WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.460 All right. Hey, we got the beta show. I'm Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast. Once 00:00:06.460 --> 00:00:10.360 again, it's powered by Stadia Church Planning. It's been a while since I've been in this 00:00:10.360 --> 00:00:15.280 format here with you. By the way, here with the beta show, we are answering your online 00:00:15.280 --> 00:00:22.660 ministry questions. You can go ahead and text them in to 484-324-8724. That is literally 00:00:22.660 --> 00:00:29.980 my cell phone number. Yes, I am giving away my cell phone on the internet. 484-324-8724. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:35.780 Text the online ministry questions. We will answer them in future episodes here with the 00:00:35.780 --> 00:00:39.240 Church Digital with the beta show. We've been experimenting with some different things, 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:42.340 tried some things at Clubhouse, tried some things in different formats. Hey, we're going 00:00:42.340 --> 00:00:46.220 to come back here for a while and kind of hang out doing this stream live with you. 00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:52.800 Here with episode 26, seven reasons your church still needs digital. That's right. Hey, we're 00:00:52.800 --> 00:00:59.660 going back to the building. Let's all do a collective yay. I had a digital friend. I'm a 00:00:59.660 --> 00:01:04.480 digital guy. I had a pastor ask me recently, Jeff, as we're going back to the building, 00:01:04.600 --> 00:01:09.000 aren't you upset? We're going to get more into that here in a little bit because this 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:13.920 isn't the end of digital in context of church. It's really the beginning, but we'll get to 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:18.380 it. Hey, let's talk about what's happening in our buildings right now. Collectively, this 00:01:18.380 --> 00:01:23.220 is a non-scientific poll. These are things that I've learned and that I've observed through 00:01:23.220 --> 00:01:29.500 some Facebook groups. 60% to 70% of pre-COVID attendance seems to be the mean. It's the average 00:01:29.500 --> 00:01:35.420 of what is back in the building. It ranges from 50% all the way up to 100%, but at this 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:40.960 point, 60% to 70% seems to be the national average of that. You can check out some of the 00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:46.540 comments there at thechurch.digital.fb. It'll get you to that Facebook group. Another one. This is 00:01:46.540 --> 00:01:52.000 interesting. 75% of churches right now, masks are optional. This is a poll that's actually going on 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:57.380 right now in that Facebook group. If you want to vote for it, go ahead. Thechurch.digital.fb 00:01:57.380 --> 00:02:03.420 will redirect you to that poll. Once again, this is non-scientific. I'm just a guy in a Facebook 00:02:03.420 --> 00:02:10.260 group, so it's great. Hey, listen, it's not time to be done with digital just because we're going back 00:02:10.260 --> 00:02:17.200 to the physical building. There is still a role for digital within your physical worship service. 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:21.700 This is a lot of what I wanted to focus on here with the stream today. Let's remember up front, 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:30.480 physical should not be in competition with digital. After all, physical is part of what 00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:37.760 figital is. We need to figure out together, and this maybe even really separates. Well, let's even back 00:02:37.760 --> 00:02:43.000 up here a little bit. Let's talk about what, when I say figital, what does figital mean? Defining 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:50.360 figital. Figital is physical and digital working together. It's not overlapping. It's not in 00:02:50.360 --> 00:02:56.560 competition. It's not a fight. You know, just today, just right before I pressed go live on this, I was 00:02:56.560 --> 00:03:03.840 reading a Facebook post of a pastor who's tired of broadcasting his services because it feels like 00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:10.640 broadcasting services online is in competition with getting people into the building, and that mindset 00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:17.840 is completely missing the role of digital in context of your church. So what I want to give here is 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:26.520 is seven reasons why physical and digital, how it can work together in a figital way, and seven reasons 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:31.060 why your church should be doing this today. So we're going to get started. This is going to be a lot 00:03:31.060 --> 00:03:36.280 of fun. Hey, and we're going to do this quick. It's just going to roll. Number one, physical digital 00:03:36.280 --> 00:03:42.120 worship services. Honestly, this weekend experience that we've created continues to lose effectiveness 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:50.440 for evangelism. I know that's hard to hear. The purpose, there is purpose behind the weekend 00:03:50.440 --> 00:03:56.060 experiences. There is purpose behind that service, but I'm not sure effective evangelism is really 00:03:56.060 --> 00:04:01.040 happening there. By the way, I'm not the only crazy guy saying this. Barna essentially is saying 80% 00:04:01.040 --> 00:04:06.860 of people called to Christ, pre-Christian, lost, whatever your terminology is, they're not interested in 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:14.700 physical or even digital worship services. Like if people have spiritual questions and they are not 00:04:14.700 --> 00:04:20.060 Christian, they do not believe in Jesus, they are not going to go to the building, 80% of them 00:04:20.060 --> 00:04:26.300 are not going to go to the building to engage in those questions. Ultimately, figital is more than an 00:04:26.300 --> 00:04:32.860 online worship service. So as we're thinking about what figital can be in context of our church, 00:04:32.860 --> 00:04:37.340 what do we do with it? Let's look here. People called to Christ who have spiritual questions, 00:04:38.060 --> 00:04:43.340 they're going to go ask a friend or they're going to go to Google or YouTube. So we talk a lot about 00:04:43.340 --> 00:04:49.420 this here through the church digital. Your new evangelism really comes in place of training people 00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:56.220 to have these conversations. And honestly, it goes towards utilizing better search engine techniques, 00:04:56.220 --> 00:05:03.660 SEO, YouTube, pastor, Google did a podcast on that. So look, right up front, we need to be thinking beyond 00:05:04.220 --> 00:05:10.780 the weekend worship services in context of figital. Number two, we can potentially reach a different 00:05:10.780 --> 00:05:17.740 type of person in digital spaces. The fact is, reality, some of us won't make it back to the building. We 00:05:17.740 --> 00:05:25.180 know that. Some of us aren't coming back. Fact is as well, some of us can't make it back to the building. 00:05:25.180 --> 00:05:32.860 Let's look at this. Unchurched, de-churched, health issues, social issues, people who can't work or who 00:05:32.860 --> 00:05:41.660 work weekends and can't make it to the building. There's a large chunk of people that are not able to 00:05:41.660 --> 00:05:49.820 make it into your physical environments. And doing discipleship and engaging with people digitally allows 00:05:49.820 --> 00:05:57.500 us to be the church in digital space that reaching a type of person that our physical buildings cannot reach. 00:05:57.500 --> 00:06:03.980 Just within the past month, I have a digital pastor friend of mine. It's a digital-only expression of church. 00:06:04.620 --> 00:06:12.380 And he saw a salvation of a guy who had not set foot in a physical building in 10 years. 00:06:13.180 --> 00:06:20.860 And so a very de-churched crowd out there, unchurched crowd as well. And so there's opportunities abound 00:06:20.860 --> 00:06:27.500 to engage with a different type of person than the physical building can reach. Let's look at number 00:06:27.500 --> 00:06:34.700 three here. Traditionally, physical discipleship struggles, while digital discipleship is becoming more 00:06:34.700 --> 00:06:40.620 and more effective. So let's talk about this. If you really look at, you know, even, well, here, 00:06:40.620 --> 00:06:47.420 let's do this. 25% of Americans are active in the Christian church. Numbers are decreasing annually. 00:06:47.980 --> 00:06:54.300 Within the church, we've forgotten how to make some of these disciples. What we're doing, even pre-COVID, 00:06:54.300 --> 00:07:00.700 if we really analyze this, I'm not sure it's working. And so the heart of this gets to this place of 00:07:01.260 --> 00:07:07.740 what does it mean to make a disciple? And are the methods and the processes that we're doing 00:07:07.740 --> 00:07:13.820 in the building, are they working? Or are we having issues, even pre-COVID? 00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:18.860 So if we're going back to the building, that's great. If we're going back to the old strategies, 00:07:18.860 --> 00:07:28.140 that's great. But were those strategies effective? Is it effective in gathering people? Okay, maybe. 00:07:28.140 --> 00:07:34.460 Even though we've seen, you know, massive decreases over time. So I don't know if it's really effective. 00:07:34.460 --> 00:07:41.420 Is it effective in not just gathering people, but in making that disciple? Is our ecclesia 00:07:41.420 --> 00:07:48.460 creating disciples? Or is our ecclesia gathering people that we really need to start scattering in 00:07:48.460 --> 00:07:53.740 diaspora? Do we need to start pushing people out of the net, out of the nest, so to speak, 00:07:53.740 --> 00:07:58.140 through that discipleship process? I don't know that it's working in physical space. 00:07:58.780 --> 00:08:05.260 But I would say this, the strength of digital. Well, honestly, let's just go ahead and go to number 00:08:05.260 --> 00:08:12.860 four because it's going to get there real quick. Number four, digital helps keep people on mission 00:08:13.820 --> 00:08:20.860 using physical and digital methods. Once again here, the strength of digital is equipping, 00:08:21.420 --> 00:08:29.980 it's training. It leans very strongly into this idea of disciple making. This is a radical concept, 00:08:29.980 --> 00:08:37.020 but digital in itself is very strong towards making the disciple making processes, 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:43.580 which is really the weakness of many of our physical churches that are out there, which gets us to number 00:08:43.580 --> 00:08:50.700 five reason why you should be doing digital. Churches report that digital is easier and quicker to go 00:08:50.700 --> 00:08:58.140 through the discipleship process. I literally had this conversation with a skeptic lead pastor just this 00:08:58.140 --> 00:09:05.820 past week. Discipleship that was happening in digital meetings is how oftentimes happens twice as fast. 00:09:05.820 --> 00:09:11.820 They meet twice a week as opposed to once a week meeting physically. So my skeptic pastor friend here, 00:09:12.700 --> 00:09:19.260 not a fan of digital, is open to different ideas and ways. And he noticed that some of the people 00:09:19.260 --> 00:09:24.300 that were in that discipleship process that were in those meetings, they started asking, "Hey, 00:09:24.300 --> 00:09:29.180 this is fun to do digitally. This is easier. I don't have to worry about traffic. Can we meet multiple 00:09:29.180 --> 00:09:34.780 times a week?" And so they were going through the systems and the processes. They were understanding, 00:09:34.780 --> 00:09:42.220 they were adapting to the culture change quicker because they were able to process it digitally 00:09:42.780 --> 00:09:49.580 instead of physically. Number five, we're seeing that the reports are that people are able to do this 00:09:50.140 --> 00:09:56.620 quicker, utilizing digital, which is complementing what's happening in the physical space. Number six 00:09:56.620 --> 00:10:05.100 here, COVID season is not a rejection of digital. It's a rejection of the lack of balance. For the 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:12.540 established church, we need to find that balance. Yeah, listen, we can push all in on digital and 00:10:12.540 --> 00:10:17.900 people were freaking out because they can't handle that much. I totally get it. I understand. I agree 00:10:17.900 --> 00:10:22.620 with it. I'm a digital guy. And even I'm like, I want to sit at a sushi restaurant with my family. 00:10:22.620 --> 00:10:29.260 I would love to get a side hug from somebody. There's a physical aspect to who we are. And going 00:10:29.260 --> 00:10:34.940 all digital in 2021, there are churches that can, there are people that can, but it's not for 00:10:35.580 --> 00:10:46.540 everyone. Similarly speaking, individuals, we are both physical and digital people. We operate in both 00:10:46.540 --> 00:10:55.340 sides of the equation. And so we need that physical engagement. We need that digital engagement. The 00:10:55.340 --> 00:11:03.020 trick is to not get it to conflict with one another. The trick is to figure out how to get it to complement, 00:11:03.020 --> 00:11:12.140 to work together with it. Established churches, honestly, they need that physical and that digital 00:11:12.140 --> 00:11:19.180 approach. They need both in order to function correctly and properly here in 2021. Number 00:11:19.180 --> 00:11:26.460 seven, digital leans towards multiplication. It creates immense opportunities to scale. It helps start 00:11:27.020 --> 00:11:33.900 a movement when it's done correctly. And this really gets down to even like Seth Godin. Many of you have 00:11:33.900 --> 00:11:39.500 heard me tell this story. Seth Godin is probably one of, at least here in America, one of the top 00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:45.900 marketing minds, very innovative, ingenuitive thought leaders. And so somebody asked Seth on his podcast, 00:11:45.900 --> 00:11:48.700 maybe a year ago, "Hey, how do I get my message heard around the world?" 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:56.540 Seth Godin basically responded by saying, "A billion people don't care about anything that you have to 00:11:56.540 --> 00:12:02.540 say. A hundred million, ten million still don't. A hundred thousand, ten thousand, look. You want to get 00:12:02.540 --> 00:12:08.380 your message heard around the world?" You take your message, you craft it specifically for someone. 00:12:09.180 --> 00:12:16.380 You tell them that message, you get them to own it, and then you get them to tell someone else. 00:12:18.380 --> 00:12:25.260 Seth Godin, not Christian, Jewish actually, basically described the way Jesus started his church 00:12:26.220 --> 00:12:33.100 2,000 years ago, and described what we today would call disciple making. And so the heart for us, 00:12:33.100 --> 00:12:37.660 as we're looking at how digital can lean towards multiplication, create opportunities to scale, 00:12:37.660 --> 00:12:46.220 start a movement, it's not working with platforms speaking to many. It's really working with individuals, 00:12:46.220 --> 00:12:53.820 and from that point, getting it to multiply. It's not working in the mass, it's working in the small, 00:12:54.460 --> 00:13:00.700 and creating more of those multiplying opportunities at the small level. 00:13:01.420 --> 00:13:06.940 So did you catch it? Like, look, I just went through in record time, I can't believe how quick it was, 00:13:07.580 --> 00:13:15.420 seven ways the church needs to be figital, seven reasons why the church should stay figital, 00:13:15.420 --> 00:13:19.660 but absolutely none of them had anything to do with physical or digital worship services. 00:13:20.220 --> 00:13:26.380 And so, as a church, we bank so much of what we're doing on that Sunday morning service. 00:13:26.380 --> 00:13:32.220 We're wanting to fight for, "Okay, that needs to be done physical. We can't do it digital. 00:13:32.220 --> 00:13:35.660 Digital is going to compete, it's going to take away from what's happening in the physical space." 00:13:36.620 --> 00:13:41.420 Honestly, and I don't mean to demean the situation, but that's not the right conversation. 00:13:42.780 --> 00:13:48.540 I had a church yesterday ask me, I spoke at an exponential conference and a question at Q&A, and 00:13:48.540 --> 00:13:51.500 the guy stuck around afterwards and hit me up on Facebook and was like, "Hey, 00:13:53.260 --> 00:13:58.540 my church, my elders, there are two elders, and they don't want to do digital." 00:13:59.580 --> 00:14:04.940 The church staff, many of the high-level volunteers were all excited about it, but a couple of the elders 00:14:04.940 --> 00:14:07.980 kind of get in the way and they just, they refuse to budge. 00:14:08.940 --> 00:14:12.620 Hey, what are they concerned about? What are the elders concerned with? 00:14:13.900 --> 00:14:18.620 Well, Jeff, they're concerned that people are going to, and I said it earlier, 00:14:18.620 --> 00:14:22.620 people are going to look at digital as a reason not to come back to the building. 00:14:23.260 --> 00:14:26.060 Okay, so you say to the building, you mean the specific worship service. 00:14:26.060 --> 00:14:30.780 Yeah, they're not going to come back to that specific physical worship service. 00:14:30.780 --> 00:14:32.860 They're going to be "lazy" and stay home online. 00:14:33.420 --> 00:14:37.260 Cool. Listen, don't even broadcast the worship service. 00:14:37.260 --> 00:14:42.780 If your church wants to highlight what's happening in digital space, now I'm all for 00:14:42.780 --> 00:14:48.380 broadcasting worship services. I've broadcasted thousands of them and would encourage churches 00:14:48.380 --> 00:14:52.940 to do that. But if they're not wanting to embrace this idea of digital because they would rather 00:14:52.940 --> 00:14:58.780 prioritize what happens in the physical building, give it to them. Don't worry about broadcasting 00:14:58.780 --> 00:15:04.700 services. Put all the eggs in that proverbial basket for a season and focus on that digital 00:15:04.700 --> 00:15:12.380 discipleship and really expand that complementary approach of doing digital discipleship coupled 00:15:12.380 --> 00:15:15.180 with the physical service and see what happens. 00:15:16.140 --> 00:15:21.820 You see, I think so often we fight on this battleground and the act of this physical battleground 00:15:21.820 --> 00:15:24.300 is not in the weekend service. 00:15:25.180 --> 00:15:30.300 It's in disciples, creating disciples who are making disciples, who are making disciples. 00:15:30.700 --> 00:15:35.420 Let's take our focus. Let's take our attention there. We can fight all day long. 00:15:36.460 --> 00:15:41.340 And even when we talk about it, people who are fighting on the digital side towards why we need 00:15:41.340 --> 00:15:46.060 to broadcast services, we're also at the same breath saying, "But it's not about the sermon. 00:15:46.060 --> 00:15:51.580 It's about this discipleship and that disciple making peace." Okay. I love that. I agree with that. That's 00:15:51.580 --> 00:15:57.900 right. Let's let go of broadcasting the service. If it means, hey, we need to be physical with the 00:15:57.900 --> 00:16:02.300 service, but what we're going to do outside, we're going to take that scalability. We're going to take 00:16:02.300 --> 00:16:07.820 that emphasis. We're going to take that speed that we can do in digital versus physical, and we're going 00:16:07.820 --> 00:16:16.220 to embrace that on that discipleship side. That is the win. So here you go. Seven reasons why your church 00:16:16.220 --> 00:16:23.500 right now needs to be fidgetal, and it has nothing to do with the service. It is all about that 00:16:23.500 --> 00:16:29.020 disciple making peace. Once again, if you've got questions, and I see some comments have come in. 00:16:29.020 --> 00:16:33.820 I didn't even see that blip on the screen. If you've got questions moving forward, text us at 00:16:33.820 --> 00:16:40.220 484-324-8724. Hey, this is Jeff with The Church Digital once again in Stadia Church Planting. By the 00:16:40.220 --> 00:16:47.420 way, check out Stadia if you've got more questions on this, on how to be fidgetal, on how to improve 00:16:47.420 --> 00:16:56.540 your digital disciple making process. Check out StadiaChurchPlanting.org/fidgetal, P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L. 00:16:56.540 --> 00:17:02.380 StadiaChurchPlanting.org/fidgetal. We'd love to help you on that journey. See y'all later. 00:17:03.820 --> 00:17:07.060 Thank you.