WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.120 hey all right we got the beta show episode 27 hey i'm jeff with the church digital podcast uh once 00:00:08.120 --> 00:00:12.160 again all this is powered by stadia church planting and really stadia is at the heart 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:18.700 of this conversation that i want to talk about today here with digital only church planting hey 00:00:18.700 --> 00:00:25.080 let's do this up front uh if you've got questions text your digital ministry questions uh in 484 00:00:25.080 --> 00:00:32.420 324-8724 that is literally my cell phone number i am giving you my cell phone number don't call me 00:00:32.420 --> 00:00:39.320 right now don't be that guy but text 484-324-8724 send your ministry questions in topics for today's 00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:45.880 show beta episode 27 six reasons we need digital only churches six reasons that the church today 00:00:45.880 --> 00:00:52.860 western civ western society we need digital only churches i'm going to love this conversation we're 00:00:52.860 --> 00:00:57.720 going to define what a digital only church is and hopefully i don't get lynched in the process i got 00:00:57.720 --> 00:01:02.460 to tell you i had a pastor tell me this within the past couple weeks hey jeff you've successfully 00:01:02.460 --> 00:01:07.980 normalized the weird we were talking about digital only churches and this pastor had told me merely 00:01:07.980 --> 00:01:14.040 24 hours before the conversation none of this made any sense and none of this sounded like anything he 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:20.480 wanted to get involved with but as he started to understand really what a digital only expression of 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:27.120 church is and how that can be used to reach different types of people he got on board quickly and i got 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:33.760 to tell you i hope today in this conversation some of you out there uh i can help start to normalize the 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:40.240 weird here of a digital only church well hey before we get to the six reasons let's just do this real 00:01:40.240 --> 00:01:45.280 quick what is a digital only church what are we what are we actually talking about we're talking about a 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:52.960 biblically a biblical functioning ecclesiologically solid church in digital community i don't want to 00:01:52.960 --> 00:01:58.640 go crazy i'm not rewriting the bible i'm not going something new age or something ethereal i'm not 00:01:58.640 --> 00:02:03.760 talking about visions of jesus and rewriting scripture uh what i'm looking at is taking the 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:12.720 biblical functions acts to 36 to 47 and defining that in digital context so that church can exist 00:02:13.360 --> 00:02:19.520 in digital community and so really the the challenge is for us is that we're looking at a digital 00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:26.400 community as a community that's worthy of a church a digital community is a community that's worthy of 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:32.480 a church now you see we've already we don't get we the church we don't get to define whether a digital 00:02:32.480 --> 00:02:40.400 community is a community society culture has already done that they've said a digital community is a 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:47.920 community they've already defined it there's millions of people that play video games regularly and that's 00:02:47.920 --> 00:02:54.720 where they engage with their friends they're the largest nation on the planet if we looked at social media 00:02:54.720 --> 00:03:03.120 as a nation would be facebook billions of people are active on that network each and every week so 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:09.360 there are already people that are engaging in digital community the real question is is do we christians 00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:17.600 do we see an opportunity for the church to exist holistically within that digital community let's get 00:03:17.600 --> 00:03:24.560 into this uh a church existing in digital community digital disciples in digital community using 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:30.800 digital and cloud-based tools a digital only church can manifest itself in the microsites 00:03:30.800 --> 00:03:36.640 in micro churches as well this is not what i'm saying is this is not a digital church digital only 00:03:36.640 --> 00:03:43.680 expression of church does not drive people to a physical building this is not hey let's do uh ad 00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:48.400 campaigns that are going to get people to the physical building that's not digital church broadcasting your 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:55.280 service alone does not make you a digital church because just because a church service exists digitally is 00:03:55.280 --> 00:04:01.600 not the challenge the real question is is where are you doing disciples where are you doing discipleship 00:04:01.600 --> 00:04:07.680 where are you making disciples if you're making that in digital space then then maybe you're a digital 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:13.520 church but if you're only doing that in physical space you're not there yet it really comes down to that 00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:21.040 disciple making peace practically speaking what is a digital only church maybe you're familiar with some 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:28.000 of the more current micro church network strategies rob wagner casey underground brian sanders tampa 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:37.840 underground the way that rob wagner looks at kansas city and his passion to reach the city of kansas 00:04:37.840 --> 00:04:43.760 city specifically we just did a podcast he started in that southwest quadrant and what happened was when 00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:49.520 he went digital as a result of covid he expanded out of that southwest quadrant quickly digital was an 00:04:49.520 --> 00:04:56.400 accelerator another conversation but as as rob is passionate about kansas city i've got digital planters 00:04:56.400 --> 00:05:04.000 and i know people that are that passionate uh about virtual reality uh about twitch about discord about video 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:09.440 games about one we're going to get into much more uh creative opportunities soon but you see that this 00:05:09.440 --> 00:05:15.520 is how a digital planter looks at this community that it's a digital community that it's a community 00:05:15.520 --> 00:05:21.920 that needs the church and that digital planter is going into it now i hear some of you right now i 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:27.840 listen i i let's be honest right now uh i would hate going to this church that's what some of you are 00:05:27.840 --> 00:05:35.360 thinking right now jeff i i need my side hug that the past 15 16 months with covid not being able to 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:41.040 be in that physical space has been a detriment to the church you are right i i am not going to push 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:46.320 on that you are right the church has struggled over the past 15 or 16 months because they did not have 00:05:46.320 --> 00:05:52.160 physical but that doesn't mean digital only can't work and we're going to get into some of that here uh 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:56.720 with a little bit ultimately what you need to understand this is one of my favorite quotes from jim 00:05:56.720 --> 00:06:02.720 tomberland i want to give him a shout out here with this uh it's not for everyone but it's got to be 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:09.520 for enough to make it worthwhile and when i look at a digital only expression of church in 2021 00:06:09.520 --> 00:06:14.400 jim tomberland's quote comes to mind because digital only expressions of church you're right 00:06:14.400 --> 00:06:20.800 2021 post-covid right now it's not for everyone not everyone on the planet wants to attend the digital 00:06:20.800 --> 00:06:27.680 only expression of church i would suggest though that there are enough right now to make this worthwhile 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:34.320 and that is the challenge how do we support and do this to get enough out there to make it 00:06:34.320 --> 00:06:40.560 worthwhile by the way quick commercial stadia is helping plant digital only expressions of church 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:47.200 stadia church planting dot org slash fidget or excuse me digital d-i-g-i-t-a-l stadia church 00:06:47.200 --> 00:06:53.440 planting dot org slash digital if you're interested in planting a digital only expression of church 00:06:53.440 --> 00:06:59.440 swing by there and uh let's let's have a conversation but let's do this let's get into it all that was 00:06:59.440 --> 00:07:05.760 prelude for what's coming up now six reasons that we need digital only expressions of churches today 00:07:06.320 --> 00:07:14.160 2021 post-covid where we are number one it's time to rethink the church okay listen put the pitchforks 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:21.040 down uh the the torches don't don't don't come at me hate mail don't press in just hear me out for for a 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:26.160 little bit here today's typical church if we really were to look at it yes there are some things that 00:07:26.160 --> 00:07:31.360 are based on the ecclesiological the theology of the church the biblical functions but there's a chunk 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:37.760 of it as well that's that's extra biblical that's outside of the bible now the challenge for you is to 00:07:37.760 --> 00:07:44.640 really look at what's happening and say the things that you're passionate about the things that when 00:07:44.640 --> 00:07:52.400 you go back to the church are are they theologically solid or is it extra biblical is it things that are 00:07:52.400 --> 00:07:59.040 outside of the bible so when when we talk about doing a digital only church we want to look at the 00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:07.600 scripture and reimagine what the scripture what acts to what other passages calls us to do in digital space 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:14.640 what that church could look like digitally and i'll tell you right now it's not always going to look 00:08:14.640 --> 00:08:22.960 like what the physical church is but that doesn't mean that it's not biblical for ourselves we want to 00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:29.920 reimagine we want to reset we want to restructure the big c church that that's that's our that's our 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:36.960 calling and that once again it's not for everyone but it is going to be enough for people to make it 00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:42.000 worthwhile we are going to get enough people to make the effort worthwhile for that so number one 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:48.160 time to rethink the church number two different churches reach different types of people different 00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:54.480 churches reach different types of people hinted towards this earlier de-churched unchurched people 00:08:54.480 --> 00:09:01.360 are finding safety to ask spiritual questions within digital community digital only churches are succeeding 00:09:01.920 --> 00:09:10.480 in reaching de-churched and unchurched people at high levels i had had a church tell me um of digital 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:15.600 church 70 to 80 percent of the people that engage regularly with this particular church are de-churched 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:25.200 essentially atheists agnostics uh 60 to 70 percent of another digital church are um are unchurched are 00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:31.520 i'm sorry 70 to 80 percent i just totally screwed up that stat that's awesome 70 to 80 percent is uh is 00:09:31.520 --> 00:09:37.840 unchurched complete atheist 60 to 70 percent is de-churched people for the first time they're going back 00:09:38.400 --> 00:09:45.040 to the bride of christ and so we're seeing where digital has an opportunity to connect with different 00:09:45.040 --> 00:09:50.480 types of people than really what the physical buildings have been able to get over time now 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:55.040 there's a whole other spectrum what we're looking at here you've heard me talk about video gamers i 00:09:55.040 --> 00:10:00.960 know of a successful uh church that's happening right now that with the american sign language asl 00:10:00.960 --> 00:10:05.840 essentially the heart of hearing where they're not able to connect together in physical space just 00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:10.640 because the asl community is scattered so far across the country it's one of the largest unreached 00:10:10.640 --> 00:10:15.520 people groups in america by the way digital churches are able to connect with them in great ways i've 00:10:15.520 --> 00:10:20.640 got it we're working with the church right now in stadia he's a first generation nigerian uh he lives 00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:28.320 here in in america he wants to launch a digital only church that is aiming to connect with nigerian refugees 00:10:29.040 --> 00:10:34.720 around the planet try doing that in a physical space like he literally wants he's a nigerian first 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:42.000 generation and he wants to reach other um refugees scattered across the country not nigerian people 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:47.920 specifically nigerian refugees who have been displaced and he's able to capitalize on that and 00:10:47.920 --> 00:10:54.640 reach and minister to these people in digital space this is beautiful and mark lutz uh who's the lead 00:10:54.640 --> 00:11:00.240 pastor of lux digital church one of these uh digital only churches we've launched just recently is very 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:07.040 clear of saying by the way hey our church of video gamers um we're a church of video gamers yeah video 00:11:07.040 --> 00:11:14.560 games video gamers attend but so do their spouse so do their friends like it's more than just uh video 00:11:14.560 --> 00:11:22.320 gamers it's not for video gamers it's of video gamers and so that's an interesting uh clarification coming in 00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:27.440 where churches we're seeing digital churches are reaching different types of people number three 00:11:28.160 --> 00:11:33.680 there's a strong emphasis here on the word digital disciple making okay two words maybe three depending 00:11:33.680 --> 00:11:39.440 upon where how you think of the hyphen digital disciple making disciple making is an intentional word 00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:46.000 here the heart here is a disciple who has made a disciple is in the process of making another disciple so 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:51.840 you're seeing a repetition you're seeing a multiplication happening this is where digital shines this is the 00:11:51.840 --> 00:12:00.000 strength of what digital is digital is all about equipping it's all about training it leans so heavily 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:06.080 into disciple making if it's given the opportunity the perception though among a lot of churches out 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:12.640 there among a lot of people is that digital that technology is cold and that it's distant when in 00:12:12.640 --> 00:12:20.160 fact digital can be very warm and personal at the end of the day digital is a tool and it really depends upon how we 00:12:20.160 --> 00:12:28.320 see the church the church the church planter want to yield wield that tool so it comes down to what do you 00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:36.240 want it to be when i look at digital churches here's what i see uh i i see that digital churches work best not 00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:44.000 when it's about a church or an organization alone doing ministry but it's more about the church empowering individuals 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:50.480 to do ministry and this is where we start to in this act this quote was actually i wrote this in 2018 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:55.840 it went viral this past week i'm not sure why it was listed in a tweet and it just kind of exploded off 00:12:55.840 --> 00:13:03.120 that which is awesome because that really is more relevant today in 2021 than it was when i wrote it in 00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:10.480 2018 man if the church if we could get to the place of empowering individuals to do ministry instead of us 00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:16.160 thinking that our lone voice is going to be the one that's going to shine through and this right here 00:13:16.160 --> 00:13:21.520 this really gets us here to number four you ready for this personal mission really a digital church is 00:13:21.520 --> 00:13:28.480 about enabling the priesthood of all believers a digital church has to move beyond that one man 00:13:28.480 --> 00:13:34.880 standing on stage exuding a spiritual gift in front of thousands and instead a digital church is going 00:13:34.880 --> 00:13:42.480 to empower thousands of people to exude their spiritual gift in front of tens or hundreds or or maybe 00:13:42.480 --> 00:13:49.200 thousands and this is where that equipping and that training comes in where if we the church can start 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:55.840 to equip others with a voice instead of trying to speak for them maybe sending them out instead of 00:13:55.840 --> 00:14:01.440 trying to gather them in we'll get into that part here in a little bit man the church would look much 00:14:02.160 --> 00:14:06.080 much different let's check this out here's the standard we have you said this a lot too 00:14:06.800 --> 00:14:10.960 the digital only church standard is really online to offline the gospel that we hear 00:14:11.760 --> 00:14:20.240 in our online world it has to affect it has to influence our offline relationships if what we 00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:29.120 hear digitally is not affecting who we are physically then we the church all we're doing is creating consumers 00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:40.240 and we have to get past creating consumers in a 2021 post-covid society and this is where a digital only 00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:48.080 church shines because with a digital only church you have fresh opportunity fresh dna to create those 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:54.560 environments and to utilize the strength of of equipping and empowering within a digital disciple making 00:14:54.560 --> 00:15:01.120 process to release people in new ways phenomenal opportunity we have not to mention the reach of 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:06.800 what's happening i mean i'll even fall back on rob wagner casey underground he was focused on the 00:15:06.800 --> 00:15:12.640 southwest section he said this in an upcoming podcast with the church digital he was focused on the southwest 00:15:12.640 --> 00:15:20.720 corner of kansas city when he went digital as a result of covid he found oh man i i no longer can focus on 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:26.480 southwest because i'm discipling somebody up in the northeast in the northwest and in this and in all 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:33.520 the regions and so he had to broaden his map because the reach was so good in digital that we we're not 00:15:33.520 --> 00:15:43.040 even talking about we're not even realizing that uh number five here god is moving in digital only churches 00:15:43.040 --> 00:15:48.960 globally god is moving in digital only churches globally i had a friend i was speaking to a friend of mine 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:55.760 he's actually a stadia planner planning a church in uh san francisco uh california and uh he's a first 00:15:55.760 --> 00:16:02.240 general uh ali ruhi did a podcast with him he's first generation muslim uh from iran and so i was 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:06.720 telling him all this stuff with digital only churches how how it's going maybe i was bragging a little bit 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:11.760 i'm known to do that on occasion and uh and and ali says to me he leans in and says hey jeff you know 00:16:11.760 --> 00:16:17.840 who's really good at like this digital only church this digital disciple stuff discipleship you know you need to 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:22.320 talk to and i leaned in i'm excited i'm like ali tell me i want to talk to him can you introduce me i'm 00:16:22.320 --> 00:16:29.840 excited about this i want to know is that what ali says every pastor in iran every pastor in iran is 00:16:29.840 --> 00:16:36.400 really good at this digital discipleship stuff why because that's all they have and so while we here 00:16:36.400 --> 00:16:41.840 in the u.s are arguing about whether discipleship can really happen in digital space or whether a digital 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:48.400 only church is successful the nation of iran is seeing growth happen spiritually and are developing 00:16:48.400 --> 00:16:58.160 people utilizing satellite broadcasts and utilizing apps like whatsapp uh to disciple people to to 00:16:58.160 --> 00:17:05.200 literally bring life change within their family one person often gets saved within the household and then 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:12.240 that one person is discipled digitally to the point where others can accept christ and they are able to 00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:17.040 share their faith with others literally within the household not to mention that you know the whole 00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:23.680 christian thing in iran equals death so like the power of digital discipleship 00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:30.720 is very good because the win of digital discipleship is getting people to the point of getting baptized which is 00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:37.280 literally where they will be killed in iran that's legitimately a thing so tell me that digital 00:17:37.280 --> 00:17:42.320 discipleship and digital only churches don't work i'll point you to iran where evidently it's working 00:17:42.320 --> 00:17:47.840 quite well number six here by the way you know i would even just throw this quote maybe this is 00:17:47.840 --> 00:17:53.520 haphazard look and see where god is moving and pray about joining him in his work henry blackaby 00:17:53.520 --> 00:17:59.520 experiencing god 1975 you know i gotta believe that if i'm just looking at what's happening there in that 00:17:59.520 --> 00:18:05.200 space man there's incredible opportunities for god to move there are lessons that we can learn in 00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:11.440 western civ based off of a country that literally these digital only churches are taking people to 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:17.520 the point of dying i mean that's a that's a legit thing um maybe we should be joining him in his work 00:18:17.520 --> 00:18:23.920 i don't i don't know let's let's uh let's pray about that hey number six here this one is a work in 00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:32.240 progress i would love insight from you i'm going to open this up text me 484-324-8724 i want to hear 00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:37.600 your insights in this you see we the church we're really good at least in the western society we're 00:18:37.600 --> 00:18:42.800 really good at this whole ecclesia thing we love gathering it's all about the gathering we've been 00:18:42.800 --> 00:18:50.480 going nuts for the past 16 months because we cannot gather what if and maybe this is crazy what if it's the 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:58.240 diaspora the the scattering that is actually where god moves and i've been challenged by some people 00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:03.760 check out the sam george podcast uh within the church digital podcast he talked a lot about this 00:19:03.760 --> 00:19:08.080 where it's really the diaspora it's the breaking up of the people and then the ecclesia it's the re 00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:16.080 connection the creating new communities is where we see god move it's it's not the the stagnant of hey i'm 00:19:16.080 --> 00:19:22.000 going to be in my one community as much as it is is the dispersing and then the reconnecting and then 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:29.840 the dispersing and the reconnecting in different areas what i do know is this digital is not a virtual 00:19:29.840 --> 00:19:36.880 building for people to gather uh digital a digital only church is a distribution network for people to 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:43.360 scatter and i would throw at this acts eight for those who have been scattered preach the word wherever 00:19:43.360 --> 00:19:50.160 they went yes the scattering in this context was steven yes whereas he was murdered yes there was all sorts 00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:55.360 of persecution and things happening okay maybe that's not happening in western society at least where we 00:19:55.360 --> 00:20:03.120 are in in in 2021 but i do know this is if we are going to connect with new people if we're going to do 00:20:03.120 --> 00:20:11.760 new things um we have to move outside of our comfort zone our comfort zones cannot get us connected to new 00:20:11.760 --> 00:20:17.680 people we see that statistically time and time again new things connect to new people digital is going to 00:20:17.680 --> 00:20:22.480 get you to a different audience and so doing these things differently or what's going to help us is 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:29.680 what's going to propel us to get connected with new people and create new opportunities new ekklesia to 00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:36.160 even create new diasporatic movements to reconnect into ekklesia you can kind of see how the the cycling and 00:20:36.160 --> 00:20:41.840 the intertwining comes together it's it's a beautiful thing would love your feedback on any of this including 00:20:41.840 --> 00:20:46.560 number six number six is the kind of putting it together in my head would love some dialogue here's 00:20:46.560 --> 00:20:52.800 the deal ultimately we're going to wrap if you want more information on digital only church planting go 00:20:52.800 --> 00:20:59.200 swing over to the church.digital slash planting questions hit me up because we're going to land the plane 00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:05.120 i'm two minutes over where i wanted to be on this idea of digital only church planting here are six 00:21:05.120 --> 00:21:12.720 reasons why you need those digital only church planting options out there and if you are interested 00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:21.440 in doing this through stadia once again hit us up at stadia church planting dot org slash digital hey this 00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:26.080 is jeff with the church digital and with stadia church planting thanks for being here i'm signing 00:21:26.080 --> 00:21:28.720 out and we'll see you next time here at the beta show. Have a good one.