WEBVTT 00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:07.260 All right, hey, welcome to The Beta Show. This is episode 35. My name is Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast. 00:00:08.040 --> 00:00:16.040 Once again, as always, powered by Stadia Church Planning. Love working with Stadia. They've got a lot of cool things coming here in third quarter of 21, 00:00:16.300 --> 00:00:24.180 and we're going to be talking about some of that stuff here very soon. But here with The Beta Show, we answer your digital ministry questions. 00:00:24.180 --> 00:00:31.740 So things that you want to talk about, things that you want the answer to, go ahead and text that into The Beta Show. 00:00:31.860 --> 00:00:41.180 Here, text them, 484-324-8724. I'm literally giving you, as I drop it, my cell phone number, 484-324-8724. 00:00:41.860 --> 00:00:47.280 By the way, if you can't tell, like packing tape, holding the cracked screen together, Mark Zuckerberg is going to be, 00:00:47.720 --> 00:00:55.560 wants Facebook to be the company of the metaverse. So DJ Soto out there is enthralled with that idea. 00:00:55.660 --> 00:00:59.420 Love that. We'll be talking more about that at some point, I'm sure. 00:00:59.940 --> 00:01:06.020 Here with this episode, Beta 35, here's what we're talking about. How do we staff this whole digital church thing? 00:01:06.080 --> 00:01:13.580 We're going to get more into that. If you're listening live right now, go ahead and comment in whatever social media platform you're in. 00:01:13.580 --> 00:01:20.000 And we'll be engaging with that throughout the show, bringing up some of the comments and things here within the Beta Show. 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:28.240 If you're watching on demand after we're broadcasting this live, hey, we broadcast every Thursday, noon Eastern. 00:01:28.240 --> 00:01:33.100 So we'd love to have you be a part of it. We're already seeing viewers and comments coming in already. 00:01:33.180 --> 00:01:41.300 That's great. You can watch the show Thursday, noon Eastern at Facebook.com, The Church Digital, as well as YouTube, The Church Digital. 00:01:41.300 --> 00:01:44.940 So check out that and the other resources that are there. 00:01:45.580 --> 00:01:51.260 Next week, here's what we're talking about, the essential ecclesiology of a digital-only church. 00:01:51.340 --> 00:01:54.480 You've been talking about what the church is, and you can do it digitally, and people are like, 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:59.300 yo, Jeff, how do we actually do this thing? And so I'm going to propose an idea for you. 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:05.540 Now, these types of things and these types of conversations, especially with digital-only churches, that does seem crazy. 00:02:05.680 --> 00:02:11.440 And yeah, I do talk crazy a lot. One of the things that I love about Stadia is they talk crazy with me. 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:20.520 Stadia is doing an innovation meetup, Tuesday, August 17th, on talking digital church, multimodal church, 00:02:20.600 --> 00:02:24.420 insourcing, and leadership development. 00:02:24.880 --> 00:02:29.640 Go ahead and go to stadiachurchplanting.org slash innovation. 00:02:29.640 --> 00:02:34.140 For more information on this, it's a free virtual meetup. Excited about what's happening there. 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:38.580 Stadiachurchplanting.org slash innovation. 00:02:38.840 --> 00:02:41.660 All right, well, let's do this. Let's go and get into Beta 35. 00:02:42.100 --> 00:02:45.940 How do we staff this whole digital church thing? 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:54.960 Even coming out of this mid-post-COVID season, some churches are still trying to find that right person to be the digital pastor for that church. 00:02:55.060 --> 00:02:59.260 Now, the typical church, if you're looking for a digital pastor, this would be my recommendation. 00:02:59.540 --> 00:03:04.560 Look for a relational type of person, someone who's more of a networker, someone who's a connector, 00:03:05.160 --> 00:03:10.620 someone who's comfortable speaking in small venues, tech-savvy is good, tech-savant. 00:03:10.700 --> 00:03:14.080 You don't need an expert. You don't need somebody who can code. 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:19.800 The typical average church does not need to go overboard when it comes to some of those things. 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:23.920 You really need somebody who can build relationships in digital space 00:03:23.920 --> 00:03:30.480 and who's comfortable with the technological advances of Facebook, of YouTube, of things like that. 00:03:30.740 --> 00:03:34.560 At least have that ground level and go for there. 00:03:34.660 --> 00:03:41.020 So churches, you know, I speak with several already this week that are still trying to find that type of person 00:03:41.020 --> 00:03:44.220 and wanting to hire that type of person. 00:03:44.500 --> 00:03:49.740 And recently I had a church tell me, yeah, we're really waiting to really get started in our digital ministry 00:03:49.740 --> 00:03:51.540 until we can find that person. 00:03:51.620 --> 00:03:55.280 We don't want to do anything until we can get that person on staff. 00:03:55.280 --> 00:04:03.340 One of the challenges that I would say at this point, post-COVID 2021, if you're not doing anything digital 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:07.060 until you hire that person, that's not the right answer. 00:04:08.140 --> 00:04:13.380 Especially seeing as, I don't know, mid-post-COVID, in this season, definitely post-COVID, in this season. 00:04:13.480 --> 00:04:18.260 I say that. A good friend of mine just texted me earlier today in a group and said that he had COVID. 00:04:18.340 --> 00:04:20.500 So I don't know that we're really past this thing. 00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:21.600 But anyway, we can pretend. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:27.480 Post-COVID, you know, where we are in 2021, like, the people are still not coming physically. 00:04:27.620 --> 00:04:35.900 I think the most that I'm hearing is 50%, 60%, maybe in a good situation, 70% of the people pre-COVID are coming back to the building. 00:04:35.900 --> 00:04:41.380 And so there's still a large number of people that are engaging in digital space. 00:04:41.840 --> 00:04:50.500 Just because you cannot afford or you cannot find someone does not mean that you should wait on moving forward in digital ministry. 00:04:50.540 --> 00:04:52.240 And this is really what we're going to talk about here. 00:04:52.520 --> 00:04:53.340 How are some options? 00:04:53.460 --> 00:04:56.420 What can you do with maybe some of the resources that you have? 00:04:56.760 --> 00:05:03.180 Cost-effective solutions, we've got to realize, are out there, even if you don't have that full-time salary, 00:05:03.180 --> 00:05:07.680 that FTE, the full-time employee that you can throw towards digital. 00:05:07.760 --> 00:05:11.400 So we've got some options that I want to walk through here that should be nice and clean. 00:05:11.580 --> 00:05:16.900 Option number one, hire that full-time digital pastor for all the digital responsibilities. 00:05:17.620 --> 00:05:21.540 And so you're going to hire that guy or that gal, that person, 00:05:21.660 --> 00:05:27.720 and that person is going to be responsible for doing your digital church. 00:05:28.200 --> 00:05:34.240 They are going to carry all the responsibilities, all the knowledge of that moving forward. 00:05:34.740 --> 00:05:37.280 And there's pros and there's cons to this idea. 00:05:37.420 --> 00:05:41.620 Pro, okay, it's a very clear responsibility in there. 00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:44.520 Digital pastor, you're responsible for the digital service. 00:05:44.640 --> 00:05:46.840 You're responsible for the volunteers. 00:05:46.840 --> 00:05:55.220 You're responsible for even things like age-graded, like it comes out of that digital pastor role. 00:05:55.340 --> 00:05:59.040 Because, I mean, literally in his job title, there is the word digital. 00:05:59.780 --> 00:06:07.320 The con of that, the downside of that, is that the digital responsibility is often isolated to that person. 00:06:07.420 --> 00:06:14.020 It's interesting, 2020, January, I would have told you that the digital pastor was the right answer. 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:17.280 And I think I was actually on record, if you want to go back and listen to old podcasts, 00:06:17.460 --> 00:06:22.180 about how digital pastor shepherding the entire church in digital space, 00:06:22.200 --> 00:06:25.380 not just caring about the online campus per se. 00:06:26.200 --> 00:06:28.040 January 2020, that was the answer. 00:06:28.620 --> 00:06:29.800 COVID changed everything. 00:06:30.680 --> 00:06:32.820 What are we doing for kids digitally? 00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:33.920 What are we doing for students? 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:39.280 How are we discipling parents in that space to better care for their children 00:06:39.280 --> 00:06:42.600 so that they can be the disciple-makers even within their house? 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:47.540 COVID opened up a lot more urgency and a lot more opportunities 00:06:47.540 --> 00:06:52.800 to not just care for select people that aren't covered by the physical campus, 00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:58.620 but really engaging with the entirety of the church in digital space. 00:06:59.200 --> 00:07:00.940 Which really brings us to number two here. 00:07:00.940 --> 00:07:04.920 Crown a digital champion to thank digital first. 00:07:05.500 --> 00:07:09.720 Help hold staff accountable for digital ministry. 00:07:10.100 --> 00:07:13.540 So rather than having the idea of a digital pastor, 00:07:13.840 --> 00:07:16.000 where that is the only thing that that person does, 00:07:16.080 --> 00:07:18.940 this is really tugging on the thread of, 00:07:19.280 --> 00:07:25.180 okay, I'm going to have someone who's responsible for thanking digital first, 00:07:25.180 --> 00:07:30.160 but really the execution of digital is spread across the entire staff. 00:07:30.500 --> 00:07:34.240 Recognizing that the con, the negative of a digital pastor is, 00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:37.240 it's all kind of siloed and isolated in that person. 00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:39.860 What if we got the kids director? 00:07:39.960 --> 00:07:41.080 What if we got the students director? 00:07:41.220 --> 00:07:42.580 What if we got the small groups director? 00:07:42.740 --> 00:07:46.480 What if we got, you know, the person responsible for giving? 00:07:46.620 --> 00:07:50.180 What if all of us, what if our church was thanking digital? 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:55.700 Ideally digital first, but in this world where we're so much emphasis going back to physical, 00:07:55.940 --> 00:07:59.600 what if we actually remembered, hey, digital's a thing too? 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:04.540 And by the way, 30 to 50% of our people pre-COVID have not made it back to the building, 00:08:04.540 --> 00:08:08.620 so they're still engaging in that digital space. 00:08:09.060 --> 00:08:12.820 So sometimes you need a champion, and almost I would suggest at this point, 00:08:12.880 --> 00:08:16.560 it's better to have a champion than it is a pastor, 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:21.840 because you get more than one person focusing on that responsibility. 00:08:22.600 --> 00:08:26.960 And to be honest, the idea of this for me came from Church Homes Mark Venti. 00:08:27.620 --> 00:08:31.640 Mark Venti is the director of ministries, executive director of ministry, 00:08:31.740 --> 00:08:35.560 something of ministries, one of the senior leaders there at Church Homes, 00:08:35.900 --> 00:08:38.800 which is arguably one of the most innovative churches in America. 00:08:38.940 --> 00:08:43.660 If you've not, check out churchhome.org if you're looking for more information on that, 00:08:43.780 --> 00:08:49.220 but like Pastor Chat, like they've re-orged and are completely in a digital structure. 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:54.760 They have closed physical campuses in this COVID season to put more emphasis on digital. 00:08:54.920 --> 00:08:59.220 But there's no one person who's responsible for digital at Church Homes. 00:08:59.620 --> 00:09:02.780 The one thing that Mark Venti has told me just time and time again is 00:09:02.780 --> 00:09:05.820 it's everybody's responsibility to do digital. 00:09:05.980 --> 00:09:10.700 And he is just the champion in his ministry position to really get out there and say, 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:11.660 we need to do this. 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:12.360 We need to do this. 00:09:12.420 --> 00:09:13.040 We need to do this. 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:13.880 We should be doing this. 00:09:13.920 --> 00:09:14.900 We need to be thinking digitally. 00:09:15.080 --> 00:09:16.040 Are you thinking digitally? 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:19.380 How does this physical thing that we're doing, how does that affect digital? 00:09:19.680 --> 00:09:21.440 Are there ways that that can work together? 00:09:21.820 --> 00:09:28.220 Like he is the guy for the org when they were transitioning that was championing that idea 00:09:28.220 --> 00:09:33.580 over and over again of digital, trying to get more people to think digital. 00:09:34.140 --> 00:09:35.280 And that's awesome. 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:39.380 You've got an executive level person with Mark Venti who's doing this. 00:09:39.500 --> 00:09:41.380 And I love his heart for doing that. 00:09:41.460 --> 00:09:44.380 And Church Homes has seen success as a result of it. 00:09:44.760 --> 00:09:49.840 For some of you, and even in my life, there were times where, you know, as that high-level 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:55.840 leader that had lots of responsibilities, but also one of my responsibilities was championing 00:09:55.840 --> 00:09:58.520 digital, I came to realize I couldn't do it. 00:09:58.860 --> 00:10:02.820 I could not champion physical and digital at the same time. 00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:06.880 I had too many, Jeff, you've got to have these priorities in my life, just at a personal 00:10:06.880 --> 00:10:07.260 level. 00:10:07.860 --> 00:10:13.480 And so there were seasons in my ministry life where I was championing digital, where 00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:18.720 I went up to an admin to actually was a project manager that I was working with. 00:10:18.880 --> 00:10:25.620 And I said, your number one priority in ministry and working here is to ask the question, how 00:10:25.620 --> 00:10:26.640 does this affect digital? 00:10:27.300 --> 00:10:33.840 And so any meeting that you're in, any conversation that you're having in any coffee, any lunch, 00:10:34.020 --> 00:10:39.000 anything, any of the stuff that you're involved in, ask the question, how is this affecting 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:39.400 digital? 00:10:39.500 --> 00:10:46.800 And literally, it was to an admin, to a project manager, a highly qualified individual, but 00:10:46.800 --> 00:10:48.260 not a decision maker. 00:10:48.980 --> 00:10:54.480 And so by asking not the decision maker, I'm not asking her, this person, to make the decisions. 00:10:54.940 --> 00:11:01.040 I'm asking her, make sure the conversation's being had, and whoever needs to make that 00:11:01.040 --> 00:11:02.540 decision makes that decision. 00:11:03.100 --> 00:11:08.420 She's basically the coach standing from afar saying, yo, you forgot about this. 00:11:08.560 --> 00:11:10.220 Well, how do you want to handle that situation? 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:11.840 She's the accountability. 00:11:12.220 --> 00:11:17.260 She's like the good angel on the shoulder saying, don't forget about digital. 00:11:17.540 --> 00:11:18.800 Don't forget about digital. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:22.660 And for a season, she did that job very well. 00:11:23.080 --> 00:11:24.020 And it's interesting. 00:11:24.160 --> 00:11:29.920 In other situations, I've actually seen, hey, let's, you know, increase your paycheck. 00:11:29.920 --> 00:11:32.140 Let's give you a $2,000 raise. 00:11:32.200 --> 00:11:35.600 Let's give you something, because we're adding digital champion to your title. 00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:41.940 Thank you for even caring about this and championing this and helping our church, who's very driven 00:11:41.940 --> 00:11:46.500 to be thinking physical first, helping us think digital first. 00:11:47.300 --> 00:11:51.540 And so even in this position where I'm supposed to be the digital champion, but can't be because 00:11:51.540 --> 00:11:55.420 I'm not in those meetings and I'm not in those, but this project management, this person was. 00:11:55.920 --> 00:12:00.160 So maybe there's even situations in your ministry where there's someone that's on your staff. 00:12:00.240 --> 00:12:00.380 Yeah. 00:12:00.420 --> 00:12:02.860 A high-level person being a digital champion is awesome. 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:06.780 That's going to help, you know, ram those decisions through and get it done. 00:12:07.640 --> 00:12:10.580 Maybe there's a low-level person that you're inviting into it. 00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:13.020 Somebody that's involved, but not the decision maker. 00:12:13.020 --> 00:12:16.640 Who can just be that constant reminder. 00:12:17.700 --> 00:12:24.280 Somebody that can ask that digital question when everyone else in the room is thinking physical. 00:12:25.580 --> 00:12:30.360 Digital slowly becomes a part of everyone's responsibility. 00:12:31.380 --> 00:12:34.840 It's not siloed with one or two individuals. 00:12:35.180 --> 00:12:36.660 And this is the heart of it. 00:12:36.720 --> 00:12:42.520 If you really want to change the culture of the church towards being physical and digital working together, 00:12:43.260 --> 00:12:48.660 hiring that digital pastor, so now you've got, you know, one out of eight pastors, 00:12:48.860 --> 00:12:51.420 one out of 12 staff people that are thinking digital, 00:12:51.960 --> 00:12:54.900 that's not going to give you the magnitude that you want. 00:12:54.900 --> 00:12:58.900 The goal that that's going to be effective and digital moving forward. 00:12:59.600 --> 00:13:03.680 The goal is not, hey, digital's covered because we got this guy. 00:13:03.760 --> 00:13:07.040 We wrote him a check, his paycheck, and now he's got to do all the work. 00:13:07.040 --> 00:13:12.620 The goal is how do we get that working across all fronts? 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:14.620 Hey, Andrew Bolton. 00:13:14.920 --> 00:13:17.900 Andrew, man, I've been emailing you. 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:18.620 We've got to get together. 00:13:19.860 --> 00:13:21.680 Andrew just threw in a question here. 00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:30.260 How does something avoid developing a chip on the shoulder operating like everyone forgot about digital? 00:13:32.180 --> 00:13:35.060 Yeah, so if you've got that, you're just constantly reminding. 00:13:36.200 --> 00:13:37.040 And you know what? 00:13:37.320 --> 00:13:38.500 I mean, let me just say it this way. 00:13:38.580 --> 00:13:40.020 I think I'm reading the question right. 00:13:40.560 --> 00:13:48.980 It's okay if everybody forgets about digital or at least acknowledge, hey, the systems that we have set up are in such a way that everyone forgets about it. 00:13:49.220 --> 00:13:54.400 And so you as the champion, the new crown champion, you are the reminder. 00:13:55.080 --> 00:13:57.860 And it's not, you know, the annoyance. 00:13:58.040 --> 00:14:01.000 It's more of, hey, this can be better if. 00:14:01.340 --> 00:14:02.620 How can we do this if? 00:14:02.660 --> 00:14:08.360 It was just recently, a couple days ago, I was talking with the church about digital next steps. 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:11.020 Okay, we've got the digital church service. 00:14:12.380 --> 00:14:18.460 And they're, you know, they're having a disconnect trying to get people watching church in isolation. 00:14:18.460 --> 00:14:24.900 So they're having a hard time getting people to go for what their next step was, was join a Zoom meeting with a pastor. 00:14:25.160 --> 00:14:28.220 And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's like huge steps. 00:14:28.300 --> 00:14:30.000 You've got to kind of baby step that thing through. 00:14:30.520 --> 00:14:43.140 And what was interesting, as I was talking with this lead pastor about some of those baby steps, those next steps, digitally, how to build those relationships, he immediately connected over and said, why don't we do that in physical space too? 00:14:43.580 --> 00:14:45.340 Because physical, we're having disconnects. 00:14:45.340 --> 00:14:47.840 So maybe we need to do some of those baby steps. 00:14:48.260 --> 00:14:50.140 And that's what the digital champion's doing. 00:14:50.680 --> 00:14:52.840 It's not everybody forgets about digital. 00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:54.340 We need to champion digital. 00:14:54.460 --> 00:14:55.340 Yay, yay, yay, digital. 00:14:55.500 --> 00:14:56.760 Although, you know, yay, digital. 00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:01.600 It's also, how can we do digital to help physical? 00:15:02.140 --> 00:15:05.320 How can we do things better digitally in the physical space? 00:15:05.340 --> 00:15:06.900 Which is why you need that buy-in. 00:15:07.340 --> 00:15:13.120 And it's awkward in the beginning because you're challenging people's preconceptions, their notions, where they are. 00:15:13.400 --> 00:15:15.000 Everything is fine physical. 00:15:15.380 --> 00:15:17.980 Where we were February 2020 is awesome. 00:15:18.260 --> 00:15:19.800 And nothing needs to change. 00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:24.400 Everybody just needs to get their COVID shot and come in and worship with us. 00:15:24.460 --> 00:15:29.960 And we will even put February 2020 on our worship folders, printed worship folders. 00:15:29.960 --> 00:15:33.500 And we're just going to pretend like nothing happened in the past 18 months. 00:15:33.980 --> 00:15:36.740 This is what the church wants to do. 00:15:37.460 --> 00:15:40.120 This is what your pastors want to do. 00:15:40.500 --> 00:15:43.820 And it's okay to be able to say, it's not going to work. 00:15:43.940 --> 00:15:45.660 We got to learn something. 00:15:45.740 --> 00:15:46.480 We got to change. 00:15:46.540 --> 00:15:47.400 We got to grow through that. 00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:50.800 And that conversation can be had nicely with that. 00:15:51.080 --> 00:15:53.360 Andrew, seriously, I'll be emailing you. 00:15:53.400 --> 00:15:54.680 We got to catch up on some things. 00:15:55.620 --> 00:15:56.980 Option three here. 00:15:57.800 --> 00:15:58.300 Love this. 00:15:58.620 --> 00:15:59.760 Don't know what to do. 00:15:59.880 --> 00:16:02.680 Okay, so option one was like hire a guy full-time. 00:16:02.760 --> 00:16:04.480 Number two was like get a champion. 00:16:04.860 --> 00:16:06.980 And that can be somebody that's already on pay. 00:16:07.100 --> 00:16:12.240 Just a little more, you know, finances or stretch them a little bit by giving them a couple different tasks. 00:16:12.640 --> 00:16:16.680 Option three, don't know what to do, just hand it over to a volunteer. 00:16:17.480 --> 00:16:20.580 Because, look, at the end of the day, version one is better than version none. 00:16:21.220 --> 00:16:22.520 Thank you very much, Gary V. 00:16:22.520 --> 00:16:31.980 So if you are doing stuff in digital or you're not doing anything in digital and you're waiting for this miraculous guy to show up but he hasn't showed up yet 00:16:31.980 --> 00:16:37.720 or you're waiting to hire this perfect girl and you've just not met her, look, give it to somebody else. 00:16:37.900 --> 00:16:39.460 Just learn from it. 00:16:40.020 --> 00:16:41.280 Basically, it comes down to this. 00:16:41.340 --> 00:16:46.120 If you trust the volunteer spiritually, then trust what they want to do digitally. 00:16:46.780 --> 00:16:48.280 Create benchmarks and goals. 00:16:48.400 --> 00:16:49.180 Call an experiment. 00:16:49.500 --> 00:16:51.660 Run a test for a month. 00:16:51.780 --> 00:16:52.440 See what happens. 00:16:52.540 --> 00:16:53.260 Did it work? 00:16:53.960 --> 00:16:55.840 Evaluate and try again. 00:16:56.200 --> 00:16:59.700 Rather than just not doing anything, do something. 00:17:00.340 --> 00:17:05.800 And through that learning process, figure out if you really want to do this or not. 00:17:06.600 --> 00:17:12.380 You know, tip here, walking in on this, if you, as churches, I would challenge you with this. 00:17:12.380 --> 00:17:16.360 Because I've actually seen this go sour a couple times in this COVID season. 00:17:16.760 --> 00:17:21.580 If you know what you want to do digitally, excuse me, let me say it this way, not if. 00:17:21.940 --> 00:17:22.380 My fault. 00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:25.200 Know what you want to do digitally before you hire someone full-time. 00:17:26.040 --> 00:17:30.960 There's been a couple situations where churches have, and I've been part of the conversations before they hire. 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:34.020 Jeff, we really don't know what we want to do digitally. 00:17:34.200 --> 00:17:36.840 We're not sure what the plan is, what the strategy. 00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:38.320 We're going to hire somebody. 00:17:38.860 --> 00:17:42.820 And when we hire somebody, we're hoping they're going to help us develop the strategy. 00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:45.240 That sounds great in principle. 00:17:46.120 --> 00:17:50.700 What I've seen a couple times in this COVID season is the churches then hire somebody. 00:17:51.080 --> 00:17:54.800 And that person is driven more towards micro locations. 00:17:54.800 --> 00:18:00.480 That person is driven more towards creating digital community, working extensively within those digital communities. 00:18:01.120 --> 00:18:10.080 And the church discovers as the newly hired digital pastor starts pushing and championing that direction, the church discovers, hey, you know what? 00:18:10.100 --> 00:18:11.420 We're really not interested in that. 00:18:11.420 --> 00:18:17.660 We're really just looking for more of a broadcast and kind of engagement through the chat, that type of thing. 00:18:18.080 --> 00:18:24.140 I've literally, I know of a couple of digital pastors right now who were hired in 2021 who are already looking for another job. 00:18:24.260 --> 00:18:30.300 Because the church that they went into was that who was saying things like, hey, yeah, come in, we'll figure it out. 00:18:30.600 --> 00:18:34.300 As the pastor was figuring it out, didn't it work out. 00:18:34.840 --> 00:18:36.900 So churches, know what you're getting into. 00:18:37.020 --> 00:18:38.280 Know what you're looking for. 00:18:38.760 --> 00:18:46.060 And even before you're hiring that person or even as developing that champion, start to learn what you are. 00:18:46.080 --> 00:18:47.360 Even working with the volunteer. 00:18:48.040 --> 00:18:53.000 Let that volunteer season be a training opportunity for you. 00:18:53.380 --> 00:19:00.580 Speaking of that, in an unrelated conversation, if you are looking to hire somebody, I've got friends that are looking for you. 00:19:00.580 --> 00:19:04.320 So, who are qualified, who can do the digital stuff. 00:19:04.520 --> 00:19:08.920 So, hit me up on social media, DeerFedge, on all the social media networks. 00:19:09.040 --> 00:19:10.300 You guys know that. 00:19:10.340 --> 00:19:12.540 Or, obviously, you can hit me up through the church, digital. 00:19:13.500 --> 00:19:13.840 Awesome. 00:19:13.940 --> 00:19:14.580 Hey, so this has been great. 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:15.640 We're going to wrap up here. 00:19:15.780 --> 00:19:16.540 Beta 35. 00:19:16.820 --> 00:19:21.500 How do we staff this fidgetal church thing? 00:19:21.560 --> 00:19:25.700 And so, hopefully, this is enough to kind of scratch the surface and get you going on that. 00:19:26.020 --> 00:19:29.180 Got a couple comments coming in from Topey here. 00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:35.720 If you're in a place where the physical next steps are not clear, what do you do? 00:19:36.020 --> 00:19:37.000 You clarify them. 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:40.220 I think there's an opportunity for physical and digital to work together. 00:19:40.560 --> 00:19:42.920 At least here in America, I could see that happening. 00:19:43.420 --> 00:19:52.680 Topey, I'm not sure you're the contextualization of where you guys are in Africa, what that technology readily looks like. 00:19:53.180 --> 00:20:02.020 But in America, I'm seeing more and more where they were assuming people were taking massive steps physically and digitally. 00:20:02.680 --> 00:20:07.720 And a lot of what they were doing, even pre-COVID, isn't working anymore on those next steps. 00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:12.480 And so, it's creating those next steps digitally to get going through that. 00:20:13.340 --> 00:20:16.660 I think that would be a great option for you. 00:20:17.320 --> 00:20:20.840 So, hey, we're going to wrap on Beta 35 right here. 00:20:21.220 --> 00:20:23.280 How do we staff this digital thing? 00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:34.860 By the way, Stadia is doing digital learning communities in the fall, helping churches like yours learn to thrive, grow, and multiply physically and digitally in hybrid environments. 00:20:34.960 --> 00:20:35.900 Let's figure out both. 00:20:35.980 --> 00:20:37.340 Let's figure out how they work together. 00:20:37.340 --> 00:20:50.560 And let's figure out how to create that disciple-making pathway, that engagement pathway that's going to pull people from isolation in your physical churches and your digital churches and get them connected. 00:20:51.220 --> 00:20:55.680 Into your church and into a disciple-making multiplication movement. 00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:57.180 It's an exciting season. 00:20:57.600 --> 00:20:59.460 There's some great things that's happening out of Stadia. 00:20:59.900 --> 00:21:03.980 And I love the idea of these digital learning communities where we're walking with you. 00:21:04.040 --> 00:21:04.820 It's not just content. 00:21:05.060 --> 00:21:06.080 It's not just curriculum. 00:21:07.120 --> 00:21:07.900 Curriculum's awesome. 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:08.720 The content's great. 00:21:08.820 --> 00:21:10.600 The speakers we got involved in this is great. 00:21:10.860 --> 00:21:17.920 But it's also a community where you're connected with other churches similar to yours that are asking the same questions, that are stuck on the same problems. 00:21:18.320 --> 00:21:22.220 And as iron sharpens iron, you guys are walking through it in real time. 00:21:22.220 --> 00:21:27.180 So check out StadiaChurchPlanning.org slash digital for more information there. 00:21:27.420 --> 00:21:32.700 And for the rest of us, like it's me in my guest bedroom slash office. 00:21:33.180 --> 00:21:38.320 So, hey, I've been Jeff with the Church Digital and with Stadia Church Planning, of course. 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:39.260 This has been awesome. 00:21:39.420 --> 00:21:42.380 We will see you next week here at the Beta Show. 00:21:42.800 --> 00:21:43.320 Y'all have a good day.