440 --> 00:41:39.960
 And the way the church has been is the professional pastors are doing the bulk of the work and we're burning out at a record rate when all of us could be in the game at the same time.

00:41:39.960 --> 00:41:46.740
 When we could actually do what Ephesians 4 says, which is equip the body of Christ for the work of the ministry.

00:41:47.600 --> 00:41:56.100
 So us, you, quote, unquote, professionals can get out of the field and start letting other people be the superstars for once.

00:41:56.540 --> 00:41:57.440
 I think it's cool.

00:41:57.560 --> 00:41:58.460
 I think it's awesome.

00:41:58.460 --> 00:42:09.380
 The fact that we have the ability to do that on a scalable level where even we can get our weekends back and hang with our families is really a positive, too.

00:42:11.780 --> 00:42:12.580
 That's awesome.

00:42:12.760 --> 00:42:14.960
 Yeah, it's all about – I'm not saying it's all about the weekend.

00:42:15.180 --> 00:42:21.140
 Let's not get that idea out there, the fact that as a digital pastor, you can claim your Saturdays and Sundays back.

00:42:22.040 --> 00:42:25.520
 But sometimes it's an added benefit to that.

00:42:25.880 --> 00:42:29.340
 Hey, let's – I do want to open this up for questions.

00:42:29.600 --> 00:42:31.440
 So if you've got questions, raise your hand.

00:42:31.920 --> 00:42:34.760
 I'll bring you up happily to the speaker level and dialogue.

00:42:35.020 --> 00:42:39.200
 Or if you've got thoughts on this, we'd love to let others speak into it.

00:42:39.300 --> 00:42:42.120
 So feel free to raise your hand to come on up.

00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:49.120
 But let me just ask this maybe for the room while others are thinking through questions.

00:42:49.780 --> 00:42:51.160
 And not directed at anybody.

00:42:51.340 --> 00:42:53.480
 Literally, just feel free to jump on.

00:42:54.300 --> 00:42:55.560
 What are some challenges?

00:42:55.820 --> 00:43:01.900
 What do you guys face as you're doing this digital church, even with the launching?

00:43:02.340 --> 00:43:06.440
 You know, is it casting vision to individuals?

00:43:06.960 --> 00:43:14.220
 Is it getting, you know, church support, getting understanding organizationally, financial fundraising challenges?

00:43:14.440 --> 00:43:17.340
 Kind of like what's working and what's not working?

00:43:17.480 --> 00:43:22.000
 We'd love to maybe spend a minute talking about that, and then we'll take some questions from the audience.

00:43:23.580 --> 00:43:34.500
 Yeah, one thought that comes to mind real quick is as we went into digital church planning or specifically virtual reality church planning, what we did is we tried to replicate the church.

00:43:35.120 --> 00:43:44.240
 And so, you know, there's some utility to that, but there are some things that we had to revamp and renew because we realized, you know, God wanted us to actually reimagine the church.

00:43:44.640 --> 00:43:53.800
 So, as you get into, like, digital church planning, virtual, whatever you want to call it, reimagination over replication is a very important principle to keep in mind.

00:43:54.200 --> 00:43:59.260
 It's not that you don't carry things over, but what I've noticed in COVID is churches try to go one for one.

00:43:59.940 --> 00:44:01.280
 What have we done physically?

00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:05.700
 Okay, let's take that one and create the equal experience online.

00:44:05.700 --> 00:44:10.400
 And some have, I think, to our detriment, and some have adopted very well.

00:44:11.080 --> 00:44:19.800
 And so that's just one thing that I thought about is, like, what was one of the pains of VR church is that we tried to plan it like a physical church instead of thinking in new ways.

00:44:19.940 --> 00:44:25.680
 And so a lot of the things that we have in our methodology of church is exactly that.

00:44:25.740 --> 00:44:29.340
 It's just methodology, but it's been integrated for so long.

00:44:29.440 --> 00:44:31.200
 It seems like theology.

00:44:31.200 --> 00:44:39.120
 So that's one thing that we have worked on, one thing we've shifted and pivoted in that has benefited us greatly.

00:44:39.220 --> 00:44:41.980
 And we're just at the beginning of that because that's something that just happened this fall.

00:44:42.260 --> 00:44:46.020
 So we're excited to discover what that reimagination is going to lead to.

00:44:47.380 --> 00:44:48.520
 I love that.

00:44:48.700 --> 00:44:50.840
 Don't recreate, reimagine that.

00:44:50.960 --> 00:44:58.600
 And honestly, that's been a challenge for the church overall in this COVID season as we tried to recreate initially and it didn't work.

00:44:58.600 --> 00:45:06.700
 And now, even to reach some of the younger generations, some of the things that you're hearing, Chesley and Daniel talking about, we're having to reimagine through that.

00:45:06.780 --> 00:45:07.560
 Let's take one more.

00:45:08.240 --> 00:45:09.640
 Addison, I got you up here.

00:45:09.680 --> 00:45:11.340
 We'll get your question and thought in a second.

00:45:12.160 --> 00:45:14.900
 One other observation from the panel otherwise.

00:45:15.640 --> 00:45:19.980
 Challenge, obstacle, celebration kind of thought towards a digital standpoint.

00:45:23.520 --> 00:45:24.580
 I'm happy to go.

00:45:25.560 --> 00:45:30.060
 I agree with DJ about the methodology versus theology.

00:45:30.220 --> 00:45:35.820
 I think before you start, you have to figure out the difference as far as defining church.

00:45:36.820 --> 00:45:40.260
 And then also recognizing that what others do.

00:45:40.460 --> 00:45:48.340
 So if someone was to come and try to just mimic exactly what we do at Pursuit, that might not be a great fit for them.

00:45:48.340 --> 00:45:53.900
 And so, of course, some of the bones will work.

00:45:54.020 --> 00:46:04.960
 But I know for us, like we had a very large Facebook group and that absolutely didn't work for our church, but is working really well for a lot of other digital only spaces.

00:46:06.720 --> 00:46:11.100
 And so that's one thing I would say because you hit on the money thing.

00:46:11.380 --> 00:46:12.580
 Everybody always wants to talk about money.

00:46:13.680 --> 00:46:16.160
 This is not something I've done well.

00:46:17.420 --> 00:46:23.320
 And Pastor Jared is actually here and is pastoring at Pursuit Church Live as well.

00:46:23.320 --> 00:46:33.140
 And so I would say for fundraising that you need to have a good coach and a good strategy.

00:46:34.320 --> 00:46:50.780
 And for us, it would, for instance, we, starting out of the gate, we decided we would be all bivocational and then we would give the money back to our community because our community was largely in a population that had no money and really had huge needs.

00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:53.960
 And that was the way that we decided to move forward.

00:46:53.960 --> 00:46:55.480
 That's one model for sure.

00:46:56.380 --> 00:47:02.540
 But another model, and realistically, you will have to pay people and you should also be paid.

00:47:03.120 --> 00:47:11.980
 As much as there's this argument that vocational ministry is outdated or going away, you will need to pay for things.

00:47:12.220 --> 00:47:19.280
 And so one way to do that would be to look through the lens of partnerships with other churches like a missionary would.

00:47:19.940 --> 00:47:23.640
 So you could, we have a lot of church partners.

00:47:24.120 --> 00:47:28.760
 And so we could potentially go to them and say, hey, we're doing this work in the field.

00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:30.680
 And so would you partner with us financially?

00:47:30.860 --> 00:47:34.660
 Just like a missionary goes to a church and says, would you give us $100 a month?

00:47:34.740 --> 00:47:35.740
 So that would be one model.

00:47:36.680 --> 00:47:51.440
 So there's a whole, in fact, Chesley and I were just talking about how that would be a great digital only conversation to have around generosity and talk about also just other forms, funnels that you could do.

00:47:52.640 --> 00:47:55.480
 Yeah, Chesley, sorry, Addison, we'll get to you, I promise.

00:47:55.700 --> 00:47:57.140
 Chesley, why don't you speak to that?

00:47:57.180 --> 00:47:59.320
 Because you're literally in the midst of this right now.

00:48:00.120 --> 00:48:08.340
 Yeah, well, so I'm treating it from a physical standpoint, the best way you could compare apples to oranges is through like a launch large model.

00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:16.720
 And so I've been building a war chest thinking like a Silicon Valley startup, who can I get to invest?

00:48:17.400 --> 00:48:25.200
 And so we've worked on that and then we are looking, I mean, and I'm probably the worst at this, Angela and DJ can attest to this.

00:48:25.480 --> 00:48:36.060
 The first question I ask every one of the digital church planners that we've talked to is like, hey, what's your, what's your, we have an organization that we've got to run and keep moving forward.

00:48:36.060 --> 00:48:37.980
 And so that's important.

00:48:38.380 --> 00:48:41.700
 So I'm looking at some really interesting things.

00:48:41.880 --> 00:48:49.480
 A college girl that I was talking to a few weeks ago, she's like, I net $100 a month.

00:48:50.340 --> 00:48:54.440
 And every time I'm at church, I feel guilty because they want 10%.

00:48:54.440 --> 00:48:59.000
 And I'm like, well, okay, can you do two?

00:48:59.380 --> 00:49:00.420
 Obviously that's $2.

00:49:00.780 --> 00:49:02.980
 And she's like, yeah, I could do two.

00:49:03.080 --> 00:49:04.040
 I'm like, do you?

00:49:04.040 --> 00:49:08.100
 And she's like, no, I get so guilty that they want 10.

00:49:08.220 --> 00:49:15.160
 And I, well, there is a way to give $2 through digital, like digital platforms.

00:49:15.580 --> 00:49:21.100
 There's a thing called Patreon for content creators on YouTube to really get micro donations.

00:49:21.100 --> 00:49:23.160
 And so we're looking at that piece.

00:49:23.260 --> 00:49:29.880
 There's a couple of other pieces through like crowd funding, which probably most of you have heard of Kickstarter.

00:49:30.880 --> 00:49:35.760
 Kickstarter is an amazing platform that says, hey, we're going to do this thing.

00:49:35.980 --> 00:49:37.760
 And we have a plan for it.

00:49:37.780 --> 00:49:40.380
 And if you like it, we would love for you to invest in it.

00:49:40.500 --> 00:49:43.020
 However, not like a venture capitalist.

00:49:43.380 --> 00:49:55.120
 And so we want to be able to expand reach and look at how do we build a platform that's like Kickstarter and like Patreon on our, for our digital church.

00:49:55.120 --> 00:49:57.340
 So people can do micro donations.

00:49:57.340 --> 00:50:01.460
 So there's a couple other ways, but those are some of the biggest that we've talked about.

00:50:03.220 --> 00:50:03.860
 Love that.

00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:05.640
 Sorry.

00:50:05.780 --> 00:50:06.320
 Go ahead, Daniel.

00:50:06.360 --> 00:50:07.200
 I didn't mean to cut you off.

00:50:07.640 --> 00:50:08.060
 No, it's all right.

00:50:08.080 --> 00:50:10.940
 I just wanted to add one thing just in talking about the money.

00:50:12.880 --> 00:50:22.980
 You know, in the physical church, I think if you think about what the largest expenses are, clearly it's personnel and then it's paying for the building, probably.

00:50:23.140 --> 00:50:30.580
 I don't know if there are other major expenses, but online there is no building and personnel is basically your only major expense.

00:50:32.480 --> 00:50:46.820
 But I just think it's an incredible opportunity to like the dollars to impact ratio that you see online is astronomical in comparison to like a physical church.

00:50:47.260 --> 00:50:49.580
 So I just thought that was helpful.

00:50:50.580 --> 00:50:50.720
 Yeah.

00:50:50.780 --> 00:50:52.520
 I mean, that's a great point here.

00:50:52.740 --> 00:50:55.720
 You don't have the building necessarily.

00:50:56.820 --> 00:51:00.700
 You know, Chesley's developing, I mean, literally a social media network.

00:51:00.700 --> 00:51:06.440
 So his is probably one of the more financially aggressive when it comes towards the digital only plans.

00:51:07.400 --> 00:51:14.840
 You know, I mean, I've got we're working with digital planners on Stadia that are probably more on the co-vocational side of it as well.

00:51:15.320 --> 00:51:21.180
 There's a girl that's wanting to plant a church in a video game called Black Desert Online.

00:51:21.740 --> 00:51:27.780
 And so basically she has to pay for the software and then she's just being relational in the game.

00:51:28.060 --> 00:51:32.420
 And so the cost of that, yeah, I mean, she needs to put food on the table and care for herself.

00:51:32.540 --> 00:51:34.920
 So there's some of that at some level.

00:51:35.540 --> 00:51:41.920
 Honestly, a lot of the conversations, we had a conversation with the guy in France that was a IT director, excuse me, a guy in Canada.

00:51:41.920 --> 00:51:45.180
 He was an IT director for a Fortune 500 company.

00:51:46.080 --> 00:51:50.760
 And he says, I don't want to quit my job, Jeff, but I want to do this digital thing on the side.

00:51:50.920 --> 00:52:01.000
 And so even there are a lot of planters that we're talking with, probably the majority of them, honestly, through Stadia, where they don't want to give up the job.

00:52:01.140 --> 00:52:04.920
 They don't want to give up and go full time necessarily ministry.

00:52:05.220 --> 00:52:07.620
 Now, there are people like Chesley and others.

00:52:08.320 --> 00:52:09.620
 Christopher is actually in the room.

00:52:09.740 --> 00:52:11.200
 Christopher is another one of our planters.

00:52:11.720 --> 00:52:12.780
 We'll bring him up in a minute.

00:52:12.780 --> 00:52:21.020
 He's in Kentucky wanting to do some ministry kind of in the Kentucky, Tennessee, Cincinnati kind of area.

00:52:21.240 --> 00:52:23.680
 And so like that's another type of thing.

00:52:23.760 --> 00:52:25.500
 We've got some of these upper echelon.

00:52:25.580 --> 00:52:27.900
 Hey, guys, we want to go full in with this church.

00:52:27.980 --> 00:52:30.920
 And then there's this other level of more of a co-vocational.

00:52:31.380 --> 00:52:32.480
 Hey, I want to reach people.

00:52:32.560 --> 00:52:33.240
 I want to multiply.

00:52:33.600 --> 00:52:39.820
 But my strategy is not trying to get the church to pay for me my salary.

00:52:39.980 --> 00:52:42.940
 So anyway, it's an interesting kind of question and quandary.

00:52:43.340 --> 00:52:47.780
 Addison, you've been the most patient clubhouse person I've ever met.

00:52:47.860 --> 00:52:49.180
 Thank you for waiting all this time.

00:52:49.980 --> 00:52:50.680
 Question or thought?

00:52:50.760 --> 00:52:52.020
 What are you thinking off of this?

00:52:53.540 --> 00:52:55.700
 I actually misunderstood one of your earlier questions.

00:52:55.880 --> 00:53:00.160
 I thought you were asking that last question for like what struggles do you run into?

00:53:00.460 --> 00:53:04.020
 And it actually pushes you further into what you're already talking about.

00:53:05.220 --> 00:53:06.820
 So is it okay if I do that?

00:53:06.920 --> 00:53:07.380
 I don't want to.

00:53:08.020 --> 00:53:08.600
 Yeah, go ahead.

00:53:08.660 --> 00:53:08.860
 Why not?

00:53:08.880 --> 00:53:09.040
 Yeah.

00:53:09.160 --> 00:53:10.020
 We'll see what happens.

00:53:10.560 --> 00:53:16.340
 I guess it's like we're launching kind of – well, we launched last year and then COVID was like survival mode.

00:53:16.340 --> 00:53:19.880
 And so now like as we come out, we're kind of launching in earnest, I would say.

00:53:21.800 --> 00:53:25.180
 And in other words, we're launching without it being like our main place.

00:53:25.680 --> 00:53:26.180
 Hold on, baby.

00:53:27.140 --> 00:53:37.920
 And the other piece is – and I guess what I find is as I'm transitioning into it full time, I feel this tremendous pull to not be like as you guys are being.

00:53:37.920 --> 00:53:39.720
 Like being so weekend focused.

00:53:39.720 --> 00:53:50.300
 I don't know if that really makes sense, but like building out the digital space of Grace Community Church and not necessarily like building the online ministry of Grace Community Church.

00:53:51.100 --> 00:53:55.300
 And I would love to hear us when you guys have navigated that tension, if you've experienced it.

00:53:56.300 --> 00:53:56.680
 Yeah.

00:53:56.840 --> 00:53:58.760
 Let's spend the question this way.

00:53:59.920 --> 00:54:04.140
 Let's talk about – I would love to talk about Discord for a second.

00:54:04.440 --> 00:54:08.300
 So DJ, Daniel, you guys have experience on this.

00:54:09.260 --> 00:54:16.760
 Talk to me a little bit why – what's the role of Discord in context of your large gathering?

00:54:16.940 --> 00:54:18.720
 Can one of you two elaborate on that?

00:54:21.900 --> 00:54:22.420
 Yeah, sure.

00:54:23.320 --> 00:54:24.800
 So I'm going to say a grandiose statement.

00:54:24.940 --> 00:54:29.420
 I think Discord is one of the most powerful and underutilized social platforms out there.

00:54:30.400 --> 00:54:34.340
 And I think that if – I don't know if it's a generational thing, a gamer thing.

00:54:34.400 --> 00:54:35.400
 I don't know what it is.

00:54:35.740 --> 00:54:44.980
 But if you look under the hood of all of that and you see the technical aspects and the community building, the powerful community building experience, I would rank that above anything.

00:54:45.780 --> 00:54:53.420
 And I know there's amazing things happening in other platforms, but I'm just saying from the perspective of how underutilized it is across ministries.

00:54:54.140 --> 00:54:57.220
 But it's a major part of Virtual Reality Church.

00:54:57.220 --> 00:55:06.640
 I don't know what percentage, maybe up to 50%, we use Discord because it's the glue between our live and small group events.

00:55:07.060 --> 00:55:08.780
 So we get into virtual reality.

00:55:08.920 --> 00:55:10.440
 We're fully immersed in our headsets.

00:55:10.600 --> 00:55:12.940
 We're experiencing Sunday large gathering.

00:55:13.060 --> 00:55:15.260
 Maybe we're experiencing a small group or a prayer gathering.

00:55:15.680 --> 00:55:19.420
 And then when we're out of VR, how does spiritual life happen?

00:55:19.760 --> 00:55:20.400
 Well, that's Discord.

00:55:20.500 --> 00:55:21.000
 It's the glue.

00:55:21.120 --> 00:55:25.120
 It just kind of connects it all, all our campuses and metaverses that we have.

00:55:26.020 --> 00:55:27.180
 It's just so powerful.

00:55:27.300 --> 00:55:29.360
 It just brings us all into one roof, so to speak.

00:55:29.960 --> 00:55:45.580
 And even our team this past week has been talking about how even though there's activity and we use it, quote, unquote, well, we think it's underutilized for what we could be doing in ministry, discipleship, so many areas.

00:55:45.580 --> 00:55:50.400
 And so we're rethinking that whole, there's a new initiative with that platform.

00:55:50.400 --> 00:55:54.100
 And I'm just looking forward to what that's going to produce.

00:55:54.440 --> 00:55:56.820
 So, yeah, I think Discord is huge.

00:55:57.400 --> 00:55:58.440
 It's definitely for us.

00:55:58.540 --> 00:56:04.700
 And then I just wish more churches would get in on it to see the powerful community building tools behind it.

00:56:05.360 --> 00:56:05.500
 Yeah.

00:56:05.940 --> 00:56:10.340
 I mean, the takeaway, and Angela, I want to ask you the same question about how you do that on Facebook in a second.

00:56:10.520 --> 00:56:13.360
 And by the way, if there's other questions, raise your hand from the audience.

00:56:13.460 --> 00:56:14.220
 We'll move you up.

00:56:14.220 --> 00:56:26.180
 But the thing with Discord is that when he says it's like 50%, 60% of what he's doing, that essentially is beyond – that's engagement beyond the one hour on Sunday.

00:56:26.840 --> 00:56:30.120
 And in DJ's context, it's also beyond small groups.

00:56:30.640 --> 00:56:32.740
 So, like, think about this from a physical standpoint.

00:56:33.240 --> 00:56:41.880
 50% to 60% of what DJ's doing in virtual reality church is not a service, nor is it a small group.

00:56:42.100 --> 00:56:53.680
 In a physical environment, 80% – I mean, I don't know what the number is, but the majority of the ministry is either the physical service or it's the small group.

00:56:53.920 --> 00:56:59.380
 And with VR church, the majority of it, I believe he said 60%, has nothing to do with those two.

00:56:59.560 --> 00:57:06.200
 It's the gel that adds more emphasis, that amplifies what those two things are.

00:57:06.320 --> 00:57:06.900
 That's beautiful.

00:57:07.080 --> 00:57:08.840
 Actually, we had another planner.

00:57:09.020 --> 00:57:09.740
 He's not on.

00:57:09.860 --> 00:57:12.180
 He's one of the planners that State is working with.

00:57:12.680 --> 00:57:15.840
 I mean, his plan – his plan was 85%.

00:57:15.840 --> 00:57:26.540
 Other than what he's doing in Twitch and with the streaming, 85% of his ministry is planning to be in an online Discord environment.

00:57:26.640 --> 00:57:29.120
 By the way, if you've not checked out Discord, you really should.

00:57:29.780 --> 00:57:31.080
 It's similar to Slack.

00:57:31.080 --> 00:57:34.000
 It's much better than WhatsApp, but it's a great option there.

00:57:34.360 --> 00:57:39.940
 Angela, I'm curious because Facebook is probably a platform that more churches are familiar with.

00:57:40.100 --> 00:57:42.260
 So talk to us a little more specific.

00:57:42.420 --> 00:57:47.440
 Digital only, but I think there's probably some other established churches in the room.

00:57:48.140 --> 00:57:54.940
 How do you draw attention beyond the weekend service during the week?

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:57.760
 How are you utilizing that platform to connect with people?

00:57:57.800 --> 00:57:58.440
 What does that look like?

00:58:02.240 --> 00:58:03.180
 All right, I'm here.

00:58:03.920 --> 00:58:10.240
 Well, there – like I said before, there's over 3 billion people coming a month.

00:58:10.820 --> 00:58:13.840
 And so we connect through daily posts.

00:58:14.200 --> 00:58:22.940
 We're doing a daily, every day at 8 a.m., which I think is a really smart idea just to pop on and connect with people.

00:58:23.980 --> 00:58:36.800
 People are connecting through our different groups, whether that's the Bible app, the YouVersion Bible app, or in our small groups, Facebook groups, the prayer room, or the women's group.

00:58:37.420 --> 00:58:43.980
 And so in that way, we can then engage with people, and we really have this one-on-one model.

00:58:45.420 --> 00:58:54.220
 And so, for instance, last night, I was introducing to Pastor Angie and Pastor Jared a new person that came in through our prayer group.

00:58:54.420 --> 00:58:59.940
 She was invited by someone else, and she's a person of mature age.

00:59:00.100 --> 00:59:13.660
 But she's actually living – I don't know what they would call it – a senior living shelter right now and really has jumped right in to our communities.

00:59:13.660 --> 00:59:21.140
 And so we were just one-on-one introducing her to the pastors, to getting connected.

00:59:21.580 --> 00:59:23.000
 You know, what do you need?

00:59:23.120 --> 00:59:24.540
 Where can we get you plugged in?

00:59:25.000 --> 00:59:27.300
 And so we're always kind of going after that one.

00:59:27.760 --> 00:59:29.460
 We have a saying called, who's your one?

00:59:30.020 --> 00:59:34.360
 And so I hope that that helps with the question.

00:59:34.360 --> 00:59:51.300
 But I think that we do have an upside-down strategy as far as most churches, like when I was at my church, 90% of my time was spent on working for Sunday, getting the Sunday service up and going and getting teams going.

00:59:51.300 --> 01:00:08.040
 And now it's really the reverse of 10% of my time is worked on video stuff, and the other time is really just spent engaging and figuring out how I can meet one-on-one with someone or get a team member meeting with someone.

01:00:08.740 --> 01:00:11.040
 And so that's really changed the way that we do things.

01:00:12.960 --> 01:00:22.380
 That, by the way, is something I hear over and over again with people who are successful doing digital ministry and are making these connections.

01:00:22.680 --> 01:00:27.680
 It's not pouring all the energy into how to make the online service better.

01:00:28.300 --> 01:00:34.620
 And even the challenge, honestly, with the digital is how do you even emphasize a large gathering?

01:00:35.100 --> 01:00:40.520
 It's more in line of how do we get one-on-one as quick as possible.

01:00:40.580 --> 01:00:43.620
 We actually did a podcast on this just recently.

01:00:43.840 --> 01:00:46.940
 If you don't know me, I do a podcast, a church digital podcast.

01:00:47.480 --> 01:00:49.520
 There's a link in my bio that can help you get there.

01:00:49.980 --> 01:00:55.660
 But Beta episode 13, Beta show episode 13, we asked the question, what's a successful church?

01:00:55.660 --> 01:01:05.860
 We asked a couple of lead pastors, a multi-site campus pastor, and honestly, I forget who the third guy was at this point.

01:01:06.240 --> 01:01:10.980
 But the answer was, I was a Stadia employee, Craig Whitney.

01:01:11.540 --> 01:01:19.360
 The coming out, the final solution was we need to get one-on-one as quick as possible.

01:01:19.820 --> 01:01:22.200
 And that was in a physical environment as well as a digital.

01:01:22.340 --> 01:01:25.300
 And in digital-only environments, this is what I'm saying.

01:01:25.500 --> 01:01:31.060
 Like the digital platforms allow for that one-on-one conversation easily.

01:01:31.380 --> 01:01:32.740
 You can get one-on-one.

01:01:32.860 --> 01:01:33.880
 You can get real with people.

01:01:33.980 --> 01:01:35.440
 I'm reflecting back to Chesley.

01:01:35.940 --> 01:01:39.140
 The girl sitting on the couch, probably not wanting to talk much.

01:01:39.500 --> 01:01:42.720
 Give her a phone where she can type in and DM through an app.

01:01:42.880 --> 01:01:52.080
 And all of a sudden, she's much more transparent and open and real because there's safety, a perceived safety in these devices that we're using.

01:01:52.560 --> 01:01:59.640
 And if we can utilize that, if we as a church in physical or digital space can figure out how to disciple people digitally,

01:02:00.160 --> 01:02:03.580
 and that maybe digital discipleship looks different than physical discipleship,

01:02:03.680 --> 01:02:10.420
 I think you're going to see the church explode because we are ripe and open for these types of relationships.

01:02:11.040 --> 01:02:14.500
 The church just hasn't figured out that it's possible yet.

01:02:14.780 --> 01:02:15.040
 All right.

01:02:15.120 --> 01:02:17.640
 So I would love to take some other questions.

01:02:18.640 --> 01:02:27.800
 So talking about digital-only expressions of churches here, anybody from the audience, feel free to raise their hand to kind of contribute towards this.

01:02:27.900 --> 01:02:32.220
 Let me ask one question, maybe even just to stall here a little bit.

01:02:32.220 --> 01:02:34.000
 Hey, I've got somebody.

01:02:34.080 --> 01:02:34.760
 That's awesome.

01:02:35.200 --> 01:02:36.240
 I don't need to stall.

01:02:36.600 --> 01:02:37.000
 Scott.

01:02:37.500 --> 01:02:39.400
 Scott, I have been wanting to meet you.

01:02:39.900 --> 01:02:41.120
 I've been seeing your name recently.

01:02:41.300 --> 01:02:44.160
 So let me bring you up and welcome.

01:02:44.920 --> 01:02:48.500
 What are you thinking here talking about digital-only expression of church?

01:02:48.960 --> 01:02:52.180
 Hey, I had a question for Chesley, actually.

01:02:52.340 --> 01:02:53.680
 I was intrigued.

01:02:53.840 --> 01:03:00.920
 I've been thinking a lot about the up-and-coming generation and kind of the youth as it relates to digital ministry.

01:03:00.920 --> 01:03:12.780
 And so just hearing you've had some experience in that area and had some success with kind of engaging the youth in deeper conversations, what platforms and stuff have you found?

01:03:12.780 --> 01:03:19.720
 I mean, what channels have you found that have really worked well for that sort of engagement among younger generations?

01:03:21.720 --> 01:03:22.940
 Yeah, thanks, man.

01:03:23.880 --> 01:03:31.580
 Obviously, if you're looking at mainstream, TikTok is always going to be one that comes up with Gen Z, Instagram, and Snapchat.

01:03:33.240 --> 01:03:44.860
 I find that YouTube is really interesting because it's the second largest search engine in the world, and it will surpass Google in the next 10 years.

01:03:45.680 --> 01:03:56.520
 And if you look at my kids, which are six and seven years old, they're actually moving towards YouTube at a heavy, heavy pace.

01:03:57.040 --> 01:04:01.100
 There's another guy in our room, Jordan.

01:04:01.220 --> 01:04:03.340
 He's doing some pretty cool things with students, too.

01:04:03.640 --> 01:04:06.040
 So, yeah, definitely connect with him.

01:04:06.040 --> 01:04:20.080
 But I find that if you look at spaces like Facebook and TikTok and Instagram and all of that, you're renting your space, meaning they own the space that you're in.

01:04:20.720 --> 01:04:25.160
 And back in 2017, Google decided to change their algorithm.

01:04:25.300 --> 01:04:36.620
 And if you look at a lot of the influencers that were banked on in, like, Facebook, they lost over half their audiences because they stopped being able to reach them organically.

01:04:37.480 --> 01:04:39.540
 And I just, I don't know.

01:04:39.660 --> 01:04:43.640
 I want to own the community so that we can create our own culture.

01:04:44.000 --> 01:04:50.560
 And so there's places like Mighty Networks is where we host our digital church on.

01:04:50.700 --> 01:04:55.500
 And then we have another one that we host our student ministry on called Honeycomb.

01:04:55.640 --> 01:04:58.960
 And the reason why I've done Honeycomb is because of privacy and data laws.

01:04:59.600 --> 01:05:05.360
 We can see everything on the back end that our mentors and our students are talking.

01:05:06.060 --> 01:05:08.420
 And so that's super important.

01:05:08.660 --> 01:05:12.920
 Privacy and data is going to be coming up a lot in the next five years.

01:05:13.380 --> 01:05:15.440
 And so that's important for us.

01:05:16.180 --> 01:05:24.580
 But I also find as you start moving into this next generation, it's going to be really easy to start tribalizing a lot.

01:05:24.680 --> 01:05:26.680
 And you see this on platforms already.

01:05:27.320 --> 01:05:29.020
 Facebook is all the legacy people.

01:05:29.160 --> 01:05:32.780
 So it's all boomers, Gen Xers, and old millennials.

01:05:34.140 --> 01:05:36.280
 Younger millennials hang out on Instagram.

01:05:37.100 --> 01:05:39.740
 Gen Z hangs out on Snapchat and TikTok.

01:05:40.440 --> 01:05:43.500
 Everybody goes to YouTube, which is why I like it so much.

01:05:44.360 --> 01:05:54.600
 But one of the things that you can do by creating your own social network, and I'm big about that because I'm doing it, but you can take down those walls.

01:05:54.980 --> 01:06:03.020
 And when you meet somebody, say, hey, come and build community with us in this other space that they don't already have a preconceived notion about.

01:06:03.480 --> 01:06:07.820
 You get to create whatever notion that is for them based off of what you're doing.

01:06:07.820 --> 01:06:11.680
 That being said, you're not going to be able to compete with those big guys.

01:06:11.840 --> 01:06:15.960
 So you've got to think of what's the one core interaction that I want to hang out with them.

01:06:16.600 --> 01:06:17.700
 I hope that helps, Scott.

01:06:18.820 --> 01:06:20.820
 Yeah, well said there.

01:06:20.980 --> 01:06:22.200
 Thanks, Chesley.

01:06:22.800 --> 01:06:24.720
 This actually came out stats.

01:06:24.860 --> 01:06:28.560
 I want to pour on the YouTube and the importance of that.

01:06:29.800 --> 01:06:33.920
 Barna, 2020, December, came out with a digital evangelism report.

01:06:34.880 --> 01:06:46.380
 What they discovered, Barna, 80% of people who are called to Christ, people who are not Christians, they don't care about your physical service.

01:06:46.740 --> 01:06:48.900
 They don't care about your digital service.

01:06:49.320 --> 01:06:52.660
 They're not interested in going to either one of those.

01:06:53.380 --> 01:06:54.160
 It's interesting.

01:06:54.280 --> 01:06:56.640
 When they asked them, well, what do you?

01:06:56.700 --> 01:07:01.940
 If you had spiritual questions, person who is called to Christ, person who is not a Christian, Barna did.

01:07:02.340 --> 01:07:03.220
 Where would you go?

01:07:03.280 --> 01:07:05.240
 Where would you go to get answers for these questions?

01:07:05.840 --> 01:07:15.800
 40% of them responded that they would go to their friends that were spiritual, that they saw spiritual in them and ask them questions.

01:07:15.800 --> 01:07:23.860
 So 40% of people who are not Christians want to go talk to Christians to get the answers towards spiritual things.

01:07:24.200 --> 01:07:26.400
 This is the importance of evangelism today.

01:07:27.660 --> 01:07:29.080
 There's another 40%.

01:07:29.080 --> 01:07:30.420
 They're going to go to Google.

01:07:30.800 --> 01:07:31.640
 They're going to go to YouTube.

01:07:32.000 --> 01:07:33.440
 They're going to go to a search engine.

01:07:33.740 --> 01:07:35.560
 They're going to go to the internet to find the answers.

01:07:35.960 --> 01:07:43.360
 And we are not, as a church in physical or digital, we're not taking advantage of YouTube nearly at the level that we should.

01:07:44.040 --> 01:07:46.360
 Our organizations, our institutions aren't.

01:07:46.520 --> 01:07:55.320
 And so even like posting a sermon online, a 40-minute sermon, and thinking that's going to get the YouTube traffic, that's not the answer.

01:07:55.840 --> 01:07:57.140
 Google Dave Adamson.

01:07:57.540 --> 01:08:01.200
 And so you can start to explore some of the stuff that he's doing.

01:08:01.440 --> 01:08:13.860
 By the way, Stephen Fogg, who's in the room as well, this is going to segue very well to him, is really smart when it comes into some of these YouTube SEO, some of these strategies towards that.

01:08:14.360 --> 01:08:16.140
 Jesse, Jesse's a new contact.

01:08:16.300 --> 01:08:17.800
 I just had a conversation, Jesse, today.

01:08:18.100 --> 01:08:23.300
 No, we emailed like a couple months ago, but just had a conversation with Jesse today about a digital-only church.

01:08:23.380 --> 01:08:24.780
 So, hey, Jesse, let me throw it at you.

01:08:25.340 --> 01:08:26.380
 What are you thinking about?

01:08:26.500 --> 01:08:28.040
 What questions do you have coming off of this?

01:08:28.760 --> 01:08:32.940
 Yeah, great conversation, and you guys have actually addressed some of the questions I had.

01:08:33.020 --> 01:08:36.640
 And probably my vision, it looks the most like Angela's at this point.

01:08:36.820 --> 01:08:43.520
 But one thing I'm curious about, does worship music play much of a role in the digital-only church?

01:08:43.700 --> 01:08:45.400
 Do you sing together?

01:08:45.620 --> 01:08:48.960
 And I don't know that that's a huge part of even what I'm thinking about.

01:08:49.000 --> 01:08:50.160
 It just came up as a question.

01:08:50.500 --> 01:08:51.840
 What role does that play?

01:08:52.580 --> 01:08:57.480
 How does worshiping together maybe look different in the digital online world?

01:08:59.880 --> 01:09:01.340
 Angela, you want to take a stab at that?

01:09:05.440 --> 01:09:05.880
 Hey.

01:09:06.000 --> 01:09:06.540
 Hey, Jesse.

01:09:07.360 --> 01:09:08.840
 Thanks for that question.

01:09:09.140 --> 01:09:19.960
 Well, we look at worship kind of in the broader sense of biblical worship, gathering together for the adoration of our Father.

01:09:20.560 --> 01:09:27.080
 And that can look anything from like a content post of asking people how they're engaging with God.

01:09:27.440 --> 01:09:29.120
 Like, what is God doing in your life right now?

01:09:30.980 --> 01:09:34.240
 To having live worship, for sure.

01:09:34.940 --> 01:09:35.940
 That happens.

01:09:37.180 --> 01:09:46.480
 But I think just the best advice I could give is just to look in Scripture and see how people come together to worship God.

01:09:46.480 --> 01:09:50.540
 So that could be coming together for Bible study or coming together for prayer.

01:09:51.740 --> 01:10:01.380
 And so it looks more like a New Testament gathering than a regular traditional church gathering, I think.

01:10:03.800 --> 01:10:06.000
 Maybe somebody else have ideas about that?

01:10:07.000 --> 01:10:08.920
 Yeah, let me speak to it a little bit.

01:10:08.920 --> 01:10:14.820
 I think this is an opportunity to reimagine what worship means.

01:10:15.060 --> 01:10:21.260
 I think for hundreds of years, church has defined worship as musical.

01:10:22.140 --> 01:10:29.520
 And not to mean or limit that, but there's an opportunity to really define worship as more.

01:10:29.580 --> 01:10:35.780
 If we look at biblical, there's a lot more challenge to what worship is.

01:10:36.000 --> 01:10:44.160
 There's a lot more ways to express that worship beyond just the musical representation and the large corporate gathering and singing.

01:10:44.700 --> 01:10:49.300
 So, really, it would be more towards, this is even borrowing some language from DJ.

01:10:49.620 --> 01:10:51.960
 Let's not recreate what's happening in the physical building.

01:10:52.040 --> 01:10:54.340
 Let's reimagine what it looks like.

01:10:55.400 --> 01:11:04.640
 What would a spoken word, what would a story, what would a testimony, what does it mean digitally to present our bodies as a living sacrifice?

01:11:05.120 --> 01:11:09.560
 How do we present that in such a way or how do we challenge our people to do that?

01:11:10.040 --> 01:11:10.640
 It's funny.

01:11:10.740 --> 01:11:18.080
 Just recently, I noticed that Spotify now allows you to play any Spotify song on a podcast.

01:11:18.720 --> 01:11:32.040
 So, essentially, you could create a musical worship podcast and distribute it to your people where you can create a worship experience for them to ingest that internally as they're driving to work each day.

01:11:32.240 --> 01:11:41.240
 Create a worship podcast and take them through something, some expression, mix in some scripture, and it's completely legal and legit.

01:11:41.540 --> 01:11:43.440
 Like, your license is already covered.

01:11:43.540 --> 01:11:44.800
 Spotify is doing it for you.

01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:51.480
 So, you've got opportunities to create things in that space to solve some of the musical issues.

01:11:51.580 --> 01:11:55.460
 But there's an opportunity to even change and redefine what that looks like.

01:11:55.540 --> 01:11:56.380
 Chesley, you tell me.

01:11:57.280 --> 01:12:00.860
 What does worship look like with some of the things that you're planning on doing?

01:12:02.120 --> 01:12:02.600
 Yeah.

01:12:02.780 --> 01:12:14.900
 So, one of the things that we've been thinking from a theological perspective is that when people define worship in a church setting, they're usually talking about music.

01:12:15.000 --> 01:12:18.780
 And so, we want to delineate between praise and worship.

01:12:19.600 --> 01:12:23.180
 Praise is what we do with our mouth and our bodies towards God.

01:12:23.640 --> 01:12:29.380
 And through musical instruments, worship is what we do as we live our lives.

01:12:29.380 --> 01:12:37.740
 And so, one of the things that we can do even with our praise, like our worship, is start doing that 168 hours a week.

01:12:38.100 --> 01:12:46.320
 And we can do that by moving towards an outward focus in our musicality and our creativity.

01:12:46.980 --> 01:12:53.400
 And we want to empower artists and creatives to start building community.

01:12:53.840 --> 01:12:56.120
 Angela knows a friend of mine named Zan.

01:12:56.600 --> 01:13:00.840
 She was on The Voice on Season 18.

01:13:01.040 --> 01:13:01.980
 I reached out to her.

01:13:02.960 --> 01:13:13.060
 This type of church can give those types of people a voice and a platform to share the creativity that God has given them.

01:13:13.640 --> 01:13:15.520
 And she's really crossing over.

01:13:15.640 --> 01:13:22.080
 She does, you know, if we're going to call a sacred-secular divide, you know, in the church world.

01:13:22.300 --> 01:13:26.000
 She's, in this digital world, you don't have to have that.

01:13:26.000 --> 01:13:35.420
 And so, she's doing a hybrid of worship and what would be considered traditionally as secular music.

01:13:35.680 --> 01:13:38.960
 But it's all coming from the same place to glorify God.

01:13:39.120 --> 01:13:44.920
 And so, we're really blurring the lines between praise and worship with what they do creatively.

01:13:45.360 --> 01:13:52.460
 And we can give them a platform to do that to more people in the faith community and outside in the world.

01:13:52.460 --> 01:13:55.080
 Because we want to empower and equip them as well.

01:13:56.000 --> 01:13:57.660
 I love that.

01:13:58.240 --> 01:14:05.060
 Chesley, I don't know if you know this, but Zan actually did her very first live ever on First Church Live.

01:14:06.820 --> 01:14:10.120
 So, you can go back and get our lives.

01:14:10.320 --> 01:14:11.140
 It's really cute.

01:14:11.780 --> 01:14:17.560
 And I would say worship, well, praise, as I think Chesley put it really well.

01:14:17.880 --> 01:14:22.800
 If you're going to have people singing online, that that can be bad.

01:14:23.280 --> 01:14:30.180
 So, I would, very often we just say we're just not doing that because we can worship God in other ways.

01:14:30.660 --> 01:14:32.120
 We made a playlist to Spotify.

01:14:32.460 --> 01:14:40.040
 There's other ways to be able to help people to worship, praise, singing together.

01:14:40.980 --> 01:14:44.480
 I'm just thinking of my college group, Angela, that got together.

01:14:44.640 --> 01:14:45.940
 And it's like, now we're going to do worship.

01:14:46.080 --> 01:14:49.300
 And they're all sitting on the couch going, I ain't singing.

01:14:49.420 --> 01:14:49.820
 Are you?

01:14:50.360 --> 01:14:50.660
 Yeah.

01:14:52.260 --> 01:15:01.280
 So, it does look, that part looks different, but there is nothing like getting someone to go off your page except when they come across someone who's off tune.

01:15:01.420 --> 01:15:08.280
 Because unless you're in a studio, it's very hard to have perfect pitch on a live video on Facebook.

01:15:08.980 --> 01:15:12.500
 So, even if you're Zan.

01:15:12.940 --> 01:15:17.900
 So, I think that's an important consideration when you're spending time to build something.

01:15:18.680 --> 01:15:19.680
 That is so good.

01:15:20.040 --> 01:15:25.460
 And I think it's really cool coming, too, from the assemblies, which I've been a part of some of those services.

01:15:25.620 --> 01:15:30.400
 In their traditional service, the music portion is usually a really huge part of it.

01:15:30.520 --> 01:15:39.380
 So, to see your expressions of worship in so many different ways and reimagining that in so many different ways is inspiring and cool.

01:15:39.520 --> 01:15:40.500
 So, thanks for your input.

01:15:41.760 --> 01:15:42.200
 Absolutely.

01:15:42.560 --> 01:15:42.680
 Yeah.

01:15:42.760 --> 01:15:51.360
 I think, Chesley said this, Jeff said this, is our life is a witness of worship.

01:15:51.880 --> 01:16:07.440
 And so, to teach others how to show, worship God, like in their service, in the way that they act, in the way they're applying what they're learning daily in the Bible, is really integrating faith into your daily life.

01:16:07.440 --> 01:16:15.820
 It's something we can do online and do it much quicker than when people come to church once or twice a month for 30 minutes.

01:16:16.460 --> 01:16:19.060
 So, a great opportunity to step in.

01:16:19.900 --> 01:16:20.920
 Sorry about that, Angela.

01:16:21.080 --> 01:16:32.640
 And that right there is a great, lofty, philosophical, theoretical, this is where the church should be and how we should look at worship in a digital environment.

01:16:33.140 --> 01:16:35.120
 Maybe let's spin it a little bit practical here.

01:16:35.120 --> 01:16:38.240
 And so, I wanted to invite Christopher up to the panel.

01:16:38.340 --> 01:16:43.200
 Christopher is also one of our Stadia planters in his process of doing that.

01:16:43.300 --> 01:16:48.020
 And so, they're utilizing, Jesse, they're utilizing the Facebook platform as well.

01:16:48.580 --> 01:16:53.640
 They're not doing regular services, but periodically, they'll do worship things.

01:16:53.700 --> 01:17:03.500
 And I think they did a big Christmas service and planning on an Easter thing as they're just kind of ramping up and starting getting towards a launch point with their digital church slowly.

01:17:03.500 --> 01:17:10.520
 So, Christopher, talking about worship, I know you and Christy, who's also in the room, or was in the room, I think, she might still be around.

01:17:10.820 --> 01:17:11.400
 Yeah, she's still there.

01:17:12.060 --> 01:17:13.960
 You know, you're doing worship at some level.

01:17:14.900 --> 01:17:19.460
 But one of the things I like, it's simplistic, it's minimal, it's executed well.

01:17:19.660 --> 01:17:26.760
 So, I would love for you, if we're just even talking about musical worship at a minimal scale, how did you achieve that?

01:17:26.820 --> 01:17:28.040
 Kind of like, what was the goal?

01:17:28.220 --> 01:17:31.520
 What has musical worship been for you and your digital church?

01:17:34.020 --> 01:17:34.460
 Yeah.

01:17:35.720 --> 01:17:46.060
 So, when we got started really doing stuff on digital platforms, it was pretty much at the beginning of COVID.

01:17:47.080 --> 01:17:54.820
 And at the same time, there popped up this group on Facebook called Praise on Your Porch.

01:17:55.940 --> 01:17:59.340
 And it was, it eventually kind of got taken down.

01:18:00.620 --> 01:18:05.440
 But people from all over the world would just come and they would list a song and everybody would sing the song.

01:18:05.520 --> 01:18:09.480
 And so, we just got on there and started singing and whatever.

01:18:10.140 --> 01:18:13.420
 And then we took that idea to what we was doing with Relate.

01:18:14.420 --> 01:18:20.760
 And we just have a very minimal, just kind of little worship setting.

01:18:21.440 --> 01:18:26.780
 It's usually just me and Christy with my guitar and we play and sing.

01:18:28.800 --> 01:18:37.100
 And it is the whole, you know, the whole time and throughout all of this, because what has been said already tonight is very true.

01:18:37.200 --> 01:18:38.820
 Worship is more than just a song.

01:18:39.480 --> 01:18:43.840
 And so, even as we are singing, we are talking this.

01:18:44.420 --> 01:18:52.760
 And especially in our area, the whole idea of doing church online even still is fresh.

01:18:52.940 --> 01:18:53.280
 It's new.

01:18:53.380 --> 01:18:55.640
 And people are having a hard time.

01:18:55.720 --> 01:19:00.940
 Well, some people are having a hard time even understanding how we can come together digitally in worship.

01:19:01.200 --> 01:19:11.260
 And when we come together in that place where we're all in the same mindset, we're all in the same focus that we can lift God up, whether it's through spoken word, through testimonies, or through music.

01:19:11.480 --> 01:19:12.800
 I mean, we're just worshiping.

01:19:14.560 --> 01:19:19.420
 On our bigger services that we have done for Christmas, you know, we brought in YouTube videos.

01:19:19.520 --> 01:19:24.880
 We contacted another church and said, hey, you guys got some great, greatly produced music videos.

01:19:24.960 --> 01:19:26.180
 Can we borrow those?

01:19:26.920 --> 01:19:29.760
 And so, we threw those on there as well.

01:19:29.960 --> 01:19:33.880
 But for the most part, yeah, it's just very minimal what we do.

01:19:35.100 --> 01:19:38.320
 And we engage with what's going on.

01:19:38.400 --> 01:19:46.420
 We do it Facebook Live, and there's comments and there's conversation going on the whole time that we are in this worship setting.

01:19:46.420 --> 01:19:55.980
 Do you guys do worship live, or do you do worship, like, pre-recorded and then live it?

01:19:56.140 --> 01:19:57.440
 What's your method?

01:19:58.180 --> 01:19:59.420
 No, we do it live.

01:20:00.080 --> 01:20:00.560
 Really?

01:20:00.560 --> 01:20:03.100
 We do it live so we can have that interaction.

01:20:03.980 --> 01:20:04.240
 Okay.

01:20:04.800 --> 01:20:12.480
 And it started out, and at one point in time, we kind of started getting big, and Christy would play the piano.

01:20:12.480 --> 01:20:16.460
 We had a buddy, he'd come over, and he'd play the bass and all this kind of stuff.

01:20:16.700 --> 01:20:22.380
 And at one point, we just kind of looked at each other and said, you know, this is not what we were wanting to put on a show.

01:20:22.460 --> 01:20:28.580
 We want to kind of get this intimate setting where the camera's up close, where we can see.

01:20:28.740 --> 01:20:34.840
 You know, up until recently, we have been shooting off of Christy's phone.

01:20:35.500 --> 01:20:41.660
 And where we can see the comments, and we can respond to the comments, and have this conversation right there as we're going.

01:20:41.660 --> 01:20:52.460
 And in that dialogue, back and forth, you know, there's people that are praising God in the comments, and giving testimony in the comments, or prayer requests in the comments.

01:20:52.460 --> 01:20:56.380
 And we can engage with those in real time.

01:20:57.860 --> 01:20:58.340
 Okay.

01:20:58.640 --> 01:21:00.020
 Yeah, that's interesting.

01:21:01.080 --> 01:21:03.460
 It totally makes sense in context.

01:21:03.620 --> 01:21:03.800
 You're right.

01:21:03.820 --> 01:21:04.960
 You get the ability for the closer.

01:21:05.460 --> 01:21:13.380
 My quick thought was, if you were doing it where you could simlive it, where you could, like, pre-record it, it's easier to get the quality up.

01:21:13.440 --> 01:21:18.620
 But the heart of what you're doing with doing it live and engaging with that, definitely love that.

01:21:18.720 --> 01:21:20.920
 Hey, so, would love to open it up.

01:21:21.020 --> 01:21:21.960
 Any other questions?

01:21:22.640 --> 01:21:25.000
 We've got a couple people up at the speaker level now.

01:21:25.120 --> 01:21:27.000
 We're happy to bring some others up.

01:21:27.540 --> 01:21:31.840
 Questions or thoughts centered around digital-only church?

01:21:32.340 --> 01:21:33.360
 Probably going to wrap here.

01:21:33.440 --> 01:21:35.040
 Maybe one or two more questions.

01:21:35.260 --> 01:21:38.420
 Ah, good friend, Stephen Smith, jumping on here.

01:21:38.520 --> 01:21:41.400
 Stephen, we were talking about you a couple minutes ago.

01:21:41.660 --> 01:21:48.080
 We were talking about the beta show that we did where he was, and for some reason it didn't work.

01:21:48.180 --> 01:21:49.500
 Let me try to get you up this time, Stephen.

01:21:49.960 --> 01:21:54.820
 Stephen was the head of multi-site for First Baptist Houston.

01:21:55.860 --> 01:22:00.220
 He's been on a couple of, what are these called, clubhouses with me.

01:22:00.500 --> 01:22:03.560
 And we did something recently talking about how to be a successful church.

01:22:03.960 --> 01:22:04.560
 All right, Stephen.

01:22:05.300 --> 01:22:09.020
 So, you're established mega-giga church in Texas.

01:22:09.200 --> 01:22:09.840
 Oh, my gosh.

01:22:09.840 --> 01:22:11.860
 Multi-site, setting you up.

01:22:12.720 --> 01:22:14.140
 Talk to you, what are you thinking about here?

01:22:15.220 --> 01:22:16.600
 Hey, are you still sunburned?

01:22:17.060 --> 01:22:18.680
 I am still sunburned, thanks.

01:22:18.940 --> 01:22:20.980
 And I'm at another baseball game, so it works out.

01:22:22.620 --> 01:22:24.500
 Hey, I've got a question maybe for the group.

01:22:24.580 --> 01:22:31.440
 I'm so interested in the digital-only space, and I just, I wanted to see what you found over,

01:22:31.840 --> 01:22:35.060
 you know, over the history of your meeting together like that.

01:22:35.060 --> 01:22:44.420
 But what have you found has been the, I'd say it like this, what's the best time during the week to gather?

01:22:44.940 --> 01:22:47.400
 And then how many times do you gather your congregation?

01:22:47.940 --> 01:22:49.080
 So, that's my question.

01:22:49.620 --> 01:22:50.760
 Can I take this?

01:22:50.760 --> 01:22:53.000
 Great to be involved in this conversation.

01:22:54.000 --> 01:22:54.940
 Yeah, go for it, Chesley.

01:22:55.540 --> 01:22:56.720
 Sorry to cut you off, Stephen.

01:22:57.540 --> 01:23:04.060
 The beauty of online is that you can think church as platform rather than church as pipeline.

01:23:04.580 --> 01:23:07.480
 And so, what that means for us is it's on demand.

01:23:07.860 --> 01:23:11.740
 So, we might go live at a particular time.

01:23:11.740 --> 01:23:18.380
 But what I find for what we're trying to accomplish is we want people to meet at their convenience.

01:23:18.940 --> 01:23:19.360
 I see.

01:23:19.500 --> 01:23:19.780
 That's great.

01:23:19.780 --> 01:23:22.240
 To build in their own rhythms throughout the week.

01:23:22.380 --> 01:23:24.340
 And so, that's super cool for us.

01:23:24.800 --> 01:23:26.820
 We pre-record everything because of that.

01:23:26.960 --> 01:23:31.640
 And so, we'll drop it on a Friday night, let people have it Friday night, Saturday, Sunday,

01:23:31.780 --> 01:23:33.620
 because that's when most people have off.

01:23:33.940 --> 01:23:34.200
 Yeah.

01:23:34.220 --> 01:23:42.840
 And then if people want to do it on a Wednesday, we've got one group that is hanging out on a Tuesday evening, you know.

01:23:43.120 --> 01:23:45.460
 And then one group that is hanging out on a Saturday evening.

01:23:45.460 --> 01:23:49.220
 And it's like, we don't have to control one day of the week anymore.

01:23:49.660 --> 01:23:51.580
 We can rule the week.

01:23:52.620 --> 01:23:52.920
 So great.

01:23:54.880 --> 01:23:56.580
 Yeah, I would echo that.

01:23:57.200 --> 01:24:03.660
 You will, if you are creating energy, if you are successful, let me say it this way.

01:24:03.660 --> 01:24:13.080
 If you're successful, you're going to get more views and potentially more engagement in on demand than if you do it live.

01:24:13.200 --> 01:24:30.080
 Now, right now, a lot of the tools, like the Church Online platform and some of the established existing churches lean more towards a watching it live engagement because they value those, the chat and chat rooms and some of those things.

01:24:30.400 --> 01:24:33.520
 There are tools to have that engagement on demand.

01:24:34.140 --> 01:24:37.120
 You can look at software like Intercom.io.

01:24:37.740 --> 01:24:39.880
 You can Google that, Intercom.io.

01:24:40.060 --> 01:24:44.380
 And it can give you the ability to integrate some of that chat even into on demand.

01:24:44.980 --> 01:24:50.200
 And easier points to allow people to engage with someone in real time.

01:24:50.200 --> 01:24:52.580
 Even look at some of the stuff that Church Home is doing.

01:24:53.640 --> 01:24:55.520
 Church Home is a church out in California.

01:24:56.480 --> 01:24:59.400
 And I guess Washington, they're multi-state, multi-site.

01:25:00.620 --> 01:25:12.080
 But they have an incredible mobile app that allows for engagement in real time and have even have restructured their church to have, I think they call them mobile pastors, pastor chat.

01:25:12.580 --> 01:25:18.140
 They even have, like, pastors where their job is, hey, I need you to shepherd people in the chat room.

01:25:18.980 --> 01:25:20.860
 Even to the point, one of them was quoted.

01:25:20.860 --> 01:25:32.700
 I had this conversation with her where she said, Jeff, I'm doing 10 times more actual ministry in pastor of chat than I was when I was a campus pastor or whatever her role was previous to that.

01:25:32.760 --> 01:25:34.380
 It was in the physical church environment.

01:25:34.580 --> 01:25:43.640
 So, once again, it's the digital church is allowing some of this ministry to happen, probably more tangibly than you do in the physical space.

01:25:43.740 --> 01:25:48.720
 Hey, I've got, and I may be a little biased there, but I've got, looks like Randall's wanting to come up.

01:25:48.820 --> 01:25:50.500
 Randall, I don't know you, sir.

01:25:50.560 --> 01:25:51.300
 Nice to meet you.

01:25:51.340 --> 01:25:52.360
 At least I don't think I know you.

01:25:53.240 --> 01:25:54.080
 What are you thinking?

01:25:55.620 --> 01:25:57.940
 Hey, yeah, appreciate you having the room.

01:25:58.100 --> 01:25:59.700
 No, I don't think we know each other.

01:25:59.960 --> 01:26:01.860
 We do follow each other here on Clubhouse.

01:26:02.940 --> 01:26:04.860
 But, yeah, great stuff.

01:26:04.860 --> 01:26:22.440
 We're in the very process right now of planting an in-person church, but we definitely see and want to have the online, not just presence, but we've sort of built ourselves as an online church with an in-person presence.

01:26:22.620 --> 01:26:30.020
 I don't know if that's actually possible, if the in-person will suck all the oxygen out of the room to let the other breathe.

01:26:30.020 --> 01:26:44.560
 But my question was, how do you foresee or what would be a way to use Clubhouse in this, in the church planting process as one of the platforms?

01:26:45.700 --> 01:26:47.460
 Wow, that's a great question.

01:26:47.600 --> 01:26:48.860
 First off, let me back up.

01:26:49.700 --> 01:26:54.520
 I love the idea of you being a church at Stadia Digital First.

01:26:54.640 --> 01:26:57.140
 Lots of people use the language, but we use it at Stadia Digital First.

01:26:57.800 --> 01:27:00.660
 So you want to think digital first.

01:27:01.020 --> 01:27:06.600
 Now, the tension is that physical is going to suck a lot of energy out of that.

01:27:06.960 --> 01:27:09.920
 In lots of churches' reality, they want to be digital first.

01:27:10.660 --> 01:27:23.180
 But the tension of having to do the physical ministry and the strain of set up and tear down or building maintenance or whatever tends to put that tension and to pull people away.

01:27:23.700 --> 01:27:25.900
 Fight that tension and see.

01:27:26.040 --> 01:27:27.720
 It is possible to be digital first.

01:27:28.400 --> 01:27:32.920
 What I love, Randall, about your specific situation is you're a church plant.

01:27:33.000 --> 01:27:33.360
 You're new.

01:27:33.520 --> 01:27:37.320
 You don't have decades of established DNA.

01:27:38.200 --> 01:27:41.340
 You're probably relatively new if you're considering yourself a plant.

01:27:41.740 --> 01:27:43.000
 And that means that you're flexible.

01:27:43.420 --> 01:27:44.020
 Be flexible.

01:27:45.180 --> 01:27:54.100
 Create that new culture, that new DNA, and figure out how to interweave physical and digital together to utilize the strengths of it.

01:27:54.140 --> 01:27:54.800
 So this is great.

01:27:55.600 --> 01:27:59.520
 Stadia is doing a digital innovation conference.

01:27:59.840 --> 01:28:01.100
 It is a meetup.

01:28:01.100 --> 01:28:01.720
 It's free.

01:28:02.640 --> 01:28:07.500
 And so, Randall, we're actually doing some breakouts specifically on that exact question.

01:28:07.820 --> 01:28:11.020
 For more information on that, it's March 16th.

01:28:11.020 --> 01:28:13.320
 I want to say it's noon Eastern.

01:28:14.020 --> 01:28:17.940
 It's stadiachurchplanning.org slash innovation.

01:28:18.280 --> 01:28:19.480
 Feel free to check that out.

01:28:20.020 --> 01:28:20.980
 You can sign up for it there.

01:28:21.060 --> 01:28:26.480
 Like I said, it's a four-hour meetup, online conference, breakouts, interactive questions.

01:28:26.800 --> 01:28:28.920
 It's not a Zoom webinar for four hours.

01:28:28.920 --> 01:28:31.600
 You're actually talking with people face-to-face.

01:28:31.760 --> 01:28:34.460
 And so, stadiachurchplanning.org slash innovation.

01:28:34.580 --> 01:28:35.080
 Check that out.

01:28:35.440 --> 01:28:36.920
 Now, let me ask your clubhouse question.

01:28:38.120 --> 01:28:42.920
 I think there's several wins, and then I'll open it up to other people to kind of dialogue into it.

01:28:43.360 --> 01:28:48.220
 And actually, we had Ray Diarmus, who's usually on here with us, Digital Pastor of Christ Fellowship Miami.

01:28:48.220 --> 01:28:54.060
 Just, I'm literally reading from his blog that he published on the church digital on this topic.

01:28:54.540 --> 01:28:55.460
 Four ideas.

01:28:55.700 --> 01:28:56.960
 Close small groups.

01:28:57.420 --> 01:28:59.980
 So, the opportunity to do small groups in this environment.

01:29:00.540 --> 01:29:10.940
 Yes, you're not looking face-to-face, but you do have the ability to have multiple people talking at the same time, as opposed to Zoom, where it really kind of gets broken down if it's less than one.

01:29:11.380 --> 01:29:16.220
 The idea that you can be more portable in the small group doing it audio only.

01:29:17.040 --> 01:29:20.900
 You know, Stephen's out at the ballpark right now engaging in this.

01:29:21.000 --> 01:29:26.480
 If Stephen was on Zoom, his arm would be really tired from holding his camera up to his face.

01:29:27.000 --> 01:29:29.520
 So, it's things like that that make it a little easier.

01:29:30.300 --> 01:29:33.020
 Post-message discussion boards, discussion rooms.

01:29:33.560 --> 01:29:45.100
 And this is one of the things I think Ray's actually experimenting with this week, where he's going to have Clubhouse open, like, for four or five hours all day when they run through their three or four services live.

01:29:45.660 --> 01:29:50.560
 And he just wants to continually funnel people in to be able to dialogue, ask questions.

01:29:50.840 --> 01:29:51.560
 What do you think?

01:29:51.860 --> 01:29:54.760
 What was the win for you in this message, kind of dialoguing through that?

01:29:56.520 --> 01:30:04.580
 Not just creating rooms, but dialoguing and engaging into other rooms, other environments, other cultures, learning things.

01:30:04.580 --> 01:30:11.920
 For me, it's one of the wins of Clubhouse, is the opportunity I can to really learn about what other people are thinking.

01:30:12.600 --> 01:30:25.060
 Don't just be creating rooms to promote what you're doing, but take a moment to learn what's happening, even in rooms that you're not creating or that your church is not creating.

01:30:26.080 --> 01:30:31.180
 In special interviews, a church can facilitate interviews with leaders in the community to answer questions.

01:30:31.920 --> 01:30:34.500
 One of the big wins, and this for me, this is the win of Clubhouse.

01:30:35.080 --> 01:30:38.020
 It's funny because this is actually the most I've talked pretty much all night.

01:30:38.640 --> 01:30:44.280
 But I would rather look at Clubhouse to be the platform to ask questions than to make statements.

01:30:44.820 --> 01:30:58.500
 And I think if we posture ourselves through Clubhouse to allow others to speak, and it's through that openness that we can engage into the conversation and help them see what's happening.

01:30:58.980 --> 01:31:13.920
 If we only talk in periods, and this is just culturally speaking, if we only talk in statements, and we don't allow others to speak, we're going to be surrounding ourselves with people that aren't interested in us because we're not giving them a voice and an opinion.

01:31:14.520 --> 01:31:16.420
 We're not a place to share their thoughts.

01:31:17.380 --> 01:31:19.440
 Clubhouse is one of the reasons I love the platform.

01:31:19.640 --> 01:31:21.500
 It allows others to talk into it.

01:31:21.920 --> 01:31:28.700
 And through that conversation, that's where we can build relationships, share about Christ, move on to whatever the next thing is.

01:31:29.240 --> 01:31:34.320
 And these are some major wins, at least that I think here, talking about Clubhouse in context of the church.

01:31:34.780 --> 01:31:35.260
 Open it up.

01:31:35.340 --> 01:31:35.880
 Anybody else?

01:31:36.000 --> 01:31:36.640
 What did I miss?

01:31:36.700 --> 01:31:37.940
 What's an idea with Clubhouse?

01:31:38.500 --> 01:31:39.440
 Anything resonating?

01:31:39.520 --> 01:31:42.600
 Or if there's any other questions, raise your hand and we can move on.

01:31:42.600 --> 01:31:45.240
 And I probably just got time for maybe one more after this.

01:31:45.680 --> 01:31:46.160
 Go ahead, Justin.

01:31:46.760 --> 01:31:57.220
 Yeah, I think for this medium, one of the coolest things that you guys could do, even in a physical space, is get your staff together and have a conversation.

01:31:57.720 --> 01:32:05.380
 But oftentimes, we don't get to know, from a church person perspective, we don't get to know the staff on a personal level.

01:32:05.760 --> 01:32:12.500
 And this really gives the opportunity to have those conversations with Q&As where we can actually get to talk to you guys.

01:32:12.600 --> 01:32:15.780
 So I think that would be an opportunity as well.

01:32:17.480 --> 01:32:18.300
 Well said.

01:32:18.380 --> 01:32:18.940
 Well said there.

01:32:19.020 --> 01:32:20.020
 And that is a win.

01:32:20.280 --> 01:32:21.960
 Just a relational connection.

01:32:22.760 --> 01:32:24.740
 I've been so impressed with this platform.

01:32:25.140 --> 01:32:27.820
 Honestly, I've been, crap, I don't know, a decade.

01:32:28.640 --> 01:32:29.860
 Instagram's been around a while, right?

01:32:29.880 --> 01:32:31.100
 I can't remember actually when that started.

01:32:31.300 --> 01:32:33.240
 But for me, it's like that level.

01:32:33.620 --> 01:32:36.500
 Because you get an opportunity to listen, to talk, to meet people.

01:32:36.600 --> 01:32:38.380
 Randall, nice to meet you.

01:32:38.580 --> 01:32:42.240
 Looking forward to connecting with you more along this.

01:32:42.240 --> 01:32:44.100
 So last call.

01:32:44.700 --> 01:32:46.540
 Any questions from the room?

01:32:46.640 --> 01:32:47.740
 If not, I'm going to wrap.

01:32:47.900 --> 01:32:49.020
 It's been a great night.

01:32:50.400 --> 01:32:51.320
 Well, let's do this.

01:32:51.400 --> 01:32:51.900
 Let's wrap.

01:32:52.400 --> 01:32:56.240
 So we've got Chesley and Angela from the initial panel.

01:32:56.380 --> 01:32:57.680
 Some of the others had to rotate off.

01:32:57.720 --> 01:33:04.260
 This has been a great conversation so far, talking about these digital-only churches,

01:33:04.560 --> 01:33:06.960
 the expressions of church that are happening out there.

01:33:07.940 --> 01:33:11.400
 Angela, as we're landing the plane, any closing thoughts or anything on your side?

01:33:11.400 --> 01:33:18.960
 Well, I was just writing down like 10 ideas this gave me.

01:33:19.460 --> 01:33:24.040
 So I appreciate everybody who spoke today and who came forward with questions.

01:33:24.040 --> 01:33:25.600
 And I look forward to continuing.

01:33:25.600 --> 01:33:35.660
 But mostly everybody who is doing digital-only, digital-first, digital, whatever it is that God has called and anointed you for this very time.

01:33:36.320 --> 01:33:40.360
 And the fact that he's put this dream on your heart.

01:33:40.360 --> 01:33:42.420
 Don't be discouraged.

01:33:42.880 --> 01:33:53.060
 Tap into resources like this, that you surround yourself with other thought people that are thinking kind of broader.

01:33:53.420 --> 01:33:58.500
 And it's really okay to join the fail club, as I would say, for my team.

01:33:58.720 --> 01:34:04.080
 Like, you have to be okay with failing and moving forward.

01:34:04.480 --> 01:34:07.460
 And luckily, technology moves fast enough that you can do that.

01:34:07.980 --> 01:34:09.240
 So just be encouraged today.

01:34:10.840 --> 01:34:11.880
 Well said there.

01:34:12.080 --> 01:34:13.500
 I mean, it's okay to fail.

01:34:14.360 --> 01:34:18.840
 And especially post-COVID, we, the church, we have to be innovative.

01:34:18.960 --> 01:34:20.940
 This is why Stadia is doing an innovation meetup.

01:34:21.040 --> 01:34:23.240
 I've been a ministry guy my entire life.

01:34:23.320 --> 01:34:26.340
 There were years where I felt alone, that people didn't.

01:34:26.540 --> 01:34:28.180
 I felt like nobody thought like I did.

01:34:28.420 --> 01:34:31.260
 And as a result of that, there was something wrong with me.

01:34:31.720 --> 01:34:34.520
 I've come to find out there are tons of people who think like I did.

01:34:34.960 --> 01:34:40.500
 I just needed to meet them and help them get connected to others so that they could be encouraged by that.

01:34:40.580 --> 01:34:50.520
 So if you're wrestling with some of these ideas, hopefully you're encouraged as a result of this and realizing, hey, even post-COVID, I'm going to need to experiment.

01:34:50.520 --> 01:34:56.020
 We're going to need to try things and to iterate, to fail, to move on to the next idea.

01:34:56.720 --> 01:35:01.920
 Because the quicker we can call something a failure, the closer we get to actually doing that success.

01:35:02.780 --> 01:35:11.080
 And what's interesting is I think the quicker we get to the failure, the more malleable and shapeable we are before God, who's helping us and guiding us on this journey.

01:35:11.360 --> 01:35:14.220
 So, Chesley, as we're landing the plane here, any closing thoughts?

01:35:15.620 --> 01:35:23.380
 Yeah, there's a book called The Innovator's Dilemma by Dr. Clayton Christensen out of Harvard Business School.

01:35:24.280 --> 01:35:37.860
 And he talks about the opportunities that are present when we move into a disruptive, that's what the internet was, that's what social media really was.

01:35:38.340 --> 01:35:49.060
 And when you're in that arena, the things that made you successful in the old one will be the things that make you fail in the new normal.

01:35:49.060 --> 01:35:55.920
 And so, don't be afraid to experiment, but also lose the old paradigm.

01:35:56.220 --> 01:35:58.900
 You can't put new wine into old wineskins.

01:35:59.220 --> 01:36:01.220
 So, you got to create a new wineskin.

01:36:02.820 --> 01:36:06.100
 I was wondering at what point we were going to do the wineskin analogy.

01:36:06.400 --> 01:36:10.040
 I'm kind of embarrassed it took us 100 minutes plus to get there.

01:36:10.140 --> 01:36:11.180
 But well said, sir.

01:36:12.340 --> 01:36:19.480
 You know, and one of the hearts of Stadia here is the heart to disciple people in different environments.

01:36:20.120 --> 01:36:26.240
 What we do in a digital space is different than in a physical space, which is different in a micro space.

01:36:26.360 --> 01:36:29.320
 In churches, in micro churches, in house churches, and things like that.

01:36:29.740 --> 01:36:35.860
 It takes these varying, these different wineskins to do things in the different environments.

01:36:35.980 --> 01:36:37.240
 So, I would challenge you.

01:36:37.600 --> 01:36:40.020
 If you're a digital-only church, you have to think different.

01:36:40.360 --> 01:36:47.300
 If you're a physical and digital church, you're a fidgetal church, you've got to figure out what works physically.

01:36:47.660 --> 01:36:54.800
 And you need to start wrestling with, man, I've got to do things differently if I want to be successful in that digital space.

01:36:55.160 --> 01:36:59.440
 And developing that strategy where both of them work together well.

01:36:59.600 --> 01:37:01.460
 And so, I do a lot of work towards that.

01:37:01.940 --> 01:37:17.700
 Either way, if you're a physical church that wants to do digital ministry, if you're a planner that wants to plant a digital-only expression of church, I, Jeff, I'd love to talk with you, meet with you, learn your story, and see how I, the church digital or Stadia Church Planning, can help you on this journey.

01:37:17.700 --> 01:37:30.920
 So, my contact information is on my profile, my bio, you can book time with me straight on my calendars available on there, along with all sorts of other resources available for you.

01:37:31.060 --> 01:37:33.120
 So, I want to thank you all for the time here.

01:37:33.180 --> 01:37:36.540
 By the way, we do this every Thursday, 5 p.m. Eastern.

01:37:36.800 --> 01:37:37.560
 At least I do.

01:37:38.080 --> 01:37:46.480
 The next show we have coming up, I had a conversation with one of the cohorts I was in, and one of the guys said in the cohort,

01:37:46.480 --> 01:37:50.500
 at what point do we realize that small groups just don't work in physical or digital?

01:37:50.680 --> 01:37:57.360
 Eight to 12 people sitting in a living room was a model that works for the 90s, and we just need to blow up the entire model and start from scratch.

01:37:57.900 --> 01:38:00.300
 And so, I looked at the guy and said, that's an awesome statement.

01:38:00.820 --> 01:38:03.440
 I don't have near the time to unpack it, but let's do it on Clubhouse.

01:38:03.860 --> 01:38:05.000
 So, we're doing that next week.

01:38:05.780 --> 01:38:11.140
 What would happen if we actually blew up the entire small group model and started for scratch for 2021?

01:38:11.840 --> 01:38:15.820
 I have no idea where we'll get to, but I guarantee it's going to be an interesting conversation.

01:38:15.820 --> 01:38:18.920
 So, come back next Thursday for that, 5 p.m.

01:38:18.980 --> 01:38:27.820
 But for Chesley, for Angela, DJ, for Chris, I'm trying to thank all the others who Daniel, Aaron, were on today.

01:38:27.900 --> 01:38:28.820
 This has been an awesome Clubhouse.

01:38:29.500 --> 01:38:31.960
 My name is Jeff at The Church Digital, State of Church Planning.

01:38:32.080 --> 01:38:36.500
 Thanks for joining us today, and we'll see you next time somewhere around here on Clubhouse.

01:38:36.920 --> 01:38:37.400
 Y'all have a good day.