WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.520 Are you ever have one of those conversations where you realize, hey, you know what, I'm just going to sit back and listen and learn because I actually don't have anything to contribute here. 00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:13.180 That is this podcast you're listening to right here. 00:00:13.520 --> 00:00:19.140 Hey, it's Jeff with you once again with the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia of Church Planning, of course. 00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:23.320 And this conversation is one of those where you're just going to sit back and listen. 00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:24.560 You're going to get out a piece of paper. 00:00:25.020 --> 00:00:26.420 You're going to write down some notes. 00:00:26.520 --> 00:00:27.760 You're going to check out the show notes. 00:00:27.820 --> 00:00:35.300 You're going to buy some books because the knowledge that's dropped on this podcast, the different way of thinking is phenomenal. 00:00:35.720 --> 00:00:38.660 We're bringing in Dave Ferguson onto the podcast here. 00:00:38.800 --> 00:00:44.820 Dave is a lead pastor up at Community Christian Church in Chicago. 00:00:45.660 --> 00:00:46.480 Awesome man. 00:00:46.680 --> 00:00:52.700 Author, well-published, involved with the Exponential Network, leader of the New Thing Network. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:55.300 He is so busy. 00:00:55.620 --> 00:00:58.200 He is doing so much in the kingdom, for the kingdom. 00:00:58.440 --> 00:01:03.920 And honestly, the thing that I respect about him the most is that he is constantly innovating. 00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:06.060 He is constantly trying new things. 00:01:06.700 --> 00:01:08.080 He's got to make a gig at church. 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:08.440 Shoot. 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:10.040 You sit back and relax. 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:12.080 No, don't do that. 00:01:12.380 --> 00:01:13.840 Let's work on micro church. 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:21.100 Let's work on planting multiple models of church out of this existing church, Community Christian. 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:25.180 It's a beautiful thing that he's doing out of his church. 00:01:25.180 --> 00:01:26.580 And so we wanted to talk about it. 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:29.340 We wanted to talk about the biblical ecclesiology. 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:31.960 How do you do multimodal church? 00:01:32.040 --> 00:01:37.340 How do you have one church that has different modes, different models coming out of it? 00:01:37.380 --> 00:01:39.240 What does that even look like? 00:01:39.280 --> 00:01:42.180 This is what we start to scratch the surface with Dave here. 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:47.180 And to make the knowledge more complete, by the way, we're bringing in Craig Whitney. 00:01:47.320 --> 00:01:51.220 Craig Whitney is with Stadia Church Planning, VP of Planner Development. 00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:55.660 He planted his first church when he was, I think he said, 26 years old. 00:01:55.960 --> 00:01:57.020 At one point, he told me. 00:01:57.480 --> 00:01:59.700 And he has been involved in church planning since then. 00:01:59.780 --> 00:02:02.320 And by the way, he's not anywhere near 26 anymore. 00:02:02.420 --> 00:02:03.260 I'm not going to date the guy. 00:02:03.320 --> 00:02:04.200 But he's on the old side. 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:08.580 And so there's lots of wisdom and experience in this podcast. 00:02:08.580 --> 00:02:15.060 So when I tell you I'm just sitting back here to learn, honestly, that is the God honest truth. 00:02:15.180 --> 00:02:16.740 And it's an incredible conversation here. 00:02:16.780 --> 00:02:26.260 Once again, we've got Dave Ferguson, lead pastor, Community Christian Church, Exponential New Thing Network, authors all over the place. 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:39.680 We've got Craig Whitney from Stadia Church Planning, myself, Jeff with the Church Digital, and Stadia Church Planning in a conversation that I'm simply calling the biblical ecclesiological functions of a multimodal church. 00:02:40.420 --> 00:02:40.880 Okay, everybody. 00:02:41.220 --> 00:02:41.600 Here you go. 00:02:42.160 --> 00:02:43.260 So, Dave, it's been a year. 00:02:43.740 --> 00:02:45.840 Like, what are you, what's the lesson? 00:02:46.220 --> 00:02:49.440 Any context, it would be crazy of me not to ask this. 00:02:49.620 --> 00:02:52.600 What have you learned in this COVID season? 00:02:52.740 --> 00:02:55.200 Personal, church, whatever the context. 00:02:55.320 --> 00:02:55.880 I'm just curious. 00:02:55.880 --> 00:02:59.400 What's, like, the big lesson in Dave Ferguson's life in this COVID season? 00:02:59.900 --> 00:03:02.560 Two things come to mind, and I learned it from different people. 00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:08.440 We had Wayne Cordero come and join us at a staff meeting. 00:03:08.580 --> 00:03:11.000 I think you guys both know Wayne and probably a lot of your listeners do. 00:03:11.100 --> 00:03:11.940 Brilliant, brilliant leader. 00:03:12.440 --> 00:03:15.340 What was the book he wrote on Leading on Empty? 00:03:16.440 --> 00:03:24.300 And one of the things he said about crisis, he says, during a crisis, you always want to focus on the 5%. 00:03:25.880 --> 00:03:29.260 And then he said, and the 5% is doing only what you can do. 00:03:29.880 --> 00:03:31.600 And he said, make sure you do those things. 00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:35.460 And he went on, he said, even during a crisis, you could be a great husband. 00:03:36.820 --> 00:03:39.360 Even during a crisis, you can be a good dad. 00:03:40.060 --> 00:03:41.260 You're the only one that can do that. 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:42.520 And then he kind of broadened a little too. 00:03:42.600 --> 00:03:44.260 He said, and, or maybe narrowed it. 00:03:44.320 --> 00:03:47.220 He said, and during a crisis, you're the only one that can take care of your body. 00:03:48.700 --> 00:03:52.120 And you're the only one during a crisis that can take care of your spirit and your soul. 00:03:53.040 --> 00:03:58.420 And so, I mean, it was just, because in that time when everything feels like it's out of control, 00:03:59.140 --> 00:04:03.980 to have a guy like that who's, you know, he's gone through some stuff to say, 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:05.920 hey, here's how you manage Christ. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:06.980 That was super helpful. 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:08.220 That was super helpful to me. 00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:12.860 And the other thing I'd say real quick was, I think you guys, you guys know Steve Stroop? 00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:16.180 Steve's a brilliant, brilliant leader. 00:04:16.260 --> 00:04:20.540 So early on, I think it was probably the first week, like early in March of 2020, 00:04:20.540 --> 00:04:23.460 I'm talking to Steve on the phone and he kind of coaches me on some stuff. 00:04:24.280 --> 00:04:31.100 And he used this phrase and we just adopted it as a slogan for our church, really, for a whole year. 00:04:31.460 --> 00:04:35.360 And it's this, he says, where fear sees a crisis, faith sees opportunity. 00:04:36.500 --> 00:04:38.620 Where fear sees a crisis, faith sees opportunity. 00:04:38.620 --> 00:04:42.680 And just that mindset shift for me, it kind of shifted things, right? 00:04:42.980 --> 00:04:50.420 And I just began to pray, I mean, literally every day, okay, God, give me wisdom not to miss the opportunities during this year. 00:04:51.100 --> 00:04:53.760 And I think God was faithful to that prayer. 00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:56.500 And I think we had a chance to talk about some of those things. 00:04:56.620 --> 00:05:02.320 But those are the two things for me that I really kind of took away going, okay, how do you lead during this crisis? 00:05:02.460 --> 00:05:03.360 It came from those two guys. 00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:05.920 Yeah, where fear sees a crisis, faith sees an opportunity. 00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:08.880 We will definitely be getting into that here in just a minute. 00:05:08.960 --> 00:05:11.600 Craig, you know, once again, we'd love to hear your intake. 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:12.560 What's the big lesson? 00:05:12.640 --> 00:05:15.860 What's the big takeaway for you for COVID? 00:05:16.520 --> 00:05:26.880 Well, I would say that fear seeing crisis, faith seeing opportunity was one of the big lessons, both for me personally and in working with church planners. 00:05:26.960 --> 00:05:28.080 I think there's a surprise for me. 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:35.340 I'm not trying to throw people under the bus, but I kind of think of church planners as these, you know, faith opportunists, kind of category of people. 00:05:35.720 --> 00:05:48.420 And maybe more so, but it was interesting for me to observe that even amongst like that very, you know, forward-looking, risk-taking group, the faith and opportunism was not universal. 00:05:49.520 --> 00:05:57.720 And so there were people who were feeling fearful and were seeing crisis and just how do we help navigate people through that? 00:05:58.380 --> 00:06:08.120 I think for me, one of the lessons was, I would just say this, but innovation is not as easy or frequent as we sometimes think it is. 00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:24.060 The, you know, just the pandemic and like the things that forced us into really required innovation, required us to think about how do we do something in a way that we've never done it before? 00:06:25.180 --> 00:06:27.340 And finding those answers wasn't easy. 00:06:27.700 --> 00:06:34.800 And what I realized is that we're, maybe just church world, maybe people's general, we're far better at iterating than we are innovating. 00:06:35.160 --> 00:06:38.440 We take a good idea and we think, well, I could make it a little bit better. 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:41.840 I could personalize it, you know, to my world or my people, my church. 00:06:42.280 --> 00:06:48.440 But to really come up with a new idea that's never been done before, that just doesn't happen very often. 00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:53.620 Yet I think sometimes we talk like, oh, we're innovating all the time and we're not really. 00:06:53.960 --> 00:06:57.080 And there's a, there's a cultural application to that too. 00:06:57.180 --> 00:07:01.140 It's like, if you can come up with a new idea, but culture's got to buy into it. 00:07:01.220 --> 00:07:02.020 It's got to be accepted. 00:07:02.200 --> 00:07:07.020 It's got to be, you know, brought in so that they can, they can own that, that principle. 00:07:07.460 --> 00:07:12.280 And that's also kind of pulls the thread a little bit on what, what I think we're going to, we're going to talk about here. 00:07:12.460 --> 00:07:18.340 So long story short, this whole podcast came about, we were on a Twitter thread. 00:07:18.340 --> 00:07:27.440 Somehow Dave Ferguson and Guy got tagged into this conversation with some people out of Transformation Church, I think up in North Carolina area. 00:07:27.920 --> 00:07:34.160 And they were talking about microchurch and how it's similar to digital only church planting. 00:07:34.380 --> 00:07:41.200 And both of these, by the way, the premises of their church, of church, not very accepted. 00:07:41.200 --> 00:07:48.140 I think pre-COVID, now mid, post-COVID, wherever we are on this, maybe it's a little more accepted. 00:07:48.260 --> 00:07:54.080 But both of these are still kind of, okay, microchurch, maybe a little bit like the house church of the 70s. 00:07:54.080 --> 00:07:56.520 And there's still a negative tinge on that. 00:07:57.420 --> 00:08:05.040 When it comes towards digital only churches, yeah, that's not on many or anybody's radar really in this. 00:08:05.440 --> 00:08:08.620 But there's some similarities in context of how they work together. 00:08:09.060 --> 00:08:18.480 I would love to maybe dialogue here and start to explore, okay, so we got these micro locations, like what micro churches, what, what is a micro church? 00:08:18.700 --> 00:08:28.260 You know, Dave, through Exponential, we're doing a lot of these and you're great at Exponential of exploring these fringes and helping us figure out how to get more in those spaces. 00:08:28.620 --> 00:08:32.900 So at Exponential, what does microchurch look like? 00:08:32.980 --> 00:08:35.040 What does a microchurch expression look like? 00:08:35.740 --> 00:08:43.420 Well, I'll tweak that, the question a little bit, if you'll allow me, because really, I mean, at Exponential, we just kind of affirm every kind of church. 00:08:43.540 --> 00:08:49.080 And so probably my own laboratory for church planning ends up being either a new thing or community Christian. 00:08:49.140 --> 00:08:50.640 In this case, it's community Christian church. 00:08:51.160 --> 00:08:53.140 So I'll speak from that context. 00:08:53.240 --> 00:09:07.080 I mean, for us at Community Christian, I mean, we see a digital, I mean, we see a microchurch is just a smaller but a full expression of church, often led by volunteers where you live, work, or play. 00:09:07.400 --> 00:09:14.820 So that's probably a simple definition, we give it smaller, but full expression of church, often led by volunteers where you live, work, or play. 00:09:15.160 --> 00:09:23.940 From a practical standpoint, I'm just curious, from either one of you guys, what does that look like, where I live, work, and play? 00:09:25.920 --> 00:09:29.720 I'm a hiker, so I'm going to be church out on a mountain. 00:09:29.940 --> 00:09:33.240 I run marathons, so I'm doing church on the road. 00:09:33.400 --> 00:09:35.160 Like, what's the practicality of this? 00:09:35.400 --> 00:09:40.400 I mean, I could jump in real quick, and then, Craig, you can probably give some examples, too, from some of the things that happened in Stadia. 00:09:42.040 --> 00:09:58.200 One of the innovations for us, I think, and I think it would be fun for us to talk about that word innovation again, too, that came out of this last year for us at Community Christian, the church I had to lead in Chicago, is we started training and releasing these micro-sites or micro-churches. 00:09:58.780 --> 00:10:01.720 And so our first cohort, we now have five that we're getting ready. 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:12.360 Literally, we're commissioning this coming Sunday, and three are in Spanish, two are in English, four in Chicago, and one's in Mexico City. 00:10:13.740 --> 00:10:17.140 Most of them are actually going to be where people live, in their homes. 00:10:17.500 --> 00:10:35.260 One of them, I know, is already going to be in a restaurant, but they're just finding their own places where their friends, neighbors, co-workers can gather, and they're using, and maybe this is part of our conversation, too, a lot of the digital technology or digital content that we're able to create from a larger church. 00:10:35.380 --> 00:10:43.160 But we've completely empowered them to use it however they can to reach kind of their own kind of circle of influence. 00:10:43.680 --> 00:10:56.060 Dave, would you say in that description of live, work, and play, is that about where a micro-church meets, or is that really more about who the focus, like the missional focus of the group is? 00:10:56.640 --> 00:11:00.220 It's probably more the missional focus of where the group is, yeah. 00:11:00.560 --> 00:11:08.440 I think, because it may be, hey, most of the people that are coming to this group are families from my kids' little league team. 00:11:08.860 --> 00:11:12.140 Or it might be most of the people are actually people that I work out with. 00:11:12.880 --> 00:11:13.960 It could be those kinds of things. 00:11:14.060 --> 00:11:16.840 So they may not necessarily meet there, but that's where the affinity is. 00:11:16.900 --> 00:11:18.160 Yes, that's a good distinction. 00:11:18.740 --> 00:11:18.940 Right. 00:11:18.940 --> 00:11:28.920 I was curious – we've been working closely with a good friend and partner in Rob Wegner, so all of us share kind of that common relationship and some of their stories. 00:11:29.460 --> 00:11:42.660 And that's just been an observation on my part is, as they've talked about various micro-churches that have emerged in KC, the initial most common focus was a neighborhood focus. 00:11:44.040 --> 00:11:50.320 But as they began to multiply, someone would become a part of a neighborhood group, then realized, hey, my affinity group is at my workplace. 00:11:50.860 --> 00:11:53.100 And so that became that person's missional focus. 00:11:53.160 --> 00:11:58.120 Or my affinity group is that soccer team or whatever that thing is that I do. 00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:05.140 And so I think in this – and this is where this conversation is going to go in some ways. 00:12:05.520 --> 00:12:15.040 Some of those groups may have resorted then to digital meeting spaces because of pandemic or even sometimes just convenience. 00:12:16.180 --> 00:12:20.600 But the digital meeting space didn't necessarily drive the missional focus. 00:12:21.260 --> 00:12:28.080 I was going to say because, like, for example, one of our new 3C communities really got birthed out of what was a watch party at a restaurant. 00:12:28.340 --> 00:12:33.100 So, like, over the last year, they were consistently having the watch parties on Sundays at this restaurant. 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:41.180 And they were – I mean, lots of people were showing up, and they're sharing food, and they're – it's like, this totally works. 00:12:41.180 --> 00:12:46.020 And then so when we offer this opportunity to be trained, they're like, yeah, let's do this, and let's keep going. 00:12:46.140 --> 00:12:47.000 But exactly right. 00:12:47.600 --> 00:12:58.100 Through the networks and the options that you have, community, Christian, new thing, have you guys explored much of this digital-only expression of church? 00:12:58.900 --> 00:13:01.020 Has that been a thing for you? 00:13:01.100 --> 00:13:03.400 Has it been more in the physical side? 00:13:03.540 --> 00:13:06.800 Forgive me, I probably should have known that in advance, but I haven't kept up. 00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:09.980 What are you guys doing and exploring in the digital-only space? 00:13:10.220 --> 00:13:19.620 One of the things that's happened for us – again, I'll speak with Community Christian Church – is coming out on the other end of this, this last year, and kind of that idea of, like, hey, we're fierce, it's a crisis, faith, it's a opportunity. 00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:29.080 We would say that we went from being one church with multiple locations to now we'd say one church with multiple expressions, and specifically four different expressions. 00:13:29.700 --> 00:13:32.760 And so there are our physical locations that we have in the city and suburbs of Chicago. 00:13:33.200 --> 00:13:33.720 That's one. 00:13:34.060 --> 00:13:36.560 The second that we would say would be community online. 00:13:37.720 --> 00:13:47.460 And, Jeff, this won't be any surprise to you, but I mean, like, the number of people that we've reached in this last year has just been, I mean, a ridiculous number. 00:13:48.260 --> 00:13:51.440 And, I mean, all 50 states, 153 countries, all that kind of stuff. 00:13:51.980 --> 00:13:56.240 Like everybody, we're also figuring out, okay, how do you actually then turn that into real engagement? 00:13:56.820 --> 00:14:03.340 And we're having – in fact, I just came from a Barna cohort right before I jumped on here, the hybrid, the hybrid church stuff. 00:14:03.740 --> 00:14:04.940 So that's the second expression. 00:14:05.540 --> 00:14:08.100 And we do think – and it would be fun to talk about this. 00:14:08.160 --> 00:14:11.020 We do think, no, that could be a full expression of church online. 00:14:12.020 --> 00:14:14.120 Then thirdly is what we call community freedom. 00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:17.340 We currently have three locations in prisons across Chicago. 00:14:18.180 --> 00:14:22.340 And then the fourth one is what these micro expressions called 3C communities. 00:14:22.760 --> 00:14:24.540 And so those are our four different expressions. 00:14:25.520 --> 00:14:27.820 At locations, in person, you'd call it physical. 00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:29.880 Online, you'd call it digital. 00:14:30.340 --> 00:14:34.100 And then we have a community freedom in prisons and then also our micro sites. 00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:39.300 So really it's quite a bit different than where we were 14 months ago. 00:14:39.880 --> 00:14:42.620 Yeah, I think for me – and that's beautiful. 00:14:42.780 --> 00:14:43.380 I love that. 00:14:43.380 --> 00:14:52.420 I would love to even unpack what it is for you guys as you're trying to get engagement across 50 states, 150-some countries. 00:14:53.020 --> 00:14:55.580 And I would love to get your coaching. 00:14:58.420 --> 00:15:00.200 Well, we'll have that conversation off air. 00:15:00.300 --> 00:15:00.840 We'll lock it in. 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:01.700 No, I don't know. 00:15:01.780 --> 00:15:03.100 I might pick your brain before we're done. 00:15:06.440 --> 00:15:09.860 When we talk digital only, it's an opportunity. 00:15:09.860 --> 00:15:13.580 And I'm not here to convince you necessarily but to even start to draw this parallel. 00:15:14.640 --> 00:15:27.000 The way that Rob Wagner would look at Kansas City or to look at different areas, communities around and say this is a community that's worthy of a church. 00:15:27.540 --> 00:15:29.920 We at Stadia, we've got digital planners. 00:15:29.920 --> 00:15:34.380 I've got a digital planner that just launched a church in Twitch. 00:15:35.100 --> 00:15:39.200 It's a church, not for video gamers, but of video gamers. 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:46.440 And he's doing services and he's doing discipleship using platforms like Twitch and Discord. 00:15:46.440 --> 00:15:59.000 And we've got mutual friends and there's all sorts of people that are doing Discord church, that are doing Twitch, that are doing Facebook, that are doing social media, virtual reality. 00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:01.140 Like there's the conversation go on and on. 00:16:01.140 --> 00:16:02.700 We talk about them all the time. 00:16:02.700 --> 00:16:17.300 But what's interesting in some of these contexts is it's the same passion that a micro church planner would look at a community, at a neighborhood, at a church on the block type of approach. 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:31.160 We see that same thing in digital space, even to the point of, hey, it's my job in this church, in this micro church to have a conversation with someone to share faith, highly evangelical. 00:16:31.160 --> 00:16:36.460 But then to get them on mission, to release them, to share with others, that multiplication piece. 00:16:36.940 --> 00:16:45.460 Really, when we look in the digital context, we're seeing that same type of approach where it comes down to that disciple making, down to that multiplication. 00:16:46.260 --> 00:16:59.060 As you know, and you alluded to it a little bit here, where the church, your broadcast of your services through, you know, what you're calling community online, you're reaching 153 nations. 00:16:59.580 --> 00:17:01.540 There's a whole bunch of people in there. 00:17:01.700 --> 00:17:02.400 Who are their names? 00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:04.900 Like, I mean, I'm asking facetious. 00:17:05.120 --> 00:17:05.980 You don't know. 00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:09.720 It's so easy to have people kind of get lost in isolation. 00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:14.140 And that's one of the reasons why you're feeling that pain point of, hey, I've got to engage with these people. 00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:14.880 I've got to dialogue. 00:17:15.040 --> 00:17:15.680 I've got to meet them. 00:17:16.100 --> 00:17:18.720 I've got to take that first step to the disciple with it. 00:17:19.420 --> 00:17:24.240 You know, arguably with the micro, that's far more relational towards that. 00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:30.200 And you're not using technology to broadcast your message to millions or hundreds of thousands. 00:17:30.460 --> 00:17:37.280 You're using it to kind of fine tune into a conversation with dozens or even individuals. 00:17:37.280 --> 00:17:43.420 And having that one-on-one conversation where it gets more towards that disciple making and multiplication friendly. 00:17:43.620 --> 00:17:47.880 So the similarities between these are huge. 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:53.340 How do you, and just some struggles kind of come up. 00:17:53.380 --> 00:18:06.540 Well, let me ask, as you've done through community, Christian, what with the multi, with the micro site, with the micro church locations, what are some of the challenges? 00:18:06.540 --> 00:18:09.060 And, like, where do you bang your head on? 00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:12.640 What's the pain points that you kind of struggle with at that micro spot? 00:18:13.280 --> 00:18:16.340 Well, I mean, let's keep it real here, too. 00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:19.100 Because, I mean, like I said, we're getting ready to launch our first cohort. 00:18:19.360 --> 00:18:20.760 So it's not like I'm an expert. 00:18:22.340 --> 00:18:26.240 But I have some thoughts anyway. 00:18:26.820 --> 00:18:27.040 All right. 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:35.260 I anticipate, because one of the things we, like, through New Thing and through Exponential, I've been able to see things, and community, I've seen things scale. 00:18:35.260 --> 00:18:44.800 So, like, at this point, New Thing, we have 388 small networks around the world in 40 countries, close to 6,000 churches that are a part of those networks. 00:18:44.920 --> 00:18:48.500 So I've seen that kind of go from, like, one church we planted in Denver to going, oh, my goodness. 00:18:49.280 --> 00:18:57.060 I think one of the things that we're really trying to watch is, okay, how do we make this scalable? 00:18:58.020 --> 00:19:03.400 Because we actually had the conversation with our lead team meeting this morning, going, like, okay, so we have five of these. 00:19:04.560 --> 00:19:06.520 And actually, this kind of is a brass tax thing. 00:19:06.620 --> 00:19:13.920 Okay, from a financial perspective, if this costs us anything, if it grows in time, we won't be able to afford it. 00:19:15.500 --> 00:19:20.020 So the question is, okay, how do we make this thing actually be able to scalable? 00:19:20.360 --> 00:19:26.240 And I think the financial part of that, how do we continue to, you know, provide great coaching? 00:19:26.380 --> 00:19:28.340 How do we continue to provide great content? 00:19:28.460 --> 00:19:30.420 Now, and we didn't know this was going to happen. 00:19:30.520 --> 00:19:34.060 We didn't know we were going to, that three of the five were going to be in Spanish. 00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:35.720 That's just like, I'm going, what? 00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:41.760 Because we only have one location that really is really focused on a Spanish-speaking community, physical location. 00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:45.860 So I think that's, I think that is, I think that's actually a significant issue. 00:19:48.800 --> 00:19:53.540 I think what Rob is doing in KC and Underground is great. 00:19:53.540 --> 00:19:57.040 I'm trying to figure out, though, how do I not have to raise money for this? 00:19:58.140 --> 00:20:00.200 And if these are really going to, it's really going to be scalable. 00:20:00.320 --> 00:20:02.000 I think that's one kind of question. 00:20:02.380 --> 00:20:05.720 There's always, the other thing, I was listening to Tim Keller recently. 00:20:06.040 --> 00:20:09.920 And Tim is not a huge fan of microsites. 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:14.840 And part of the reason he says that is because he says, well, we live in such a mobile society. 00:20:15.040 --> 00:20:21.460 And that if these micro expressions aren't connected to an institution, they, people, you know, 00:20:21.460 --> 00:20:24.860 if you have two or three families move away from one of these microsites pretty soon, 00:20:24.940 --> 00:20:26.420 you've gutted the whole thing and you've got nothing. 00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:32.100 And so you have to, he says, you have to multiply faster than people kind of transition. 00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:36.020 And so I think, again, we're kind of going, okay, how do we keep, 00:20:36.040 --> 00:20:39.740 how do we keep them close enough to the institution of community Christian church so we can help them, 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:41.080 okay, find apprentices? 00:20:41.500 --> 00:20:46.120 How do we also make sure we embed this multiplication so they actually multiply faster than they, 00:20:46.580 --> 00:20:48.500 because we don't like to think about this. 00:20:48.560 --> 00:20:52.840 I'd like to think every one of them is going to give birth and then go on forever and going to be wildly successful. 00:20:52.840 --> 00:20:56.560 But the truth is, there's going to be some, there's going to be some, some that aren't going to make it. 00:20:56.720 --> 00:20:57.840 So how do we actually do that? 00:20:58.040 --> 00:21:00.920 So I think those are some of the things that we're really kind of thinking through. 00:21:01.300 --> 00:21:01.840 Dave, I'm curious. 00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:03.000 I want to take you back a little bit. 00:21:03.180 --> 00:21:08.420 You, in your definition of microchurch, you use the phrase full expression of church. 00:21:09.800 --> 00:21:17.000 I'm curious how much, whether as leadership, just, you know, people who are part of community, 00:21:17.300 --> 00:21:21.740 like how much of a wrestling match was there over full expression? 00:21:21.880 --> 00:21:24.780 And there's got to be a reason that was included in the definition. 00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:32.940 I think our, I think our understanding of the use of a more technical term, a minimal ecclesiology is pretty simple. 00:21:33.600 --> 00:21:37.200 Because if you ask me what's a minimal ecclesiology, and for anybody, if that's a new term, 00:21:37.280 --> 00:21:40.560 then it's just kind of like, what's, what's the least you have to have to have a church? 00:21:41.260 --> 00:21:49.280 I mean, I would say if you have a community of people where Jesus is Lord and they're on mission, you have a church. 00:21:51.400 --> 00:21:57.120 I know a lot of people want to attach, you know, some of the sacraments, they want to attach, you know, eldership, 00:21:57.220 --> 00:21:59.520 they want to attach church, those kinds of things to it. 00:22:01.540 --> 00:22:04.480 When I look, when I look at the New Testament, that's kind of what I see, you know, 00:22:04.620 --> 00:22:07.440 a community of people where Jesus is Lord and they're on mission. 00:22:07.900 --> 00:22:13.420 And so when you start with that kind of a minimal ecclesiology, and it's not hard to go like, 00:22:13.580 --> 00:22:20.140 no, these could be a full expression, although smaller, that are often lay led by people where you live, work, and play. 00:22:20.140 --> 00:22:24.480 So probably our understanding of minimal, our minimal ecclesiology allows us to get there pretty quickly. 00:22:25.040 --> 00:22:25.640 No, that's great. 00:22:25.820 --> 00:22:28.880 And I, I would, okay, Craig, I want to, I want to hear, I want to hear from you, Craig. 00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:31.960 What's your thoughts on that as a minimum, as far as minimal ecclesiology? 00:22:32.300 --> 00:22:33.340 I would agree with you. 00:22:33.460 --> 00:22:36.380 We, we've been wrestling with that at Stadia. 00:22:36.460 --> 00:22:41.480 And one of the challenges for us is we've been helping people plant churches globally. 00:22:42.440 --> 00:22:48.500 And, you know, here in the US and ecclesiologically, they look very different. 00:22:49.340 --> 00:23:00.180 You know, it, particularly some of the work that we're doing Southeast Asia, you know, a church is a leader who has, you know, a certain number of disciples. 00:23:00.180 --> 00:23:03.060 And, you know, they are together on mission. 00:23:03.120 --> 00:23:04.300 I mean, it fits your definition. 00:23:04.940 --> 00:23:07.200 And so we've kind of said, hey, that, you know, there's a community. 00:23:07.780 --> 00:23:08.800 There's Jesus is Lord. 00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:14.700 I think we've added like a third leg of, you know, just like biblical, you know, foundation. 00:23:15.740 --> 00:23:21.360 I'm not sure that, you know, Jesus is Lord, biblical foundation, you know, you kind of, is that redundant? 00:23:22.760 --> 00:23:23.120 Right. 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:30.220 But then a lot of the stuff that would, you know, again, the, you know, how is the church governed? 00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:32.680 How is the church, you know, funded? 00:23:32.820 --> 00:23:35.480 Like those are not part of that minimum ecclesiology. 00:23:35.480 --> 00:23:41.480 And so if we're going to call those works that we're doing over there churches, then we really have to have that minimum ecclesiology. 00:23:42.760 --> 00:23:55.220 The stretch has been to then come back over on the U.S. side and say, okay, then we're going to call the same thing a church over here, where really historically that's not, at least at a pragmatic level. 00:23:55.280 --> 00:23:58.600 We might have said from a definition level, well, that's still true. 00:23:59.040 --> 00:24:08.880 But then we tended to add a whole bunch of things, you know, particularly in the realm of church planning to get to, okay, that is a, you know, a church and has to have certain things and look a certain way. 00:24:09.580 --> 00:24:14.580 But for us, I think that minimum ecclesiology to kind of connect some of this conversation leads to digital. 00:24:15.360 --> 00:24:20.160 So, right, the question, you know, can digital only be a church? 00:24:21.160 --> 00:24:25.720 Well, with that kind of minimal ecclesiology, I think it's a lot easier to get to yes, right? 00:24:25.900 --> 00:24:27.380 You know, is there a community of people? 00:24:27.860 --> 00:24:28.800 Is Jesus Lord? 00:24:29.100 --> 00:24:30.160 Are they on mission together? 00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:33.320 So we take our digital only church on Twitch. 00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:36.560 We can answer yes to those three questions really quick. 00:24:36.560 --> 00:24:38.720 Check, check, check, check, it's a church. 00:24:40.120 --> 00:24:46.320 We start adding other things, and that's where we start getting into, oh, digital only can't be a church. 00:24:46.580 --> 00:24:50.480 And it's really because we've expanded the ecclesiology that creates the problem. 00:24:50.980 --> 00:24:52.280 Yeah, I mean, two things come to mind. 00:24:52.360 --> 00:24:57.540 One is, and I think what you hinted at there, and I want to go back to it, is really important for our listeners. 00:24:58.840 --> 00:25:06.100 At Stata, you've had experienced interaction with global leaders from the East, just like new thing. 00:25:06.740 --> 00:25:16.720 So, I mean, I'm immediately thinking of Albert Tennyson, who's in India, who last summer, under his leadership as not just a network leader, but a movement leader, helped plant 100 churches. 00:25:17.780 --> 00:25:22.140 Okay, and so we bring him in, and we sit, and we listen to him, go, okay, tell us how you did it. 00:25:22.340 --> 00:25:24.360 And this is a core part of it. 00:25:24.580 --> 00:25:27.600 Or I'm thinking about a woman from Uganda named B3, same thing. 00:25:27.680 --> 00:25:31.180 I mean, who's rapidly reproducing these expressions of church. 00:25:31.340 --> 00:25:39.680 And as you begin to understand how they're doing that, and I think it does, we need a little more humility here in the West to go like, hey, we're not the center of Christianity anymore. 00:25:40.160 --> 00:25:48.080 It's either in Africa or some places over there, and we need to learn from them, and I think as we learn from them, then I think we do begin to shift our minimal ecclesiology. 00:25:49.060 --> 00:25:57.440 The second thing I'll throw at you, too, is I think one of the things for us at Community Christian, even as a church in the West, that was a launch, that originally was a launch large strategy. 00:25:58.900 --> 00:26:07.600 The way we've always talked about the churches in terms of relationships, and we always talked about in terms of three relationships, your relationship with God, your relationship with the church, your relationship with the world. 00:26:07.600 --> 00:26:09.880 And we call it celebrate, connect, and contribute, the three Cs. 00:26:09.920 --> 00:26:11.200 That's why we call them three C communities. 00:26:11.900 --> 00:26:23.060 Well, if you look at that middle ecclesiology, a community of people where Jesus is Lord that's on mission, what it does is it articulates all three of those relationships. 00:26:23.820 --> 00:26:29.900 Your relationship with God, Jesus is Lord, your relationship with the church, okay, a community, and a relationship with the world that's on mission. 00:26:29.900 --> 00:26:35.840 And I think those are the three primary relationships that grow a disciple and also grow a re-church and actually define a church. 00:26:37.800 --> 00:26:44.020 But I think what you said earlier, too, about learning from some of our friends in other parts of the world is crucial, crucial. 00:26:44.800 --> 00:26:49.600 And partly that's why we're doing this like five at a time, you know, we're doing this kind of slow to start with. 00:26:49.660 --> 00:26:51.680 I mean, because every part of me like is go big, you know. 00:26:51.880 --> 00:26:56.600 But I hopefully have enough sense at this point to go like, okay, I don't know what I'm doing yet. 00:26:57.440 --> 00:26:58.920 But we're going to do this. 00:26:59.240 --> 00:27:06.680 And I have had enough experience scaling things that once we get it right, or at least not even right, once we get it closer to right, then we can scale it. 00:27:07.420 --> 00:27:19.660 I think, Jeff, as you continue to have this conversation with people, that more and more of that conversation has got to come back to minimum ecclesiology, which is particularly here in the West. 00:27:19.660 --> 00:27:29.080 You know, the things that we think of as church, particularly culturally, but even I think within churches, that'd be interesting. 00:27:29.220 --> 00:27:31.380 Maybe you've taught well enough, Dave, and I know you're a great teacher. 00:27:31.560 --> 00:27:34.580 So that's like, you know, the people in the community are really buying that. 00:27:34.700 --> 00:27:41.240 But my guess is you could go talk to, you know, some people just in the lobby on a Sunday morning and say, hey, tell me what church is. 00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:48.700 And you'd probably hear a whole bunch of things that aren't a part of that, those three critical things. 00:27:49.240 --> 00:28:01.420 And so changing that mindset to realize or to help people recognize those are the three things that make a church a church is some work that we've got to do because we've created churches that were so much more. 00:28:01.420 --> 00:28:12.780 And so people have then naturally assumed that all of these things that we do must be essential rather than seeing them as is just optional or, you know, they serve a purpose. 00:28:12.780 --> 00:28:16.020 But there's a difference between serving a purpose and being essential. 00:28:16.620 --> 00:28:22.660 What's your thoughts on that, Jeff, as far as, I mean, as far as a minimal ecclesiology related to a digital church? 00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:34.580 Yeah, I mean, three of the pillars that we look at, and it's been taken from lots of different places, but I know intentional churches has used it, is that large gathering is the groups and it's on mission. 00:28:35.460 --> 00:28:46.420 It was funny, just this morning I was having breakfast with some guys from out of town, and they were, you know, more of the Rick Warren baseball diamond, you know, as that's like their ecclesiology. 00:28:46.420 --> 00:28:56.660 And it's like, well, serving looks different in digital, which is one of the reasons why we don't necessarily emphasize that because it's, well, you're not serving, so it limits what you can do. 00:28:56.740 --> 00:28:59.580 And even at a micro location, it looks different. 00:28:59.820 --> 00:29:05.660 And so if, to say that serving's not important, but maybe it's not emphasized as much. 00:29:06.480 --> 00:29:10.440 You know, the Acts 2, hey, they did communion. 00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:15.480 You know, I've done some crazy things in my life as a digital pastor. 00:29:15.740 --> 00:29:21.540 I stood on stage once and said, hey, you know, broadcasting and said, hey, you don't have grape juice and a cracker. 00:29:21.580 --> 00:29:22.460 Go get a Coke and Snickers. 00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:24.680 Bring this together and do it. 00:29:24.920 --> 00:29:29.720 And the church, you know, probably wasn't very happy at the moment that I said, get a Coke and Snickers. 00:29:29.820 --> 00:29:34.740 And they criticized me for, you know, being defaming to the Bible and that. 00:29:35.160 --> 00:29:38.240 I'll have a conversation with God one day and apologize if I need to. 00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:42.260 But at the end of the day, it looks different in digital space. 00:29:42.700 --> 00:29:51.980 And so taking that freedom, recognizing the biblical mandates and the challenges of what we're doing, hey, hold to that standard. 00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:59.760 Just let's figure out how to do it differently in digital because not everybody's going to have grape juice and a cracker. 00:29:59.760 --> 00:30:09.380 So we've got to figure that out because we're not going to stop a movement of God because of not having a cracker, just in my opinion anyway. 00:30:10.040 --> 00:30:14.280 I mean, like, for example, I'm community online. We still do community every week on community online. 00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:23.160 And I mean, there are some of the 50 weeks when we weren't meeting, the truth be known, when we would get to that part of the service and I was actually participating at my home with my wife. 00:30:23.620 --> 00:30:27.840 You know what? She might grab a piece of a scone and a hot tea and that, you know what? 00:30:28.440 --> 00:30:33.060 And, you know, I think I think I think Jesus was glorified in that. 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:36.660 I think he was grateful that we that that we had that celebration that moment. 00:30:37.100 --> 00:30:39.320 Yeah, there's there's all sorts of interesting stories. 00:30:39.500 --> 00:30:46.780 Well, I we I was at a church once we're doing micro locations through the church online service. 00:30:46.780 --> 00:30:48.940 And so we had guys were in Miami, Florida. 00:30:49.060 --> 00:30:59.180 We had guys up in New York City that were creating a micro church network and they actually they recorded a baptism that was done in a New York City apartment. 00:30:59.180 --> 00:31:06.380 Like a rundown, tiny New York City apartment where like they're in a bathtub and the bathtub is like a sink. 00:31:07.180 --> 00:31:09.880 And so they they videotaped it. 00:31:09.980 --> 00:31:13.360 And when they took the guy down, they didn't take them away from the nozzle. 00:31:13.360 --> 00:31:17.580 They took them towards the nozzle and it was like this far away from banging his head. 00:31:18.080 --> 00:31:20.340 And so like there's all sorts of drama centered around this. 00:31:20.420 --> 00:31:22.640 The water splashes out like it's it's this beautiful. 00:31:23.180 --> 00:31:31.260 But it's this really telling video of these guys who were on mission activated in New York City out there and were changing lives. 00:31:31.380 --> 00:31:34.540 Were evangelizing and discipling people in unique ways. 00:31:34.920 --> 00:31:35.900 And it was funny. 00:31:35.900 --> 00:31:46.820 Like I took that video and I texted it to every person on staff and 50 percent of the people on staff at the church that I was at said, this is the coolest thing that I've ever seen. 00:31:46.900 --> 00:31:48.000 We need to do more of this. 00:31:48.180 --> 00:31:51.380 The other half of the people, we should never do this. 00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:52.380 You can't do this. 00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:54.360 Is that person authorized to baptize? 00:31:54.740 --> 00:31:56.300 Are they have they been approved? 00:31:56.420 --> 00:31:58.260 Are you sure that person accepted Christ? 00:31:58.580 --> 00:31:59.700 And it was it was beautiful. 00:31:59.700 --> 00:32:05.780 The bifurcation of a different movement where half the people were like, do it again. 00:32:05.980 --> 00:32:08.760 And half the people were like, this is biblically wrong. 00:32:08.860 --> 00:32:09.840 You should stop now. 00:32:12.180 --> 00:32:14.780 So there's that tension of hate. 00:32:15.140 --> 00:32:21.300 Like and that's one of the things, Dave, honestly, when I'm when I'm looking at some of the stuff that you're doing, your church has figured out. 00:32:21.300 --> 00:32:27.340 And we had stated we use this term multimodal because there's four different or there's multiple different types of churches. 00:32:27.340 --> 00:32:29.680 Different types of churches reach different types of people. 00:32:30.220 --> 00:32:31.100 You know, you listed off. 00:32:31.240 --> 00:32:32.180 You're doing physical. 00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:35.340 You're doing church online through community online. 00:32:35.340 --> 00:32:38.260 Kind of the broadcast small group type of model. 00:32:38.260 --> 00:32:39.720 You're doing prison ministry. 00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:44.320 Now you're developing this E3, which gets into that that that micro level. 00:32:45.280 --> 00:32:46.680 I love that. 00:32:47.040 --> 00:32:52.320 There's not a lot of churches that are able to separate the. 00:32:52.820 --> 00:32:53.360 Hey, you know what? 00:32:53.400 --> 00:32:56.420 It's OK for somebody to get baptized in a bathtub. 00:32:56.840 --> 00:32:57.800 We we want that. 00:32:58.080 --> 00:33:01.180 We want to encourage people to baptize other people. 00:33:01.360 --> 00:33:05.660 It's not the the sacred where the professional Christian has to be the one to do it. 00:33:05.740 --> 00:33:11.860 We want to activate people, empower people with this ability to lead people to Christ and to baptize. 00:33:11.940 --> 00:33:12.760 It's it's beautiful. 00:33:12.760 --> 00:33:13.900 But it's it's rare. 00:33:15.140 --> 00:33:20.100 What's some of the mind space with with your organization, with with Community Christian? 00:33:20.600 --> 00:33:22.080 How did you get to that place? 00:33:22.260 --> 00:33:24.500 Like what were some of the some of the pain points? 00:33:24.600 --> 00:33:33.680 Tell me the story of how you went from the church that that you were, maybe one mode to really starting to appreciate this idea of a multimodal approach. 00:33:33.840 --> 00:33:37.920 I mean, again, there's there's plenty of things to list where we screwed it up. 00:33:38.720 --> 00:33:40.300 OK, so we'll talk about a few of the things. 00:33:40.420 --> 00:33:42.240 It's a podcast to help you where we got it right. 00:33:42.760 --> 00:33:47.260 Um, I think, again, but I think a couple of things by God's grace. 00:33:47.500 --> 00:33:58.240 Um, we've we've always had a history, I think, from day one, uh, where most of the people who became Christ followers and we're very evangelistic, very outreach oriented. 00:33:58.560 --> 00:34:00.700 Our mission is to help people find their way back to God. 00:34:01.340 --> 00:34:01.580 Yeah. 00:34:01.660 --> 00:34:08.780 Um, when they would say yes, the people that would baptize them were the were the were the people in their small group. 00:34:09.300 --> 00:34:12.740 I mean, so and that that was and we even talked about that's kind of like that's the thing. 00:34:12.760 --> 00:34:22.880 And so, I mean, we the person who gets baptized, the person who does the baptizing, we always give them a T-shirt and they get to be there and they and they're the ones doing the baptizing, not not the staff. 00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:41.360 So, and even I think this is kind of by God's grace to the last Sunday before we met, whatever that was, March, whatever that was, 7th, 5th, whatever that date was back in 2020, before we ended up closing up for our physical building, that expression for 50 weeks was actually our commissioning Sunday. 00:34:41.420 --> 00:34:48.260 And we do this every year where we oftentimes will teach our blessed practices and I'll give a little plug. 00:34:48.360 --> 00:34:52.660 That's the book that I just wrote that kind of explains these five missional practices that we teach our people. 00:34:53.460 --> 00:35:10.120 But we taught on that and then we said, if you have a person or a place, if there's a people group or a place that you feel called to, we want you to know that we are behind you and we want this to be your commissioning or your or really your, we can get away with this because we're non-denominational, your ordination. 00:35:10.680 --> 00:35:14.320 So you come forward and we want to, and we'll actually anoint people. 00:35:14.560 --> 00:35:20.660 We anoint you and we want to pray over you and we're going to send you back out into the community, back to that, that, that people group. 00:35:21.100 --> 00:35:21.460 Okay. 00:35:21.460 --> 00:35:26.220 Or that particular place, maybe it's a neighborhood or wherever it is that you feel called to reach. 00:35:26.720 --> 00:35:32.580 And I mean, it is an awesome Sunday because people come forward, our staff, we anoint them and then we pray for them and then we send them out. 00:35:32.580 --> 00:35:39.580 We had no idea that that would be the, you know, the last Sunday we'd actually meet in person for the next 50 weeks. 00:35:40.180 --> 00:35:49.300 And so one of the hurdles we don't have to overcome as much at community is there's already a mindset that every person is on, should be on mission. 00:35:49.820 --> 00:35:52.300 And here are the missional practices that we use. 00:35:52.660 --> 00:35:58.580 And that when you get to see someone find their way back to God, you're the one that gets to baptize them because you're the one who led them on that journey. 00:35:58.580 --> 00:36:00.720 And then you get to apprentice them into leadership. 00:36:01.620 --> 00:36:05.120 So some of those obstacles that you might find in other churches we don't have. 00:36:05.220 --> 00:36:10.500 And I think that has made it easier for us moving towards these four expressions. 00:36:10.900 --> 00:36:16.040 The simplifying the ecclesiology, like lend towards more acceptability. 00:36:16.240 --> 00:36:20.240 It's not what we're defining church isn't this 47 step thing. 00:36:20.340 --> 00:36:24.460 It's really this three core components and we can do things to it. 00:36:24.660 --> 00:36:33.440 Like I would imagine that would be easier for lay people to get behind to understand and even get towards replicating and multiplying. 00:36:33.680 --> 00:36:35.940 Like is that what you've seen out of Community Christian? 00:36:36.300 --> 00:36:37.340 Yeah, I think you're on to it, Jeff. 00:36:37.480 --> 00:36:43.860 And I think one of the things that happened too, so our key metric at Community is discipleship now. 00:36:44.160 --> 00:36:46.120 And a lot of people say that, and that's good. 00:36:46.480 --> 00:36:51.740 But the way we actually measure it is what we call those three C's of celebrate, connect, and contribute. 00:36:51.820 --> 00:36:54.560 How many people are celebrating their relationship with God? 00:36:54.640 --> 00:36:56.440 How many people are connecting, doing life and community together? 00:36:56.500 --> 00:37:00.320 How many are contributing either inside our physical spaces or in their neighborhoods? 00:37:00.960 --> 00:37:06.600 And so whatever that number is, is by far the – that's way more important than attendance. 00:37:06.740 --> 00:37:08.000 That's way more important than offering. 00:37:08.100 --> 00:37:12.680 That's more important than anything because we feel like if we get that one right, everything else will follow. 00:37:13.140 --> 00:37:16.220 And I think – and I think maybe talking to you all has made me realize this. 00:37:16.260 --> 00:37:22.020 I think because that's how we define discipleship, these three C's, these three relationships. 00:37:22.340 --> 00:37:29.580 But it only – it's a very logical conclusion that when you bring a group of disciples together, that why would you define it any differently? 00:37:30.740 --> 00:37:34.060 That's what a church is, a group of disciples doing what disciples do. 00:37:34.360 --> 00:37:38.040 You know, Jesus is Lord, we're doing community together, and we're on mission. 00:37:38.540 --> 00:37:42.300 Yeah, my observation was similar, but maybe just a different angle. 00:37:42.660 --> 00:37:46.080 And I'm a, you know, a distant observer of community, right? 00:37:46.260 --> 00:37:49.560 I've never – I've been there, but, you know, I've never been apart, never lived in Chicago. 00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:54.860 But I've had the privilege of kind of following the story with occasional inside glimpses. 00:37:54.860 --> 00:38:02.340 And I think one of the things that I would say as an observation is the clarity of mission is exceptional. 00:38:03.200 --> 00:38:04.980 You know, I'm not a part of community. 00:38:05.200 --> 00:38:07.880 I know your mission is to help people find their way back to God. 00:38:09.340 --> 00:38:12.160 You know, how many people can name the mission of their church? 00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:18.080 Okay, I'm in the business, but still, like, that's just – you've made that crystal clear. 00:38:18.480 --> 00:38:26.720 But I think the other thing you've done is that's communicated in a way that that's not somehow community's mission. 00:38:27.220 --> 00:38:29.220 That's our collective mission. 00:38:29.940 --> 00:38:34.400 That's my mission and your mission and our mission, and we're all on it together. 00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:35.220 And with the clarity – 00:38:35.220 --> 00:38:37.800 Craig, I want to hug you right now. 00:38:38.020 --> 00:38:38.320 Yes. 00:38:38.980 --> 00:38:39.340 Yes. 00:38:40.720 --> 00:38:45.240 But with the clarity of those two things, then to come and say, hey, we're going to do digital. 00:38:45.360 --> 00:38:46.180 We're going to do micro. 00:38:46.320 --> 00:38:52.760 We're going to go into – like, if I get those two things, what would my points of resistance be? 00:38:53.860 --> 00:38:57.180 I mean, at worst, it's, okay, that's not for me, right? 00:38:57.460 --> 00:39:04.220 But where would I find the foundation for we as a church or those people should not be doing that? 00:39:04.280 --> 00:39:06.620 It doesn't – because of the clarity of those two things. 00:39:06.620 --> 00:39:20.520 And I think probably for many churches that have kind of in this season kind of been pushed into some different forms, pushed into digital oppression, pushed into microexpressions by external circumstances, 00:39:21.080 --> 00:39:30.260 in the absence of that as a core, then you get all kinds of chaos as you begin to move in that direction, 00:39:30.260 --> 00:39:36.940 and it's easy to place the blame on micro doesn't work or digital doesn't work, right? 00:39:37.220 --> 00:39:41.160 But at the end of the day, that's not where the root of the problem is. 00:39:41.560 --> 00:39:45.260 The root of the problem is back at the core of mission and strategy. 00:39:46.220 --> 00:39:51.760 And so if you're a gathered church and that's what you do and you want to go micro, you want to go digital, 00:39:51.900 --> 00:40:02.040 you're going to have to spend some time resetting people to mission and strategy that encompasses those things. 00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:04.200 It's just never going to work. 00:40:04.680 --> 00:40:08.100 And which trying to do that in the middle of a pandemic is a really hard thing to do. 00:40:08.280 --> 00:40:09.200 It's a hard thing to do anyway. 00:40:09.340 --> 00:40:17.300 Let me throw this out too, Craig and Jeff, maybe just kind of as a leadership tip to some of, maybe some of the leaders are going like, oh my gosh, now I feel frustrated. 00:40:17.520 --> 00:40:19.440 I don't, I'll never be able to do it. 00:40:20.380 --> 00:40:23.940 Well, here's, here's one of the things that maybe you remember this name, Craig, remember Lyle Schaller? 00:40:24.840 --> 00:40:25.160 Yep. 00:40:25.640 --> 00:40:25.920 Okay. 00:40:26.060 --> 00:40:32.840 So Lyle Schaller, he was a guy who wrote, wrote or authored probably a hundred books on church life in America. 00:40:32.920 --> 00:40:37.600 He used to tell me this, he would say, count the yes votes, count the yes votes. 00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:40.620 Or, or Bob Buford, Bob, Bob was a mentor of mine. 00:40:40.720 --> 00:40:41.720 Bob would always say this too. 00:40:41.780 --> 00:40:45.460 He'd say, work with the willing and with what wants to happen. 00:40:46.140 --> 00:40:51.100 So now, cause your listeners might get the impression like, wow, everybody at community is for this. 00:40:51.600 --> 00:40:53.080 This is, how does that happen? 00:40:53.480 --> 00:40:56.280 Well, I'm sure everybody at community isn't for it, but guess what? 00:40:56.320 --> 00:40:57.240 I didn't ask them. 00:40:58.960 --> 00:40:59.480 All right. 00:40:59.600 --> 00:41:02.700 And so what you do is count the yes votes. 00:41:02.800 --> 00:41:04.180 Who wants to go start a micro church? 00:41:04.260 --> 00:41:04.600 All right. 00:41:04.820 --> 00:41:05.580 We're going to invest. 00:41:05.640 --> 00:41:07.020 Cause we do, we'll do 10 weeks of training. 00:41:07.100 --> 00:41:10.120 We do 10 weeks of training and we'll give you, then we'll give you great coaching. 00:41:10.460 --> 00:41:12.740 And then we're going to also give you all our creative content. 00:41:12.860 --> 00:41:14.760 And we're going to, we're going to do this thing together. 00:41:15.100 --> 00:41:17.680 And so you count the yes votes or work with the willing. 00:41:18.220 --> 00:41:21.500 And I do believe, and I think that's why we're having this conversation, Jeff, because I think 00:41:21.500 --> 00:41:26.020 the digital, and I think the micro is something that is especially now more than ever wanting 00:41:26.020 --> 00:41:26.560 to happen. 00:41:27.020 --> 00:41:31.760 So, um, for any of your frustrated leaders out there, you don't have to get everybody on 00:41:31.760 --> 00:41:32.000 board. 00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:34.680 In fact, I mean, you remember the innovation curve. 00:41:34.980 --> 00:41:40.280 I mean, look for that top, that, that two or 3% of the, you know, the innovators and find 00:41:40.280 --> 00:41:44.060 those people in your church and just work with them to get this thing started and get 00:41:44.060 --> 00:41:46.380 some momentum and then, then we'll scale it. 00:41:46.380 --> 00:41:47.400 Kind of like what we're trying to do. 00:41:47.820 --> 00:41:48.100 Yeah. 00:41:48.100 --> 00:41:50.640 You probably remember my church playing mentor, Dean Pence. 00:41:51.280 --> 00:41:55.620 Um, I'm sure somewhere along the line, you met Dean and, um, his phrase was go with 00:41:55.620 --> 00:41:56.120 the goers. 00:41:56.700 --> 00:41:57.360 Same thing. 00:41:57.440 --> 00:41:57.700 Yes. 00:41:58.100 --> 00:42:01.520 So it's, it's all these different expressions that communicate the same thing. 00:42:01.520 --> 00:42:05.960 And, and I think back to where you started, you know, Steve Stroop's wisdom, another, you 00:42:05.960 --> 00:42:06.820 know, another great leader, right? 00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:12.580 That, you know, in fear sees crisis, faith sees opportunity. 00:42:13.240 --> 00:42:22.120 And if you're spending your time focused on the people who are in fear, you're going to 00:42:22.120 --> 00:42:23.060 be in perpetual crisis. 00:42:23.060 --> 00:42:29.220 And so you really have to make this decision, uh, to operate in faith and to, you know, 00:42:29.220 --> 00:42:34.380 go with the goers, work with the willing, uh, there is probably a place for pastoring and 00:42:34.380 --> 00:42:37.180 caring for, you know, people who are in fear. 00:42:37.260 --> 00:42:41.940 We don't, probably we'll get in trouble if we talk about, you know, completely ignoring 00:42:41.940 --> 00:42:46.140 them, but I don't think you want those people to drive the agenda, right? 00:42:46.940 --> 00:42:50.720 And a lot of them have prophetic gifts where, I mean, you know, pay attention to them because 00:42:50.720 --> 00:42:53.480 they're going to, because they'll ask the tough questions like, well, how are you going to 00:42:53.480 --> 00:42:54.060 pay for this? 00:42:54.640 --> 00:42:57.080 You know, I heard a phrase this way. 00:42:57.160 --> 00:43:00.680 We kind of like everybody to go, wow, but there's too many people that go, how? 00:43:02.740 --> 00:43:05.800 And I, I think you can, you can listen to the how question. 00:43:06.120 --> 00:43:08.800 You can listen to the how question and then go like, okay, that's good. 00:43:08.840 --> 00:43:10.020 I need to think about that. 00:43:10.060 --> 00:43:14.780 Cause I mean, I, I mean, I get an adrenaline rush every time we get a new idea. 00:43:14.900 --> 00:43:15.540 I love it. 00:43:15.940 --> 00:43:16.260 Okay. 00:43:16.420 --> 00:43:20.340 And I think, you know, a younger version of me would have just, I would have said, okay, 00:43:20.340 --> 00:43:21.700 we need to start a hundred of these right now. 00:43:21.700 --> 00:43:25.820 But I think the first two seasons that we start five and then five and then 10 and then 10, 00:43:25.920 --> 00:43:30.320 we'll get to a hundred within two or three years and it'll be freaking awesome. 00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:34.740 But I think asking some of these questions is, you know, so I think those people can also 00:43:34.740 --> 00:43:42.020 play an important part, but, but I would agree, uh, you know, the turning the ship, regardless 00:43:42.020 --> 00:43:43.880 of the size of the ship is never easy. 00:43:44.720 --> 00:43:52.400 Um, and you're recognizing that as a leader and, uh, you know, metaphorically, it's a lot 00:43:52.400 --> 00:43:58.020 easier to take a few adventurous people and put them in, you know, a little boat to go on an 00:43:58.020 --> 00:44:04.560 excursion, uh, and, you know, and support and encourage that, uh, without having to try 00:44:04.560 --> 00:44:05.500 and turn the whole ship. 00:44:05.500 --> 00:44:08.580 But then recognizing, you know, some of those, some of those are going to fail. 00:44:08.660 --> 00:44:11.280 Some of those experiments, some of those risks, they aren't going to work. 00:44:11.840 --> 00:44:12.420 That's okay. 00:44:12.920 --> 00:44:17.900 Uh, but the ones that do, like those people come back, they get back on the ship and man, 00:44:17.980 --> 00:44:23.260 they, they are so excited about what they've seen and what they've experienced that, you know, 00:44:23.260 --> 00:44:26.660 when the excursion wants to go out on the next time, right, there's twice as many people in 00:44:26.660 --> 00:44:28.920 line to go on that excursion, right? 00:44:29.020 --> 00:44:32.660 And then they come back and celebrate and pretty soon the whole ship is going that way. 00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:34.920 And I think sometimes we want to turn the ship 00:44:34.920 --> 00:44:39.700 before anybody wants to go to that new destination. 00:44:40.220 --> 00:44:42.940 And then we wonder why kind of the whole thing doesn't work. 00:44:43.400 --> 00:44:48.120 And you're describing a strategy that just from a leadership perspective, it makes much more 00:44:48.120 --> 00:44:48.440 sense. 00:44:48.540 --> 00:44:51.360 You've got some willing people support them, encourage them. 00:44:51.620 --> 00:44:56.100 I think the other thing too, we ought to do is, is also think of it, not just about your 00:44:56.100 --> 00:44:57.180 church, but about the kingdom. 00:44:57.520 --> 00:44:58.940 Like, so I've been doing this long enough. 00:44:59.020 --> 00:45:02.960 I remember when we first went multi-site like 20 years ago. 00:45:04.220 --> 00:45:08.500 And one of the first gatherings that Leadership Network ever had of multi-site leaders was 00:45:08.500 --> 00:45:09.860 at our, in Chicago. 00:45:10.500 --> 00:45:14.740 And so, you know, we're there, Life Church is there. 00:45:14.900 --> 00:45:19.660 I mean, you know, so, I mean, I kind of feel like, yeah, we were one of the first ones in. 00:45:20.360 --> 00:45:23.020 We didn't do it nearly as well as Life Church. 00:45:23.720 --> 00:45:24.560 And guess what? 00:45:24.920 --> 00:45:25.680 That's okay. 00:45:26.040 --> 00:45:27.720 And even this micro church thing, you know what? 00:45:28.080 --> 00:45:31.520 If we're one of the first large churches in the U.S. to give it a shot, and then everybody 00:45:31.520 --> 00:45:34.900 else kind of goes like, oh, well, Ferguson tried it. 00:45:34.960 --> 00:45:36.280 Let's try it, but make it better. 00:45:36.620 --> 00:45:37.400 That's awesome. 00:45:37.400 --> 00:45:38.400 That's freaking awesome. 00:45:38.660 --> 00:45:38.820 Right? 00:45:39.560 --> 00:45:43.160 So I think you have to have a little bit of that mindset too, going like, hey, we're all 00:45:43.160 --> 00:45:43.700 in this together. 00:45:43.820 --> 00:45:46.520 And if we screwed up the first time, then you make it better. 00:45:46.840 --> 00:45:47.460 That's awesome. 00:45:47.560 --> 00:45:48.080 That's great. 00:45:48.420 --> 00:45:54.500 I would go back and I would say that my earlier comment on innovation, I think that's a difficult 00:45:54.500 --> 00:46:01.620 mindset because one of the characteristics of true innovators at the end of the day is 00:46:01.620 --> 00:46:02.880 a willingness to fail. 00:46:02.880 --> 00:46:08.280 That they are okay with failure. 00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:13.440 It doesn't mean that I want to paint the picture like that innovators like failure or get excited 00:46:13.440 --> 00:46:14.280 about failure. 00:46:15.780 --> 00:46:17.020 But there's something about an innovator. 00:46:17.020 --> 00:46:22.600 But there's something about an innovator's mindset that recognizes that creating something 00:46:22.600 --> 00:46:27.200 new is going to come at the end of multiple failed experiments. 00:46:27.760 --> 00:46:32.220 And they're willing to endure the failures to get to the end. 00:46:33.780 --> 00:46:41.440 And there's far more people who are innovator or who are iterators who watch what the innovator 00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:45.260 does and say, oh, I could do that too. 00:46:45.680 --> 00:46:47.260 So that's what you just described. 00:46:47.360 --> 00:46:52.440 I mean, you have an innovator's mind, heart. 00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:56.420 That's the way you, you know, you are the way you've led community. 00:46:56.640 --> 00:46:58.180 And it's a great benefit to the kingdom. 00:46:59.660 --> 00:47:02.720 And so it just, we need those people. 00:47:02.820 --> 00:47:07.120 And in this season, we need even more of those people, whether on small scale or large scale 00:47:07.120 --> 00:47:10.080 to just go try things. 00:47:10.720 --> 00:47:12.440 A whole bunch of them aren't going to work. 00:47:12.600 --> 00:47:12.980 It's okay. 00:47:12.980 --> 00:47:17.900 You know, I mean, one of the things that has helped me on this, think about innovation. 00:47:19.480 --> 00:47:23.620 This is an old book, but it's a classic by Peter Drucker. 00:47:24.240 --> 00:47:26.500 And it's just basically, it's on innovation. 00:47:26.940 --> 00:47:30.700 And I was reading through it again, because the season, because he was not thinking about 00:47:30.700 --> 00:47:30.860 it. 00:47:31.160 --> 00:47:33.220 And he defines innovation a little different way. 00:47:33.660 --> 00:47:40.480 He says, innovation is the reallocation of resources from those things that are unproductive 00:47:40.480 --> 00:47:42.060 to those things that are productive. 00:47:42.980 --> 00:47:44.520 And all of a sudden, you're going, hold it. 00:47:45.820 --> 00:47:51.300 So innovation is just moving my energy and money from things that aren't working to things 00:47:51.300 --> 00:47:52.420 that you think might work. 00:47:52.840 --> 00:47:55.960 And when you do that, all of a sudden, you go like, hold it, I might be able to innovate. 00:47:57.480 --> 00:48:01.720 And he just, I mean, he wrote, again, a kind of a simplification of, oh, okay, so that's 00:48:01.720 --> 00:48:02.240 what it looks like. 00:48:02.280 --> 00:48:06.480 And so, I mean, we had a conversation, our lead team this meeting, because these 3C communities 00:48:06.480 --> 00:48:10.160 were going to launch, and we got a way now, I think, financially to make it scale. 00:48:10.460 --> 00:48:12.740 But it needs a little bit of cash to get it off the ground. 00:48:12.860 --> 00:48:13.960 So the guy came with a proposal. 00:48:14.180 --> 00:48:16.580 And so we're going, okay, we're going to take this money from here. 00:48:17.060 --> 00:48:18.920 And now we're going to put it into our 3C communities. 00:48:19.620 --> 00:48:22.660 And then you get on a podcast, and they call it innovation. 00:48:23.140 --> 00:48:23.720 Are you comfortable? 00:48:23.840 --> 00:48:28.560 I'm just curious, because we talk about pioneer, persevere, perish, you know, it's the same. 00:48:28.800 --> 00:48:31.080 If you're going to pioneer in some area, you got to kill something off. 00:48:31.520 --> 00:48:37.060 And so I can tell you, there's a number of churches that want to do this micro, this E3 00:48:37.060 --> 00:48:40.340 thing that's similar to what you're doing, excuse me, 3C thing that you're doing. 00:48:41.440 --> 00:48:42.160 What'd you kill? 00:48:42.620 --> 00:48:43.180 Can you say? 00:48:43.280 --> 00:48:44.280 Are you comfortable saying that? 00:48:44.280 --> 00:48:45.900 What did you stop doing? 00:48:46.220 --> 00:48:48.080 No, that's a great question, Jeff. 00:48:48.400 --> 00:48:51.840 And if my lead team was here, they'd go like, yeah, yeah. 00:48:52.020 --> 00:48:53.940 What did you stop doing, Dave? 00:48:56.260 --> 00:48:58.620 And I think there haven't been enough of those. 00:48:59.120 --> 00:49:01.200 But what you're saying is right. 00:49:02.140 --> 00:49:05.720 Okay, so I mean, I think that's not a strength. 00:49:05.820 --> 00:49:09.020 I kind of do like to hang on to some things, you know, because we thought of them. 00:49:09.280 --> 00:49:10.680 But I think you're absolutely right. 00:49:10.760 --> 00:49:11.760 So people are listening in. 00:49:11.920 --> 00:49:15.380 Yeah, if you're going to start doing these things, I think it is, especially if you're 00:49:15.380 --> 00:49:19.860 talking about reallocating resources, that means you're stopping doing some of these 00:49:19.860 --> 00:49:20.180 things. 00:49:20.600 --> 00:49:21.980 So you're still in the experimental phase. 00:49:22.020 --> 00:49:23.120 I didn't mean to put you on the spot. 00:49:23.320 --> 00:49:23.800 No, no, no, no. 00:49:23.800 --> 00:49:28.280 No, I think you make a really good point for the leaders listening, that if you're going 00:49:28.280 --> 00:49:30.060 to do this, it also means stopping some things. 00:49:30.420 --> 00:49:33.480 And I would just admit, I don't think I've done a great job of that yet. 00:49:33.700 --> 00:49:34.860 But that's, it's coming. 00:49:35.400 --> 00:49:40.860 Yeah, that would be another lesson I would say we learned in this season is, and this is, 00:49:40.860 --> 00:49:47.280 I think, Cotter, you know, that change is loss and thus change results in grief. 00:49:47.820 --> 00:49:51.760 And one of the things we realized in the season is that there were things church planners were 00:49:51.760 --> 00:49:56.300 losing, not by failure, not by, you know, poor planning, poor vision. 00:49:56.380 --> 00:50:01.060 They were losing them because the entire, you know, circumstance of the world had turned 00:50:01.060 --> 00:50:11.400 upside down and, um, the, to a certain extent, the better we could help them grieve what was 00:50:11.400 --> 00:50:19.380 lost, the, the better they were going to be at moving, you know, at adopting new and different 00:50:19.380 --> 00:50:25.140 and moving forward, uh, the worst thing to do is to get stuck in the grief of what was 00:50:25.140 --> 00:50:27.720 lost, uh, because then you're not going anywhere. 00:50:27.720 --> 00:50:31.940 And, and that, and, you know, anybody that's experienced grief in their life, nobody wants 00:50:31.940 --> 00:50:34.320 to live in grief. 00:50:34.320 --> 00:50:35.920 That's a terrible place to be. 00:50:36.440 --> 00:50:44.880 Uh, and so that, that's hard to just embrace that grief of the thing that's being lost, but 00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:49.280 that's part of what it takes to move forward. 00:50:49.640 --> 00:50:50.800 Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. 00:50:51.040 --> 00:50:53.200 Hey, yeah, this has been a solid conversation. 00:50:53.340 --> 00:50:53.620 I don't know. 00:50:53.680 --> 00:50:55.980 There's like nine books that I've written down here. 00:50:56.040 --> 00:50:57.580 We'll include all the links in the show notes. 00:50:58.020 --> 00:51:02.020 I'm going to do, do some digging into Cotter a little bit there to find the exact book for 00:51:02.020 --> 00:51:03.120 the quote, but we've got it all. 00:51:03.160 --> 00:51:03.540 It's fine. 00:51:03.640 --> 00:51:06.300 And nevermind all the name drops that have been happening in this podcast. 00:51:06.300 --> 00:51:07.740 It's really been an interesting run. 00:51:08.180 --> 00:51:12.160 Um, Hey, so Dave at with a community. 00:51:12.160 --> 00:51:14.660 So you're obviously very forward facing. 00:51:14.760 --> 00:51:15.460 You're very future. 00:51:15.600 --> 00:51:17.660 You're thinking multimodal four different approaches. 00:51:18.120 --> 00:51:22.380 Uh, I half wanted to ask you the question, Hey, if I wanted to plant a digital only expression 00:51:22.380 --> 00:51:24.060 of church, that would give you five. 00:51:24.160 --> 00:51:25.120 What would that process be? 00:51:25.180 --> 00:51:26.700 We'll, we'll talk off air about that. 00:51:26.800 --> 00:51:27.660 Maybe there's, let's do it. 00:51:27.720 --> 00:51:28.720 Let's do it. 00:51:28.760 --> 00:51:30.200 The answer is yes. 00:51:30.360 --> 00:51:31.200 The answer is yes. 00:51:31.740 --> 00:51:33.000 But let, let me ask this. 00:51:33.200 --> 00:51:37.120 Um, so, you know, there's a pastor that wants to go back to February, 2020, because 00:51:37.120 --> 00:51:38.880 February, 2020 was the golden age of church. 00:51:39.200 --> 00:51:40.580 Uh, we could side hug. 00:51:40.760 --> 00:51:44.680 You could hang out with people, shake hands, kiss babies, you know, that, 00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:47.300 that was like next to like Jesus second coming. 00:51:47.380 --> 00:51:48.480 That was the perfect time. 00:51:49.160 --> 00:51:51.940 Um, what advice would you give them? 00:51:52.560 --> 00:51:56.380 Um, I think, I think I'd probably hitchhike on what Craig said. 00:51:56.380 --> 00:52:02.740 Um, pastorally, I, if, if, if, if social distancing was an issue, I'd give him a hug. 00:52:04.180 --> 00:52:10.480 And then I'd say, you know, tomorrow is not going to be February of 2020. 00:52:11.100 --> 00:52:15.260 Tomorrow is going to be, you know, June of 2021. 00:52:15.540 --> 00:52:17.660 And here's what June of 2021 looks like. 00:52:18.280 --> 00:52:19.740 And I mean, it's interesting. 00:52:19.840 --> 00:52:20.580 I brought up Lyle Schaller. 00:52:20.680 --> 00:52:23.900 He used to actually always say that because Lyle was a futurist and his joke would always 00:52:23.900 --> 00:52:25.580 be this because he worked with lots of denominations. 00:52:25.700 --> 00:52:32.120 He'd say, well, if tomorrow is, you know, 1995, everything should be just fine. 00:52:33.560 --> 00:52:36.980 But it's not going to be, we, we can't go back. 00:52:37.760 --> 00:52:41.280 And, um, in some ways I think we were already were behind. 00:52:42.340 --> 00:52:46.000 And so I think it's forced all of us, especially what we're talking about digitally to catapult 00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:48.340 forward to the current reality. 00:52:48.760 --> 00:52:53.300 And, um, I mean, yeah, I think I help them work through that grieving process that Craig 00:52:53.300 --> 00:52:56.520 taught because they're just, they're just, they're missing the past and it's not coming 00:52:56.520 --> 00:52:56.860 back. 00:52:57.020 --> 00:52:57.960 Not the way it was. 00:52:58.680 --> 00:52:59.020 Awesome. 00:52:59.200 --> 00:53:03.840 Well, well said, uh, work on the grieving and mourning portion of it. 00:53:03.840 --> 00:53:09.460 You gotta, you gotta let go of, of models and realize maybe the end game is something 00:53:09.460 --> 00:53:12.440 different and embrace some new ideas. 00:53:12.560 --> 00:53:16.940 The, the idea of the innovation, um, going with the edge, you can't get everybody to buy 00:53:16.940 --> 00:53:21.580 in, but go with what you can set that example, celebrate, tell those stories, uh, and then 00:53:21.580 --> 00:53:24.780 let the others come along is, is, that's a beautiful picture. 00:53:25.020 --> 00:53:27.140 Well, gentlemen, thank you for this conversation. 00:53:27.360 --> 00:53:28.440 Uh, thank you for the time. 00:53:28.440 --> 00:53:33.580 Uh, I, I know, uh, it's, it's hard, um, believe me, it's hard to get you two together at the 00:53:33.580 --> 00:53:34.560 same time with schedules. 00:53:34.560 --> 00:53:37.380 And so I'm very appreciative of the limited time that we had. 00:53:37.480 --> 00:53:38.200 Dave Ferguson, sir. 00:53:38.260 --> 00:53:43.000 Thank you for, for joining on Craig, uh, once again, uh, it's, it's always a pleasure. 00:53:43.200 --> 00:53:44.780 Hey, thank you, Jeff, for what you're doing too. 00:53:44.800 --> 00:53:48.800 Cause I feel like in many ways you are kind of leading the charge in this conversation for 00:53:48.800 --> 00:53:49.900 the church here in North America. 00:53:49.900 --> 00:53:51.320 So keep it up. 00:53:51.440 --> 00:53:52.380 Dave, great to see you. 00:53:52.620 --> 00:53:53.240 Appreciate your leadership. 00:53:53.440 --> 00:53:53.880 Thanks, man. 00:53:54.100 --> 00:53:54.600 You too, Craig. 00:53:54.660 --> 00:53:54.960 See you, buddy. 00:53:55.140 --> 00:53:57.340 For, for Craig, for Dave, this is Jeff at the church. 00:53:57.340 --> 00:54:00.160 digital state insurance planning. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next time on the show. 00:54:00.340 --> 00:54:00.780 Y'all have a good day.