WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.260 butts in seats and nickels and noses we talk a lot about that right that's how we measure 00:00:04.260 --> 00:00:10.840 the successfulness of our churches is is that the right stat how is is it even antithetical 00:00:10.840 --> 00:00:17.700 is it wrong for us to measure the success of a church like is is that downgrading and degrading 00:00:17.700 --> 00:00:24.100 the act of the holy spirit involved with what's happening within our communities hey it's jeff 00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:29.700 here with the church digital podcast once again powered by stadia church planning this is one of 00:00:29.700 --> 00:00:35.940 those conversations again i i just want to sit back and listen and learn because we're bringing 00:00:35.940 --> 00:00:44.560 in a lot of brain power in here and the conversation as it goes was deep and very very impactful we're 00:00:44.560 --> 00:00:51.660 bringing in jared roth into the conversation now now jared is is a co-lead pastor of evergreen 00:00:51.660 --> 00:00:57.600 christian center in hillsborough oregon uh the guy's older and so he's getting ready to retire at some 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:06.500 point um crazy crazy bio like i'm looking here director of operations for dfw airport director 00:01:06.500 --> 00:01:14.340 of human resources for bush international airport in in houston uh vp of of southeastern university in 00:01:14.340 --> 00:01:21.400 lakeland florida this man's obviously very wise and he presents that way here in the podcast now what's 00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:28.020 fascinating and how i've connected with him is that he's actually as he's you know normally lead pastors 00:01:28.020 --> 00:01:33.640 are starting to like retire at this point he's gearing up and he actually started a a digital 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:40.420 research company called sprout digital because he is enthralled with this idea of a digital only church 00:01:40.420 --> 00:01:48.920 and is doing research towards helping towards research resourcing digital only churches he and 00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:54.120 his wife ann are phenomenal and and literally the wisdom that's coming out of this podcast i just had 00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:59.840 to stop several times and tell him thank you like my brain's exploding just off of hearing some of the 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:06.260 stuff that he's talking about and so bringing jared onto the conversation bringing on craig whitney as well 00:02:06.260 --> 00:02:13.800 once again vp planner development here with stadia church planting another wealth of wisdom craig planted 00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:21.020 a church when he was 26 years old i wanted to say jared planted a church when he was 23 like the wisdom 00:02:21.020 --> 00:02:26.740 and the experience coming out of this podcast is incredible and it's all centered around this one topic 00:02:26.740 --> 00:02:33.300 how do we measure success in a multimodal church i mean it's one thing to try to figure out how 00:02:33.300 --> 00:02:39.620 an individual church is successful but if we're really going to evaluate success within the big 00:02:39.620 --> 00:02:47.260 c church well how do we get everybody to agree on something how do we find measurements that work 00:02:47.260 --> 00:02:54.420 multimodal work with multiple models of church work with physical established churches mega giga work 00:02:54.420 --> 00:02:59.040 with multi-site churches work with small churches work with digital churches work with digital churches 00:02:59.040 --> 00:03:03.580 work with micro churches work with prison church i listen i can keep talking churches all day long 00:03:03.580 --> 00:03:09.120 but how do you get all those people on the same page and what's the role of the spirit in any of this 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:15.020 anyway these are just some of the conversations this is just some of the threads that we start to pull 00:03:15.020 --> 00:03:19.440 uh and i guarantee there's going to be a couple times in this podcast you're going to say 00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:23.380 oh wow never thought of that so here we are bringing into conversation jared 00:03:23.380 --> 00:03:28.540 roth from sprout digital craig whitney from stadia church planning and of course myself jeff with the 00:03:28.540 --> 00:03:33.440 church digital and stadia church planning in a conversation that i'm simply calling well maybe 00:03:33.440 --> 00:03:42.440 not so simply but measuring the ecclesiological success of a physical digital and or multimodal 00:03:42.440 --> 00:03:49.000 church that's a mouthful but it's worth it here y'all go well sprout digital really is the um 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:54.220 the outcome of what has been a whole lot of life and i'm embarrassed to tell how many years because 00:03:54.220 --> 00:04:01.480 that dates me but ann and i started a church when we were 23 six months after we were married and we 00:04:01.480 --> 00:04:10.020 were launched out of a local church that started 60 churches in 12 years and we just thought that 00:04:10.020 --> 00:04:15.200 kind of apostolic movement was just you know what a good church probably would do and of course we 00:04:15.200 --> 00:04:21.440 were uh we discovered later that it was not unique but it was unusual so church planning is very much a 00:04:21.440 --> 00:04:29.280 part of our formation and all across our life of uh of ministry roles and business we've always used 00:04:29.280 --> 00:04:36.600 those platforms as opportunities to advance church planting in some form or another uh at this point 00:04:36.600 --> 00:04:42.660 in our life we're asking ourselves the question what what project could we do for the next five years 00:04:42.660 --> 00:04:49.780 that could make a significant difference that could be completed in five years uh that would be toward 00:04:49.780 --> 00:04:55.240 the leading edge of what god is doing with church planting and could go away after five years and 00:04:55.240 --> 00:05:01.400 still have left a major contribution in its wake and sprout digital is the uh is the answer to that 00:05:01.400 --> 00:05:12.080 uh given our experience uh and our interests and our skills uh what space may there be in emerging church 00:05:12.080 --> 00:05:21.280 planting that we could uh answer to uh in some small but helpful way and as we look at our life and our 00:05:21.280 --> 00:05:27.960 skills we said you know it seems to be that this uh just wonderful emerging area that god is doing in 00:05:27.960 --> 00:05:36.200 church planting is digital and uh could we contribute our experience and research skills into that emerging 00:05:36.200 --> 00:05:43.420 environment and potentially make some research discoveries that people can take that data and 00:05:43.420 --> 00:05:51.160 knowledge and use in a wise way to advance and accelerate church planting especially in digital spaces 00:05:51.160 --> 00:05:57.260 it's it's it's fascinating for me right here and and i don't want to put an age on this but you're on this 00:05:57.260 --> 00:06:04.920 you're on the back half of life and you and your wife and like you're you're talking you're saying the word 00:06:04.920 --> 00:06:10.680 digital i i i'm always surprised when i meet people in that later generation and i really don't mean 00:06:10.680 --> 00:06:17.720 this to be ageist but typically people of that age aren't interested in digital why are what was the 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:25.320 impetus really to get you thinking digital well i uh and i will just out ourselves we're 65 and so when 00:06:25.320 --> 00:06:33.140 we think about a five-year project it's 65 to 70 and um and we kind of think this is the last big deal 00:06:33.140 --> 00:06:38.360 we're going to do before we play a lot we have lots of plans for the next 30 years after 70 so 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:45.000 that's that's filled space with dreams and we're going to totally goof off you all have a good time 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:54.200 this is our this is our hurrah yeah so um a couple of things one uh we really like to think of ourselves 00:06:54.200 --> 00:07:02.120 as lifelong learners and and we are both futurists and we're both strategists and we're both um maximizers 00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:11.560 on the strengths finders um and as a result of that we like to live in the future and so uh we've kind of 00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:20.280 been pulled along uh we also uh by calling and by practice um we like to develop leaders and so we 00:07:20.280 --> 00:07:27.320 hire young with the intention of sending out young uh the 94 year old church that we're currently leading 00:07:27.320 --> 00:07:33.160 sends out a pastor or a planter every year this year we're we're actually this summer we're planting 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:40.120 three churches we're having triplets this summer uh but we hire young so for example um just in the last 00:07:40.120 --> 00:07:48.200 six months we've hired a 20 year old worship pastor a 20 year old social uh media influencer to come and 00:07:48.200 --> 00:07:57.080 help us with various platforms uh our media um tech guy is 22 and he's a gamer and we hired him 00:07:57.080 --> 00:08:05.320 substantially because of his hobby interests um all that to say is that we we have intentionally 00:08:05.320 --> 00:08:11.560 surrounded ourselves with successive generations and now that we are aging boomers we're actually 00:08:11.560 --> 00:08:20.200 down three generations so we learn and stay fresh and simultaneously we get to continue to invest in 00:08:20.200 --> 00:08:26.840 the development of people in their late teens and early 20s and send them out often by their mid-20s 00:08:26.840 --> 00:08:32.040 into their first significant ministry leadership roles god bless you i'm looking forward to seeing 00:08:32.040 --> 00:08:38.840 triplet churches born of a 20 year old uh social media influencer i i honestly can't think of many 00:08:38.840 --> 00:08:45.240 people at that retirement age that are thinking that way so love kind of this idea of passing that that 00:08:45.240 --> 00:08:50.600 knowledge on but and by the way one of the reasons why i wanted craig in this conversation and 00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:55.240 honestly the impetus really started with with craig this is like the type of conversation that i'm 00:08:55.240 --> 00:09:00.920 going to like step back and and you guys are way smarter than me like there is a whole lot more 00:09:00.920 --> 00:09:06.040 knowledge not going ageist here but there's a whole lot more knowledge there that i really want to soak 00:09:06.040 --> 00:09:12.840 up and learn from as we're talking about this idea of um you know the the scoreboard what makes a 00:09:12.840 --> 00:09:18.600 successful church and and craig's put a lot of of energy and and thought into this which we'll get into 00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:23.080 and uh and jared i know some of the conversations that that that we've had sent around this have been 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:29.720 uh incredible as well so looking forward to digging into this um and and this is actually very similar 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:35.800 uh craig we just had a conversation with dave ferguson uh out of uh community community church 00:09:35.800 --> 00:09:41.160 and exponential and new thing and just all sorts of different things that that dave does and that 00:09:41.160 --> 00:09:46.600 was it was almost like the prerequisite to this conversation as we're talking about in that 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:51.400 conversation with dave ferguson just recently we'll put it into the show notes but it was this um the 00:09:51.400 --> 00:09:58.280 idea of all these different models all these different modes of church and and jared's talking about his 00:09:58.280 --> 00:10:04.360 triplets that he's working on here in 2021 dave out of communities got got four like i think it was a 00:10:04.360 --> 00:10:10.440 physical uh or excuse me i think there was a physical there was a broadcast there was a there was a prison 00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:17.080 and i think maybe a workplace was was the fourth well they're doing micro micro micro was the fourth not 00:10:17.080 --> 00:10:24.200 workplace and so like that was that was their therefore their four multimodals uh approaches 00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:32.280 towards church um and and kind of what the one of the challenges is is is how do we deem what is 00:10:32.280 --> 00:10:37.880 successful if we're going multimodal as we're going multimodal as we're doing these different 00:10:37.880 --> 00:10:44.760 models of churches you know i the the pre-covid and maybe it was a bad answer even before the 00:10:44.760 --> 00:10:51.320 nickels and noses really kind of is no longer effective uh butts in seats is is a is a nice 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:56.840 thing to look at from the stage but is is a horrible metric for the successfulness of what's happening 00:10:56.840 --> 00:11:01.400 with the church and and so craig you really started this conversation really spending some time working 00:11:01.400 --> 00:11:08.120 on on this document um speaking towards the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of church 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:12.120 and we've got links to the show notes and that is as well but craig maybe you want to open up just 00:11:12.120 --> 00:11:16.760 kind of talk about that maybe some of the things that you were wrestling through and and what that looks 00:11:16.760 --> 00:11:25.320 like sure uh well the reality is for stadia you know through 2018 uh maybe the beginning of 2019 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:33.160 we were planting physical churches um primarily churches that would have you know sunday gatherings 00:11:33.160 --> 00:11:39.560 you know what we sometimes call the typical or predominant model of church um in the united states and so 00:11:39.560 --> 00:11:45.880 because we had really the single model of church that we were helping to start then we had really 00:11:45.880 --> 00:11:50.680 adopted what have been the predominant metrics for those churches which were the nickels and noses and 00:11:50.680 --> 00:11:55.080 you know which you know how are they doing and how are they progressing but we began then to 00:11:55.960 --> 00:12:01.080 become multimodal ourselves in terms of the churches we were working with uh really around the same 00:12:01.080 --> 00:12:06.440 time jeff you you came on board and we began moving in this arena of digital only uh we formed a 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:10.600 partnership with uh casey underground with rob wagner and what they were doing to be on helping people 00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:17.320 start uh networks of micro churches and so all of a sudden these these metrics that we had been using 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:25.320 for our physical churches no longer applied in these two new modes and so as an organization how do we 00:12:25.320 --> 00:12:33.640 evaluate the uh effectiveness of these models and so uh it just became really clear for us that we 00:12:33.640 --> 00:12:38.360 needed to go back and rethink you know definition of church and we needed to go back and rethink 00:12:38.360 --> 00:12:47.240 definition of uh disciple and really on top of all that really come to a conclusion of what were some 00:12:47.240 --> 00:12:55.240 ways that we would measure the effectiveness of a new church that could then be um compared across 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:59.080 these models and i know that comparison is dangerous you know we tell church planters all 00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:04.520 the time you know uh don't compare you know because then then you're always comparing yourself to 00:13:04.520 --> 00:13:09.160 someone who is doing more and then you feel bad about yourself and about what god's doing in your 00:13:09.160 --> 00:13:14.680 context but i think for an organization like stadia there's a a stewardship responsibility in that 00:13:14.680 --> 00:13:21.240 comparison to say you know are we doing digital only just because it's new and novel are we doing digital 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:26.520 because we can demonstrate that it effectively makes disciples are we doing micro you know all of these 00:13:26.520 --> 00:13:33.880 things or where should our energy and our resources be focused um stadia has a huge vision you know our 00:13:33.880 --> 00:13:40.600 vision is that every child on the planet would have a church that's a lot of churches it's a lot of people a lot of 00:13:40.600 --> 00:13:49.960 children um and so just the idea of effectiveness is um really critical to the accomplishing of our 00:13:49.960 --> 00:13:54.680 mission and our vision that's why we're doing all these different models of church 00:13:55.800 --> 00:14:04.600 but we haven't yet really figured out how to effectively measure the effectiveness of each and so what i've 00:14:04.600 --> 00:14:10.840 created that you're going to share in the show notes um jeff is really more pointing out hey here's what 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:16.920 we've been doing and here's why it's broken here's some ideas of what we think is needed but we by no 00:14:16.920 --> 00:14:23.400 means are at the place of having an answer certainly not the answer uh we're really just hoping to 00:14:23.400 --> 00:14:29.000 begin to wrestle through with many of our partners and our planters uh with uh people like jared and 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:34.200 and and sprout digital what what are the answers to these questions and how do we identify them in a 00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:40.360 really useful way uh in order to facilitate our own efforts but also in order to help others that 00:14:40.360 --> 00:14:45.640 we're partnered with networked with and our church planters know hey are we being effective are we making 00:14:45.640 --> 00:14:55.240 disciples as um it's so i gotta i would imagine like trying to get commonality in language even that 00:14:55.240 --> 00:14:59.720 hey are we effective in making disciple you know there's a running joke here on on the show you line 00:14:59.720 --> 00:15:04.120 up 10 pastors you're going to get 12 definitions of what a disciple is because at least two of them 00:15:04.120 --> 00:15:10.520 aren't going to be sure they're going to give like how do we even start to maybe bring that together to 00:15:10.520 --> 00:15:17.080 get that that common agreement because if we're trying to evaluate successfulness or do we even need 00:15:17.080 --> 00:15:23.720 to evaluate successfulness for the big c church like how do we get agreement here on things like 00:15:24.280 --> 00:15:30.760 what a church is i know we wrestled with that with um uh with dave just recently or even what 00:15:30.760 --> 00:15:37.400 a disciple is how do we need to get the common ground uh well i you know i wrote in this paper and 00:15:37.400 --> 00:15:42.040 kind of that the ideal of getting to common ground and and jared and i have we've exchanged back and 00:15:42.040 --> 00:15:47.160 forth as kind of pointed out that my my hope is probably a little bit idealistic uh that the 00:15:47.160 --> 00:15:54.360 reality is when we look at centuries of church history uh there are a lot of definitions um and 00:15:54.360 --> 00:16:02.440 a lot of disagreements um a lot of divisions that have uh come over these things and it's probably uh 00:16:02.440 --> 00:16:07.800 unrealistic for us in this time to think that somehow we're going to overcome all of the human 00:16:07.800 --> 00:16:14.040 factors that have led to that in the past uh i do think though uh my hope would be that we 00:16:14.760 --> 00:16:22.360 can really help people at the minimum to find their own definitions i think the reality is 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:28.280 you would be very very surprised if you went to churches in america whether you you know talk to 00:16:28.280 --> 00:16:33.400 the pastor went to the church's board or elders or you know governing body and said hey what is the 00:16:33.400 --> 00:16:39.080 definition your church uses of disciple to determine whether or not a person who is connected with your 00:16:39.080 --> 00:16:45.240 congregation is or isn't a disciple of jesus and unfortunately in the vast majority of cases 00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:51.720 people would simply look at you with a blank stare um they actually have no idea so it's not the fact 00:16:51.720 --> 00:16:59.320 that a common definition is missing it's really much more the fact that there's no definition at all and so 00:16:59.320 --> 00:17:06.440 we're not you know even an individual church is very rarely working towards a very specific definition 00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:11.320 of hey we've made a disciple we were joking off air before probably you're probably all the stuff you're 00:17:11.320 --> 00:17:16.920 going to cut out jeff um about coffee because i'm a coffee snuff well imagine if i'm going to start a 00:17:16.920 --> 00:17:22.120 coffee shop right and i have no definition of what a good cup of coffee is 00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:30.440 i'm serving one person water and another person grounds like it's just like it's all over the map 00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:36.360 yet we have lots of churches whose you know mission is to make disciples but can't even define 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:45.800 when they've done that um and so common definition probably pretty idealistic um individually owned 00:17:45.800 --> 00:17:51.960 definitions absolutely necessary um if we're going to accomplish the work that jesus gave us to do 00:17:51.960 --> 00:17:58.200 jared you're launching twin by the way don't say starbucks to to craig like when he says coffee it's 00:17:58.200 --> 00:18:03.480 it's not it's not starbucks i mean that's the only thing guaranteed to be endlessly harassed 00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:09.080 yeah yeah that's that that's fine moving on jared like and i'm curious here because you're launching 00:18:09.080 --> 00:18:16.440 triplets uh at at 65 that's that's that's way too old to have triplets but good for you um talk to me 00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:23.880 here like what's the what's the common like are you evaluating with these triplets come commonality 00:18:23.880 --> 00:18:29.800 like how are you finding common ground among these different models and in types of church oh it's 00:18:29.800 --> 00:18:36.520 such a great question and i'll tell you we are in a royal mess and the answer is no we are just we 00:18:36.520 --> 00:18:43.160 are messing or we're swimming in mud here and we love it um in fact let me complicate it 00:18:43.160 --> 00:18:48.520 exponentially in addition to the triplets each of which are in a very different model i think i may 00:18:48.520 --> 00:18:53.640 have may have mentioned their physical uh one is a hybrid micro and the third one is digital in 00:18:53.640 --> 00:19:01.880 addition to that our 94 year old congregation is fidgetal so we don't even know how to measure 00:19:01.880 --> 00:19:08.840 our results for the existing congregation that is dramatically morphing and now and as far as we 00:19:09.560 --> 00:19:16.200 project will indefinitely into the future have far more people online than will in person 00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:24.520 um none of the old creaky metrics uh worked well then and they certainly don't work now so honestly 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:31.240 you know as practitioners we're right in the middle of four simultaneous experiments one of them just 00:19:31.240 --> 00:19:38.840 happens to be 94 years old as we are sorting our way through and what we're noticing is um just 00:19:38.840 --> 00:19:44.440 preliminarily and by the way i wish i had answers i'm so far from that i'm just asking finding out some 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:50.760 better questions to ask right which i guess in some theories is 80 success if you have that question to find 00:19:51.720 --> 00:19:57.160 so i'm feeling good about that uh but one of our questions is what do the what do the three daughter 00:19:57.160 --> 00:20:04.920 churches have uh that are distinct in terms of metrics and then what do they have in common 00:20:06.280 --> 00:20:14.440 and we think that if we can among those three malleable baby churches find out what they have in common 00:20:15.320 --> 00:20:23.640 that that may be the most effective way to inform what the 94 year old digital church can use to define 00:20:23.640 --> 00:20:33.960 itself moving forward it's much easier for us to think clean slate brand new baby we're forming this thing 00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:41.880 we're architects and to come up with some metrics in this new environment than to look at 94 years of 00:20:41.880 --> 00:20:49.400 history and and so bound to the old metrics to have to do the change management thinking to actually 00:20:49.400 --> 00:20:54.680 get free to think about what are the new ways to measure this congregation going forward we're going 00:20:54.680 --> 00:21:01.320 to benefit from the babies and pick up dna from them okay so my brain just exploded i'm i'm totally 00:21:01.320 --> 00:21:08.440 expecting you know and and maybe it's you know just the the decade of multi-site you got to get it from 00:21:08.440 --> 00:21:14.840 the mothership you got to create the good dna and then pass it from you know the the the middle 00:21:14.840 --> 00:21:21.320 hub down to the spokes you know whatever your analogy is uh you just flip the script on it where where 00:21:21.320 --> 00:21:30.040 you're finding healthy practices not with uh 94 years worth of established church you're finding healthy 00:21:30.040 --> 00:21:37.160 practices with with the new plants with the with the the the the things that are are free to run and then 00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:44.120 you're you're going to pass that up into the the established 94 year old church that that's incredible 00:21:44.120 --> 00:21:52.760 yeah i mean i commend that jared and and it makes a ton of sense i realize jeff it's not what's common 00:21:52.760 --> 00:22:00.280 uh but if you if you if you really pay attention to innovation you know read study innovation innovation 00:22:00.280 --> 00:22:07.960 always happens at the edges um it it doesn't happen in the old established um you know you know 00:22:08.840 --> 00:22:12.360 companies if they want to you know establish companies that they want to innovate they got 00:22:12.360 --> 00:22:17.640 to create skunk works you know because innovation is just it gets squashed in this large thing and so 00:22:18.360 --> 00:22:23.720 uh yeah i i mean that's super exciting and it actually it to me it makes a lot of sense a lot 00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:30.280 of people just aren't willing to take the risk of of giving those you know those three babies and 00:22:30.280 --> 00:22:36.600 in your case probably some you know leaders who in fact are much younger and much less experienced and 00:22:36.600 --> 00:22:42.120 much less wise than you are i mean let's just call it what it is right you know i i love getting to 00:22:42.120 --> 00:22:46.440 meet jaron and ed because you planted a church when you were 23 mandy and i my wife planted when we were 00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:53.000 26 you're one of the few people i know who were younger than we are we were idiots when we planted a 00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:00.920 church we we knew like we had no idea what we were doing uh but you know we learned a lot and and you 00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:06.520 know your your three you know baby churches are going to learn a lot and and not just for their own 00:23:06.520 --> 00:23:12.760 benefit but for the benefit of the larger whole and it's such a great uh perspective to not just allow 00:23:12.760 --> 00:23:18.200 that to happen but to enable it and to be very intentional about it we're trying to adopt a 00:23:18.200 --> 00:23:24.040 similar mindset at stadia in which we're recognizing more and more that innovation is being created by 00:23:24.040 --> 00:23:30.200 our church planners um you know stadia is really sees ourselves as innovators but at the end of the 00:23:30.200 --> 00:23:37.720 day we're we're accelerators of innovation not creators of innovation um we have this privilege 00:23:37.720 --> 00:23:41.880 to work with hundreds of church planners who are creating new expressions of church and new ways of 00:23:41.880 --> 00:23:48.840 making disciples uh and many of them are being innovative um are identifying new strategies new 00:23:48.840 --> 00:23:56.600 methods new ideas um jared will realize this we and i can both date ourselves you know and in our early 00:23:56.600 --> 00:24:04.200 ministry careers to find out about what some innovative pastor or church or organization did they had to do 00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:10.600 it the church had to grow to be a mega or giga church the the pastor then had to write a book about 00:24:10.600 --> 00:24:15.000 it they then had to get invited to speak at a conference and then jared and i would get to show 00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:22.040 up and hear about it the problem was by the time that happened whatever the innovation was was no longer 00:24:22.040 --> 00:24:27.960 innovative and really not had already lost its you know freshness and relativeness to what was needed 00:24:27.960 --> 00:24:32.760 and so for us we're looking at it as the ability to say hey there's an innovative idea 00:24:32.760 --> 00:24:41.320 and we can spread that through this ecosystem tomorrow not five years from now when the book is written 00:24:41.320 --> 00:24:47.560 and you know the conference is hosted and all of those things and and so that's really just kind of 00:24:47.560 --> 00:24:54.920 that role of accelerating innovation that that i think is a a critical piece again in an environment 00:24:54.920 --> 00:25:00.280 that this that's just rapidly changing but that also comes back to kind of to bring it back to the 00:25:00.280 --> 00:25:08.040 topic jeff that that's the need for better metrics right is when we look at that innovative idea that one 00:25:08.040 --> 00:25:13.480 of our planners has are we like oh it's a great just because it you know whatever it just it's like hey 00:25:13.480 --> 00:25:20.440 we've never it's new it's novel it's interesting or is it a is it really a not just a new idea is it 00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:28.120 really a better idea because somehow it's contributing to disciple making in a more effective manner than 00:25:28.120 --> 00:25:34.920 what others have been doing um instead of this new way i mean let's let's call it out for what it is 00:25:34.920 --> 00:25:40.600 um nickels and noses um nickels and noses we're joking about it earlier but what's the where does 00:25:40.600 --> 00:25:48.040 that fall short because i or does it like the the view of of how many people are attending a physical 00:25:48.040 --> 00:25:54.280 service how many people are allegedly watching a service online online metrics can be squirrely 00:25:54.280 --> 00:25:59.880 sometimes we've talked about that previously um the the amount of money that's coming in the amount of 00:25:59.880 --> 00:26:05.960 of money for an organization people that are willing to contribute to uh they're bought in 00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:13.000 at the level like some of these things i i think are are grounded in in in truth and instability but 00:26:13.720 --> 00:26:19.480 but is it is that good is there other things like what's the struggle with this idea of the 00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:26.520 nickels and noses being the the metric that we're evaluating well i uh um probably have a contrarian 00:26:26.520 --> 00:26:34.280 point of view on those i actually applaud nickels and noses so i've decided i've decided to uh to 00:26:34.280 --> 00:26:40.280 redeem that in this sense uh and this is a helpful model for us this is old language but it's it's 00:26:40.280 --> 00:26:49.160 still helpful um cause community and corporation and to think about the local church as a cause as a 00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:56.360 community as a community as a corporation and um in the venn diagram you want the sweet spot where all three 00:26:56.360 --> 00:27:05.240 of those are equally contributing to create a core that is institutionally sound that is relationally 00:27:05.240 --> 00:27:12.920 healthy and that is missional in its cause effectiveness so uh we're using that language with 00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:21.160 with the babies and with uh with the mother fidgetal church to find areas of commonality and areas of 00:27:21.160 --> 00:27:32.840 difference so as it relates to corporation um nickels and noses is a legitimate and helpful corporate 00:27:32.840 --> 00:27:42.600 metric now when it comes to how many people and where are they and how much money should they generate for 00:27:42.600 --> 00:27:51.320 what budget that is entirely model specific so the digital church will have a very different corporate 00:27:51.320 --> 00:27:59.880 set of needs than the physical church plan and the mother fidgetal church has a distinct set of corporate 00:27:59.880 --> 00:28:10.600 needs because of the model so the commonality is that we have a legal corporate organizational design that design 00:28:11.800 --> 00:28:20.600 takes time effort and money and and being a good uh steward of those resources means that we are 00:28:20.600 --> 00:28:23.560 going to measure things that look like time effort and money 00:28:25.800 --> 00:28:32.600 but we also must measure the cause of course and by the way i think in these four little experiments 00:28:32.600 --> 00:28:37.480 that we're doing the mother church and the three babies i think the cause is going to have the 00:28:37.480 --> 00:28:45.080 the closest alignment disciple making but when it comes to community and how we measure community among 00:28:45.080 --> 00:28:53.560 these four very different venues we're probably going to have different metrics that suggest as kpis or 00:28:53.560 --> 00:29:02.040 key performance indicators uh at best approximate or they success suggest success i think that these four 00:29:02.040 --> 00:29:09.960 four churches are going to have very different kpis for community health measurement because their venues 00:29:09.960 --> 00:29:15.000 are so different yeah i i don't know that i'm in that much different place than you are jared i have 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.960 a little maybe a different twist or perspective but i think the problem with nickels and noses 00:29:19.960 --> 00:29:24.680 isn't that we count nickels and noses i mean the problems with nickels and noses is that we assign the wrong 00:29:24.680 --> 00:29:32.360 meaning to those measures uh in you know your description of corporation if you've built a 00:29:32.360 --> 00:29:39.320 structure that requires dollars whatever other global context you're in marks for x pounds you know 00:29:39.320 --> 00:29:45.160 whatever it is uh in order to function well then you probably need to count how many of those you have 00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:50.920 right right but but they're not a measure of the success or the effectiveness of your church in making 00:29:50.920 --> 00:29:57.320 disciples this help you understand what are the financial resources that you have and the 00:29:57.320 --> 00:30:02.840 sustainability of various activities and so forth so how in the world could you not count nickels if 00:30:02.840 --> 00:30:08.760 nickels you know are a part of your model of sustenance you have to and i would say the same thing about 00:30:08.760 --> 00:30:15.320 attendance it's not um it's not that even you know a physical church that gathers should never count how 00:30:15.320 --> 00:30:20.520 many people are there i always say if you don't know if you aren't counting how many people are there and you 00:30:20.520 --> 00:30:23.640 don't have any idea how many people are going to be you know how do you know how big a room you need 00:30:23.640 --> 00:30:27.800 how many seats it should have you know how many cups of coffee you should make how many children's 00:30:27.800 --> 00:30:35.160 volunteers you should have like you have to count uh but from my perspective um i've tended to use kind 00:30:35.160 --> 00:30:44.600 of um mission strategy tactics as layers of metrics and so you know tactical metrics are things like 00:30:44.600 --> 00:30:50.120 hey how many cups of coffee did we you know in cups and napkins right because we need to make sure 00:30:50.120 --> 00:30:54.440 that we have enough of those if we're in a physical space i don't know what exactly the comparison would 00:30:54.440 --> 00:30:58.920 be that could be just bandwidth or seats or something in a digital environment right if we 00:30:58.920 --> 00:31:05.320 run out of that well you know tactically right we haven't planned very well and so those are things 00:31:05.320 --> 00:31:10.920 that should be counted for that reason um there are strategic measures you know in a gathered church 00:31:10.920 --> 00:31:17.800 people coming on a sunday morning is a key part of the strategy and so i would want to count it because 00:31:17.800 --> 00:31:22.120 it would inform you about hey what are you know is that piece of our strategy moving forward or going 00:31:22.120 --> 00:31:27.800 backwards the problem is when that's even when that's part of our strategy the simple fact that 00:31:27.800 --> 00:31:33.800 people are in a seat doesn't answer our mission question which are they which is are they becoming 00:31:33.800 --> 00:31:39.960 a disciple and so it's not that we need to throw out nickels and noses it's that we need to apply 00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:45.960 nickels and noses appropriately and really from my perspective the problem is that the mission metric 00:31:45.960 --> 00:31:55.000 is missing and because it's missing we're relying on the strategic and tactical metrics to answer 00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:00.840 questions they were never designed to answer i think that's so helpful craig and entirely and i i think 00:32:00.840 --> 00:32:10.360 that uh in our experience uh the disruption of the pandemic and our our evolution or transformation toward 00:32:10.360 --> 00:32:16.840 fidgetal uh with with great help from stadia and being a part of a fidget cohort our team just continues to 00:32:16.840 --> 00:32:24.920 benefit so much from that that that in our experience uh it really did indicate to us that things that we used to 00:32:24.920 --> 00:32:31.160 feel good about i don't know that we celebrated them that we felt good about them which were those 00:32:32.040 --> 00:32:38.600 very corporate metrics uh it was the annual report it's what the annual video of the church so much of 00:32:38.600 --> 00:32:44.200 it you know did have to do with that the denominational reporting that we do etc we were so comfortable 00:32:44.200 --> 00:32:50.120 with these because all of them indicated that we tended to be growing right by the way if your metrics 00:32:50.120 --> 00:32:54.600 aren't increasing change the metrics right you just change the basis every organization does it just 00:32:54.600 --> 00:33:00.920 change the basis it's awesome you know this year we're yeah but having said that it really revealed 00:33:00.920 --> 00:33:07.240 us that uh that those were inefficient uh ineffective one of the things that's uh of course uh this is 00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:12.040 obvious but i just want to state it that we're so aware of when you read through the new testament 00:33:12.920 --> 00:33:21.480 we do find numbers so there's there's quantitative data in the new testament it tends to be around how 00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:29.080 many people showed up or it tends to be descriptive of the relational size of a particular group 00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:37.720 so jesus had the multitudes he had the 70 he had the 12 he had the three he had the one well 00:33:38.520 --> 00:33:47.160 those are social group descriptions that uh sociological study has indicated for us have very particular 00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:53.640 dynamics and those social sizes are very good for certain kinds of experiences right but when it 00:33:53.640 --> 00:34:01.480 comes to the metrics of discipleship in the new testament in my reading we have vague approximations 00:34:02.520 --> 00:34:12.760 certainly we don't have quantifications so we have some qualifying statements these are qualities of an 00:34:12.760 --> 00:34:21.560 one elder uh there's 100 references to one another's in the bible uh 59 specific applications for commands to 00:34:21.560 --> 00:34:29.960 do or not to do so but those are behavioral they're not even qualitative they're actually process items 00:34:30.760 --> 00:34:38.120 that apparently if you're in that kind of environment indicate the likelihood of growing maturing 00:34:38.120 --> 00:34:45.560 discipleship but even the one another's are not directly connected to the outcome of discipleship 00:34:46.200 --> 00:34:52.120 so i'm not arguing at all against i am all in on helping come up with metrics i think it's 00:34:52.120 --> 00:34:58.680 critical for us but i'm just wanting to acknowledge that um that you know my preference and probably for 00:34:58.680 --> 00:35:04.200 many of us our preference is to go to scripture and say we're we're measuring this because we have this 00:35:04.200 --> 00:35:12.520 example and again in my reading of scripture it's process oriented qualitatively described 00:35:13.720 --> 00:35:24.200 and almost never counted and so our our challenge is to how are we going to measure approximations 00:35:25.240 --> 00:35:34.520 that may indicate that there is discipleship making success a metaphor that's helpful for me as uh is an fmri 00:35:36.280 --> 00:35:44.920 an fmri actually measures blood vessels and increased blood flow in the brain it's believed that 00:35:44.920 --> 00:35:55.000 those blood vessels are uh proximate to neural pathways so the fmri which says we're measuring 00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:04.600 neural activity and taking images of that is actually measuring blood flow and inferring neural activity 00:36:05.800 --> 00:36:13.880 and so it's that kind of approximation of health that i think uh will will want to discover and 00:36:13.880 --> 00:36:19.480 probably have to be satisfied with measuring oh as i think one of the i agree with with what you're 00:36:19.480 --> 00:36:22.760 saying and i think it's a super insightful chart but i think one of the challenges when we think about 00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:31.080 those we think about one another's um there's a challenge for us in that um we can't create what 00:36:31.080 --> 00:36:36.440 we could but if we create every one of those one another's is the standard definition of disciple 00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:44.920 um a little self revelation here you know the fruits of the spirit love joy peace patience like i'm in 00:36:44.920 --> 00:36:53.240 in trouble because i am a very impatient person um still does that mean that i am not a disciple of 00:36:53.240 --> 00:37:00.520 jesus because that piece of my character is still being formed right does that prove that i'm not a 00:37:00.520 --> 00:37:08.920 disciple and so there is this inclusionary exclusionary kind of thing as well that we look at and so it it 00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:16.680 complicates it because even as we you know unwieldy as a hundred point checklist would be the reality is 00:37:16.680 --> 00:37:23.000 probably all of us would agree that that can't be the standard because no one can check all 100 of the 00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:29.320 boxes uh and so i think that's the i think that's part of why many people don't have that definition is 00:37:30.040 --> 00:37:35.960 you know we we really in many ways need to make it as small and simple as possible like what are the 00:37:35.960 --> 00:37:41.800 absolute essentials but whenever we begin to have that conversation everybody wants to add another 00:37:41.800 --> 00:37:48.120 essential and by the time we're done we're back to the 100 point checklist that no one can live up to 00:37:48.840 --> 00:37:57.400 and and so we kind of my observation so then we give up on the exercise um and and we just persist with 00:37:57.400 --> 00:38:04.760 substituting inadequate measures rather than to really wrestle through and come to the kinds of 00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:11.560 definition and understanding that would allow us to say hey there's a person who's a disciple of jesus who 00:38:12.360 --> 00:38:20.440 last year you know five years ago whatever was not that is the accomplishment of our mission um and 00:38:20.440 --> 00:38:28.040 somehow we have to be able to do that in a with some level of confidence well the futurist here uh 00:38:28.040 --> 00:38:32.280 wants to go out and play in the future for a minute and so let me share my my preference 00:38:33.320 --> 00:38:40.520 um and my expectation actually it's a prediction and then i'll come back as the practitioner and and 00:38:40.520 --> 00:38:47.720 talk about how i help to contribute uh short term to this long-term issue by the way i think that we 00:38:47.720 --> 00:38:57.160 are in a reformation of the church uh i think that this is wildly turbulent i think that church is going 00:38:57.160 --> 00:39:06.680 to be dramatically changed on the other side so i'm exposing my own belief that this uh this season uh is the 00:39:06.680 --> 00:39:18.040 dawn of a a reformation of the church that in many respects will be as um as dramatic as the reformation 00:39:18.040 --> 00:39:23.720 uh in the 1500s so given that background and maybe i'm way overstating it but that's my frame of reference 00:39:23.720 --> 00:39:30.360 given that background i i then look to other social groups and i'm asking the question how are they 00:39:30.360 --> 00:39:37.640 dealing with this so i look to business um reading books for example work disrupted recently published 00:39:37.640 --> 00:39:45.480 by jeff schwartz uh who is an esteemed leader in the field of work internationally learning from from 00:39:45.480 --> 00:39:53.320 him how is work being reconstructed and how how is work being redefined and how is effective work being 00:39:53.320 --> 00:39:58.600 remeasured so there's the business community that informs us secondly uh there's the educational 00:39:58.600 --> 00:40:06.440 community and transformation and education is not uh as far advanced in my opinion yet as work is but it 00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:14.040 will be because uh there be educators are forced to create metrics for a whole variety of reasons and i and 00:40:14.040 --> 00:40:20.360 and i look to uh to business and to education primarily because those are the two social 00:40:20.360 --> 00:40:26.920 institutions that the church is primarily modeled itself after so we're built on the small business 00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:33.160 model that's how we do church especially in the west and we educate people in graduated systems 00:40:33.160 --> 00:40:41.160 and groupings that are modeled after educational theory and philosophy and what i'm discovering uh in those two 00:40:41.160 --> 00:40:47.800 environments uh is is that big data is 00:40:50.040 --> 00:40:57.240 one of the if not the most helpful source of information and so uh here's the here's the little 00:40:57.240 --> 00:41:01.720 fun about the future and then i'll come back to the present uh i noticed that and i've been playing 00:41:01.720 --> 00:41:07.640 a bit with uh i think it's casey underground um participants there uh do a lot of their work on the app 00:41:08.840 --> 00:41:16.440 and that app allows a person to self-report her experience and so she's reporting process and 00:41:16.440 --> 00:41:23.560 engagement experience let's assume that she is also asked to report subjective experience 00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:34.360 in this last year your goal has been to grow in patience give us three examples of how you intentionally 00:41:34.360 --> 00:41:42.200 engaged in developing that christ-like virtue in your life subjective reporting so here's my here's my 00:41:42.200 --> 00:41:51.560 dream in in 10 years most christians are engaged on apps they are self-reporting their experience 00:41:52.520 --> 00:42:03.160 objective behavioral and subjective a sense and that that is rolling up into big data information for us to 00:42:03.160 --> 00:42:12.360 manage and manipulate and learn from just as big data is in many helpful ways using this individually 00:42:12.360 --> 00:42:20.680 generated piece into these billions of bits of information and so the the futurist in me says 00:42:22.280 --> 00:42:29.960 individual self-reporting are going to be the primary source of information from which we gather data that we 00:42:29.960 --> 00:42:38.120 develop knowledge and then apply with wisdom there's a lot there um thank you for all those words let me 00:42:38.120 --> 00:42:45.240 let me ask because we're saying words that i don't typically hear in in context of of discipleship we're saying 00:42:45.800 --> 00:42:52.280 big data we're saying small business model uh we're saying a hundred point checklist which i know was kind of tongue-in-cheek 00:42:53.160 --> 00:43:01.000 that's strategic data informed what what's the role of the holy spirit in this like i mean out of context 00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:07.800 i i i and and i've had conversations with some of my organic friends that that are allergic to a lot of 00:43:07.800 --> 00:43:14.360 the things that we've just said and it's hey we need to be following the spirit and not everything we just said 00:43:14.360 --> 00:43:22.520 um how do how do we respond to that like what's what's the role of the spirit in in context of of this conversation 00:43:22.520 --> 00:43:26.840 i guess i'll i'll go first jared's probably gonna have a better answer than i do but uh from my 00:43:26.840 --> 00:43:39.800 expect perspective i would say um cause and effect is critical um and so if we believe that um the user 00:43:39.800 --> 00:43:45.720 of that app who you know is reporting her progress or you know the the work that she's doing around 00:43:45.720 --> 00:43:52.840 growing in patients and you know all of those things if we think that it is the app or the reporting or 00:43:52.840 --> 00:43:56.680 you know any of those things that is causing her transformation we're 00:43:59.240 --> 00:44:05.080 i mean we are now over i mean we are no longer making disciples of jesus we we are now over here 00:44:05.080 --> 00:44:12.200 in a humanistic driven um self-improvement model whatever title label you would want to give it the the 00:44:12.200 --> 00:44:23.240 the premise of um discipleship the premise of you know human transformation in the new testament is 00:44:23.240 --> 00:44:31.320 that it is only made possible um by the redemption that comes in jesus through jesus and the transformation 00:44:31.320 --> 00:44:39.240 that is empowered by the holy spirit those things are causes what we're talking about is how do we 00:44:39.240 --> 00:44:49.800 measure effect um and if the cause is exists then then it should be evidenced by the effect so it's 00:44:49.800 --> 00:44:56.760 not a denial of the role of the holy spirit it's just recognizing that and again i go back to the 00:44:56.760 --> 00:45:01.960 fruits of the spirit right you know the fruit of the spirit is not some ethereal awareness that the 00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:08.200 spirit is there i'm not saying that doesn't exist so don't don't someone you know send me hate mail 00:45:08.200 --> 00:45:15.960 you know but all i'm saying is you know what craig dot whitney at stadia church planning dot org but what 00:45:17.640 --> 00:45:24.120 the holy spirit inspired paul to write was that the fruit of the spirit are these observable 00:45:24.120 --> 00:45:34.200 characteristics in a person's life um fruit um and so you know in the same way that we can't really see 00:45:34.200 --> 00:45:44.600 um you know the the biological mechanisms inside of a tree or a plant that causes the fruit to to exist 00:45:44.600 --> 00:45:49.560 we see the fruit and we pick it and we taste it and it tastes good and like it's supposed to say well 00:45:49.560 --> 00:45:58.040 that's a healthy tree right and so it's just i think sometimes i guess for me i would just say i understand 00:45:58.040 --> 00:46:06.840 kind of the concern and i understand the danger in these measures of making going too far and making 00:46:06.840 --> 00:46:14.040 them the cause but when i hear what jared's describing i don't hear a the holy spirit doesn't 00:46:14.040 --> 00:46:21.480 have a role i hear there are these things that would allow us to and i think the self-report is important 00:46:21.480 --> 00:46:28.200 to to to gather the evidence that a person is self-reporting about what the holy spirit is 00:46:28.200 --> 00:46:32.520 accomplishing in their life and in the same way that we would taste the fruit and say it's good and the 00:46:32.520 --> 00:46:37.720 tree is healthy we would observe the fruit and we would say it's good and thus you know the holy spirit 00:46:37.720 --> 00:46:45.480 is present and the person is healthy i think that i think about um our uh my marriage with ann 00:46:45.480 --> 00:46:55.560 um i think that um the substance of our years together has produced uh what is a wonderful relationship 00:46:57.400 --> 00:47:07.400 to measure it uh to describe it by quality to even describe it by um effort that we make on working 00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:14.520 on it to describe the context of life that we've put ourself in to talk about our personal budget 00:47:15.800 --> 00:47:22.120 does nothing to take from the substance of the spirit of the relationship it simply 00:47:23.560 --> 00:47:26.520 is an effort to describe it from different points of view 00:47:28.280 --> 00:47:36.040 my and this is a theological conviction my conviction is that there's very little that we can do to thwart 00:47:36.040 --> 00:47:42.200 the work of the spirit i do know paul writes in one place don't quench the spirit as he's talking 00:47:42.200 --> 00:47:48.120 about some particular practices and apparently a local congregation in in corinth about uh behavior 00:47:48.120 --> 00:47:57.480 that they excluded but um i think that um i think that good-hearted followers of jesus that are humble 00:47:57.480 --> 00:48:04.680 and seeking his way probably are not going to be much of an obstacle for the work of the spirit 00:48:04.680 --> 00:48:10.200 i just have great confidence in the power of the holy spirit to work among us and in spite of us 00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:18.600 and so uh for me the danger to thwarting the work of the spirit is to sanctify 00:48:19.800 --> 00:48:28.040 methods and models and things that end up competing with supremacy of the spirit 00:48:29.320 --> 00:48:37.400 and for me measurements can become those they can become idols they can become worshiped they can 00:48:37.400 --> 00:48:43.560 become focused on they can become the points of celebration they can become the ego drivers 00:48:44.440 --> 00:48:50.360 and all of those supplant the leadership and the supremacy and the work of the spirit 00:48:51.480 --> 00:48:58.680 but if we see these simply as measures to describe back to the metaphor jared nan's exciting and healthy 00:48:58.680 --> 00:49:06.760 marriage then we're just finding ways to describe it that may in fact be encouraging for others to consider 00:49:07.960 --> 00:49:14.680 choosing some of those patterns too for the purpose of coming to that kind of healthy relationship 00:49:15.560 --> 00:49:22.520 so i trust the spirit wildly and i doubt that he is very much bothered with my smallness and 00:49:22.520 --> 00:49:29.560 including my little small things that might be a little hindrance along the way that that's beautiful 00:49:29.560 --> 00:49:34.200 so so we're talking uh fruits of the spirit you know craig love joy peace patience kindness 00:49:34.200 --> 00:49:40.680 goodness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control uh jared you're talking uh supremacy of of the spirit 00:49:40.680 --> 00:49:49.080 and and letting him rule over all things these these are great attributes uh for how we're evaluating 00:49:49.640 --> 00:49:55.000 not the butts in the seats but the but discipleship and maybe even just some of the characteristics 00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:02.280 of of of what a disciple is within a church now how do we get from that the disciple 00:50:02.840 --> 00:50:09.320 towards more of a multiplication angle someone that's sharing their faith uh priesthood of all believers 00:50:09.320 --> 00:50:15.960 a church's platform approach more towards multiplication what what contextually does does 00:50:15.960 --> 00:50:21.720 that look like how are we engaging that successfulness what is metrics need need to look like how do we get 00:50:21.720 --> 00:50:29.160 somebody from that disciple making place from a discipleship from being a disciple to being a disciple maker 00:50:29.800 --> 00:50:35.480 just briefly one of the things that's been very interesting for me to consider uh and by the way i 00:50:35.480 --> 00:50:44.760 just want to again self-disclose uh i'm a fan of programs and products so um if i can buy a book that i 00:50:44.760 --> 00:50:52.280 don't have to research and write i really like that uh if i can buy buy someone else's a system that is uh 00:50:52.280 --> 00:50:59.880 written and proven i really like that so i i have no problems uh benefiting from from other resources 00:51:01.320 --> 00:51:07.240 in light of that i'm really intrigued by the idea of different kinds of things that happen in different 00:51:07.240 --> 00:51:14.760 spaces uh and i want to give a shout out and acknowledgement uh to uh to the recent book the 00:51:14.760 --> 00:51:20.840 spider and the spirit uh and one of the things that uh that those three authors mentioned is that they 00:51:20.840 --> 00:51:31.480 they focus on what they call uh content uh flavored and um and and they talk there about the the 00:51:31.480 --> 00:51:39.160 different kinds of social spaces uh that that activity and work is done in and uh we're not there um i'm 00:51:39.160 --> 00:51:48.440 not an expert i just am sharing an opinion but we want to be particularly thoughtful about how do we engage 00:51:48.440 --> 00:52:01.240 people in spaces the one-on-one the three the 12 the 70 uh the masses and how how will we in these 00:52:01.240 --> 00:52:14.440 various models find ways for people to engage in all of those spaces in a meaningful and helpful way both 00:52:14.440 --> 00:52:16.920 for their benefit and for their contribution 00:52:19.480 --> 00:52:26.040 and we think that if we can in these four little models that we're playing with here locally 00:52:27.160 --> 00:52:34.120 think across those spaces resource those spaces and then major people's engagement and experience in 00:52:34.120 --> 00:52:41.720 those spaces that we may have discovered some things about what effective discipleship pathway looks 00:52:41.720 --> 00:52:52.440 like across those so we are going to be more um measuring than we are uh prescriptive 00:52:53.480 --> 00:52:59.720 about what we expect the outcomes to to be but we think that the spaces have a lot to do with the 00:52:59.720 --> 00:53:09.160 effect that we'll have our our concern about not concern my observation uh about experiments is 00:53:09.160 --> 00:53:16.760 and by the way this is an affirmation and a critique uh experiments in innovation generally are very narrow 00:53:18.680 --> 00:53:24.520 and so uh in that narrow experience for example uh if someone was going to do a micro church they might 00:53:24.520 --> 00:53:32.520 think uh only about what does it look like for our small unit to be together to me ultimately those 00:53:32.520 --> 00:53:39.160 people i would want to engage one-on-one in groups of three and in groups of 70 and large as well for 00:53:39.160 --> 00:53:46.680 that's my own bias my hope is that in research we can find the best of what's happening in these various 00:53:46.680 --> 00:53:56.760 venues and stitch it together in a comprehensive way that then suggests models that can be uh 00:53:56.760 --> 00:54:03.960 can inform especially church plants to say you know here's what we have learned from others and you might 00:54:03.960 --> 00:54:11.640 think strategically about covering all of these bases in the planning for this because it seems like the 00:54:11.640 --> 00:54:18.280 holy spirit does different and good things for people in these different spaces just clarification uh you 00:54:18.280 --> 00:54:23.720 didn't specifically say it but the the one-on-one the groups of three the groups of the the 12 the 00:54:23.720 --> 00:54:31.800 group of 70 that was the um number of people that jesus interacted with at different points in his in 00:54:31.800 --> 00:54:37.720 his journey in his ministry individually with people what was it peter james and john were the inner circle 00:54:37.720 --> 00:54:44.680 the 12 disciples uh the group of 63 to 70 that was like the core component of what would eventually 00:54:44.680 --> 00:54:50.920 become the church and then you know when he would uh preach and do things to to the masses uh jacranda 00:54:50.920 --> 00:54:56.520 interestingly you know has a has a four pillars his isn't quite as biblically sound jacranda over at 00:54:56.520 --> 00:55:01.800 saddleback i'm gonna i'm gonna message jay and say that jeffrey just just recorded a podcast that 00:55:01.800 --> 00:55:07.240 your model's not biblically sound calling them out publicly his is his is more but it's it's uh it's 00:55:07.240 --> 00:55:16.280 it's one-on-one self-directed uh it's uh it's uh one uh small groups uh social space 25 and then 00:55:16.280 --> 00:55:20.520 um you know the full anyway it's it's more designed towards what the church typical model would be but 00:55:20.520 --> 00:55:26.520 i love this idea of grounding it and i've heard others um jason morris has talked a lot about kind of 00:55:26.520 --> 00:55:31.480 that that four or five groupings following christ's ministry i mean that that's that's a beautiful 00:55:32.040 --> 00:55:38.280 approach to it um and what what i find interesting is you're even trying to scale that with within your 00:55:38.280 --> 00:55:43.720 three daughter churches that that that you're you're starting here jared like you're you're creating a 00:55:43.720 --> 00:55:49.080 model for a digital only church that can reach thousands um you know we were just you know talking 00:55:49.080 --> 00:55:56.840 off air about the the hughes jared and angie hughes who have started a digital ministry in march of 2020 00:55:56.840 --> 00:56:01.960 called hope city church uh no real experience with digital planning just did a podcast with them 00:56:01.960 --> 00:56:08.440 recently and and within like 14 15 months have one of the largest churches uh digital only expression 00:56:08.440 --> 00:56:15.000 of churches uh here in the western hemisphere uh and so how things scale how things grow in digital 00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:20.440 digital space but that's mass isn't huge and you're also working on micro and so we've got all these 00:56:20.440 --> 00:56:29.320 different kind of models of of church where disciple making discipleship is going to look different in 00:56:30.200 --> 00:56:36.440 a mega giga physical environment in a in a fidgetal church in a 94 year old church in a digital 00:56:36.440 --> 00:56:45.160 only expression of church and so how do we find and measure consistencies across all of these different 00:56:45.160 --> 00:56:50.600 approaches we we stadia we're encouraging go multimodal try different approaches try different 00:56:50.600 --> 00:56:54.760 things we need to figure out a commonality of language you need to figure out a commonality of 00:56:54.760 --> 00:57:01.880 vision but as we're doing disciple making differently because of the different contexts like how do you even 00:57:01.880 --> 00:57:09.000 start to to find that commonality specifically in this idea of getting people on mission on disciple 00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:14.840 making i would say jeff one of the things that i think the the recognition and i think you know you 00:57:14.840 --> 00:57:19.400 and i are working on what is this model of multimodal and we're kind of at least for now we're kind of 00:57:19.400 --> 00:57:23.400 thinking about as this you know we've got this digital physical spectrum that's one axis and we've got 00:57:23.400 --> 00:57:29.240 really this social spaces that's the other axis and the recognition that those exist in both digital and 00:57:29.240 --> 00:57:34.440 physical space and so we end up with these quadrants but i think and i'll just say this from my own 00:57:34.440 --> 00:57:43.320 experience i think the way being on mission um has been defined in my life and experience has been 00:57:43.320 --> 00:57:51.720 pretty mono specific like it's been a very singular and so it's kind of this personal evangelism 00:57:51.720 --> 00:58:00.280 share my faith with my co-workers or my neighbors kind of of thinking and i'm not by any means saying 00:58:00.280 --> 00:58:05.080 that that's wrong i i've certainly done those things throughout my life and as a result of that i've 00:58:05.080 --> 00:58:08.680 seen you know friends neighbors you know people come to faith i'm not very grateful for that 00:58:09.320 --> 00:58:14.120 but i think the notion that that's what it looks like to be on mission for every single person as 00:58:14.120 --> 00:58:21.160 who is a disciple of jesus it's probably not the best way of thinking and so 00:58:22.520 --> 00:58:28.120 you know are you a one-on-one disciple maker are you a group of three disciple maker are you a micro 00:58:28.120 --> 00:58:34.600 small group disciple maker like you know i i know i mean just kind of go to the other end you know 00:58:34.600 --> 00:58:40.600 obviously my line of work we all you know the work we're on we know lots of pastors who are great 00:58:40.600 --> 00:58:47.080 communicators i mean i've watched people that i personally know speak to large groups of people 00:58:47.720 --> 00:58:53.080 and observe many many people in that group say yeah i want to follow jesus because of the you know the 00:58:53.080 --> 00:58:58.920 large group teaching that same individual may be pretty lousy at leading their neighbor to faith 00:58:58.920 --> 00:59:04.600 one-on-one like we don't like that's not something we really want to like we ever really talk about 00:59:05.320 --> 00:59:13.400 but i think if we we recognize these these spaces or these relationships we've got to define being on 00:59:13.400 --> 00:59:20.760 mission and being a disciple maker in in broader terms or in some way that makes it possible for a 00:59:20.760 --> 00:59:29.320 person to be on mission and be a disciple maker without being a sing without exhibiting a singular kind of 00:59:29.320 --> 00:59:40.840 behavior because not everyone is created for gifted for skilled in that singular model i think that's again 00:59:42.120 --> 00:59:49.560 where the concept of multimodal is is is very beneficial as it may open up opportunities for 00:59:49.560 --> 00:59:55.000 people to say hey i am being a disciple maker but i'm doing it this way which actually i love and all 00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:59.720 my life i've thought to be a disciple maker i had to do it this way which always felt incredibly you 00:59:59.720 --> 01:00:06.200 know awkward and uncomfortable to me i think that we will continue to learn from lots of different 01:00:06.200 --> 01:00:15.800 approaches um i'll take a moment to share one of my biases as it relates to um a basis to describe 01:00:15.800 --> 01:00:25.320 discipleship um and uh and while there are differences um uh in opinion uh uh and perspective i just i'll 01:00:25.320 --> 01:00:31.080 mention alan hirsch's apest model and what he's really referring to is what does it look like for those 01:00:31.800 --> 01:00:42.280 named gifts among us in scripture to influence how we are informed uh how we engage and the kind of uh 01:00:42.280 --> 01:00:48.360 mature effectiveness on the other side one of the few places in the bible uh that i recall that the 01:00:48.360 --> 01:00:57.160 idea of the word maturity is used is in uh philippians 4 11 and 12 in that passage that tells us that 01:00:57.160 --> 01:01:09.720 there are gifts among us that are inherently spirit inspired uh phenomenally able to produce certain kinds 01:01:09.720 --> 01:01:17.240 of results they teach the rest of us who do not have those inherent giftings and proclivities and 01:01:17.240 --> 01:01:27.400 abilities how to do the things that approximate those results and if we take all let's say five five of 01:01:27.400 --> 01:01:37.000 those general ideas and allow those gifts to inform us we can put together prototypes for how church can be 01:01:37.000 --> 01:01:47.000 done in any of these various modal settings being informed by saying there needs to be evangelism 01:01:47.000 --> 01:01:51.880 there needs to be the prophetic there needs to be the pastoral there needs to be the teaching 01:01:51.880 --> 01:02:04.120 there needs to be the and so the model in my mind um designed around the apest giftings however that's 01:02:04.120 --> 01:02:11.640 applied is a nice starting point to describe the kinds of engagement that we want people to experience 01:02:12.840 --> 01:02:19.560 uh productivity and growth in their own life and potentially measuring measured outcomes on the other 01:02:19.560 --> 01:02:27.640 side uh my experience with uh lots of local churches is that they tend to over time be a kind of local 01:02:27.640 --> 01:02:36.600 church that primarily exudes the giftedness of their lead pastor or if it's a church with a long history 01:02:36.600 --> 01:02:42.600 with an elder kind of board whatever the culture of that church is so it's really good at evangelism or the 01:02:42.600 --> 01:02:49.480 or the prophetic or the teaching or the shepherding or whatever and and uh my interest as a person 01:02:49.480 --> 01:02:55.000 engaged in church planting over the years has been to find church planting models or at least ways of 01:02:55.000 --> 01:03:01.560 helping planters design a church across those various giftedness so that they were all addressed 01:03:02.200 --> 01:03:08.600 and i think for me that is a fundamental way that informs however i think about a discipleship pathway 01:03:08.600 --> 01:03:15.080 i think about where are we going to intentionally engage these kinds of emphases training teaching 01:03:15.080 --> 01:03:22.120 and experience and then if we can measure some participation which is a very blunt but helpful 01:03:22.120 --> 01:03:29.240 measure and output which is more subjective but more helpful we might be well on our way toward metrics 01:03:29.240 --> 01:03:35.800 participation and output output yeah you're right that that gets subjective but having some sort of 01:03:35.800 --> 01:03:41.480 qualitative qualitative data i guess would help to kind of complement what's happening in in the 01:03:41.480 --> 01:03:48.200 quantitative side uh jared roth sir you have collectively blown my my mind for the second 01:03:48.200 --> 01:03:54.200 quarter of 2021 uh you've you're i'm not going to start singing like chicago you're the meaning of my 01:03:54.200 --> 01:03:59.800 life you're the inspiration but you really have some craig's really happy right now he's like an old 01:03:59.800 --> 01:04:04.200 audiophile guy and the fact that i just threw a chicago reference in there i didn't even realize it but 01:04:04.200 --> 01:04:09.880 he's grinning ear to ear right now um hey craig so let me let me go to unmute you just so you can i can 01:04:09.880 --> 01:04:17.240 spin that but i can spin that vinyl for you if you'd like right behind me yeah i may i may have been 01:04:17.240 --> 01:04:22.200 like you know two when that came out all right so but seriously i mean with with this idea of going to 01:04:22.200 --> 01:04:28.680 the children um and letting the children establish the dna never um never been there you you connected 01:04:28.680 --> 01:04:33.960 me with a book and and and i'll drop the reference here it's uh multi-church um i wrote the authors 01:04:33.960 --> 01:04:39.240 down uh brad house greg allison we were kind of talking about that off air via email and that honestly 01:04:39.240 --> 01:04:45.720 that book has all has also challenged some of my preconceived notions i thought i understood uh 01:04:45.720 --> 01:04:52.520 multi-site i read that and it was like oh my gosh so like there are challenges and all those frustrations 01:04:52.520 --> 01:04:58.200 that i've had there are other ways there are other models there are other other kind of ways to to do 01:04:58.200 --> 01:05:04.520 that and it's even challenged some of the way that i'm looking at digital only church and so man you 01:05:04.520 --> 01:05:09.320 i just want to thank you for the little amount of time that i've known you actually like kicking my 01:05:09.320 --> 01:05:15.320 mental butt here a little bit and and and making me kind of rethink the way uh some things are done so 01:05:15.320 --> 01:05:22.200 thank you very much for that i do want to also add that uh you mentioned uh the star and the the 01:05:22.200 --> 01:05:28.920 spirit uh excuse me the spider and the spirit uh which is a rob wagner book and alan hirsch and and 01:05:28.920 --> 01:05:35.400 who is the the third one lance ford lance ford yes of course um rob wagner i just while we're having 01:05:35.400 --> 01:05:40.840 this podcast i got the email rob wagner confirmed we're set to do a recording for that uh talking about 01:05:40.840 --> 01:05:46.760 this the the spider and the spirit uh and how that applies towards digital only expressions of 01:05:46.760 --> 01:05:51.960 church um we've got some mutual friends that are excited about the digital only piece and so we're 01:05:51.960 --> 01:05:57.160 going to be doing that podcast uh in in the in the coming month as well so get to kind of expand that 01:05:57.160 --> 01:06:03.720 idea even of decentralized ministry of how that looks in in digital space but this has been an awesome 01:06:03.720 --> 01:06:08.200 conversation appreciate the time but we're going to wrap up we're going to land a plane uh and so you 01:06:08.200 --> 01:06:13.240 know i'll craig i'll throw it to you first man any any closing thoughts here as we're wrapping up uh the 01:06:13.240 --> 01:06:17.720 podcast i i would just for you know for listeners who are you know listening and looking for something 01:06:17.720 --> 01:06:24.920 practical to you know take away from this it would just be you know even you know we can't land on 01:06:24.920 --> 01:06:31.000 hey here's your definition of disciple go go you know run with that but um hopefully out of this 01:06:31.000 --> 01:06:36.760 you can you can take away some thoughts that maybe help you uh begin to wrestle with as jared said 01:06:36.760 --> 01:06:42.520 earlier 80 of it's asking the right question to help you begin to wrestle with what are we measuring how 01:06:42.520 --> 01:06:49.640 are we measuring it and is it telling us whether or not um we are being effective in helping people 01:06:49.640 --> 01:06:56.120 become you know followers of jesus you may arrive at some conclusion some way of doing that that's 01:06:56.120 --> 01:07:02.760 completely different than anything we have talked about today totally fine um having some conclusion some 01:07:04.040 --> 01:07:10.120 mental determination on your part of that's what we're going to do will be infinitely better than 01:07:10.120 --> 01:07:17.800 relying on nickels and noses alone without any any thought to uh how to actually measure that yeah well 01:07:17.800 --> 01:07:25.800 from the from the sublime to the immediately practical uh i do think that we are in a reformation of the 01:07:25.800 --> 01:07:32.920 the church i think that it is a societal upheaval that will have the same traumatic and wonderful 01:07:32.920 --> 01:07:39.560 impact that the printing press had in the 1500s i think the digital age is going to similarly affect 01:07:39.560 --> 01:07:46.600 the church not theologically but it's going to be a reformation of ecclesiology and organization 01:07:46.600 --> 01:07:55.000 and communication and uh and models um one of the sayings that ann and i love is that beginnings are 01:07:55.000 --> 01:08:04.360 necessarily messy and we should feel like we're in a mess and we should feel reasonably okay about that 01:08:04.360 --> 01:08:11.320 we we don't even know the questions to ask let alone the right answers this is messy of course it's 01:08:11.320 --> 01:08:18.200 transformational everything's on its head we don't even know what's going to transpire to anchor to in 01:08:18.200 --> 01:08:25.000 the future where it's messy business and so let's enjoy this what if the lord tarries this is going to 01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:31.320 be looked back to as a transformational and wonderful time in the church let's enjoy the mess and following 01:08:31.320 --> 01:08:38.040 the spirit uh every day as we as he leads us through it so that's the sublime back to the back to the 01:08:38.040 --> 01:08:49.400 practical i have found this that even pre-christians in my life know what god is doing if they have a 01:08:49.400 --> 01:08:57.080 spiritual sensitivity uh to ask someone in this last year it seems like that you have become more 01:08:57.080 --> 01:09:03.960 interested and acquainted with jesus tell me what that's like for you they will describe the work 01:09:03.960 --> 01:09:12.120 of the spirit in them we call that pre-evangelism as church professionals i call pre-evangelism what 01:09:12.120 --> 01:09:19.000 i do to people it's marketing it's engagement it's conversation it's content they don't know that 01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:23.880 pre-evangelism is what the spirit is doing in them and they tell me what that's like well i've just 01:09:23.880 --> 01:09:29.640 felt like and i've taken this step and i reached out here and i did an alpha thing and i've had this 01:09:29.640 --> 01:09:36.840 conversation with a friend and my recommendation is interview the people in your life and if you're a 01:09:36.840 --> 01:09:42.600 church person interview the people across the spectrum of your church and ask them what's the 01:09:42.600 --> 01:09:48.360 holy spirit been doing in your life this past year and they will tell you what the discipleship 01:09:48.360 --> 01:09:55.560 pathway looks like in their experience i think the practice the experience of people the testimony of 01:09:55.560 --> 01:10:05.160 jesus in people will better inform me than anything else i can do about the discovery of fresh discipleship 01:10:05.160 --> 01:10:10.440 pathways that are the work of the spirit and then we're going to figure out how we can measure those 01:10:10.440 --> 01:10:18.600 things so that we can intentionalize them to create even better pathways for more people wow ask the 01:10:18.600 --> 01:10:27.160 question and and and find new pathways don't take it on us to create them to manufacture but actually 01:10:27.160 --> 01:10:33.320 ask the question and and listen and allow others uh to speak into it uh you know we we talk here on the 01:10:33.320 --> 01:10:40.200 podcast the the the power is is not within the organization as much as it is within the individuals 01:10:40.200 --> 01:10:46.600 and so listening gives you the opportunity to expand what you're doing to be more effective it's almost 01:10:46.600 --> 01:10:52.360 that experiment you're crowdsourcing it down to the individual level and letting them tell you how the 01:10:52.360 --> 01:10:58.920 holy spirit is is leading in that moment so i i love that but by the way the whole uh beginnings are 01:10:58.920 --> 01:11:05.320 are are necessarily i almost said it wrong beginnings are necessarily messy uh that may be tattoo worthy my 01:11:05.320 --> 01:11:10.840 wife won't let me get a tattoo but if i did that would be on the list of of quotes for that it's a long 01:11:10.840 --> 01:11:16.200 list at this point with the podcast but that's that's definitely on the list well we're gonna we're gonna land 01:11:16.200 --> 01:11:22.120 the plane um it's if sometimes it sounds like craig there actually is a plane landing in your in your 01:11:22.120 --> 01:11:27.400 outside where you are the jackhammer came back on i apologize yeah no worries the great thing is we're 01:11:27.400 --> 01:11:31.720 gonna edit a lot of that out and then filter it so the the the guys who produce this i'll give a shout 01:11:31.720 --> 01:11:36.120 out to garrett garrett leave this in garrett silgy produces the the show for me he does a phenomenal 01:11:36.120 --> 01:11:42.760 job him and and and the team uh christopher diaz is the audio guy they will make you sound incredible 01:11:42.760 --> 01:11:49.080 so i'm not worried about it any digital enhancement makeup or yeah well i don't know i don't know that 01:11:49.080 --> 01:11:55.240 anybody's that good but um well uh we'll see so uh for garrett and chris thanks for doing what you do for 01:11:55.240 --> 01:12:01.000 jared for craig uh i'm jeff with the church digital and uh for stadium church planning thanks for joining 01:12:01.000 --> 01:12:04.200 us here uh on the pod we'll see you next time on the show you have a good day