WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.600 Well, hello there. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff, and I'm glad you're 00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:09.900 joining us again today. This is episode 10. This is a unique episode, a little different than 00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:13.620 maybe some of the ways we've done in the past. You see, back in episode 9, 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:21.020 Ray DeArmas, online pastor at Christ Fellowship, and myself were having a long conversation with 00:00:21.020 --> 00:00:26.940 lead pastor Eric Geiger from Mariner's Church out in California. And we were wrapping up the 00:00:26.940 --> 00:00:32.120 episode. It was a great episode in context of talking about omni-church and maybe even 00:00:32.120 --> 00:00:38.260 omni-channel, omni-communications, omni-church, uniting church online and physical campuses 00:00:38.260 --> 00:00:42.880 online in context of communication. Eric Geiger actually brought up a new term, at least a new 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:49.640 term to me, honestly, a unified church, a unified commerce, where it actually more tightly intertwines 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:56.740 things, not just from a communications perspective, but actually into a more deeper, much more 00:00:56.740 --> 00:01:04.340 richer ministry mindset, where the church, where the company physically interacts in physical 00:01:04.340 --> 00:01:10.160 space or virtual space the same way. Great concept, loved it. And so if you're interested 00:01:10.160 --> 00:01:15.920 in more of that, check out episode 9. But at the end of the episode, I asked Eric Geiger a 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:20.740 question. I thought I was landing the plane, and I asked a simple question. When you're making 00:01:20.740 --> 00:01:28.220 a decision about something in context of church online, what insight do you take? As leaders 00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:36.140 underneath you, how can we communicate effectively to you, to show you, to convince you, to give you 00:01:36.140 --> 00:01:42.120 information towards what would lead you as a lead pastor to make a decision at this level? 00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:49.300 And honestly, I was surprised that 30 minutes later, we were still talking at that one answer. And so 00:01:49.300 --> 00:01:55.340 rather than to pile it into one episode, we broke it up into two. So what you're listening to here is 00:01:55.340 --> 00:02:01.220 Eric Geiger, lead pastor for Mariner's Church in California, Ray DeArmis, online pastor at Christ 00:02:01.220 --> 00:02:07.860 Fellowship in Miami, as well as myself, Jeff with the Church Digital, in a simple conversation, how to 00:02:07.860 --> 00:02:14.960 talk to your leadership about church online. Here you go. How do you, as a lead pastor, 00:02:15.620 --> 00:02:23.060 Mariner's is huge. Like in just in the context of size, California, you've got a wide varying range 00:02:23.060 --> 00:02:28.560 of people that attend different demographics, different. How do you make a decision for something 00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:33.520 like this? Like theologically, I'm agreeing with this. I'm not agreeing with this. Once again, 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:38.020 I'm not, I don't want to put you on the spot for a decision and a direction, but more of what 00:02:38.020 --> 00:02:44.380 decisions, because realize the people that are listening to this are technical people that need 00:02:44.380 --> 00:02:53.720 to convince someone like you of the way that they think. And so coach me through here. How can we 00:02:53.720 --> 00:03:00.120 connect with, with you as, as a high level leader to show you some of these things to, to get you to 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:06.160 understand? That's a great question, man. All right. So you're saying that most people are listening 00:03:06.160 --> 00:03:13.180 right now are, are guys, girls like you and Ray, and how do they, how do they have a combo with a 00:03:13.180 --> 00:03:17.840 senior pastor, executive pastor to push the ball a little further down the, down the field? 00:03:18.520 --> 00:03:19.000 Yes, sir. 00:03:20.640 --> 00:03:27.080 Okay. I, I, it, you know, it always depends on how, how, um, compelled the leader is by data, 00:03:27.080 --> 00:03:34.060 but if the leader is compelled by data, the data that you have at your disposal is staggeringly 00:03:34.060 --> 00:03:39.580 compelling right now on a couple of things. The number of people who are, who are watching services 00:03:39.580 --> 00:03:45.480 online, they are, it is really going, it is really increasing really high. Uh, I mean, 00:03:45.480 --> 00:03:51.400 we might be up like 45% on any given weekend right now online compared to the previous year. 00:03:51.920 --> 00:03:57.000 That's, I mean, how do you not pay attention to that? And then it's like, okay, do you not want to, 00:03:58.160 --> 00:04:02.720 what are we going to do with all of these people? You know, are there, they are watching and they're 00:04:02.720 --> 00:04:08.240 not, these aren't people just hitting, hitting the site, you know? And, oh, and these aren't people 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:13.860 who are watching like on Tuesday night. These are people watching the live stream, which to me, 00:04:13.900 --> 00:04:18.400 that's a different thing because if you're watching on Tuesday night, it might be my mom, 00:04:18.500 --> 00:04:25.860 you know, who's already put, which she does watch every week. Um, she's plugged into another church. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:31.340 I don't, I don't feel any responsibility for her. I mean, I do as my mom, but not as a, 00:04:31.860 --> 00:04:37.020 not as someone, she's already in plugged into a church, right? But the people who watch live on 00:04:37.020 --> 00:04:42.900 Sunday morning or Saturday night, that's a different thing. I mean, I'm, are they plugged in? Are they 00:04:42.900 --> 00:04:47.440 not plugged into a church? Are they plugged into our church? Who are these people? Eric, look at how 00:04:47.440 --> 00:04:53.520 many people watched last week during church. And then, you know, here's where they're from. Eric, 00:04:53.520 --> 00:05:00.440 check it out. They are from, you know, X percent are from like within a 10 mile radius. I mean, 00:05:00.440 --> 00:05:05.220 I think that would get, that would get attention big time. Where, so one of the things that, that 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:09.220 you, you've talked about needing, and you said the word, I don't remember if it was discipleship 00:05:09.220 --> 00:05:14.660 process or discipleship pathway, like, okay, who are these people? Uh, the Sunday morning 00:05:14.660 --> 00:05:20.000 attenders, the live ones. Okay. There's some legitimacy in here. Um, this, so they're not attending 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:24.500 church somewhere else since the majority of churches are Sunday. So we need to try to, do you, 00:05:24.840 --> 00:05:29.160 do you feel accountability for those? I don't even know if I said that word right. Do you feel 00:05:29.160 --> 00:05:34.840 accountability for those just within the 10 mile or do you define as, as opportunities even outside of 00:05:34.840 --> 00:05:38.820 that 10 mile? Yeah, that's a good question. And I think, I think a team's got to wrestle with that. 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:46.740 Um, I don't feel, uh, I feel, I feel a very specific burden for orange County for me. So there, 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:52.480 but there's some churches that, that they're going to have a, um, a broader perspective, you know, 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:55.680 like a life church, for example, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to feel like, 00:05:55.800 --> 00:06:00.920 I mean, they have campuses all over congregations all over. Um, I'm going to view the stats within 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:04.460 Orange County differently than I'm going to view the stats outside of Orange County. We don't, 00:06:04.520 --> 00:06:10.000 we don't have any intention to expand outside of what we want to be for this cat, you know, 00:06:10.340 --> 00:06:15.280 3.4 million people or 3.2 million people that live here, half who don't have any connection to a 00:06:15.280 --> 00:06:21.180 church. That's, that's, that's really where, where we're talking and praying. So because of that, 00:06:21.180 --> 00:06:26.880 and I would view those stats through that lens. Yeah. Orange County is a very diverse area, right? 00:06:26.960 --> 00:06:31.820 Much like, you know, the context that we work together in here in Miami. Are you finding that 00:06:31.820 --> 00:06:37.340 a lot of folks are sharing and spreading, uh, what you guys are doing beyond the borders of Orange 00:06:37.340 --> 00:06:42.500 County? Because I imagine it's a very diverse community from what, from a few times that I've 00:06:42.500 --> 00:06:47.200 been, you know, in the LA area or even close to it, or maybe I'm, I'm off, uh, just looking at some 00:06:47.200 --> 00:06:52.000 of the demographics, but I see just tremendous potential for, for some of that content just 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:55.600 getting out there simply because of, uh, the unique environment that you guys are in. 00:06:55.680 --> 00:07:00.460 So you're talking about like, like in Miami, you'd have someone who's from Columbia who listens to a 00:07:00.460 --> 00:07:04.480 sermon and they're, they're, they're sharing it with like family back in Columbia. Right. 00:07:05.240 --> 00:07:11.600 Yeah. And so you're right. There's diversity here that way. So Irvine's like 44% Asian. So, 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:16.940 um, you know, multiple different generations of that, but, but there's definitely 00:07:16.940 --> 00:07:24.540 relationships outside of this area, you know, so, um, I don't know if, if we've tracked, uh, the sharing 00:07:24.540 --> 00:07:31.620 yet of, you know, who's, who's sending a message or who's, uh, sharing a link. Are you, how are you 00:07:31.620 --> 00:07:37.180 tracking that now, right? We are, we are. Um, and we've been since Jeff's been here, um, because 00:07:37.180 --> 00:07:42.340 there've been a whole lot of different analytics that we've been able to pull. Um, and even people 00:07:42.340 --> 00:07:46.760 just kind of interacting with us on a global scale this last week, we had a connection card in 00:07:46.760 --> 00:07:51.440 from a Rwanda of somebody who wants to start a small group, uh, there. And so there's missional 00:07:51.440 --> 00:07:55.940 implications. There's all sorts of things that kind of happen there when, when that does happen 00:07:55.940 --> 00:07:59.940 as a result of people interacting with us in different environments. And then, you know, 00:07:59.980 --> 00:08:03.660 obviously people sharing content to sharing content, uh, how are you, how are you tracking 00:08:03.660 --> 00:08:08.020 if you're sharing content like Facebook shares or what are you looking at? Uh, we take a look at 00:08:08.020 --> 00:08:12.440 Facebook shares. Uh, we can take a look and see how links, uh, kind of bounce around. Um, 00:08:12.440 --> 00:08:16.680 and then of course we see where some of the different views come from. And then when they 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:21.740 reach out to us, that's where we get a definite sense of, Hey, how'd you hear about us? And how did 00:08:21.740 --> 00:08:26.080 this happen? And it spurs on a lot more of a detailed conversation. Sometimes it's family 00:08:26.080 --> 00:08:31.120 and sometimes it's a friend and sometimes it's, man, I Googled church and your name, your name 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:35.140 popped up. And this is how I started interacting with your content. I don't live in a place where 00:08:35.140 --> 00:08:40.520 there's a great theology or where there's a great content popping up, uh, church wise. And so I 00:08:40.520 --> 00:08:44.720 started interacting with you guys and this is how I came about it. Rob, a small group leaders. Oh, 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:49.380 I'm sorry. Rob, a small group leader, uh, um, that, that Jeff helped, uh, bring up in disciple. 00:08:49.380 --> 00:08:54.160 And now he's underneath my care. He's leading an online group from the UK, but he actually found us 00:08:54.160 --> 00:08:58.240 because his company headquarters was here in Miami down the street from our West Kendall campus and 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:02.840 took that back with him. So there's so many different ways that that comes in. Yeah. That's 00:09:02.840 --> 00:09:07.820 cool. I mean, I would love to know, again, you wrestled with the missiology. Like I want the message 00:09:07.820 --> 00:09:16.500 shared and then the ecclesiology, uh, do I want to, do I want to assume spiritual responsibility for 00:09:16.500 --> 00:09:22.300 people there or help those people get connected to a church right there? Right. Cause we don't have 00:09:22.300 --> 00:09:27.800 a church there. I would not want to assume shepherding responsibility there, but I want to, 00:09:27.800 --> 00:09:31.500 but I want to do, you know, I want the message out. I'd want to try to help them get connected to a 00:09:31.500 --> 00:09:35.380 church there, you know? Yes. But, but I realized that everyone views that differently. So I'm not 00:09:35.380 --> 00:09:41.760 cracking on, on that way. I just, I'm glad you have a strategy. Yeah. And for us, um, it's been a 00:09:41.760 --> 00:09:46.780 connection first kind of a strategy to help them get connected locally. Um, that's where Jay Cranda, 00:09:46.780 --> 00:09:51.460 who's been on a past episode of the podcast has been helpful. He's the, he's the online pastor over 00:09:51.460 --> 00:09:57.140 at Saddleback where he looks at things through an online to offline, uh, kind of mode of trying to help 00:09:57.140 --> 00:10:01.080 people in to get into offline community relationships, whether that's connecting them to a local church 00:10:01.080 --> 00:10:06.260 or a local Christian community in their area, trying to help them find a place to get shepherded and not 00:10:06.260 --> 00:10:12.660 just purely keep them here online. But sometimes, uh, to your point, and, and this is where the 00:10:12.660 --> 00:10:17.140 relationship begins, where that transitions onto and how we can help them get connected in that 00:10:17.140 --> 00:10:22.240 community. That's kind of how we viewed the road for them. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you do a great job when I, 00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:29.120 I've watched you Ray on the, um, on, on CF Miami, on the online thing, you know, getting the, doing the 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:34.640 connect card and all, how many people a week fill that out? It averages maybe around six or seven 00:10:34.640 --> 00:10:39.620 right now a week. And so I don't want to, you know, it's funny because, and different churches 00:10:39.620 --> 00:10:44.140 experience this out of like the quote unquote thousands of views that you get. Um, sometimes 00:10:44.140 --> 00:10:48.500 you'll get X amount of interactions. And for us, those interactions become gold. They become 00:10:48.500 --> 00:10:52.880 valuable in terms of helping them take someone's filling that out online. It, it, it, like they 00:10:52.880 --> 00:10:57.700 really are one, one, some kind of communication. Yeah. They, they want to reach out to us in some 00:10:57.700 --> 00:11:02.840 kind of way. And for us, we take that and we run with it as much as they'll allow us. Um, which is 00:11:02.840 --> 00:11:08.380 why even things is even being specific in terms of, we try to make a lot of those fields required, 00:11:08.380 --> 00:11:12.740 whereas somebody may fill out a connection card at a location, right. And they may just put their name 00:11:12.740 --> 00:11:16.500 and drop it in the plate. We're looking for contact information in the sense of driving towards, 00:11:16.600 --> 00:11:20.500 you know, in the workforce or in the Salesforce, they might look at it as a lead. We see it as 00:11:20.500 --> 00:11:24.380 gold in the same kind of way where we're trying to get their contact information so that we can help 00:11:24.380 --> 00:11:29.980 them get connected as quickly as possible. So we, that's why we make a strong drive beginning of 00:11:29.980 --> 00:11:33.600 the broadcast, mid broadcast and end broadcast to make sure and ask for that. And there are even times 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:37.300 where I've thought of throughout the message, kind of doing pop-ups and just saying, Hey, if you're 00:11:37.300 --> 00:11:40.900 just tapping in and joining us in the live stream or whatever, make sure and stop by 00:11:40.900 --> 00:11:46.800 fmimey.org/connect and get connected with us so that we can help you take that next step on there. 00:11:46.800 --> 00:11:53.840 And, uh, I'm sorry to hijack the, the, uh, broadcast, Jeff, go for it. I'm asking questions 00:11:53.840 --> 00:11:57.620 that I think, uh, you know, yeah, you set me off earlier by saying, Hey, what does senior pastors 00:11:57.620 --> 00:12:01.520 want to know? So this is kind of, listen, this is gold. Keep going, man. This is the kind of stuff 00:12:01.520 --> 00:12:07.440 I want to know. Um, what, what do you guys find in, in terms of, uh, and this would be the stat 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:12.560 I'm curious about as I'm, as, as I'm looking for active versus passive, you know, cause I guess 00:12:12.560 --> 00:12:17.200 the fear of online is man, they're, you know, they're, they're doing four things while they're 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:22.400 watching, you know? Um, and I don't even know how you would gauge that. So this is the only one I can 00:12:22.400 --> 00:12:31.440 think of is how are, um, like in a, in an hour and 10 service an hour and 10, what percentage 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:37.760 are tapped in, you know, for an hour, hour, more of that. And what, what, what are there 00:12:37.760 --> 00:12:44.400 just for like three or four minutes of the, you know, what percentage of the total stat is there? 00:12:44.400 --> 00:12:48.800 You can tell me they, they showed up, they were there on time and they stayed the thing. 00:12:48.800 --> 00:12:53.840 Like it looked like this was their service. Yeah. Um, in my experience, it's not a lot that 00:12:53.840 --> 00:12:59.200 will tap in for the entire thing. Um, it's not, it's not a lot. No. And here's, and here's kind 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:03.840 of thing. Cause you're looking at long form content. And, and so some folks will check in and check out 00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:09.520 as they go along. Uh, and we'll see that in a given live stream where folks will show up for 00:13:09.520 --> 00:13:14.320 whatever reason, check out for a moment, check back in, check back out. And so there's been different 00:13:14.320 --> 00:13:18.480 implications for that. Um, as far as how that works out in terms of the live stream. And then for 00:13:18.480 --> 00:13:23.200 on demand content, which there's two different strategies, as far as how that works, I think 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:27.120 of the way that I personally listen to podcasts. And then I talk to people as far as how they engage 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:30.880 with the online service. Sometimes they'll take it in bites, almost like points in the message. 00:13:30.880 --> 00:13:35.360 Like on drive time, I'm catching point a I'm getting home. I'm turning on the TV, 00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:39.920 turn on my Apple TV, YouTube, get to point B, you know, fast forward. I get there. Hey, 00:13:39.920 --> 00:13:43.280 wife's making dinner, come back in for point C or something along those lines. 00:13:43.280 --> 00:13:47.680 So they are tapping in continually through the content, but not, and that's the thing they're 00:13:47.680 --> 00:13:52.800 coming back in at different points. And so they might not sit there and watch it all in one 00:13:52.800 --> 00:13:55.840 particular showing, but they're checking in and checking out in different portions, 00:13:55.840 --> 00:14:00.000 which even has me considering, uh, chopping up different versions of the content and making 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.400 it available in that kind of way. Yes. That's so that people can digest it in that kind of way. 00:14:04.400 --> 00:14:11.600 Yeah. I've got a pastor right now that I'm talking to about doing church online and his goal is to 00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:18.880 record a five to 10 minute sermon in his house, in a studio he's got set up on Thursday night. 00:14:18.880 --> 00:14:23.520 And so for him, it's like, I'm going to record this for online. And rather than broadcasting the 00:14:23.520 --> 00:14:29.920 live thing, this is the message that he's going to send out because it's the same kind of like shorter 00:14:29.920 --> 00:14:33.920 conversion of the content or a whole different message. He, you know, it's the same message. 00:14:33.920 --> 00:14:38.320 Um, you know, it's, it's a point one, two, three cutout point two. And I'm like, well, 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:41.920 if you do that, you're murdering it. And he's like, well, I can take out some of the stories and, 00:14:41.920 --> 00:14:47.840 and adjusting it. And so it's the same message called a condensed version, um, that that's more 00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:53.680 tailored for the online audience. Um, but, and realizing, you know, and Eric, you know, this, 00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:57.120 uh, just like you're going to have people that aren't going to connect in the audience, 00:14:57.120 --> 00:15:03.440 uh, are online. Your audience is, is disconnected as well. That guy in the back row that's half 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:07.120 asleep is, is really half asleep. No, I get it. That's what I'm saying. I want to be consistent 00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:12.320 on the, uh, expectations, you know, like I don't want to put a harder burden on online than I put 00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:16.160 on, but I just, I want someone to give me the data. So you're asking, you know, how does somebody lead 00:15:16.160 --> 00:15:21.840 up to the senior pastor helping me see that would, would, would, would get my attention, you know? 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:27.440 Yeah. It's go ahead and go ahead, Ray. I was going to say, um, Jay Crand, I'm going to reference him 00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:31.840 again, just cause he recently put out like a little blog post on addressing the three audiences as well, 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:36.320 and taking a look at who's joining you in the room, who's joining you in the live stream, and who's 00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:40.960 joining you on demand later on in terms of how you're addressing them in your, in your sermon context 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:45.520 as well, knowing that your people are engaging you in so many different ways. Um, and kind of 00:15:45.520 --> 00:15:49.760 even finding small tidbits, not just the beginning of the message in terms of greeting them, but 00:15:49.760 --> 00:15:54.160 finding different ways to acknowledge them. I've heard Andy Stanley do this on and off in his messages, 00:15:54.160 --> 00:15:59.120 where sometimes he'll even say, Hey, some of you are listening to me right now. And you need to go 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:02.960 talk to your real pastor. You know, the guy that's actually there at your church, you're listening to 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:08.240 me online. And, and, and, and so he'll, he'll make your ears perk up and that kind of way of, 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:12.960 oh, he's talking to me or, Hey, he's talking to me while I'm in my car or something like that. 00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:17.600 Uh, yeah, that's good. I, I, I, I have, I have not done a good job here. Jeff, you know, 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:20.320 we did it in Miami. I did get good at addressing the campuses. 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:26.880 I got good at that. I got good at looking at the camera and Hey, I, you know, Ray, 00:16:26.880 --> 00:16:32.080 you were at Coral Gate. You know, I got good at talking to Gables or talking to Wes Kendall. 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:37.680 I haven't gotten, I have not developed the discipline yet of talking to the online group. 00:16:37.680 --> 00:16:44.240 I've not done good at that yet. I will say, uh, that, that it does help. Absolutely. Um, if you're, 00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:48.080 so if you're looking at the data that Jeff's talking about, and we've seen this, um, like a couple 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:52.080 weeks ago, I acknowledged, Hey, we got a lot of folks watching this in South Carolina. Uh, 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:57.360 we want to give you guys a shout out little things like that. All of a sudden their, their attention 00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:01.520 perks up, man. I'm here. Is that like all Rick's old high school buddies sitting around? 00:17:01.520 --> 00:17:08.080 You know, there is, there's a girl, I don't know if she's still doing it, but there was a woman who 00:17:08.080 --> 00:17:13.600 lived in Rock Hill, South Carolina that was leading an online small group. Now it wasn't from Rick's 00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:19.120 church. She was from Miami who moved to Rock Hill and then ended up, and she was leading an online 00:17:19.120 --> 00:17:23.920 small group with her friends and in her, and her family, Miami and Rock Hill was kind of a blended 00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:28.480 group. That's weird, dude. Miami and Rock Hill, that's like the two biggest differences. 00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:34.880 Who would have thought? And just transparently what I did, Hey Rick, you're never going to believe this. 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:42.160 And I told him that story. I'm forwarding emails because I'm trying to get him as, as, as I'm online 00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:48.160 pastor, he's pastor, Rick, understand there's a story here. There's a soul. There's a person here 00:17:48.160 --> 00:17:53.760 that's connected to our church in your hometown. And, and as much as data plays a part of it, 00:17:53.760 --> 00:17:57.520 there's also a face to that data now. Yeah, no, that's good. Now that's good. 00:17:57.520 --> 00:18:02.560 Uh, so that's a good, that's a better answer. So bring data, but bring some stories too. 00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:10.640 Absolutely. The stories that once, and when, once you start engaging the miracle, the stories start 00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:15.600 piling up, they start coming in as far as, Hey, I'm watching you. I'm from here. Thank you so much. 00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:21.200 And even to the point, and, um, as you start to sprawl out in your community, we've seen this, 00:18:21.200 --> 00:18:24.240 Eric, you know, how much we wanted to like focus in on Dade County. 00:18:24.560 --> 00:18:30.480 Yes. Uh, but we had, we have a lot of people on that Broward line, um, who, who will drive down 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:36.100 to Christ fellowship, but then this also became a way for them to connect on, on a regular basis. 00:18:36.100 --> 00:18:41.480 And there are times where, Hey, to, to shepherd them, I've driven up there to provide some counseling 00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:45.520 or some different stuff just because there's, I'm still, I guess I'm still the same guy. 00:18:45.520 --> 00:18:48.800 Cause I, you just said that. I remember, I guess I was, I was that way in Miami too. I was like, no, 00:18:48.800 --> 00:18:52.800 no, no, we're only going to be Miami Dade. We're only going to be Miami Dade. I guess that's, 00:18:52.800 --> 00:18:59.400 that's, I told a pastor this, this week and it was funny. He's like, I totally agree with that. 00:18:59.400 --> 00:19:02.680 And then I said it to him again. And he's like, I'm not sure if this is what I said. I said, 00:19:02.680 --> 00:19:08.800 you got to realize that it may be better for that woman who's sitting in your pew in at your church 00:19:08.800 --> 00:19:15.440 right now to stay at home and invite 10 of her friends over to watch this church service on her 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:20.040 TV. And the, and the pastor's like, that's awesome. That's great. And I'm like, wait, 00:19:20.080 --> 00:19:26.000 you say that. And I hear that a lot, but when push comes to shove, there's something that stops us 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:32.160 from releasing people out of our buildings to go do this in the neighborhoods, in their, in the homes 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:36.920 where they are, because we, there's still this innate thing that drives us to gather them in. 00:19:37.860 --> 00:19:42.640 And to me, that's the thing that, that church online does is it gives the church permission 00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:48.040 to release people into communities, to release people to where they are. Instead it's, it's the 00:19:48.040 --> 00:19:53.880 go and do instead of come and see. Yeah. I, I think the, um, it goes back to that theological 00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:59.440 conversation. If you are, if you, if you can't get over the theological hurdle, I respect you, 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:05.440 but if you, if you're over the theological hurdle, then you really are asking a philosophical, like, 00:20:05.540 --> 00:20:12.380 which do you prefer seeing them or, or knowing this other thing happening, you know? So I think 00:20:12.380 --> 00:20:20.200 that's a wise way to put it, Jeff. That's good. That's awesome. Um, man, what's next? We just 00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:24.180 totally went through everything and I know it's been a, it's been a long podcast, but this has been 00:20:24.180 --> 00:20:33.140 really good stuff. Um, man, uh, Eric, I just, I miss you, man. I'm dude, I mean, I miss, I miss 00:20:33.140 --> 00:20:37.340 these kinds of convos with you, man. We always did have, we always went deep real fast. 00:20:37.620 --> 00:20:44.320 I tell you what I remember. I, I remember the first night I met you and you do at the airport. 00:20:44.320 --> 00:20:48.040 Was it the night that you drove me around at two in the morning buying a socks? 00:20:48.040 --> 00:20:54.080 A suit. Yeah. Whatever. Um, long story short, I got to tell the story, but this is just classic 00:20:54.080 --> 00:20:58.060 for us. Eric, I was, I was at Christ fellowship. I think it was first Baptist. 00:20:58.820 --> 00:21:01.780 No, it was first Baptist Pride. It was first Baptist Pride at the time. 00:21:01.980 --> 00:21:08.020 Yeah. Pride. Yeah. Yeah. And so like I, the church was, um, Eric was coming in to, to preach 00:21:08.020 --> 00:21:13.660 in view of a call and I was like student intern or something. And they were like, Hey, Jeff's young. 00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:19.700 Eric's young, Jeff, go pick up Eric and his wife at the airport. And that was Saturday night. 00:21:19.700 --> 00:21:25.460 Yep. And, uh, man, it was like, what your, your flight was delayed. Yeah. I think, I think 00:21:25.460 --> 00:21:29.640 it finally landed at like 1am or something like that. Yeah. And my luggage wasn't there. 00:21:30.040 --> 00:21:36.100 And the luggage was gone. And so like, he's supposed to be preaching at eight hours. Um, and doesn't 00:21:36.100 --> 00:21:41.580 have a suit, doesn't have anything. And he's like flew in from vacation wearing a Hawaiian shirt 00:21:41.580 --> 00:21:47.140 and, and, and, and he's like, what do I do? And I'm like, it was funny. It was, I was 00:21:47.140 --> 00:21:51.920 living at my parents at the time. My wife was on a mission trip. Uh, my house was being 00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:57.020 built. So that's why I met my parents. My parents were gone. And I'm like, dude, come 00:21:57.020 --> 00:22:01.000 stay at my parents' house. You can sleep in their bed. And, and, you know, my dad, who's 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:05.560 a lot larger than Eric was, you know, hopefully maybe you can find the suit or something that'll 00:22:05.560 --> 00:22:11.100 work there. Cause we ended up going to like what Walmart at 1am or 2am to buy socks and 00:22:11.100 --> 00:22:14.460 underwear. Dude, that's how you're going to get the suit from Walmart. I was like, Whoa, 00:22:14.500 --> 00:22:19.780 that had to be a bad suit, man. I, I, I, I literally preached in Walmart clothes in view 00:22:19.780 --> 00:22:25.020 of a call, uh, after sleeping in Jeff's dad's bed, but that must've been a balling sermon. 00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:29.360 I want to tell this part of the story. Cause Eric, I don't know that I've ever told you this 00:22:29.360 --> 00:22:35.080 in my heart, there was something that was stirring. Right. And I remember this like clear 00:22:35.080 --> 00:22:39.660 before that, before I went and picked you up at the airport. And I can remember sitting 00:22:39.660 --> 00:22:47.020 at home in my father's den, which was part of the area that we were living in. And, and I was 00:22:47.020 --> 00:22:52.680 praying for you and I was praying for the, the relationship that you and I would have. I was 00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:57.120 praying for the relationship and the impact that you would have at that church. And, and I can tell 00:22:57.120 --> 00:23:05.320 you Christ fellowship is still has your touch on it is still impacted by you. My life directly, 00:23:05.320 --> 00:23:11.120 the person that I am today and how I lead and manage and the stuff that I'm saying is, is directly 00:23:11.120 --> 00:23:18.880 in relation to our experiences together for that short, long time. So, uh, you know, the good and 00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:24.800 the bad, the plus and the minus at the end of the day, man, I, I love you for many, many reasons. 00:23:24.980 --> 00:23:29.040 Dude, I love you, man. That means a ton. I love to work with both you guys. And I I've told people 00:23:29.040 --> 00:23:34.900 this, uh, about Jeff and gosh, I, we broke a lot of rules launching, launching campuses with 00:23:34.900 --> 00:23:41.580 volunteers. I mean, shoestring budgets and all of us had multiple hats. My man, Jeff Reed was 00:23:41.580 --> 00:23:47.900 responsible on a part-time basis to launch all of the camp. I mean, I can't even imagine that I would 00:23:47.900 --> 00:23:52.500 ask somebody to do that now. Um, if I showed up at our staff today and said, we're going to hire a 00:23:52.500 --> 00:23:59.020 part-time guy who's going to run all of this stuff, they would be like, what? And I mean, and bro, 00:23:59.020 --> 00:24:06.800 you built volunteer teams and, and you were a make it happen guy. And, uh, it was, it was an incredible 00:24:06.800 --> 00:24:12.000 run, man. I look back and I have just such, such great memories. All right. Hey, so, um, Hey Ray, 00:24:12.120 --> 00:24:17.740 as, as we're closing up, any, any thoughts? Absolutely. Uh, Eric, you hit it right on the 00:24:17.740 --> 00:24:21.300 head, you know, uh, as far as some of the theological implications and questions that 00:24:21.300 --> 00:24:26.480 we're going to have moving forward and encouraging pastors to take practical steps and to reconsider 00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:29.940 as far as, um, taking the content that they're creating and putting it out there. I really 00:24:29.940 --> 00:24:34.620 appreciate you encouraging with that. And for any of you out there who are tinkering with, you know, 00:24:34.700 --> 00:24:38.880 with church online or with putting your services online or whatever else, bring your pastor the 00:24:38.880 --> 00:24:43.800 data, talk to them, uh, let them know that there's great possibilities out there. Love what Eric had 00:24:43.800 --> 00:24:47.880 to share. That was great. Hey, I'm curious on, on the, on the guys that you're talking to and who 00:24:47.880 --> 00:24:54.500 are in the roles that you guys are in and have been in, um, how much percent of their role is 00:24:54.500 --> 00:25:01.020 technical and how much percent of their role is pastoral. And, you know, I know that there's tools 00:25:01.020 --> 00:25:06.540 like you mentioned, Jeff, that are like Google analytics. Um, you know, they obviously they don't 00:25:06.540 --> 00:25:11.120 have to Google or run the analytics for you, but they still have to understand what you said a moment 00:25:11.120 --> 00:25:14.980 ago of like, I mean, you said it like it's no big deal. You know, all they got to do is grab some 00:25:14.980 --> 00:25:19.380 code, put it on their website. And, you know, for a lot of senior pastors that don't, that don't even, 00:25:19.560 --> 00:25:26.440 that's, that's like another language. So, yeah. So the church dot digital, go to your web browser, 00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:33.760 church period digital. Now, um, here, here's the D here's in the, uh, we were talking about this 00:25:33.760 --> 00:25:39.960 with Cranda maybe a month ago, a couple months ago. Um, everybody in an online environment, 00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:46.720 there's only like 20 people who are dedicated in the country to online. Even Ray himself is, 00:25:46.780 --> 00:25:51.180 is shared context where he's doing online, but he's doing a bunch of other roles with digital 00:25:51.180 --> 00:25:56.600 strategy and things like that. And so you're saying there's only 20 pastors in America that are, 00:25:56.720 --> 00:26:02.400 that are fully dedicated online. Yes. Yeah. And I've actually, that number has come from two 00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:07.420 different sources. So that's just not me pulling it up. And so, but as, as a result of that, 00:26:07.860 --> 00:26:13.160 it's, it's a shared role between like a student guy and online or a worship guy and online or 00:26:13.160 --> 00:26:19.520 what's your second hat. So my second hat, I oversee all things web and digital here now. Um, 00:26:19.520 --> 00:26:24.540 everything from app development to, uh, we're going to be launching off a new version of our website soon 00:26:24.540 --> 00:26:29.180 to, to just some different stuff. And, and even then I've been brought in a whole bunch on the 00:26:29.180 --> 00:26:33.360 creative side, everything from writing a lot of the background to shaping our environments because 00:26:33.360 --> 00:26:38.680 of its implications for what it would mean for online. And so my seat at that table has become 00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:42.380 very valuable because we're, we're not just thinking of the people in the room. We're thinking 00:26:42.380 --> 00:26:48.000 about the campuses and then we're thinking about how it ports out to everybody else, uh, who's watching 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:53.780 us. So when it comes to that sitting, sitting in those, uh, meetings, uh, having an ability to help 00:26:53.780 --> 00:26:58.800 shape those things is crucial. So this way, when I'm looking at the service on Sunday morning, 00:26:58.800 --> 00:27:03.180 I'm not surprised by a whole bunch, or I'm not saying, Hey guys, this is very disengaging 00:27:03.180 --> 00:27:09.080 for thousands of people who are watching us. Uh, we have to do a better job of, of engaging them, 00:27:09.080 --> 00:27:14.860 of making sure that we are, uh, not, not guiding the service towards them, but at least including 00:27:14.860 --> 00:27:19.040 them or thinking of them in some kind of way. Yeah. So that's where that's becoming a valuable. 00:27:19.040 --> 00:27:24.340 And then the last thing is, is, um, mobile has become so crucial in terms of how people are 00:27:24.340 --> 00:27:28.820 engaging our church. Right. For sure. Majority of people who are engaging, not just our website, 00:27:28.820 --> 00:27:33.340 but our content in general, aren't doing it, you know, on a desktop or a laptop. Like what we're all 00:27:33.340 --> 00:27:38.160 doing now is we record this podcast. They're doing it through a mobile device. And so I'm even 00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:42.520 reorienting a lot of our strategy as far as being more and more oriented towards the mobile device. 00:27:43.120 --> 00:27:47.420 Uh, and just being part of those conversations moving forward. It's, it's big. 00:27:48.620 --> 00:27:55.440 That's good. So in your role, do you could, do you know how to like pull the Google analytics or you 00:27:55.440 --> 00:27:59.760 haven't get somebody else to do that? It's, it's both. And if something kind of jumps up over my 00:27:59.760 --> 00:28:04.180 head, I'll reach out to a coder or something, uh, or somebody who's versed in this and the code 00:28:04.180 --> 00:28:09.700 community has grown huge in Miami. Uh, so we're even, you know, when I'm visiting, when I, when I go 00:28:09.700 --> 00:28:13.580 back to my campus at Coral Gables or when I'm visiting campuses, I'll have people come up to me who 00:28:13.580 --> 00:28:18.200 come out of that school saying, Hey, if you guys ever need any help, just give me a call. 00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:23.220 And that's become such a great resource. And it helps them feel like they've got a place where 00:28:23.220 --> 00:28:25.020 they can serve and use their gifts. 00:28:25.020 --> 00:28:27.400 So are volunteers being engaged in that at CF? 00:28:27.960 --> 00:28:32.320 Absolutely. Uh, it's been very helpful for us and very helpful for me because, you know, there's 00:28:32.320 --> 00:28:37.840 been a lot of new in terms of jumping into this role wholeheartedly. There's been a lot of new and 00:28:37.840 --> 00:28:42.160 having people help who help speak the language and help decodify. Cause you remember when I was, 00:28:42.240 --> 00:28:45.780 when I was interning at Christ fellowship, I worked at the Apple store. So there was a lot. 00:28:45.840 --> 00:28:51.020 I remember that dude. Yeah. So I already had like a lot of background that God was guiding things that 00:28:51.020 --> 00:28:58.520 I had no idea. You and Jeff were Apple snobs. Absolutely. Hey, I totally represent that. No, 00:28:58.600 --> 00:29:04.840 that that's fine. Hey, Jeff, this ties into one more thing you asked earlier. Uh, you're at, 00:29:04.900 --> 00:29:09.140 you asked like, how does a guy in your role get to this in your pastor? Uh, Ray, this is big right 00:29:09.140 --> 00:29:14.460 here. Talk about the number of people in the church who, who, uh, would love to volunteer in 00:29:14.460 --> 00:29:20.180 this kind of role, who have technical abilities in this role. They're wondering if they're wondering 00:29:20.180 --> 00:29:25.980 if their, uh, craft can be used for the kingdom. Absolutely. You would, you would pull my heart at 00:29:25.980 --> 00:29:30.560 that point. Cause I would feel like, man, I'm preaching these, I'm preaching these folks that, 00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:37.580 that their work can be sacred and they have these, they have these, um, these great gifts. Are we 00:29:37.580 --> 00:29:43.680 giving them a chance to use it? That's absolutely correct. And what, what I found is it's, it's 00:29:43.680 --> 00:29:48.740 created a new way to build inroads towards some of those other conversations. And, um, this is 00:29:48.740 --> 00:29:51.920 something else that would probably catch a lot of senior pastors' attentions, particularly with men. 00:29:52.600 --> 00:29:56.700 This has become a great way to build in-road conversations with them because there are a 00:29:56.700 --> 00:30:01.720 lot of men going into this field. So into, into the, uh, tech field like that. Yeah, correct. 00:30:02.260 --> 00:30:05.080 Geiger, any closing thoughts? 20 seconds. What do you got? 00:30:06.360 --> 00:30:11.940 Uh, we're, we're, we're in a great day where the tool, more and more tools are available to us and 00:30:11.940 --> 00:30:17.280 they've been, um, commoditized, meaning they're not as expensive as they used to be. So we could, 00:30:17.640 --> 00:30:19.820 we could leverage these tools for, for the gospel. 00:30:20.840 --> 00:30:27.060 Absolutely. Hey, well, it's a, man, it's been a pleasure to have you on, uh, Eric Geiger Mariners. 00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:30.840 If people want to follow you online or in blog, like, like where are you at? 00:30:31.140 --> 00:30:38.800 Kind of list that out for us. Uh, I, I blog is, is, uh, ericgeiger.com. That's, that's, 00:30:38.860 --> 00:30:43.120 that's where I put new content. All right. So everybody can find you at ericgeiger.com. 00:30:43.560 --> 00:30:49.420 Uh, man for Eric, for Ray, uh, my name is Jeff. It has been a pleasure to be here with you today. 00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:54.320 Thanks. And, uh, we'll see you next time here at the church digital podcast. You all have a good day.