WEBVTT

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 Okay, so at some level, I think Peyton Jones, we were separated at birth. I think we're twins. Well, the guy's older than me, so maybe that's not possible, but I think we're distant relatives. We're connected somewhere in the gene pool. Maybe that's not true, but man, I just love having a conversation with him and learning from him, sitting back and understanding the years of experience that's led him to where he is right now.

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 You see, Peyton Jones just wrote a book, Church Plantology. It's been called, at least by the Exponential Network, it's been called the Modern Church Planting Textbook.

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 And so lots of insight coming off of years of experience as he's been planting multimodal churches, different types of churches.

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 Now, we talk about digital. He hasn't had a lot of digital experience, really spent a lot of time talking about it.

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 We had had a recent connection on a webinar, which led to this podcast because the idea is kind of wrapping around all our brains towards digital and melding together some of the things that he's talking about in Church Plantology, some of the things that we're talking about at Stadia.

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 There's a connection here and some things that we're going to continue to explore, but I love some of the lessons we're pulling out here.

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 We're talking about following the book of Acts. We're talking about learning best practices from the global church and figuring out how to apply that.

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 These are conversations we've had, too, recently with Sam George and Justin Murph.

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 And so you're starting to hear that. Learn from the global. Move that into the U.S.

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 You're hearing that multiple times. Take a note of that.

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 Honestly, there's a big conversation here in this podcast where we're talking about co-vocational.

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 And even in my own life, I've seen a number of friends who are on church staff move away from church staff in order to be more effective in engaging in ministry.

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 And so we'll have more of those conversations in the days and weeks to come on that co-vocational side.

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 And so really, when you look at some of the stuff here that Peyton Jones is talking about in this Church Plantology book,

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 he is laying out the foundation for what a church is going to look like in the future.

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 And this podcast is really just kind of scratching that surface.

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 So we're bringing in Peyton Jones, obviously author, Church Plantology.

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 Find the link in the show notes. Grab a book.

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 And myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and with Stadia Church Planning in a conversation that I'm calling, simply put,

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 Church Plantology, a conversation with Peyton Jones.

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 Okay, everybody. Here you go.

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 Hey, just to kind of open up the conversation here, Church Plantology, you know, is a book recently just released.

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 Excited to talk about this here. Tell me about it.

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 Yeah, so Church Plantology is actually, I would say, the convergence or overlapping of three circles.

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 So if you remember from being in philosophy class or like a Venn Diagrams where you find three circles overlapping,

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 where all three circles converge in the middle, it would be called the sweet spot.

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 And I think for Church Planners, what's happened is there's been a lot of talk of Church Starting, but not a lot of talk of Church Planting.

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 So Church Planting is what Paul did, where he infiltrated the community, he discipled, he did all the things that we're talking about today.

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 Whereas Church Starting is kind of like, hey, get a sexy logo, get a public venue, rent it out, hang up your shingle, you know,

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 do some online marketing and hope a bunch of cheesed off Christians come from other churches.

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 So a lot of people that start churches wonder, well, how come no one came to the best church ever started?

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 But, you know, Church Planting by default is something that has been successful for thousands of years.

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 It does the hard work of rolling up your sleeves and getting involved with people.

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 So those three circles is we look at what the apostles did, because that's what Church Planting was for us.

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 That was our first model, is what Paul does in Acts.

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 And most people graduating from seminary don't even know how to do that stuff.

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 So the second circle would be best global missionary practices today.

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 Things that missionaries are doing today that still work and still impact and transform communities.

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 And then the third circle is kind of like a logical, well, if we see it in Scripture and missionaries are still doing it today,

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 then obviously during movements of kingdom advancement, discipleship movements,

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 movements of the Holy Spirit throughout church history, like the Moravians, the Methodists under John Wesley and others,

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 surely in church history we would see a return to these principles.

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 So where all three of those circles overlap, that's what we call a church plantology principle.

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 And the tagline to that is, if you follow these principles, you could plant anytime, anywhere, with anyone.

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 Anytime, anywhere, with anyone.

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 Did you, did this come out of, where did this come from?

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 Did it come out of experience?

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 Did it come out of observations, others?

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 Like where are you pulling this insight from?

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 I love that.

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 So that's a really good, that's the first time I've been asked that question in a lot of these interviews.

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 Really, really good question because part of me, I'm a punk.

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 So part of me wants to go, my brain.

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 But, but no, I was a missionary for 12 years.

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 My wife and I, we, I would say that we retroactively or reverse engineered what was in Acts.

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 We learn the hard way, right?

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 Like most of us read the, the, the new Testament through our own lenses and our own backgrounds and experiences.

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 And I think we miss a lot of what's actually there.

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 So I have learned now, like, you know, when you've got the epistles and all the greetings and preachers go, I don't know what to do with that.

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 Do I skip that on a Sunday?

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 To me, that's solid goal because that's where Paul outlines his apostolic movements, what I call apostolic agility.

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 His strategy really comes out in those, those farewells, you know, and hey, so-and-so come here.

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 If you put all that together, which the book Church Plantology does, we really unpack his strategy.

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 Even Jesus, Jesus was way more strategic than what we realized.

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 He sent 12 on that mission, you know, hey, going to all the villages of Judea.

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 Then he sends 72 for deeper gospel saturation.

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 And we don't really look at why did he do this?

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 And this is one of the things that the book is really trying to get to.

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 But yes, reverse engineering.

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 I accidentally planted my first church in a Starbucks.

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 I had accidentally planted a few before then.

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 I had been in Hungary planning.

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 I had been in New Zealand planning.

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 Those were all trips where I was a part of a team.

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 But when I started planning, it was accidentally.

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 And the things that I did were public space ministry.

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 You know, you read the gospels, you read Acts.

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 It all happens outside.

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 You know, they're infiltrating people's space, which is what I love about the fidgetal conversation is it's that same principle.

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 It's saying, hey, what if instead of waiting for them to come to us, we invade them?

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 And in this case, you're using a digital platform.

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 For me, I accidentally planted a Starbucks around a Dan Brown Da Vinci code one night only discussion group that turned a two night, three night and eventually became a church.

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 So for me, as I started looking, I'm like, oh, that's that's kind of like what Paul did on Mars Hill where he went into the synagogue to reason, which, again, there's a lot of crossover digital space.

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 So we can create these conversations through digital media and ministry.

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 So that's what we kind of started to discover was being European missionaries.

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 OK, nothing we did in America was working over here.

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 So we had to kind of discover and fumble and bumble our way into it like Kung Fu Panda.

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 But I'm also a great lover of church history.

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 I actually you can't see it behind me, but I served at Lloyd-Jones' church, his pulpit Bible sitting right up there.

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 It's one of my trophies.

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 You can touch over $5.99, get a holy blessing.

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 And, you know, $5.99.

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 It's a great, great bargain, Jeff.

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 Just teasing.

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 But the reality is, for me, I'm a great lover of what God has done through people meeting their challenges in the past.

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 I think the story of church history is a story of the Holy Spirit breaking through in the church's limitations.

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 And so that's what I want to see today.

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 I know you're passionate about the same thing.

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 I'm totally going to ask what the tattoo is on your arm.

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 I just saw that on video.

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 I saw it yesterday.

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 We were in a so I want to ask about global best practices.

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 We'll come back to the best practices.

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 But what's that?

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 OK, what's that one?

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 You know, this one, right?

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 Do you know this one?

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 Blurry on.

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 Is that Avengers?

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 Is that what is that?

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 No, this is this is The Hobbit.

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 So that's Lonely Mountain with Smaug.

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 Yes.

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 OK.

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 All right.

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 I'm with you.

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 So my other book was Reaching the Unreached, Becoming Raiders of the Lost Arts.

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 You'll see like in Indiana Jones.

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 Yes, Zondervan did that.

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 It was great.

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 But I constantly use in ministry a lot of the stuff we ended up doing.

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 And I felt like Bilbo and Gandalf was trying to get me, you know, out of the Hobbit hole.

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 Like, hey, go out there and actually do the stuff that you read about in the Book of Acts.

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 So that's that tattoo.

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 And then this one is the ultimate nerd tattoo right there.

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 It looks awesome.

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 It is actually from the G.I.

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 Joe cartoon of my childhood.

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 And it is the Snake Eyes Ninja Clan.

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 So I.

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 Yes, it is.

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 Yes, it is.

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 And I actually I call it the kind of planning I do where I plant, raise up leadership, move on.

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 I call that ninja planning.

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 So ninja plan, I'm branded, you know, ninja clan, branded forever.

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 Very good.

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 And then ninja ministry.

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 I've seen that ministry ninja.

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 I've seen that Peyton Jones dot ninja is your website.

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 Right.

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 I think I saw that, too.

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 Yeah.

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 Actually, it's that's my old one.

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 I got to disable that one.

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 My new one's ministry ninja dot com.

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 I need to I need to probably take care of Peyton Jones dot ninja.

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 Hey, the ninjas ninja domain was open.

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 I had to take it.

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 Totally off topic.

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 I don't know if you realize this Cobra from G.I.

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 Joe, the first round of of Avengers early on with Marvel, they were not doing Hydra.

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 They were going to have Cobra be that military evil force.

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 Honest to God.

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 Google it.

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 Cobra was supposed to be Hydra.

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 And at the last second, they decided to keep it separated and to let Avengers have another

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 villain, Hydra, all that.

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 So instead of Madam Hydra, it could have been, you know, Cobra commander.

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 Anyway, this is not what we wanted to talk about.

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 But that too took us there.

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 So we have to we have to focus on that.

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 Don't edit this out.

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 This is gold.

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 No, no, this is not edited.

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 This is what we do on the podcast.

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 We talk talk crazy.

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 This is why people listen in.

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 What's what's the stupid stuff Jeff's going to talk about today?

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 Best global practices.

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 OK, so I'm looking at your your little Venn diagram.

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 I love them diagrams.

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 Book of Acts.

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 Oh, we talk about that all the time.

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 You know, it's so the Ecclesia, the gathering that we rarely talk about the diaspora.

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 But hey, it's all about that Ecclesia.

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 It's about that gathering.

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 It's about that X2.

00:11:19.860 --> 00:11:20.120
 Awesome.

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 You know, logical thought.

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 I totally recognize that.

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 And we're seeing your talk.

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 You want you want the church to learn something from like Iran and Germany and China.

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 You want me to learn from others?

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 You want me to be meek?

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 No.

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 Like, how does that conversation go?

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 Like, are people receptive to this idea when you talk about it?

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 I think people are beginning to realize that we have a lot of baggage.

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 Like Alan Hirsch says, you know, we the Western church has, you know, we're it's kind of like Jesus said, you know, it's hard, hard for hard to go.

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 A camel to go through the eye of the needle.

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 You know, we've got all this baggage attached to us.

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 And there's this kind of sense in which, like, you know, you study discipleship movements that happen.

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 The statistics arts never happened, you know, in the West over the last few hundred years.

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 And the reason why they would say is because of our all of our ecclesiastical baggage.

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 And so if I go to Bangladesh, if I go to different countries, if I go to Colombia, the amount of churches being planted on a daily basis.

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 You talk to leaders there.

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 I was just there with a guy who, you know, probably millions of people will be in heaven because of the ministry he does in Latin America.

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 I mean, he is a ninja extraordinaire.

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 And you talk to these guys and you're like, I have no idea what I've done with my life.

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 But they're in Colombian prisons.

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 They're there.

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 You know, you talk to people from the underground church, which I do because of some of the missionary organizations I work with because I do church planner training.

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 You know, some of them will be like, hey, Peyton, and this this reinforces the principles of the book.

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 They basically say, hey, Peyton, we started doing all this other stuff like discipleship and giving tools and translating tools into different languages.

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 And now we found ourselves in the church planning business by by default, by by proxy, by accident.

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 We did not go into church planning.

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 And so some of the conversations I'm having right now are with organizations that are, hey, we're fumbling our way through this.

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 But church plants are happening because these other things are happening.

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 That's what I would call church church plantology principles.

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 And so they're doing the things that they did in the book of Acts.

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 And the way I put it in the book is first century practices will bring first century results.

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 And that's what these other groups have have.

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 That's what they've tagged.

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 They've tagged and bagged this.

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 So that's what that's what we're trying to get people to do is to embrace those principles.

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 Well, you know, I mean, early on and just some of the research that I've done through the church digital, we were we were, you know, observing Korea in the giga church movement that that are happening.

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 They're some of the largest churches in the planet are happening in Korea.

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 And there's tons of lessons coming out of there.

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 We look over to India and a friend of mine, Mike Christian, used to be a missionary in India.

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 And he had planted, I don't know, something like 400 churches in India before India kicked him out for being too effective at church planting.

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 They removed the passport, literally.

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 And his churches, it was like three or four people under a palm tree, like just mud hut, you know, very much kind of that micro approach.

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 And what's interesting is like, you know, we're seeing God do things globally in Korea.

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 We're seeing God do things at a micro level and multiplication in India.

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 And for us to say, is the church, OK, the gig is not valid.

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 The micro is not valid.

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 It is.

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 God's doing incredible things there.

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 I was just going to say, like you sparked me because one of the books that I was tagging into was one that was from Africa.

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 It's a church planting book.

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 And they had listed as their places venues to meet.

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 And one of them, I kid you not, was a baobab tree.

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 And I just thought, man, this book is worth its weight in gold.

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 And, you know, in Tanzania, some of the planners that have contacted there, there's a guy there that runs a church planting multiplication training program.

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 And it is all like in the bush.

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 It's not it's not like they do gather together.

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 And then he sends them out like Jesus sent the 72.

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 And then their final exam for this like yearlong program is to plant a church that has planted a church.

00:15:42.660 --> 00:15:44.900
 And obviously, like I said, they don't have all the baggage.

00:15:45.060 --> 00:15:47.260
 These are communities of believers.

00:15:47.260 --> 00:15:53.920
 But they've they've trained like Paul on average spent three to four months in one place, but he left people behind.

00:15:54.040 --> 00:16:03.740
 And so they're trying to rediscover those first century tactics like Paul in Galatia didn't leave people behind on his first missionary journey.

00:16:03.740 --> 00:16:05.740
 It was just him, Barnabas and John Mark.

00:16:05.740 --> 00:16:08.460
 And so a year later, he goes back to Antioch.

00:16:08.540 --> 00:16:10.860
 He's back doing ministry in Antioch for about a year.

00:16:11.320 --> 00:16:18.620
 One morning, he reads his newspaper and spits his coffee out because he he gets his mail and it says, hey, they're in heresy now.

00:16:18.800 --> 00:16:21.300
 You know, and he goes, wait a second.

00:16:21.300 --> 00:16:28.940
 So on his second missionary journey, he goes back there and starts, you know, putting in new strategies like now I got to leave people behind,

00:16:29.060 --> 00:16:35.160
 which means I got to pick up guys like Timothy and Silas and train them along the way and Titus and then play leapfrog.

00:16:35.160 --> 00:16:38.440
 You plant with me, you watch me, you go to the next one, then I leave you behind.

00:16:38.440 --> 00:16:49.320
 And so re-tapping into those strategies is no joke because everybody wants to go faster in multiplication and, you know, but we also want to be safe.

00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:52.300
 And so trying to learn that balance.

00:16:52.300 --> 00:16:56.520
 And I would say that Paul failed forward if you really read the book of Acts.

00:16:56.660 --> 00:16:58.220
 So it's encouraging for us.

00:16:58.280 --> 00:16:59.880
 But sorry, man, I went off on my own tangent.

00:17:00.200 --> 00:17:04.460
 But but you just sparked me with when you're talking about different planners and stuff.

00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:05.720
 It's fascinating.

00:17:05.720 --> 00:17:06.520
 And I love it.

00:17:06.820 --> 00:17:07.060
 Totally.

00:17:07.280 --> 00:17:14.740
 And I'm imagining some of these lessons, you know, that we we in the Western Hemisphere that we're supposed to learn looking at the global church.

00:17:14.740 --> 00:17:21.080
 I would imagine that would open up like a plethora of these different options, models, strategies.

00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:25.660
 You know, what what does, you know, Casey Underground, Mutual Friends, Rob Wagner.

00:17:26.020 --> 00:17:28.300
 Rob's going to be on the podcast in a couple of weeks.

00:17:28.780 --> 00:17:42.340
 Rob's doing a lot of work towards micro and seeing that micro church work not only in Kansas City, but he's I mean, literally creating I don't know if disciples is the right word, but the idea of kind of mirroring that model across the planet.

00:17:42.340 --> 00:17:52.900
 And we're seeing through Stadia, we're seeing micro church networks, not not one church, but a network, a multiplication, a disciple making process getting started in cities across the country.

00:17:53.620 --> 00:18:02.320
 You know, one of the one of the things that I get blessed with is the ability to to start planting digital only churches, churches that only work in digital space.

00:18:02.320 --> 00:18:04.540
 And I've told this story before.

00:18:05.240 --> 00:18:13.000
 There was a there's one a church planner who's Muslim, converted Muslim, obviously, is a Christian pastor now, church planner through Stadia.

00:18:13.360 --> 00:18:16.100
 And I was having a conversation with him, I don't know, maybe a month ago.

00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:23.240
 And he says to me, I tell him about all this cool digital only expression of church, all this bleeding edge stuff that Stadia is doing.

00:18:24.040 --> 00:18:29.820
 And and he just stops, pauses and looks at me and says, hey, Jeff, you know, who's really good at a digital church?

00:18:30.320 --> 00:18:32.840
 Who's like doing a phenomenal stuff? You need to go learn from them.

00:18:33.040 --> 00:18:37.020
 And hungrily, I lean in and I'm like, tell me, tell me, I want to hear like introduce.

00:18:37.140 --> 00:18:38.520
 Can you introduce me to him? Who is it?

00:18:38.840 --> 00:18:45.360
 And his response was every pastor in Iran because digital is the only thing they have.

00:18:46.200 --> 00:18:50.480
 And so you're trying to prove that something is possible here in the Western Hemisphere.

00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:53.800
 In Iran, that's like the ABCs.

00:18:53.860 --> 00:19:01.840
 This is basic to them because their only strategy is satellite broadcasting stuff in and trying to connect people to WhatsApp.

00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:06.120
 And that's how they disciple and evangelize and grow.

00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:09.920
 It's through satellite broadcasts to TVs and WhatsApp.

00:19:10.400 --> 00:19:13.700
 And it's like, oh, my gosh, how do how do I learn?

00:19:13.820 --> 00:19:17.720
 How can I start to learn from what they're doing and how can that help?

00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:20.400
 And so we're seeing these different models pop up.

00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:28.120
 Like how how does that look for for the future of the church, your your plantology, ideology and the systems?

00:19:28.920 --> 00:19:32.040
 How is it breathing life into these new models of church?

00:19:32.620 --> 00:19:42.440
 I love it. I love that you mentioned that because years ago, talking with some Iraqi planners where they had started off with like 25 people and they were in the thousands.

00:19:42.560 --> 00:19:46.560
 But it was they had to move around from apartment block to apartment block.

00:19:46.560 --> 00:19:55.440
 And if you've ever been to the Middle East and some of these countries that are closed to the gospel, you'll know that there's a lot of high rise apartment buildings everywhere.

00:19:56.040 --> 00:20:01.040
 And so they had to stage birthday parties that met in small little gatherings.

00:20:01.540 --> 00:20:04.240
 And we would we would call that microchurch.

00:20:04.340 --> 00:20:08.080
 I mean, a lot of what we did would now be called microchurch in Europe.

00:20:09.500 --> 00:20:17.700
 Crowded House years ago with I'm trying to remember his name, Steve, the guy who led Acts 29 there.

00:20:17.840 --> 00:20:23.660
 I can't remember his name, but for years they did, you know, living rooms and missional communities.

00:20:23.660 --> 00:20:26.360
 And but but no one knew what to call it back then.

00:20:26.520 --> 00:20:33.740
 That again, it reinforces what you're saying about these are principles that the church met in temple courts and house to house.

00:20:33.980 --> 00:20:40.720
 And so the microchurch, I always tell people microchurch is not a church model.

00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:43.240
 It's actually a function.

00:20:43.240 --> 00:20:57.540
 Any church, you could be a traditional high church Anglican congregation and still release your people to function in microchurches throughout the city, you know, during the week.

00:20:57.620 --> 00:21:00.260
 That's that's something that that would be very much.

00:21:00.300 --> 00:21:11.200
 I mean, all of the the the microchurches have this process of centralization and decentralization, which we see in Acts chapter five, verse 42, with it.

00:21:11.260 --> 00:21:14.080
 They met daily in the temple courts and house to house.

00:21:14.080 --> 00:21:15.700
 That's a microchurch movement.

00:21:16.320 --> 00:21:19.200
 And so we want to continue to see these principles.

00:21:19.560 --> 00:21:28.260
 One of the reasons that the front of the book looks like a high school science textbook, there's a bit tongue in cheek in that when you get to know me.

00:21:28.340 --> 00:21:30.020
 And I think you already do, Jeff, a little bit.

00:21:30.080 --> 00:21:31.460
 I think it's deep, calm to deep here.

00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:36.760
 We're a bit punkish and corny and, you know, tongue in cheek about stuff.

00:21:36.840 --> 00:21:37.480
 We laugh a lot.

00:21:38.080 --> 00:21:43.380
 But, you know, the the reason why is that the science that I believe that there is a science.

00:21:43.540 --> 00:21:45.140
 I'm not a methods guy.

00:21:45.260 --> 00:21:47.360
 So this is what I love about digital space.

00:21:47.360 --> 00:21:50.220
 You can take the principles.

00:21:50.620 --> 00:21:52.800
 Principles are something you can adapt.

00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:56.640
 So when it says that the art and science, the science is the principles.

00:21:56.800 --> 00:21:59.840
 The art is how you apply it right wherever you go.

00:22:00.220 --> 00:22:05.340
 So that's what what I love about how the Holy Spirit told us about church in the book of Acts.

00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:07.040
 He doesn't give us a prescription.

00:22:07.660 --> 00:22:09.120
 He gives us a description.

00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:15.000
 We mind those principles out and we go, OK, these are things that that I can apply.

00:22:15.320 --> 00:22:17.840
 These these principles, not methods.

00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:19.700
 Methods are finite and fixed.

00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:25.300
 But principles are things that you take and apply in all different things.

00:22:25.420 --> 00:22:26.680
 Think of like a medical doctor.

00:22:27.140 --> 00:22:30.120
 You train in what they call first principles.

00:22:30.660 --> 00:22:35.680
 So when you come to a disease, you apply those first principles of how the body works.

00:22:35.760 --> 00:22:38.380
 And that tells you, OK, this is the prescription.

00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:40.920
 So the prescription is the art part, right?

00:22:41.700 --> 00:22:46.580
 The principles are the are the guiding, you know, just what you're going to hold on to and adapt.

00:22:47.420 --> 00:22:50.840
 But but yeah, I love seeing all of these.

00:22:50.980 --> 00:22:55.260
 Like I said, the science textbook in there is that we are rediscovering.

00:22:55.320 --> 00:22:56.340
 That's what scientists do.

00:22:56.740 --> 00:22:56.960
 Right.

00:22:57.620 --> 00:22:59.120
 Inventors make new things.

00:22:59.180 --> 00:23:00.660
 I'm not smart enough to be an inventor.

00:23:00.660 --> 00:23:05.740
 I can't invent anything on mission that hasn't already been devised by the Holy Spirit.

00:23:05.880 --> 00:23:09.580
 But like Newton said, I am thinking God's thoughts after him.

00:23:09.700 --> 00:23:14.900
 We are rediscovering what's always been there in the book of Acts, what's occurred through church history.

00:23:15.260 --> 00:23:17.300
 But again, it's about having our lenses change.

00:23:17.380 --> 00:23:18.020
 Oh, my gosh.

00:23:18.060 --> 00:23:25.680
 Like when the book of Acts finally cracked open to me, it was because I was a missionary reading a missionary book written by missionaries.

00:23:25.820 --> 00:23:29.460
 It took me becoming a missionary to actually understand it.

00:23:29.760 --> 00:23:33.140
 One of the guys, I think it was Roland Allen that I quote in chapter one of the book.

00:23:33.180 --> 00:23:41.960
 He says the missionary reads a different version of the Bible than anyone else because you actually are connecting with what and how and why it was written.

00:23:41.960 --> 00:23:51.420
 When you understand the whole New Testament was written in the context of church planning, not about church planning, but it was written by church planners in a context of church planning.

00:23:51.840 --> 00:23:55.880
 The whole book, it's like you go from two dimension to three dimension.

00:23:55.960 --> 00:23:57.780
 You start seeing everything a little bit different.

00:23:58.180 --> 00:24:03.060
 And I think our generation has really leaned into that with the missional movement.

00:24:03.560 --> 00:24:04.840
 But I think there's more.

00:24:05.520 --> 00:24:08.180
 Yeah, I think there's a what's what's fascinating.

00:24:08.180 --> 00:24:12.840
 You're talking about principles, not a map.

00:24:13.580 --> 00:24:24.280
 And I think COVID actually did a really could do the church a favor because all the playbooks, all the maps got thrown away March 16th, 2020.

00:24:24.620 --> 00:24:26.700
 Like everything went in the trash.

00:24:27.260 --> 00:24:32.780
 And we, the church, were called to innovate, figure something out.

00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:36.300
 I mean, guys like me, we've been doing, I've been doing digital ministry for 20 years.

00:24:36.500 --> 00:24:38.560
 So like, this is not a surprise for me.

00:24:38.600 --> 00:24:39.000
 Let's go.

00:24:39.060 --> 00:24:40.000
 Let's, let's figure it out.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:41.980
 Now, guys like me are few and far between.

00:24:42.140 --> 00:24:45.740
 I'd actually had a conversation back in 2019 with the lead pastor.

00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:55.160
 And I guesstimated that in 2019, there were probably 25 full-time digital pastors in America where that was the only thing they did.

00:24:55.460 --> 00:25:00.760
 Oftentimes, digital pastors do like, you know, social media, website design.

00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:04.840
 Like it's, it's multiple, but my only, my job is to shepherd and care for people.

00:25:04.940 --> 00:25:06.760
 It was not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things.

00:25:06.960 --> 00:25:11.340
 And so obviously there was, there's been pivots and we're understanding digital now.

00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:15.660
 And what's, what's unfortunate is I think, and this is not a church planning thing.

00:25:15.660 --> 00:25:17.240
 Sorry for the, the tirade here.

00:25:17.360 --> 00:25:20.680
 But I think there's this move to try to, this is how I interview.

00:25:21.140 --> 00:25:21.260
 Yeah.

00:25:21.260 --> 00:25:22.720
 Let's just try to go back to the playbook.

00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:25.060
 Let's, let's go back to February, 2020.

00:25:25.180 --> 00:25:26.780
 February, 2020 was so great.

00:25:26.920 --> 00:25:28.500
 We could side hug people.

00:25:28.660 --> 00:25:29.820
 We could high five.

00:25:29.900 --> 00:25:32.620
 We could, we could invite the kids over and swim in the pool.

00:25:32.620 --> 00:25:35.320
 Like this is what we want to get back to.

00:25:35.360 --> 00:25:36.940
 This is where the church thrives.

00:25:37.080 --> 00:25:39.520
 When we can ecclesia, we can gather together.

00:25:40.220 --> 00:25:46.140
 And, and, and, and unfortunately Gallup tells us like we're at a 20 year decline in February, 2020.

00:25:46.140 --> 00:25:52.360
 I don't know if you know these stats, but at, at, you know, February 20, or excuse me, um, uh,

00:25:52.360 --> 00:26:05.020
 somewhere in 2021, uh, we're at 47%, February, 2021 Gallup released, uh, 47% of Americans are now attending some form of an organized religion church.

00:26:05.240 --> 00:26:08.780
 Not, I mean, this is, this is, uh, American, this is Christianity.

00:26:09.080 --> 00:26:09.980
 This is mosque.

00:26:10.100 --> 00:26:10.960
 This is Jewish temple.

00:26:11.300 --> 00:26:14.000
 So I just did a podcast for somebody, somebody else.

00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:20.980
 And they referenced a bar nest that saying 25% of, uh, Americans are now involved in church.

00:26:21.900 --> 00:26:30.960
 That's at a decline at a massive level, um, going back 20 years, 1999, the number of people that were involved in organized religion was 72%.

00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:36.720
 And we've gone from 72 to 47, 25% is, are in, in Christians.

00:26:37.240 --> 00:26:41.500
 Um, and, and we've got a mess, but no, let's go back to February, 2020.

00:26:41.500 --> 00:26:43.300
 Let's, let's play that playbook again.

00:26:43.340 --> 00:26:47.260
 We can keep doing side hugs and, uh, we'll, we'll figure out how to do the picnics again.

00:26:47.520 --> 00:26:51.440
 And so this, this way of like learning from a global perspective.

00:26:51.440 --> 00:27:00.800
 Like, uh, I just, I want to sit back and, and marvel because it's like, there are, there are lessons there, but we need to be humble and meek enough to actually learn it.

00:27:00.800 --> 00:27:10.300
 You know, I, I, I have a section, um, in chapter one, actually the book where you talked about maths and I mentioned that, um, Edward Cornish, he wrote a book called Futuring.

00:27:10.300 --> 00:27:17.980
 And it's, it's, it's trying to predict what's happened in the past, like things like the Spanish influenza to try to, uh, predict what happens.

00:27:17.980 --> 00:27:29.620
 And what he says, we are 99.99% ignorant of what comes, but, but the whole practice of futuring is to help us come out with, Hey, what will we do in this?

00:27:29.660 --> 00:27:34.980
 So looking at that with the, with the church, I mean, we can't say what's coming next, right?

00:27:34.980 --> 00:27:39.120
 Like something else is going to come and it's going to throw the church off again.

00:27:39.120 --> 00:27:44.940
 I would say in the sixties, a sexual revolution, absolutely put the church to bed and it didn't know what to do with that.

00:27:45.300 --> 00:27:50.840
 And in, in each case, the church keeps getting, you know, that we're always late to the party, right?

00:27:51.220 --> 00:28:01.200
 In, in, in times where even like Jesus said, you know, you, you can, you can predict the sky, you can tell what the weather, but you can't, you, you don't know the signs of the times.

00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:19.680
 And I think that to a certain degree, there's, there's a, a part, I always, I always feel like when a missionary comes back from the field, there's something timeless in missionaries like Roland Allen, Jim Peterson, um, new big in these, these missiologists, they come back.

00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:29.520
 And I think the reason is they've been so used to analyzing the culture that they're in that when they come back, they become church reformers because they can't stop analyzing the culture.

00:28:29.520 --> 00:28:35.940
 And now that they've been on mission, they're seeing the disconnect between the mission of the church and the structure and form and function of the church.

00:28:36.380 --> 00:28:45.360
 And so in this, in this book, what I talk about is a practice, uh, I'll just read you a quick quote here about maps because I say, yeah, God did not leave us without a map.

00:28:45.360 --> 00:28:50.840
 So to speak, likening the practice of navigating an uncharted future to the famous explorers of the past.

00:28:51.280 --> 00:28:56.960
 Corning describes the poor maps and tools that some of the most famous exploration expeditions had to work from.

00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:04.240
 Describing the crude, vague, and untrustworthy maps that Captain Lewis of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition studied, he writes,

00:29:04.300 --> 00:29:10.340
 at the times, maps had almost no information about most of the territory the expedition would be exploring.

00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:12.940
 But whatever there was, Lewis got hold of it.

00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:17.800
 By the time the expedition set out, now, liken this to what happened in the last year, right?

00:29:18.420 --> 00:29:22.020
 Um, he knew all there was to know about the Missouri River and what lay west of it.

00:29:22.380 --> 00:29:31.820
 This error-prone knowledge enabled Lewis to make excellent preparations for the journey, with the great result that Lewis and Clark expedition became one of the greatest triumphs of American history.

00:29:32.220 --> 00:29:35.520
 He concludes, use poor information when necessary.

00:29:36.220 --> 00:29:38.280
 Acts may at times look like a crude map.

00:29:38.280 --> 00:29:47.440
 Church history in the periods of the kingdom advancement, such as the evangelical awakening under Wesley or the Jesus movement, may at times see crude, naive, and primitive.

00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:55.560
 Every generation suffers from what Lloyd-Jones calls chronological snobbery, the view that subsequent generations are superior to their predecessors.

00:29:55.840 --> 00:30:04.680
 But it is important to remember with humility that although they had their collective blind spots, other generations have right what we have gotten wrong.

00:30:04.780 --> 00:30:10.340
 For example, Lewis and Clark did not possess the cloud-based satellite maps that we possess in our mobile phones.

00:30:10.580 --> 00:30:24.900
 Even if we could have delivered such technology to them prior to their journey, without roads or airplanes, they would still have to navigate the journey personally, climbing ice sheets in the Rocky Mountains, braving native hostility, and evading grizzly bears.

00:30:25.180 --> 00:30:35.020
 We have superior technology, yet we, ourselves, today, still could not traverse the wild country as skillfully, because we are not the explorers they were.

00:30:35.380 --> 00:30:38.540
 A phone in the hand is no substitute for grid on the ground.

00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:44.500
 Having the information on a satellite map would not be enough to open the transcontinental passage alone.

00:30:44.840 --> 00:30:47.560
 We may have better maps, but we are not better pioneers.

00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:59.740
 So when you think about that, like, these guys were pioneers, and I think that's the emphasis in this digital challenge that we have, like talking fidgetal, is nobody has a map for this.

00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:01.240
 Nobody has a map.

00:31:01.340 --> 00:31:07.780
 We have the principles, which might seem like crude maps, but we have to be the pioneers now, going forward,

00:31:07.780 --> 00:31:15.480
 taking what we have, so guys like you that are going into the fidgetal space and saying, hey, guys, this is the new frontier.

00:31:15.860 --> 00:31:17.040
 This is the new pioneer.

00:31:17.540 --> 00:31:27.560
 That's what we have to look at, is are we going to be bold enough and brave enough to take the principles, not a map, but a crude map, you know, at best, that helps us prepare,

00:31:27.940 --> 00:31:35.120
 and can we apply what the apostles knew to the challenge in front of us today, like Wesley did in his day, like the Moravians did in their day.

00:31:35.120 --> 00:31:37.660
 I mean, the list just goes on and on, right?

00:31:38.280 --> 00:31:38.520
 Yeah.

00:31:38.940 --> 00:31:41.140
 How do you convince people to follow you?

00:31:41.780 --> 00:31:45.420
 Like, what's interesting is, I mean, like, let's just draw it out.

00:31:45.540 --> 00:31:47.960
 Like, I've had tons of, I've got tons of crazy ideas.

00:31:48.140 --> 00:31:50.120
 There are so many crazy ideas coming out of me.

00:31:50.640 --> 00:31:53.420
 The Stadia team, literally, they're like, Jeff, filter it back.

00:31:53.760 --> 00:31:57.720
 Like, when a crazy idea gets crazy and executable, let's talk.

00:31:57.780 --> 00:31:59.160
 But sometimes, I mean, it's just crazy.

00:31:59.620 --> 00:32:00.200
 It's okay.

00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:01.040
 I'll call myself a Hulk.

00:32:01.460 --> 00:32:07.080
 I think the apostolics, they have this gift of faith.

00:32:07.080 --> 00:32:09.920
 So, like, you know how, like, in Romans, Paul talks about the gift of faith.

00:32:10.540 --> 00:32:14.920
 I don't think that's, like, some weird prosperity, gift of faith, give me money, yada, yada.

00:32:15.960 --> 00:32:18.280
 That, it has to do with mission.

00:32:18.400 --> 00:32:19.480
 So, imagine Paul, right?

00:32:19.720 --> 00:32:26.160
 There was something about Paul that was inspiring the people around him because he did the stuff he talked about.

00:32:26.300 --> 00:32:32.300
 In fact, Paul has, like, scathing, you know, he calls the false teachers idle talkers, right?

00:32:32.340 --> 00:32:35.520
 He's basically saying, you talk a bunch, but you don't do anything.

00:32:35.740 --> 00:32:43.720
 And I think that what happens with anything, even you in digital space, like, you have to just go do it.

00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:52.460
 And when people just see you going and doing this crazy stuff, the people that follow you are the people that see that faith, and it's somehow contagious.

00:32:53.020 --> 00:32:57.240
 And so, it's like that drunk dancing guy video, that TED Talk.

00:32:57.580 --> 00:33:03.320
 Like, your first followers, they're golden because they're the ones that go, oh, cool, you know?

00:33:03.380 --> 00:33:08.460
 And they give, as the TED Talker says, they give legitimacy to your craziness, right?

00:33:09.300 --> 00:33:13.820
 Namaskray, the crazy in me recognizes and bows to the crazy in you.

00:33:14.140 --> 00:33:17.100
 And then we go on and do the crazy dance, and then we start a movement.

00:33:17.720 --> 00:33:24.180
 And I think that that is probably, for me, I, this is kind of a crazy thing.

00:33:24.260 --> 00:33:27.040
 When I church plant, I don't like a lot of Christians with me.

00:33:27.300 --> 00:33:36.740
 Because usually, I'm doing very frontline type of stuff that requires a lot of interaction, a lot of discussion.

00:33:37.300 --> 00:33:46.840
 And if you drown out the voices of unchurched people, I've got two whole chapters in the book, which would definitely apply to digital.

00:33:47.500 --> 00:33:53.860
 But two whole chapters that have to do with leading conversations, like, I've got open mic night in the gay coffee house.

00:33:53.900 --> 00:33:56.620
 That was one of the things we did in urban Long Beach in the Rainbow District.

00:33:56.980 --> 00:34:07.780
 Then I've got, you know, what it was like to lead a collegiate discussion group, leading them to Christ over, starting with, on night one, does God have a sense of humor?

00:34:08.180 --> 00:34:12.000
 Two, leading that Starbucks book discussion group.

00:34:12.400 --> 00:34:23.680
 I've got two whole chapters because I'm convinced, and I know you, Lee, you said something, you and I were on a webinar yesterday where you made this statement that, and that was fascinating, the whole webinar to me.

00:34:23.760 --> 00:34:24.640
 I was like, I'm here to learn.

00:34:24.720 --> 00:34:25.540
 I'm not here to teach.

00:34:25.960 --> 00:34:33.760
 But what I loved was, you know, you said, and everything I do, it's to get people to that first discussion.

00:34:33.900 --> 00:34:36.100
 I was like, yes, that's exactly it.

00:34:36.100 --> 00:34:44.680
 And so that whole idea of having those discussions is, to me, so crucial.

00:34:45.100 --> 00:34:45.960
 That's beautiful.

00:34:46.100 --> 00:34:47.480
 Well, I mean, you set me up at a webinar.

00:34:47.620 --> 00:34:48.320
 You said I was smart.

00:34:48.480 --> 00:34:51.020
 So, like, that was the perfect thing to say.

00:34:51.300 --> 00:34:52.400
 Always butter up the host.

00:34:52.640 --> 00:34:54.800
 Yeah, butter up, suck up as much as possible.

00:34:55.300 --> 00:34:56.360
 But, I mean, it was interesting.

00:34:56.480 --> 00:35:01.620
 You just coming off that webinar yesterday, I had just come off a conversation with our friends at Glue.

00:35:01.620 --> 00:35:04.500
 And we were talking about, hey, what are we learning?

00:35:05.140 --> 00:35:12.520
 And so my friends over there were like, hey, so here's some interesting stats that we're learning from some of our keyholder churches.

00:35:13.100 --> 00:35:26.220
 That they're seeing that if a person makes two solid connections within the first 16 weeks, they're going to stay connected into the organization.

00:35:26.780 --> 00:35:33.000
 Now, that's like one of them is a service, one could be giving, one could be small groups, one could be serving.

00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:43.560
 But if a person just has one connection, just serving or just small groups, whatever, just a single connection, within 16 weeks, they're 80% likely or something to disconnect.

00:35:44.060 --> 00:36:03.840
 Similarly, if a new person shares something about the church, maybe it's a social media graphic, maybe it's a text invite, an invite card, where there's something where it's a, I'm actually sharing about Jesus, I'm a new Christian sharing about Jesus, or I'm sharing about the church.

00:36:03.840 --> 00:36:10.560
 If they do that within three months, they'll do it again and again and again, it's part of the DNA.

00:36:10.960 --> 00:36:16.800
 If they don't do that within the first three months of being a church or being a Christian, they're not going to do it.

00:36:17.060 --> 00:36:19.000
 It's not established and part of that DNA.

00:36:19.220 --> 00:36:22.980
 And there's like an 80-something percent chance that they'll never actually get there.

00:36:23.440 --> 00:36:31.120
 And when we look at some of the stats now where it's like, if we're going to be effective in reaching people, Barna has shared some of these stats.

00:36:31.620 --> 00:36:33.720
 Like it's not our services.

00:36:33.900 --> 00:36:35.840
 The services are no longer the evangelism center.

00:36:36.300 --> 00:36:38.420
 80% of people called to Christ don't care about it.

00:36:38.820 --> 00:36:41.600
 It's training up people to have those conversations.

00:36:42.560 --> 00:36:49.140
 And it's, you know, and this even gets towards some of the thing looking at the global church because the global church is growing relationally.

00:36:49.260 --> 00:36:55.260
 It's growing in that one-to-one digital churches, digital churches, growing in that one-to-one relational thing.

00:36:55.600 --> 00:36:57.380
 And that's where people are.

00:36:57.680 --> 00:37:00.200
 And so like we need to start thinking that way.

00:37:00.200 --> 00:37:10.380
 And it's different models of church even, like the relational aspects of a micro church, the relational aspects of a physical church, of a digital only church,

00:37:10.460 --> 00:37:18.660
 the relational aspects of a guy that's doing workplace ministry, that's working, that's realizing he's more effective as a minister.

00:37:19.080 --> 00:37:20.620
 I've heard some of those stories lately.

00:37:20.740 --> 00:37:32.760
 Guys that are backing off of full-time at church staff, quitting their jobs or even going part-time just because they want to get more out in the world to actually build these relationships to do ministry.

00:37:32.880 --> 00:37:33.520
 Peyton, that was you.

00:37:33.620 --> 00:37:34.520
 Tell me some of that story.

00:37:34.840 --> 00:37:35.040
 Yeah.

00:37:35.240 --> 00:37:40.800
 So I actually, I've been everything from a, I was a barista when I started that church.

00:37:40.800 --> 00:37:42.360
 Now I was triple professional.

00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:44.000
 I've been a firefighter, an RN.

00:37:44.240 --> 00:37:46.900
 I mean, you know, I have an MA in theology.

00:37:47.100 --> 00:37:49.360
 I don't present as that kind of guy, I suppose.

00:37:49.360 --> 00:37:54.640
 But, you know, it's funny because I was fully supported.

00:37:54.820 --> 00:37:56.540
 Like my career, I started mega church.

00:37:56.700 --> 00:38:03.740
 I had a very coveted position in Huntington Beach, was leading a mega church in the 90s, very young.

00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:07.300
 I had a preaching gift that far exceeded my maturity level.

00:38:07.900 --> 00:38:09.120
 And God knew that.

00:38:09.180 --> 00:38:10.940
 And God was calling me off to the mission field.

00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:14.900
 So I kind of walked away from all of that years ago.

00:38:15.140 --> 00:38:19.700
 But I found my, that's how I ended up at Lloyd-Jones' church as the evangelist.

00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:24.500
 And I was supported by my home church, fully supported for about a year and a half.

00:38:24.640 --> 00:38:25.980
 And then 9-11 hit.

00:38:26.180 --> 00:38:27.920
 So I was overseas when that happened.

00:38:28.280 --> 00:38:36.860
 Working in the dockside, you know, steelworking town of Port Talbot, Wales, which, again, I was at Lloyd-Jones' church there.

00:38:36.860 --> 00:38:38.440
 And it was a rough place.

00:38:38.540 --> 00:38:41.140
 So, like, I tell people, like, right there, that's not a wrinkle.

00:38:41.300 --> 00:38:42.040
 The rest is wrinkles.

00:38:42.240 --> 00:38:47.960
 That's a scar from when a guy put me down in the street and beat me into unconsciousness, put me in the hospital.

00:38:49.100 --> 00:38:51.420
 So, you know, it was a rough place.

00:38:51.440 --> 00:38:54.260
 And that was only, like, 10 weeks in that town.

00:38:54.520 --> 00:38:58.560
 And I used to go out and film people and talk to them about the gospel on Friday nights.

00:38:58.680 --> 00:39:02.040
 And people in the church are like, dude, you're not doing that, are you?

00:39:02.060 --> 00:39:03.440
 And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm going to do that.

00:39:03.540 --> 00:39:05.480
 And I wasn't the obnoxious.

00:39:05.480 --> 00:39:09.200
 I didn't get beat up because of obnoxious gospel presentations.

00:39:09.200 --> 00:39:10.300
 A whole nother story.

00:39:10.980 --> 00:39:19.860
 But the thing is, is that I was for a year trying to do all of the evangelism with no fruit, right?

00:39:19.900 --> 00:39:20.920
 Like zero fruit.

00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:21.660
 All the hard stuff.

00:39:21.740 --> 00:39:22.480
 All the crappy stuff.

00:39:22.540 --> 00:39:23.920
 All the stuff nobody wants to do.

00:39:24.060 --> 00:39:24.640
 I did it.

00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:25.500
 And I hated it.

00:39:25.560 --> 00:39:28.640
 I didn't like doing that kind of evangelism anymore than anyone else, right?

00:39:28.680 --> 00:39:30.760
 It was like, well, they're calling me the evangelist.

00:39:30.840 --> 00:39:31.920
 I better go out and do this stuff.

00:39:32.100 --> 00:39:38.220
 And, but again, I hadn't rediscovered the ways that Paul was doing things yet.

00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:40.580
 And, and I don't mean like open air preaching.

00:39:40.660 --> 00:39:41.920
 You know, he did that very little.

00:39:42.480 --> 00:39:44.840
 We tend to think that's what he did all throughout Acts.

00:39:44.900 --> 00:39:46.320
 That's actually not what he did.

00:39:46.680 --> 00:39:48.440
 The majority, he entered discussions.

00:39:48.440 --> 00:39:52.160
 He entered the synagogue as was his custom and reasoned with the Jews.

00:39:52.360 --> 00:39:55.040
 He was more conversational evangelism.

00:39:55.200 --> 00:39:57.220
 Athens was kind of like a one-off, right?

00:39:57.600 --> 00:40:04.440
 So when, when I ended up having 9-11 hit, my support dropped in half and I couldn't pay my bills.

00:40:04.860 --> 00:40:09.420
 And so I went to work in the steel, well, actually not the steelworks, a different factory.

00:40:09.860 --> 00:40:14.380
 But with a huge chunk of the population that was there, it was an easy job.

00:40:15.220 --> 00:40:21.500
 Manpower hired me and within a few weeks, like six weeks, three people had come to faith on the assembly line.

00:40:21.980 --> 00:40:25.080
 And I went from there to be a firefighter because of my RN background.

00:40:25.360 --> 00:40:27.540
 I went from there to be a clinical troubleshooter.

00:40:27.540 --> 00:40:37.320
 There right now are probably hundreds of people as a result of that because there was a, this thing called the housing consortium with like 800 people with special needs.

00:40:37.320 --> 00:40:40.420
 And they ran, this company ran South Wales.

00:40:40.680 --> 00:40:51.640
 Soon as we got one of the heads of one of those homes saved, a chain reaction just started and started moving throughout the whole movement.

00:40:51.800 --> 00:40:53.340
 They started leading their friends to Christ.

00:40:53.440 --> 00:40:56.080
 Other people that ran homes, they started bringing the patients.

00:40:56.320 --> 00:40:57.660
 Some of them started coming to faith.

00:40:57.980 --> 00:40:59.300
 It was nuts.

00:40:59.980 --> 00:41:14.240
 And just, you know, for me, I learned a lesson then because I remember being on the assembly line early on, just going, I'm meeting more people by Monday lunch than I did full time in a week as a pastor.

00:41:14.520 --> 00:41:16.160
 And that changed everything for me.

00:41:16.260 --> 00:41:17.320
 I was, it was a no brainer.

00:41:17.400 --> 00:41:19.780
 So I kept working with my hands.

00:41:19.880 --> 00:41:24.780
 In fact, when I was planning churches, the elders of the church plants were like, we need to pay you.

00:41:24.820 --> 00:41:26.520
 And I'm like, no, I don't want that.

00:41:26.940 --> 00:41:28.100
 Don't pay me right now.

00:41:28.280 --> 00:41:31.580
 Eventually I would go in and out a full time.

00:41:31.720 --> 00:41:38.560
 But usually every church that I planted, it's usually my final year before I'm ready to move on that I finally take it.

00:41:38.600 --> 00:41:40.160
 And that's so I can reproduce myself.

00:41:40.260 --> 00:41:47.640
 And that's to quote Hugh Halter, who said, if you want to be full time, the New Testament model is to reproduce yourself.

00:41:47.780 --> 00:41:48.840
 That's why you're full time.

00:41:48.980 --> 00:41:49.780
 And so that's what I did.

00:41:49.980 --> 00:41:54.680
 You know, I've been interested in the co-vocational model.

00:41:54.900 --> 00:42:05.140
 We've been talking a little bit about it on the past with Jared and Ann Hughes, who basically have, excuse me, Jared and Angie Hughes, who are running a digital only church called Hope City Church.

00:42:05.240 --> 00:42:06.040
 They're co-vocational.

00:42:06.500 --> 00:42:09.060
 I want to say their church is like 15,000, 16,000.

00:42:09.140 --> 00:42:12.320
 It's one of the largest digital only churches in the Western Hemisphere.

00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:16.920
 And it's on in their co-vocational, both of them are co-vocational co-pastors.

00:42:18.160 --> 00:42:25.280
 Give me some like I've got I've literally have a friend of mine, Ray DeArmis, co-host here with the Church Digital on the podcast regularly.

00:42:25.820 --> 00:42:27.540
 He just stepped down from Christ Fellowship Miami.

00:42:27.540 --> 00:42:29.360
 He's going back to school.

00:42:29.640 --> 00:42:30.480
 He's got an MDiv.

00:42:30.860 --> 00:42:33.820
 He's going back to school to learn how to be a medical technician.

00:42:34.160 --> 00:42:36.920
 His mission field, he feels called to the hospital.

00:42:37.240 --> 00:42:38.820
 We're going to talk about it on the podcast later.

00:42:38.820 --> 00:42:41.740
 I don't want to like outray, but it's been announced at this point.

00:42:41.740 --> 00:42:43.100
 And it's on social.

00:42:44.600 --> 00:42:50.060
 Talk to me a little bit about people that are get some advice because co-vocational is at my heart.

00:42:50.180 --> 00:42:56.040
 And when I look at budgeting here, digital only churches, we're advising be co-vocational.

00:42:56.600 --> 00:43:02.580
 And because you're reaching a different type of person that may not be funding this thing the way that you're thinking.

00:43:02.680 --> 00:43:03.880
 Talk about that co-vocational.

00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:05.360
 Talk about that workplace a little bit.

00:43:05.360 --> 00:43:15.060
 It's so funny you ask that because when I work with North America Mission Board, Mac Lake and I and two other guys, we really kind of helped build this whole Cadillac of training.

00:43:15.240 --> 00:43:16.320
 Most of it was Mac's.

00:43:16.380 --> 00:43:21.720
 But Mac was like, bring this to it because he goes, look, when we first built this, it was launch large stuff.

00:43:22.140 --> 00:43:25.440
 He goes, 90% of planners out there are bivocational.

00:43:26.140 --> 00:43:31.340
 So what we did was we, you know, I kind of took from my own experience when I was at Starbucks.

00:43:31.340 --> 00:43:34.120
 So I'll just give you a quick little tidbit here.

00:43:34.300 --> 00:43:37.200
 When I was at Starbucks, I made minimum wage.

00:43:38.140 --> 00:43:41.520
 I worked a 40 hour week and I worked.

00:43:42.100 --> 00:43:46.380
 But I saw everybody like in a country that rains every day that borders books.

00:43:46.480 --> 00:43:47.340
 May they rest in peace.

00:43:47.400 --> 00:43:48.260
 Had a Starbucks in it.

00:43:48.300 --> 00:43:50.400
 That's when I launched accidentally the church out of.

00:43:50.720 --> 00:43:56.560
 I was reaching so many people in my community by being a central figure in that hub.

00:43:57.560 --> 00:44:02.760
 So but and what I'll tell people is if I had a bar graph, which in my training, I have these little bar graphs.

00:44:02.760 --> 00:44:10.440
 I have minimum wage, maximum hours invested and maximum reach.

00:44:10.760 --> 00:44:11.620
 So that's OK.

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:15.760
 But it was hard to pay all my bills on minimum wage.

00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:18.000
 Now, remember, I was a triple professional.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:21.020
 So I was finishing up my M.A., it was Starbucks.

00:44:21.180 --> 00:44:22.820
 It was a job I didn't have to think too much about.

00:44:23.680 --> 00:44:30.420
 But then my church planning partner, not my wife, but but the one I wasn't married to, my other church planning partner,

00:44:31.320 --> 00:44:34.300
 ended up saying, hey, I'm a window cleaner.

00:44:34.440 --> 00:44:36.720
 Come work for me two days a week.

00:44:36.780 --> 00:44:39.100
 You'll make double to triple what you make.

00:44:39.180 --> 00:44:40.820
 So imagine this now on a bar graph.

00:44:40.940 --> 00:44:43.860
 I've got double to triple what I made before.

00:44:44.740 --> 00:44:46.860
 So maximum income.

00:44:47.280 --> 00:44:51.120
 Then the third, the second column was time investment two days a week.

00:44:51.460 --> 00:44:54.680
 That meant now I'm so minimum time investment.

00:44:55.200 --> 00:44:57.120
 Hey, come on, more money for less time.

00:44:57.180 --> 00:44:57.820
 I'll take it.

00:44:58.900 --> 00:45:02.560
 But I mean, exposure to my community off the charts.

00:45:02.660 --> 00:45:03.100
 And here's why.

00:45:03.180 --> 00:45:07.120
 When you're a window cleaner, real estate agent, there's so many different jobs like this.

00:45:07.420 --> 00:45:16.480
 I literally had an excuse to knock on every single door in my city because in a country, it rains every day.

00:45:16.620 --> 00:45:19.100
 Window cleaners are very busy.

00:45:19.880 --> 00:45:22.180
 And so you don't think that.

00:45:22.320 --> 00:45:25.440
 But when it rains a bunch, your windows get dirty faster.

00:45:25.960 --> 00:45:28.200
 So I literally was knocking.

00:45:28.460 --> 00:45:34.180
 I literally led people to Christ in the church I was planting because I was their window cleaner.

00:45:34.320 --> 00:45:40.140
 In fact, jokingly, years later, I asked one guy, hey, write me a review as a church planner, yada, yada.

00:45:40.240 --> 00:45:41.640
 And he's now in leadership somewhere else.

00:45:41.640 --> 00:45:42.760
 But he got saved during that time.

00:45:43.080 --> 00:45:45.060
 And he wrote, Peyton Jones, best window cleaner I ever had.

00:45:45.220 --> 00:45:46.680
 Sorry, he's full time in ministry.

00:45:47.420 --> 00:45:53.160
 So, you know, the thing is, is that that right there is huge.

00:45:53.320 --> 00:45:56.440
 And so I would always say to people, like, same thing.

00:45:56.500 --> 00:45:57.680
 You're making awesome money.

00:45:57.980 --> 00:45:59.020
 You're a forklift driver.

00:45:59.480 --> 00:46:03.880
 But you're in the back of a warehouse, you know, interacting with a guy named Bob and a guy named Gary.

00:46:04.700 --> 00:46:06.120
 Maybe you lead them two to Christ.

00:46:06.240 --> 00:46:07.640
 Maybe they lead a bunch of people to Christ.

00:46:07.720 --> 00:46:09.460
 But that's not going to give you the exposure.

00:46:09.620 --> 00:46:15.720
 So to me, there are always those three factors that for bivocational guys, you need to juggle.

00:46:15.720 --> 00:46:23.760
 And, of course, I would be remiss to not throw Brad Briscoe out there, who, Brad Briscoe is just a genius in this stuff.

00:46:24.280 --> 00:46:25.480
 Definitely check out his books.

00:46:25.540 --> 00:46:27.160
 He's got one called Co-Vocational.

00:46:27.640 --> 00:46:29.420
 He's got a Facebook group on that.

00:46:29.800 --> 00:46:30.260
 He's really good.

00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:31.720
 Hugh Halter has a book on Bible.

00:46:32.620 --> 00:46:43.120
 My book has Church Planetology has two chapters on this because what I lay out in here is something that maybe adds to the conversation.

00:46:43.380 --> 00:46:44.680
 And that's what I try to do with the book.

00:46:44.680 --> 00:46:50.680
 I try to add to the, not just rehash what everybody else says, build off that and maybe add some new things.

00:46:51.140 --> 00:46:57.820
 So, like, one of the things I talk about is Paul's multi-sourced income model.

00:46:57.960 --> 00:47:00.140
 So he had a multi-variable source income.

00:47:00.760 --> 00:47:03.720
 He had, he occasionally raised funds.

00:47:04.200 --> 00:47:05.020
 He talks about that.

00:47:05.020 --> 00:47:07.760
 And I lay those scriptures out there where he goes, hey, I need some money to get.

00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:11.480
 I need you, Philippians chapter 4, to get me on where I'm going next, right?

00:47:11.580 --> 00:47:12.940
 Second Corinthians chapter 10.

00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:17.240
 He's got all these passages where he says, I'm coming and I'm going to ask for money from you.

00:47:17.240 --> 00:47:20.000
 This is in the collection for the poor Christians of Jerusalem.

00:47:20.440 --> 00:47:22.380
 This is for you to further my ministry.

00:47:22.720 --> 00:47:28.240
 I took nothing from you when I was there, but now I need you to pay it forward for the next group of people I'm going to.

00:47:28.500 --> 00:47:29.680
 So Paul did raise funds.

00:47:30.060 --> 00:47:33.720
 So I've always had a fundraising component to it, to what I do.

00:47:33.860 --> 00:47:39.020
 So if you went to newbreednetwork.org and you're like, oh, I want to fund Peyton Jones, that is there for you.

00:47:39.780 --> 00:47:42.280
 But then also I worked with my hands.

00:47:42.380 --> 00:47:43.320
 I still work with my hands.

00:47:43.420 --> 00:47:44.140
 I work other jobs.

00:47:44.140 --> 00:47:48.820
 I work for something called throughtheword.org, which is a Bible chapter summary of every job.

00:47:49.080 --> 00:47:49.880
 That's how I pay the bills.

00:47:50.320 --> 00:47:56.660
 And then lastly, if I'm planting, I have a scale for multiplication, like a system.

00:47:56.660 --> 00:48:03.900
 That's one of the other things is church multiplication bottlenecks behind a minister's or leader's salary.

00:48:04.360 --> 00:48:11.060
 So I've got a system hardwired into the book of how I made it so I could leave churches, be a ninja planner and move on.

00:48:11.680 --> 00:48:16.200
 So in that, I would have the church would pay me a set amount.

00:48:16.340 --> 00:48:20.760
 Like I said, in my final year, I would be full-time and that would teeter off as I multiplied.

00:48:21.380 --> 00:48:23.320
 But we don't really have time to go into it here.

00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:28.780
 But it's kind of what I think Paul used with these three sources of income.

00:48:28.960 --> 00:48:36.920
 And so I encourage planters to not just go bivocational, not just get paid by the church.

00:48:37.700 --> 00:48:39.520
 Mission dictates how I'll do that.

00:48:39.620 --> 00:48:43.680
 So again, using a bar graph, is it the church that's going to pay me more right now?

00:48:43.720 --> 00:48:45.160
 It depends on what the mission dictates.

00:48:45.540 --> 00:48:49.320
 Is it my support that's going to pay me a little bit more for the first step?

00:48:49.560 --> 00:48:50.980
 Depends on what the mission dictates.

00:48:51.300 --> 00:48:53.700
 Is it me working with my hands full-time?

00:48:54.220 --> 00:48:56.600
 And then these other two are supplemental.

00:48:56.780 --> 00:48:58.420
 Depends on what the mission dictates.

00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:01.980
 So to me, as you go through church plantology, I think it's the same with Paul.

00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:06.380
 Paul let the mission dictate where he took.

00:49:06.580 --> 00:49:08.080
 So I would say there was a bar graph.

00:49:08.080 --> 00:49:14.420
 And as you follow Paul's trajectory in the New Testament, there's sometimes he's taking more from one and one from the other.

00:49:14.560 --> 00:49:17.060
 And that's based on what the mission was at hand.

00:49:17.060 --> 00:49:27.500
 So when he goes to Ephesus and he creates this old church planning, church planner factory where the seven churches of Asia are planted out of Ephesus during those three years, he stays there.

00:49:28.160 --> 00:49:32.020
 He was pretty much taking support during that time.

00:49:32.120 --> 00:49:36.540
 He was living off of the ministry, was not working with his hands at that time.

00:49:36.900 --> 00:49:38.240
 That's beautiful.

00:49:39.140 --> 00:49:40.140
 Sorry, that was a lie.

00:49:40.260 --> 00:49:42.480
 Yeah, my wife just had a heart attack just hearing that.

00:49:43.260 --> 00:49:46.240
 But that is the amount.

00:49:46.320 --> 00:49:53.280
 I'm just thinking the amount of humility to say, you know, I'm going to regulate my paycheck based on the season of where God is.

00:49:53.940 --> 00:50:00.460
 And so some seasons I'm going to I'm going to I've never occurred to me to wash windows to like meet people.

00:50:00.460 --> 00:50:03.480
 So for a season, I'm going to wash windows for a season.

00:50:03.680 --> 00:50:06.580
 I'm going to, you know, the worst case scenario, I'm going to be the barista.

00:50:06.680 --> 00:50:11.240
 And I'll get huge exposure, but I got to work lots of hours and make, you know, less than 10 an hour.

00:50:12.100 --> 00:50:20.900
 There's just so much humility and faith that's involved in that to kind of walk through and do something like that.

00:50:20.960 --> 00:50:27.960
 Just to let God, you know, almost as you're talking about day by day, deny self, take up the cross and follow.

00:50:27.960 --> 00:50:35.120
 I mean, you're you're painting a picture that honestly, a lot of a lot of pastors may have forgotten, honestly.

00:50:35.340 --> 00:50:37.220
 And so thank you even for that reminder.

00:50:37.800 --> 00:50:46.860
 No, and it's great because one one fringe benefit to it, Jeff, is, you know, when I was planning churches again, I was planning primarily with unbelievers.

00:50:47.500 --> 00:50:52.220
 And then when when believers would be like, hey, you know, you're supposed to be my pastors.

00:50:52.500 --> 00:50:53.940
 I'd be like, hey, I don't work for you, man.

00:50:54.420 --> 00:50:54.920
 I don't.

00:50:55.340 --> 00:50:55.660
 Yes.

00:50:55.820 --> 00:51:01.940
 I mean, I but, you know, hey, I work a full time job like you and I'm doing the best I can to hobble this.

00:51:01.960 --> 00:51:05.580
 So and I would always have a team because you can't be bivocational without a team.

00:51:05.980 --> 00:51:07.260
 This whole book is team planting.

00:51:07.500 --> 00:51:09.920
 But it takes the weight off between that.

00:51:10.320 --> 00:51:13.340
 People kind of and it sounded cold and it sounded rude.

00:51:13.380 --> 00:51:17.160
 But it was like, hey, I got a marriage and I got a family and I got a full time job.

00:51:17.260 --> 00:51:18.940
 And yes, you're right.

00:51:18.960 --> 00:51:19.980
 Your needs are important.

00:51:20.100 --> 00:51:25.980
 But people kind of get it when they realize, oh, so you're not like my other pastor that I wonder what he did all day.

00:51:26.400 --> 00:51:33.140
 But you actually have and it would cause them to go, oh, and of course, the church models that we would set up with microchurch.

00:51:33.620 --> 00:51:35.580
 That's body on body ministry anyways.

00:51:36.380 --> 00:51:45.800
 So people coming from other churches, they would get kind of reprogrammed a bit like, you know, oh, so you're just a normal dude like me.

00:51:46.240 --> 00:51:48.420
 Yeah, I'm just a normal dude like you.

00:51:48.420 --> 00:51:50.320
 I'm leaning on Jesus like everyone else.

00:51:50.640 --> 00:51:52.540
 In fact, my job is really just to equip you.

00:51:52.940 --> 00:51:53.140
 Right.

00:51:53.200 --> 00:51:54.540
 I'm a terrible shepherd, by the way.

00:51:54.600 --> 00:51:55.320
 I'm apostolic.

00:51:55.400 --> 00:51:56.300
 So I'm the mobilizer.

00:51:57.540 --> 00:51:58.220
 I'm learning.

00:51:58.380 --> 00:52:01.820
 You're talking about, you know, take taking the money to multiply the self.

00:52:01.820 --> 00:52:05.220
 And then and then like you're literally working yourself out of a job.

00:52:05.220 --> 00:52:11.140
 But for that season, when you're multiplying, you're saving up the money because because you're about ready to leave and you're going to have nothing.

00:52:11.240 --> 00:52:16.180
 So you're going to have something in the bank, which makes sense from from a from a ministry perspective.

00:52:16.680 --> 00:52:22.980
 You know, it challenges, you know, some honestly Western civilization like philosophy.

00:52:22.980 --> 00:52:26.380
 But I'm not saying Western civilization is right either.

00:52:26.520 --> 00:52:29.640
 So let's let's let's do this as we're wrapping up here.

00:52:29.700 --> 00:52:31.840
 Now, we're we're you know, I'm a digital church guy.

00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:48.100
 We didn't talk too much about digital church year, your breadth of planting, you know, and obviously with the plantology, literally like the modern textbook for planting, not just digital church, but really in any model of church is huge.

00:52:48.180 --> 00:52:48.860
 Looking forward to that.

00:52:48.960 --> 00:52:50.460
 You know, once again, check out the show notes.

00:52:50.540 --> 00:52:52.380
 We'll have a link to it in there.

00:52:52.380 --> 00:52:55.380
 But I did have, you know, this question.

00:52:56.040 --> 00:52:59.660
 And so I'm going to set you up to be negative here.

00:53:00.520 --> 00:53:04.280
 But you're learning digital church like we've had some kind of preliminary conversations.

00:53:04.280 --> 00:53:05.620
 I'm not looking for expertise here.

00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:08.280
 What challenges do we have to face?

00:53:08.640 --> 00:53:10.360
 You're understanding multiple models.

00:53:10.360 --> 00:53:14.900
 You're understanding kind of like what the church defined is.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:20.040
 I'm not looking for the expertise because I don't I don't know that your breadth in that covers it.

00:53:20.240 --> 00:53:23.020
 But give me some negative like take put on the punching gloves.

00:53:23.380 --> 00:53:24.480
 Take take some shots here.

00:53:24.560 --> 00:53:27.060
 What do we need to overcome in the digital space?

00:53:27.380 --> 00:53:29.700
 And what I definitely I can answer that.

00:53:29.760 --> 00:53:34.400
 Let me say first off that I I literally you guys yesterday.

00:53:34.400 --> 00:53:38.200
 I ended up on that webinar panel wondering why am I here?

00:53:38.280 --> 00:53:39.860
 Of course, the stuff I'm doing through the word.

00:53:40.040 --> 00:53:43.060
 We're working all over the world to create digital discipleship tools.

00:53:43.340 --> 00:53:47.600
 So maybe I don't know or maybe just somebody was being kind to have me on there.

00:53:47.700 --> 00:53:54.020
 But you guys got my gears turning so much yesterday that I was going nuts.

00:53:54.160 --> 00:53:57.940
 It was everything I could do not to say like and I was like, no, you're not going to say this.

00:53:58.060 --> 00:53:59.900
 You got to I got to go away and process.

00:54:00.380 --> 00:54:02.300
 So the stuff you guys were popping off.

00:54:02.420 --> 00:54:08.440
 There was such a synergy between what I was saying in the book and where you guys were at.

00:54:08.520 --> 00:54:09.500
 I was so encouraged.

00:54:09.560 --> 00:54:11.800
 I went, well, you guys just it was like Lion, Witch and the wardrobe.

00:54:11.800 --> 00:54:13.180
 I just saw the wardrobe open.

00:54:13.280 --> 00:54:15.400
 I see Narnia on the other side of this thing.

00:54:15.740 --> 00:54:16.480
 So that was rad for me.

00:54:16.560 --> 00:54:21.720
 But the challenge is to answer your question that I see are as we go digital.

00:54:21.820 --> 00:54:30.380
 It's the same thing with analog that all these pastors, when they suddenly realize they could do a Zoom meeting, it's like they've stopped and said, that's enough.

00:54:30.880 --> 00:54:37.200
 You know, now I can get online offerings really well and I can run the show digitally.

00:54:37.540 --> 00:54:38.080
 I'm good.

00:54:38.360 --> 00:54:38.580
 Right.

00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:40.180
 Butts and bucks, man.

00:54:40.260 --> 00:54:43.000
 Now I just got eyeballs and credit cards.

00:54:43.260 --> 00:54:43.460
 Right.

00:54:43.520 --> 00:54:50.340
 It's just a digital form of the metrics they were using before, which you and I would agree is not good enough.

00:54:50.400 --> 00:54:51.720
 That's just not good enough.

00:54:52.220 --> 00:54:57.800
 And so where I can see the challenge is this is basically two things.

00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:09.000
 Number one, from the digital side of church, we've got to really dig down into how do we recover the interactivity that the early church had.

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:15.720
 If there's 32 one another's, we know those didn't happen staring at the back of each other's heads in rows.

00:55:15.840 --> 00:55:17.000
 We know that they ate together.

00:55:17.120 --> 00:55:18.960
 We know that the spiritual gifts were practiced.

00:55:19.380 --> 00:55:25.940
 Now, I've got something in the book about that on an analog where we would sit in half circles so that discussions could happen.

00:55:26.060 --> 00:55:27.540
 People got discipled in those.

00:55:27.900 --> 00:55:29.520
 People got prayed for in those.

00:55:29.780 --> 00:55:31.380
 People learned to evangelize in those.

00:55:31.380 --> 00:55:38.080
 So all of the discipleship that I was hopefully trying to train them and model for them was happening on Sundays.

00:55:38.280 --> 00:55:47.440
 Just simply because of simple ways that we re-orchestrated a service and set up the geography of the room.

00:55:47.760 --> 00:55:47.960
 Right.

00:55:48.060 --> 00:55:51.580
 Just those few simple tweaks and people were interacting.

00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:53.920
 So I think interactivity.

00:55:54.100 --> 00:55:57.580
 How are we going to get people to use their gifts online?

00:55:58.360 --> 00:55:59.580
 And I don't mean the weird gifts.

00:55:59.580 --> 00:56:02.880
 I mean just the gifts of encouragement, the gift of teaching.

00:56:03.080 --> 00:56:04.680
 How are we going to get people interactive?

00:56:04.800 --> 00:56:08.260
 This next generation that's digital, they are all about interactivity.

00:56:08.540 --> 00:56:09.220
 They watch a movie.

00:56:09.340 --> 00:56:10.360
 This movie is lame.

00:56:10.460 --> 00:56:12.120
 This cupcake, look at it on Instagram.

00:56:12.500 --> 00:56:14.720
 How do we leverage that?

00:56:14.920 --> 00:56:17.440
 Because I believe that the church is wired to be more interactive.

00:56:17.760 --> 00:56:27.880
 This hunger for community that COVID really clicked into and highlighted, the church is perfectly wired for to meet that need.

00:56:27.960 --> 00:56:35.260
 So if the church can enter that digital space and really wrestle with what does it mean to be interactive in a digital space, that's huge.

00:56:35.360 --> 00:56:50.300
 If we conquer that, 90%, I think, of the church's problems go away because it leads to what I'm actually getting to is releasing every believer and activating them and deploying them in their gifts.

00:56:50.700 --> 00:56:51.720
 I don't care who you are.

00:56:51.720 --> 00:56:55.300
 When your spiritual gifts are activated, you immediately become evangelistic.

00:56:56.900 --> 00:57:04.620
 And then secondly, this is where my mind, because I'm apostolic, for me, it's all about frontiers.

00:57:05.020 --> 00:57:09.400
 It's all about going where the unchurched are and mobilizing the church to follow.

00:57:09.760 --> 00:57:12.980
 It's not about come to where I'm at digitally.

00:57:13.540 --> 00:57:20.380
 So yesterday, you guys got me thinking so much that my mind apostolically, and that's what the little a, it just means missionary.

00:57:20.640 --> 00:57:23.040
 If you're hung up on that, I don't have superpowers.

00:57:24.080 --> 00:57:27.800
 It's the New Testament word, apostolos, for missionary, sent one.

00:57:27.800 --> 00:57:32.260
 So for me, going, well, I'm sent to people outside of church.

00:57:32.340 --> 00:57:34.360
 I'm on the periphery.

00:57:35.640 --> 00:57:41.720
 I'm thinking now, how do I leverage digital space, not for church, but for mission?

00:57:42.160 --> 00:57:43.240
 You mentioned Iran.

00:57:43.360 --> 00:57:43.940
 That's what they're doing.

00:57:44.260 --> 00:57:46.920
 How do I leverage that?

00:57:47.900 --> 00:57:51.920
 And I think there's an open door that I have.

00:57:52.080 --> 00:57:55.440
 I think I need to go through the wardrobe and have tea with Mr. Tumnus.

00:57:55.540 --> 00:57:59.440
 That's what I think is happening right now through talking with you guys yesterday.

00:57:59.440 --> 00:58:06.100
 But leveraging creative, innovative, all the stuff I've done on the ground discussion-wise,

00:58:06.580 --> 00:58:09.840
 leveraging that out there in digital space.

00:58:09.960 --> 00:58:11.700
 How do we bring those things together?

00:58:11.860 --> 00:58:15.780
 That, I couldn't stop thinking about it after our webinar yesterday.

00:58:16.580 --> 00:58:17.020
 Awesome.

00:58:17.340 --> 00:58:19.580
 Love that that was inspirational.

00:58:19.940 --> 00:58:21.640
 Love, you know, some of this insight.

00:58:22.360 --> 00:58:24.720
 The heart of a digital church.

00:58:24.820 --> 00:58:26.120
 We talk about it all the time.

00:58:26.160 --> 00:58:29.300
 And actually, I stole this language from Jay Cranda over at Saddleback.

00:58:29.360 --> 00:58:29.660
 Hey, Jay.

00:58:29.700 --> 00:58:30.200
 I love Jay.

00:58:30.600 --> 00:58:31.420
 Yeah, I love Jay.

00:58:31.500 --> 00:58:31.900
 Jay's great.

00:58:32.360 --> 00:58:33.320
 It's online to offline.

00:58:33.540 --> 00:58:35.940
 The gospel that we hear in our online world.

00:58:35.940 --> 00:58:37.000
 It has to influence.

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:40.100
 It has to affect us in our offline relationships.

00:58:40.320 --> 00:58:42.680
 Otherwise, we're creating consumers.

00:58:43.320 --> 00:58:47.240
 And so, because the consumer of a product is somebody who's digesting something, but not

00:58:47.240 --> 00:58:48.200
 putting action on it.

00:58:48.260 --> 00:58:52.400
 The action is what gets more towards that, creating that missionary.

00:58:52.840 --> 00:58:57.180
 And so, your words of equipping and releasing, you know, that you said, and you're activating.

00:58:57.560 --> 00:58:58.800
 I love that word activation.

00:58:58.940 --> 00:59:02.240
 We need to use that more as a church because really, that's the heart of this.

00:59:02.360 --> 00:59:06.140
 It's not one guy exuding a spiritual gift behind a pulpit for thousands.

00:59:06.140 --> 00:59:13.060
 It's getting thousands to exude their spiritual gift to 10 and releasing them to go do that

00:59:13.060 --> 00:59:16.780
 in whatever that context looks like physically and or digitally.

00:59:16.980 --> 00:59:19.380
 So, that was some awesome insight.

00:59:19.920 --> 00:59:22.480
 We're going to make you a digital guy sooner or later.

00:59:22.560 --> 00:59:23.360
 We're going to get you there.

00:59:23.560 --> 00:59:25.640
 Yeah, I think you are making me a digital guy.

00:59:25.780 --> 00:59:26.920
 I think you are, honestly.

00:59:27.160 --> 00:59:28.400
 I love this conversation.

00:59:28.660 --> 00:59:29.280
 This is great.

00:59:29.460 --> 00:59:30.940
 The transformation is happening.

00:59:31.060 --> 00:59:31.860
 You witnessed it here.

00:59:32.120 --> 00:59:33.340
 Well said there.

00:59:33.480 --> 00:59:35.260
 So, hey, we're going to land the plane.

00:59:35.260 --> 00:59:36.000
 Thank you for this.

00:59:36.320 --> 00:59:39.040
 Any closing thoughts, Peyton, as we're wrapping up here?

00:59:39.960 --> 00:59:40.940
 No, not really.

00:59:41.140 --> 00:59:43.620
 Just, you know, thanks for having me, man.

00:59:43.680 --> 00:59:46.180
 Like I said, there is a bit of a transformation happening.

00:59:46.180 --> 00:59:49.480
 And your conversation yesterday has contributed to that.

00:59:49.600 --> 00:59:53.820
 I'm going to be, you got to check in with me and kind of say, hey, Peyton, what's kicking

00:59:53.820 --> 00:59:54.140
 around?

00:59:54.240 --> 00:59:58.760
 Because this is going to be something I'm going to be thinking about for my foreseeable future.

00:59:58.960 --> 01:00:02.980
 I have ideas, but yeah, I'm going to be processing and praying this through.

01:00:03.360 --> 01:00:04.720
 Ideas get scary around me.

01:00:05.020 --> 01:00:07.740
 So don't, if you share them with me, I'm going to get excited.

01:00:07.980 --> 01:00:09.040
 And then all of a sudden it's happening.

01:00:09.160 --> 01:00:12.160
 You're like, whoa, that escalated really quickly.

01:00:12.540 --> 01:00:14.540
 So, hey, Peyton, thanks for jumping on here.

01:00:14.680 --> 01:00:20.160
 Check out the book, Church Plantology, right?

01:00:20.260 --> 01:00:20.880
 Yeah, that's it.

01:00:20.920 --> 01:00:22.840
 I'm seeing the picture in the background.

01:00:22.960 --> 01:00:23.560
 Check out the book.

01:00:23.620 --> 01:00:25.680
 We've got the link in the show notes with that.

01:00:25.840 --> 01:00:27.180
 So, Peyton, sir, thank you for the time.

01:00:27.980 --> 01:00:31.680
 For Peyton, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and with State of Church Planning.

01:00:32.060 --> 01:00:33.880
 Thanks for jumping on the podcast here.

01:00:33.980 --> 01:00:34.940
 We'll see you next time on the show.

01:00:35.240 --> 01:00:35.660
 Y'all have a good day.