WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.660 Hey everyone, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff. We are at episode 15. 00:00:05.180 --> 00:00:08.700 Can't believe how quickly these things are flying through. We've got a great one here. 00:00:09.180 --> 00:00:13.700 The other day, Ray Diarmus, online pastor over at Christ Fellowship Miami, he and I were sitting 00:00:13.700 --> 00:00:20.940 together at a shade shack and he dropped this knowledge bomb on me. And when he said it, 00:00:21.040 --> 00:00:25.640 I just, I needed to unpack it. This is what he said. He said, the greatest opportunity for 00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:32.580 evangelism in America today is in our workplaces. And once I picked my jaw up off the table, I said, 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:36.300 Ray, tell me more. And at the end of that conversation, I said, hey, you know what, 00:00:36.300 --> 00:00:40.320 we got to record this and get it public and get it out there so that others can hear this. 00:00:41.020 --> 00:00:44.800 See today, church, we've got the opportunity to reach people within our buildings, 00:00:44.800 --> 00:00:50.400 but we have the opportunity, even greater so I would suspect, to reach people outside of our 00:00:50.400 --> 00:00:56.320 buildings. And what better place to do that than through the workplace where our attenders, 00:00:56.460 --> 00:01:00.160 where Christians, where people spend, other than home, the majority of their time. 00:01:01.500 --> 00:01:06.180 And so church, what an opportunity for us to resource, to train, to empower people, 00:01:06.340 --> 00:01:10.800 to share their faith, to get them connected, to be comfortable in speaking in spiritual things, 00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:16.700 to be able to engage people within the workplace for the good of God, for the sake of the gospel. 00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:21.720 I don't know. It sounds like a fun conversation to me. And that's exactly where we are. We've got 00:01:21.720 --> 00:01:28.020 Ray DeArmus on how to impact the workplace for the gospel here at the Church Digital Podcast. Here you go. 00:01:28.360 --> 00:01:33.080 Each and every one of us that are on church staff, we're building relationships with our folks on a 00:01:33.080 --> 00:01:37.600 regular basis. And hey, we're enjoying it. It becomes like family. And that becomes one of the 00:01:37.600 --> 00:01:41.600 harder things, right? Like whenever you have to transition out of church, it's not just that you're 00:01:41.600 --> 00:01:46.680 leaving your church, but you're leaving this microcosm family that you've been spending hours and 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:52.960 hours and grabbing coffees and breaks and sharing videos and having fun and laughs and you're doing 00:01:52.960 --> 00:02:01.660 life. But what we underutilize is equipping our people to reach their friends and their co-workers 00:02:01.660 --> 00:02:08.580 inside the workplace. They're spending 50 to 60 hours with these folks each and every day, or excuse me, 00:02:08.600 --> 00:02:13.620 each and every week. And there are genuine relationships that they're building here where 00:02:13.620 --> 00:02:17.860 they're in each other's lives. They care about each other. And so just to give you just to give 00:02:17.860 --> 00:02:22.780 you like a little insider. So over the last few weeks, just for funsies, we've been doing some 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:26.840 stuff with CF online where we've been working with Baptist Hospital. And, you know, we've got some of our 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:32.540 content there for folks who are receiving chemotherapy treatment to, you know, to be able to watch 00:02:32.540 --> 00:02:36.720 services while they're receiving their chemotherapy. It's a great way to encourage folks and it's a great 00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:40.900 way to reach them for Christ. And so I was like, all right, so what are some other opportunities that we can do to take 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:47.400 this to the next level? And so I've been shadowing my sister who works in the ER, the hospital. And I've seen 00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:50.840 the kind of relationships that she's been able to build with these people. She's only been working 00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:55.460 there for five years. And it's just incredible the kind of family that they've built there. 00:02:56.500 --> 00:03:01.260 This isn't just unique to my sister. This is something that each and every one of them, they're 00:03:01.260 --> 00:03:04.260 talking about their families. They're talking about what they're doing on the weekend. They're talking 00:03:04.260 --> 00:03:11.280 about belief systems, about all sorts of stuff. And it's fantastic. I've met a lot of these folks. Whenever my sister 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:18.080 and brother-in-law throw a Super Bowl party, who do they invite? They invite their co-workers. And so they're 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:23.280 bringing them into their house. But then they're also bringing in pastors. They're also bringing in other people that are 00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:27.400 connected with them. Why? Because they want to surround them with other believers so that maybe it'll start more 00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:32.500 spiritual conversations. Even though it's watching Tom Brady chuck a ball into the end zone, we can all 00:03:32.500 --> 00:03:39.140 laugh and cheer and boo together and have some fun. But at the same time, these folks, they don't know 00:03:39.140 --> 00:03:47.740 Jesus. But they're not in a judgmental situation in which, oh, well, I can't like you because of your 00:03:47.740 --> 00:03:54.000 beliefs. Sometimes those of us who work in church, we put more of a stigma of what the workplace is like 00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:02.740 than what it actually is. And the truth is, is that this is a great opportunity for our folks who are 00:04:02.740 --> 00:04:07.160 already connected with people. And don't forget, it's just like scripture says, Ephesians, right? 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:13.360 Our job is to equip them to do the work of the ministry, not to do the ministry for them. And so, 00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:20.140 so often we tell our folks that ministry is done at church when the reality is the ministry can be done 00:04:20.140 --> 00:04:26.520 where? In the workplace, where they're spending constant nonstop time around, around non-believers, 00:04:26.980 --> 00:04:31.240 giving an opportunity to witness to them, not just by wearing their, and in my case, not just by, 00:04:31.300 --> 00:04:37.320 you know, flashing a CF invite. There are different ways that we can, we can equip them in church online, 00:04:37.820 --> 00:04:40.340 especially in digital tools are made for this. 00:04:40.880 --> 00:04:45.860 I love, I love that. You know, there was, there's some research that backs this up, but we've talked 00:04:45.860 --> 00:04:51.880 about it in the past, or I know I've blogged about it, but like Lifeway Christian Resources 2016 did a 00:04:51.880 --> 00:04:59.360 survey. It was either 63 or 66% of people are not interested in coming into your church building. 00:04:59.800 --> 00:05:05.720 They're just not. They, they've already established, or they think they've established where they are, 00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:11.840 and they're not going to be proactive in attending some service. And so the majority of people out 00:05:11.840 --> 00:05:20.820 there today are not open to the evangelical model where they go to a building looking for salvation 00:05:20.820 --> 00:05:26.540 or going to find salvation. That's correct. Those, that same survey will tell you 80% of people will 00:05:26.540 --> 00:05:35.160 have a conversation about faith as long as they see that the faith is important with, to their friends. 00:05:35.340 --> 00:05:42.540 So they'll talk to their friends about faith if they see that faith is important to, to their friends. 00:05:42.700 --> 00:05:52.640 And so the ability for us as Christians to live out the gospel, to, to be able to be confident to have 00:05:52.640 --> 00:05:57.820 those conversations in the workplace is so important. I don't know if you remember this, Ray, like maybe 10, 00:05:57.920 --> 00:06:03.920 15 years ago, like there was the desire. There was all this talk about the third place, like remember 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:08.700 this? So like, you know, first place is, is like your home. It's where you spend the most time because 00:06:08.700 --> 00:06:14.540 you sleep there. So like at least eight to 10 hours a week, even like crazy people, you know, the majority 00:06:14.540 --> 00:06:20.360 of your time is spent in, in the home. Second place was always your, your workplace, you know, 00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:25.500 because that's where you spend to your point 40 to 50 hours a week. And there's, there's this awesome 00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:31.580 community, this body of people that, that exists there. And it was funny, like the church, the drive 00:06:31.580 --> 00:06:39.120 for the church was, should church be the, be the third community, uh, the third place. And we've kind 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:43.820 of turned that on its ear a little bit now by saying, Hey, the church can be third, can be fourth, can be 00:06:43.820 --> 00:06:49.520 fifth. It doesn't matter. But really the effectiveness of, of the church and evangelism isn't what happens 00:06:49.520 --> 00:06:55.720 at that third place. We, we, we picked the wrong place. We need to get more involved in the second 00:06:55.720 --> 00:07:00.980 place. Well, and, and part of that Jeff is, isn't our mistake in turning church into the place? Isn't 00:07:00.980 --> 00:07:05.820 church supposed to be the people? Like we say that a lot, you know? And so if church isn't supposed to 00:07:05.820 --> 00:07:10.560 be the place, if it's supposed to be the people, then really if, if there, if, you know, if there's a 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:15.580 modern diaspora Monday through Friday, right? Of like the church being spread out 00:07:15.580 --> 00:07:21.240 and in their workplace, you know, where they're supposed to be and not just cause they're making 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:26.860 money to tithe. Right. But the reality is, is that they're there to build relationships. And so much 00:07:26.860 --> 00:07:31.020 of this, you know, think about where we're missing like millennials and Gen Z and like some of the 00:07:31.020 --> 00:07:35.640 folks that are coming behind us. Like they're looking for workplaces where they can have real 00:07:35.780 --> 00:07:39.960 relationships with others. You know, like it's not just about the job, but it's also about the 00:07:39.960 --> 00:07:44.200 relationships that they have. And we didn't really think about this a whole lot recently until we 00:07:44.200 --> 00:07:48.520 started getting into shows like the office, right. Where all of a sudden we realized, oh my gosh, 00:07:48.580 --> 00:07:52.940 I care about Jim and Pam the same way that I care about like some of my other coworkers, 00:07:52.940 --> 00:07:58.480 because yeah, that's a shared environment, you know, in which I'm sharing so much space with these 00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:04.360 folks. I love that. And I'm a radio TV film major. So like you just lit me up like in the eighties, 00:08:04.860 --> 00:08:11.220 the eighties, it was, uh, it was cheers and it was Cosby show. It was, it was first place. It 00:08:11.220 --> 00:08:18.580 was not workplace. And so having that come more to awareness of we've got this community. It's not 00:08:18.580 --> 00:08:24.160 just the drudgery of, let me, you know, serve the man. Let me work for the man. Let me just get my 00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:28.980 paycheck. But it's become more of that, that, that community, that, that friendship. That's, 00:08:29.040 --> 00:08:29.800 that's really cool. 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:34.080 So because I love TV so much. So like we can take that even further, right. In the nineties, 00:08:34.160 --> 00:08:38.760 it became the coffee shop at Seinfeld and friends became coffee shop. Like that was the place to 00:08:38.760 --> 00:08:42.440 gather around. And even Starbucks was fighting for the third place. Cause they started to see that 00:08:42.440 --> 00:08:47.920 they were losing that battle into the two thousands. Why? Because really work and play and life are kind 00:08:47.920 --> 00:08:53.020 of, you know, just expanding. And so, you know, things like DoorDash or whatever else, like Starbucks 00:08:53.020 --> 00:08:57.080 is more of a convenience place where you go to pick up stuff and go, you don't necessarily go there to 00:08:57.080 --> 00:09:02.660 hang out unless Starbucks is the office. Right. So even then, like, it's not the, it's not really 00:09:02.660 --> 00:09:07.280 the place where people go to gather for a whole lot of events or whatever else. It's the same way 00:09:07.280 --> 00:09:11.380 that movie theaters are struggling. And now, Hey, even churches like we're struggling, right? Because 00:09:11.380 --> 00:09:16.000 a lot of folks are either doing life at home or they're doing life at work. And then they've got 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:21.280 digital spaces that they do life in between. But with the workplace, we've already got great content 00:09:21.280 --> 00:09:27.160 that we give away for free in churches. Right. And so why not encourage our own people? Hey, listen, 00:09:27.260 --> 00:09:31.640 we're resourcing you. We're creating all this stuff. If you've got a friend at work, who's going 00:09:31.640 --> 00:09:36.380 through a hard time, why not take that two minute clip, that three minute clip and text it to them, 00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:42.160 airdrop it to them, you know, show it to them. And it just creates a great conversation starter 00:09:42.160 --> 00:09:47.500 because you're already in their life. We're even taking the work out of your hands in that you don't 00:09:47.500 --> 00:09:51.180 even have to know exactly what to say. You can just tell them, Hey, you know what? My pastor talked 00:09:51.180 --> 00:09:54.820 about that exact same thing this week, man, I'm going to send you a two minute video. Why don't you 00:09:54.820 --> 00:09:59.280 just watch it? And then, and then let's talk about it. And it just creates that conversation. And I know 00:09:59.280 --> 00:10:04.340 that there are HR concerns, but really a lot of the HR concerns aren't so much that you can't be a 00:10:04.340 --> 00:10:09.580 follower of Jesus in the workplace. The HR concerns are you can't put up your Christian flag and blast your 00:10:09.580 --> 00:10:15.580 Carmen CD, you know, or your DC talk CD while you're in the workplace. Yes, you cannot be an annoying 00:10:15.580 --> 00:10:20.600 Christian to other people in the workplace, but you can still be very much who you are. And if we as 00:10:20.600 --> 00:10:26.480 believers continue to place a stigma on that, then we're creating a cloud in our own mind. My wife 00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:32.580 is a public school teacher. If her students engage her in conversation, she's allowed to talk about 00:10:32.580 --> 00:10:37.480 Jesus, church, whatever else. She's not allowed to initiate the conversation. And so when people start 00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:41.580 saying, well, God's not allowed in public school, I'm like, but Christians are, they're in administration, 00:10:41.580 --> 00:10:45.960 they teach. They're there and they're very active with their faith. What are we talking about? God's 00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:49.720 not allowed in public school. The church is in public school. It's already active. It's already 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:55.480 there. We don't have to worry as much about whether or not quote unquote, we're teaching it from the 00:10:55.480 --> 00:11:00.000 classroom when we've got believers who are already there and being solid teachers where they're at or 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:05.860 being solid administrators. That's great stuff. Yeah. By the way, DC Talks going on tour. 00:11:06.560 --> 00:11:12.100 I'm so excited for that. Oh my gosh. Yes. Like that, that's gotta happen. Moving on. 00:11:12.540 --> 00:11:16.880 You've been talking. Do we get free tickets if we promo it? Does this happen? 00:11:17.760 --> 00:11:23.300 Somebody get Toby Mac on the phone. Call him up. We deserve some ticks. All right. Hey, 00:11:23.800 --> 00:11:27.760 so you're, you're, you're, you're Christ fellowships doing some of this and I know they're, they're 00:11:27.760 --> 00:11:33.360 exploring in this area and trying to do more Christ fellowship down here in Miami. What, so you're 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:38.660 talking about the sermon, cutting it up in the, in the smaller pieces, maybe having some clips that are 00:11:38.660 --> 00:11:45.640 available, highlights, uh, mic drop moments, things like that, that, that create easily shareable 00:11:45.640 --> 00:11:53.320 content. So like walk me through a scenario like that. So, um, uh, I'm in the workplace or you're 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:57.220 in the workplace, your sister's in the workplace, talking to somebody, your sister, that'll be fun. 00:11:57.600 --> 00:12:02.480 Um, like, like walk me through how a scenario like that would look with giving some of this, 00:12:02.540 --> 00:12:07.640 using the shareable content. So, uh, so for instance, uh, and depending on when you're watching 00:12:07.640 --> 00:12:12.320 this, you know, I'm referencing a sermon from the past, right? So this last week, uh, Omar, 00:12:12.420 --> 00:12:16.560 one of our pastors here, one of our teaching pastors, uh, talked about the importance of rest 00:12:16.560 --> 00:12:20.100 and the importance of why God established rest and how a lot of that works. Now we live 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:24.100 in a workaholic society, right? And so as we're talking about work, work can go 00:12:24.100 --> 00:12:29.860 bad. Work is a good thing. Work is established by God, but so is rest. Right. And so we've got a lot 00:12:29.860 --> 00:12:33.980 of folks and especially in the ER that are pulling like 16 hour shifts and they're grabbing more shifts 00:12:33.980 --> 00:12:37.740 because, Hey, they're trying to pay for that next vacation or they're trying to do some of the same 00:12:37.740 --> 00:12:41.660 stuff that we're trying to do. Right. And so they're overexerted with that, but then they're not 00:12:41.660 --> 00:12:46.600 taking a consideration. Hey, but what about taking some time to just breathe? What about taking some 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:51.200 time to just be? Because I'm so concerned with being the world's best mom or the world's best dad 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:56.120 and so concerned with being the top earner and the top this that all of a sudden I'm just freaking out 00:12:56.120 --> 00:12:59.900 and I've got so much anxiety in my life. You see, that's not just unique to Christians. 00:13:00.660 --> 00:13:07.760 It's not. And so if we take like a two minute blip, which we have, and we put it out there on 00:13:07.760 --> 00:13:12.320 Instagram, right? We put it on IGTV or whatever else where the intro is just on the post. 00:13:13.500 --> 00:13:17.420 My sister works with folks who are way overworked, right? I mean, they've got doctors and nurses 00:13:17.420 --> 00:13:20.460 there that are just cranking it out. And by the time that they're done working on their shifts, 00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:24.120 they've got a chart galore. They've got to, they've got to document everything. And none of that, 00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:27.020 they're getting paid for it because they spent so much time with patients that they've got to spend the 00:13:27.020 --> 00:13:31.340 back end doing the admin stuff. And so then after that, I mean, they're just burnt. 00:13:32.280 --> 00:13:36.540 And so of course they're going to need a moment or they're saying, you know what? I'm just freaking 00:13:36.540 --> 00:13:44.800 out. Insert the conversation. Hey, you know what? You know what? Pastor Omar was just talking about 00:13:44.800 --> 00:13:50.460 that this weekend in my church. In fact, I was watching it online. My sister right now, because 00:13:50.460 --> 00:13:57.000 she's got a five month old child, CF online is like prime time for her. And so it creates 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:00.980 this instant opportunity where she can be like, Hey, this exact thing that you were talking about, 00:14:01.460 --> 00:14:06.380 Dr. So-and-so it's exact thing that you're talking about nurse. So-and-so don't want to use 00:14:06.380 --> 00:14:12.180 names. She can just go ahead and forward it over to them. She can show it to them and she can encourage 00:14:12.180 --> 00:14:15.740 them to watch it. And it creates that conversation. In fact, she's already done this kind of thing 00:14:15.740 --> 00:14:21.300 with them. And it just creates great conversation that leads to gospel conversations. You know, when I 00:14:21.300 --> 00:14:27.540 worked at Apple, this happened for us like almost a decade ago. And this is when Jeff, you were still 00:14:27.540 --> 00:14:33.420 here on staff at CF. And this was a time where before even I was on staff, I was working at an 00:14:33.420 --> 00:14:38.240 Apple store, coming straight out of seminary. And it was a great environment. And we actually had a 00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:43.640 coworker come to Christ simply because we would constantly share content with her. We would constantly 00:14:43.640 --> 00:14:47.440 just tell her, Hey, listen, that exact thing that you're talking about, like, check this clip out. 00:14:48.140 --> 00:14:52.300 She's tech savvy. You know, she's working with us at the Apple store. Now she's still working for Apple 00:14:52.300 --> 00:14:57.040 corporate, but guess what? In the time that's happened since in the last 10 years, she's been 00:14:57.040 --> 00:15:01.660 coming to our church. She met a great man of God. They got married. They're starting their own family. 00:15:01.760 --> 00:15:05.360 They're a part of our Miami Springs campus. And she's still working for corporate and doing her thing 00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:11.080 in the workplace and being a solid believer and growing as a believer there. Now, a lot of folks think, 00:15:11.400 --> 00:15:14.260 oh, well, the great end of that story is, wouldn't it be great if she came on staff at CF? 00:15:15.140 --> 00:15:21.840 No. Wouldn't it be great if she was a great Apple employee, right where she's at? That right there 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:26.500 is, if she's a solid believer while she's there at Apple, working for them, doing a great job. 00:15:27.140 --> 00:15:30.980 And at the same time, reaching more and more of her coworkers for Christ, that's the win. 00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:37.080 That's a huge win. And so why not continue to resource our folks with content in order to do that? 00:15:37.480 --> 00:15:40.720 Jeff, you know, we talked about this a little bit earlier. One of the ways that we're doing this, 00:15:40.720 --> 00:15:44.720 and I want to encourage folks to check this out and think about this methodology, is now we opened 00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:49.280 up a Dropbox and we made it publicly accessible for all of our folks in which we're posting full 00:15:49.280 --> 00:15:53.480 quality social media content. And we're now going to be encouraging our people to go there to download 00:15:53.480 --> 00:15:56.760 it in full quality so that they don't have to use apps like Repost or whatever else. 00:15:57.280 --> 00:16:02.000 We've tagged it cfmiami.org slash share. And if you go there, it's basically like a WIC structured 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:07.560 website with direct access to our Dropbox in which they can go just grab full quality photos, 00:16:08.060 --> 00:16:12.620 series content, event content, whatever else, we're giving it away. And we're encouraging 00:16:12.620 --> 00:16:17.060 them to share it. Because what I'm hoping and what I want to see happen is not just our 00:16:17.060 --> 00:16:20.900 own social media account talking about us, but everybody in our church talking about us 00:16:20.900 --> 00:16:22.360 as well and doing it right. 00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:28.520 Yeah. The algorithms have shifted. That's great, Ray. That was a good move. The algorithms 00:16:28.520 --> 00:16:33.240 have shifted, especially with Facebook within the past, I don't know, probably three or four 00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:40.920 months. It was even referenced recently, earlier this year at the F8 Facebook conference, dev 00:16:40.920 --> 00:16:48.500 conference, where what an organism, what an organization says on Facebook, on a Facebook 00:16:48.500 --> 00:16:56.240 page, it really doesn't matter anymore. Like Facebook doesn't value page level information. 00:16:56.240 --> 00:17:02.180 information. And so if you really organization, if you really want to make an impact, create 00:17:02.180 --> 00:17:06.480 a group, and then do it within the group, invite people in the group, that's what the algorithm's 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:11.800 pushing. But to your point, like, and there's actually has been talk, you know, earlier this 00:17:11.800 --> 00:17:17.260 year of the ROI, the return on investment of, you know, we put it, we pour as a church, we 00:17:17.260 --> 00:17:22.640 pour all this effort into social media. And then we drop it on a Facebook or on an Instagram 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:29.640 where Facebook or Instagram really limits who's seeing it because of how engaged it is or isn't. 00:17:29.640 --> 00:17:34.820 And there was actually talk about, should we even give up on social media? That was a very 00:17:34.820 --> 00:17:42.760 popular conversation around the water cooler. But the idea of giving it away to people, because 00:17:42.760 --> 00:17:48.260 while Facebook doesn't care about what your organization says, it cares about what your Aunt 00:17:48.260 --> 00:17:54.900 Ruth says. That's right. And the more that you can get, you know, the Ruth to talk about 00:17:54.900 --> 00:18:01.040 it, the, the, whoever it is within your community to, to use in the talk about your, your, your 00:18:01.040 --> 00:18:07.040 church or organization, the better off that you will be. That's right. So the ability to crowdsource 00:18:07.040 --> 00:18:12.100 some of that and get it into the people so that they can be cheering for you, that they can 00:18:12.100 --> 00:18:17.060 be your, I mean, back in the day used to be brand ambassadors. Now we say, use the word 00:18:17.060 --> 00:18:22.580 influencers. But ultimately it's, it's, they, you want them to be the hero of the organization 00:18:22.580 --> 00:18:29.340 to, to encourage others to access and share it. I mean, social media at some level is like 00:18:29.340 --> 00:18:34.660 entry level evangelism. Now it's not completely deep and it doesn't, it doesn't take you to 00:18:34.660 --> 00:18:38.420 the finish line, but at least it's the one that's going to get you off the start. 00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:43.060 Right. No, but, but even then, and look at that shift and this is where the church should have made 00:18:43.060 --> 00:18:47.080 the shift a long time ago where corporations did. So yeah, corporations, and I'm not saying that 00:18:47.080 --> 00:18:52.820 churches should pay brand influencers or ambassadors to do it, but, but the reality is, is we should be 00:18:52.820 --> 00:18:57.620 encouraging our own people to make their own recordings, to take their own photos and to begin 00:18:57.620 --> 00:19:02.980 sharing them to doing that. So, you know, being in Miami and being, you know, a large church, we've got 00:19:02.980 --> 00:19:09.060 some, some folks who have a lot of influence here, both in Miami, but also globally because of Hispanic 00:19:09.060 --> 00:19:14.680 television and movies and different folks. And so, you know, I'm more excited when they do an Instagram 00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:20.700 story than when we do an Instagram story and they don't do it well, right? Like, like just cause 00:19:20.700 --> 00:19:25.740 they're, they're a star doesn't mean that they're, they're great at video or they're great at photo, 00:19:25.740 --> 00:19:31.060 but I know that more people are going to see their story. More people are going to see their foot, 00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:37.500 their photo or their post about our church for the positive than, than anything that we create. 00:19:37.700 --> 00:19:42.360 And we've got a great following on social media. It's not that it's just that it, it opens us up 00:19:42.360 --> 00:19:47.500 to this larger environment. Now, once again, that's, that's them leveraging a channel that, 00:19:47.500 --> 00:19:52.180 that they received. Why? Through work, through what they do for a living. Yeah. And now they're 00:19:52.180 --> 00:19:55.280 leveraging this great thing that they received, you know, this platform that they received 00:19:55.280 --> 00:19:58.320 through their, through their workplace, boom, they're leveraging it for the gospel. 00:19:59.720 --> 00:20:03.940 Listen, anybody out there, anybody out there who's tuning in for the church digital, I just want to 00:20:03.940 --> 00:20:08.300 encourage you, whoever is in your congregation, however many people, it doesn't matter how many 00:20:08.300 --> 00:20:13.840 people there are. The point is, is that you can resource them to reach their coworkers. And that 00:20:13.840 --> 00:20:18.960 reach can be much larger than just your Sunday morning reach. The influence that they have there 00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:23.660 is amazing. So encourage them, give them shareables, give them ways to do it, 00:20:23.820 --> 00:20:28.480 tell them to take it. And even if their friends never actually show up on Sunday morning, 00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:34.940 if they heard the gospel, or if they heard the message, man, that's a discipleship win on a part 00:20:34.940 --> 00:20:40.060 of your congregant. And also that's an evangelism win on the, on the part of the person who heard. 00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:48.940 All right. So let's, let's keep going down this conversation. So I am, I love this idea of 00:20:48.940 --> 00:20:56.940 shareables and as a, you know, hypothetically or as, as a, as a new Christian, somebody I'm passionate 00:20:56.940 --> 00:21:04.140 about helping reach people. I've got friends in the workplace. I can definitely, you know, tag somebody 00:21:04.140 --> 00:21:10.960 on a, on a Facebook image or upload a graphic or a video, uh, share an online service that, that part's 00:21:10.960 --> 00:21:18.140 easy. Um, what, what resources are, or coach me through here on, yeah, but what happens after the 00:21:18.140 --> 00:21:23.700 video? Like I actually have to talk to this person. What do I, how do I talk to them? What do I talk 00:21:23.700 --> 00:21:29.340 about, um, from, from a, from a pastoral level? Like how, how do you coach people do that? 00:21:29.480 --> 00:21:35.360 I think the first easy question is, Hey, what'd you think? What'd you think? Just start with that 00:21:35.360 --> 00:21:41.600 and hear them process whatever it was that they heard, man. I completely disagreed with it. Okay. 00:21:41.600 --> 00:21:47.020 Don't get instantly offended. Believer. Don't get instantly offended. You know? Oh, I completely 00:21:47.020 --> 00:21:50.500 disagreed with that guy. Well, why not? Why, why did you disagree with him? 00:21:52.380 --> 00:21:59.100 Why did that happen? And keep the conversation going. Keep the conversation going. Uh, now I 00:21:59.100 --> 00:22:03.760 understand not all content is PC. Sometimes your content, you know, that you might be sharing, 00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:10.160 Hey, Jesus is the only way to heaven, man. I completely disagree with that. Why, why that 00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:15.520 just, it opens up the channel. It opens up the channel for conversation and you don't have 00:22:15.520 --> 00:22:19.840 to be Ravi Zacharias. What you need to do is you just need to be a good relational person in 00:22:19.840 --> 00:22:23.660 that person in that person's life. You just need to be somebody who cares. 00:22:26.040 --> 00:22:30.680 So just open up. Hey, what did you think? What did you think about that clip? I'm going 00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:34.700 through a hard time. Here's a clip of encouragement from my pastor. Hey, what did you think about 00:22:34.700 --> 00:22:40.260 it, man? I needed to hear that right now. Here is where I'm at. I'm going through a hard time. 00:22:40.340 --> 00:22:44.640 My wife's left me or this has happened. And all of a sudden, what did you think? Just opens 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:51.360 up conversation. It just does. It just does. And then the next natural question can be, 00:22:51.960 --> 00:22:56.400 Hey, would you ever like to join me in person? Would you ever like to come with me to church? 00:22:57.720 --> 00:23:03.600 I'd be open to that. Or no, that's not really my thing. Okay. Well then let's work down the 00:23:03.600 --> 00:23:07.780 workflow. If you get a no, would you ever be, well then, all right, that's cool. Would you ever 00:23:07.780 --> 00:23:11.320 be down for at least coming over to my house and watching, watching the rest of this talk? 00:23:13.540 --> 00:23:18.140 That just creates another opportunity or just maybe it's not even a personal invite like that. 00:23:18.180 --> 00:23:21.600 Maybe we want, we don't want to bridge the work environment like that. Maybe we're uncomfortable 00:23:21.600 --> 00:23:26.060 with that. Hey, do you want to see the rest of this talk? Do you want it? And don't even call it a 00:23:26.060 --> 00:23:30.580 sermon. Don't call it a message. Just call it a talk. Do you want to see the rest of this talk? 00:23:31.580 --> 00:23:37.680 I'll never forget when I was doing youth ministry, I had, for some reason, this guy who was of the 00:23:37.680 --> 00:23:43.660 Islamic faith, loved coming to our student gatherings. Just loved it. And he wouldn't 00:23:43.660 --> 00:23:48.140 call it the sermon. He wouldn't call it the message. He would call it the speech. And be like, man, 00:23:48.220 --> 00:23:53.160 you know, I really liked the speech. And I had to pause because I had to take off my Christianese hat 00:23:53.160 --> 00:23:59.260 and I had to reflect, oh yeah, that's what he would call it. That's what he would call it. And so I have 00:23:59.260 --> 00:24:03.540 to use language. I have to just tweak the language a little bit to relate to him a little bit more. 00:24:03.920 --> 00:24:08.920 So if you have to call it the talk, the speech, whatever, the message, use language that they're 00:24:08.920 --> 00:24:13.240 going to be comfortable with and then encourage them to just watch a little bit more. Watch a 00:24:13.240 --> 00:24:16.720 little bit more. Watch a little bit more. Hey, if you enjoyed a two minute clip, you got to hear the 00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:20.880 other 30 minutes. How can I engage with it? Aha. Now this is where digital platforms come into play, 00:24:20.900 --> 00:24:25.260 right? Hey, we've got a YouTube channel. Let me go ahead and send it to you. Hey, we've got a podcast. 00:24:25.580 --> 00:24:30.000 You can listen to it on the way home. I'd like that, but leave them with the next step, 00:24:30.060 --> 00:24:35.060 but then send it to them. Send it to them. Don't just wait and don't encourage them to go find it. 00:24:35.540 --> 00:24:41.220 No, instead you have a link, share it with them and make sure church leaders, give your people handles 00:24:41.220 --> 00:24:46.200 on how to do this. Make sure that they're equipped with the stuff. Okay. Don't just have people come 00:24:46.200 --> 00:24:50.980 to our website, share your content as much as possible. Okay. Disseminate it as much as possible. 00:24:50.980 --> 00:24:55.320 And don't be afraid of where it lives. If it's in YouTube, great. YouTube is the largest search 00:24:55.320 --> 00:25:00.420 engine we got, period. It's outpaced Google and Google owns them. Put it out there on your YouTube 00:25:00.420 --> 00:25:04.420 channel. Okay. Put it out there on podcasts. Oh, there are a zillion podcasts, right? Okay. There's 00:25:04.420 --> 00:25:11.080 room for one more. There's room for yours. Go ahead and give your people handles on how to share content 00:25:11.080 --> 00:25:16.780 and then encourage them to do so. But if you don't tell them how to do it, they won't do it. Or as 00:25:16.780 --> 00:25:21.700 Craig Groeschel and Andy Stanley and Rick Warren have always reminded us, our people will only go to 00:25:21.700 --> 00:25:26.460 where we lead them. They can't go to a place where we've not led them to. So if you're not saying this 00:25:26.460 --> 00:25:31.540 from the pulpit, your folks aren't thinking about it on a regular basis. So give them handles on how 00:25:31.540 --> 00:25:37.920 to share content. Yeah. And I'm even going to push on that a little bit a step further. You've got to 00:25:37.920 --> 00:25:49.560 model it. Have people, you know, pastor, even yourself, go as far as to show them specifically 00:25:49.560 --> 00:25:57.600 what this looks like. Model this with your own accounts and have that be a reference. It's not 00:25:57.600 --> 00:26:04.560 an ego thing. It's using it to connect with people and utilizing the content that exists 00:26:04.560 --> 00:26:11.740 from our services in Ray's context to impact and to change lives outside of the building. 00:26:12.480 --> 00:26:17.240 The value of what we're creating is not just the 40 minutes in the building. It's not just in the 00:26:17.240 --> 00:26:22.660 online broadcast. There's opportunities for that content to go even farther and be far more effective 00:26:22.660 --> 00:26:29.340 if our people see it. And to see it, it needs to be modeled. People don't want to be the first. And 00:26:29.340 --> 00:26:34.540 what we're talking about here, while it sounds like it's simple, it's within church realms, it's not 00:26:34.540 --> 00:26:40.240 often done. And so this is an opportunity for you, pastor, you, communications director, 00:26:40.740 --> 00:26:47.700 to model and experience what this is firsthand so that others can replicate it. Once they see it, 00:26:47.700 --> 00:26:51.280 they'll understand it better. And before you think that this is just, 00:26:51.680 --> 00:26:56.900 for anybody out there who's listening to us and they think, oh, well, this is just kind of a young 00:26:56.900 --> 00:27:03.580 people thing. No, it's not. My dad engages with YouTube more than anything else nowadays on 00:27:03.580 --> 00:27:13.020 television. He's constantly sending me links and sharing stuff. And my dad's 63. Jeff, I've heard 00:27:13.020 --> 00:27:17.960 you talk about how your parents both engage in different social media environments and how they're 00:27:17.960 --> 00:27:23.960 constantly like sharing things as well. So this isn't just, oh, well, this would be great for student 00:27:23.960 --> 00:27:30.480 ministry. No, this isn't everybody thing at this point. Okay. This isn't just for a particular young 00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:35.860 age group. Now we're talking about the spectrum here. Now we're talking about folks who are empty 00:27:35.860 --> 00:27:40.420 nesters. And yes, we're talking about their college student. And by the way, the empty nesters in your 00:27:40.420 --> 00:27:45.160 church, they want to reach their college student for Christ too. Okay. They see what's coming behind 00:27:45.160 --> 00:27:49.260 them. They don't want a generation without Jesus. Why not give them the same handles? Hey son, 00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:53.100 pastors, pastor, so-and-so talked about this this week while you're away at college, man. 00:27:53.500 --> 00:27:57.000 Even if you've not connected to a church yet, why don't you see what he said about it? 00:27:57.160 --> 00:28:04.560 Instant shareable. Instant shareable. This isn't just a young people thing, guys. This isn't everybody 00:28:04.560 --> 00:28:08.800 thing. So let's take advantage of the shareables. And then I don't want to get too much off of this. 00:28:09.140 --> 00:28:13.080 Let's please take advantage of the workplace. Let's take advantage of the workplace and encouraging our 00:28:13.080 --> 00:28:18.020 folks to share content there because they've got the people around them in relationship. It's there. 00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:25.160 So what are some other options or ways to really target the workplace? I know we've got our sermon content. 00:28:25.160 --> 00:28:33.720 You know, there's always the right now medias and stuff like that to throw out, to use as hook it up to an 00:28:33.720 --> 00:28:42.540 Apple TV, do a small group or a conversation there in like a conference room. What are some ways that we can 00:28:42.540 --> 00:28:48.840 start to impact the workplace? Um, for God, the workplace small group to me is like the biggest 00:28:48.840 --> 00:28:52.820 ideal. That's something that we stole from Saddleback a long time ago. And really, we just 00:28:52.820 --> 00:28:58.240 started to equip some of our folks to take 15 minutes at lunch once a week, have a devotional 00:28:58.240 --> 00:29:03.940 parade and invite anybody who wanted to be part. It wasn't a force kind of a gig. It was anybody who 00:29:03.940 --> 00:29:08.860 wanted to be, who wanted to be invited to it could come and make sure you'd go through the right 00:29:08.860 --> 00:29:12.460 channels, go through HR, make sure you get all your checklist and what you can and can't do. 00:29:12.540 --> 00:29:18.420 Etc. And go for it. Okay. Um, we've partnered with organizations at schools, you know, uh, like 00:29:18.420 --> 00:29:25.040 FCA or, um, or, and there are other, some other words at Bible clubs, um, first priority Bible 00:29:25.040 --> 00:29:29.380 clubs that we've partnered with, uh, where this has happened for teachers as well. Now it doesn't 00:29:29.380 --> 00:29:33.560 just have to be at the lunch hour. It could be before work. It could be after work, but however 00:29:33.560 --> 00:29:38.480 you want to do that. It's not just, you'd be surprised. It's not just a place for Christians 00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:43.780 to have a Holy huddle. Now, if you keep it, that if you never invite anybody to that, or 00:29:43.780 --> 00:29:49.700 if you never encourage anybody to attend that, that's all it'll be. But if you encourage the 00:29:49.700 --> 00:29:54.700 people in your congregation, Hey, listen, this creates opportunity. We've got great content 00:29:54.700 --> 00:29:58.220 that we've already made for you. So you don't have to worry about creating Bible study or 00:29:58.220 --> 00:30:05.200 whatever else we've made that for you. Why not take a small clip? And even listen, pastors 00:30:05.200 --> 00:30:08.740 out there, just write three discussion questions for your folks, or give them three standard 00:30:08.740 --> 00:30:12.540 discussion questions. Like the ones that I gave you. What did you think? Would you like 00:30:12.540 --> 00:30:16.700 to see more? Would you ever come with me? Those are three easy questions that you can give 00:30:16.700 --> 00:30:23.680 them to just start the conversation, keep the conversation going and see what happens because 00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:27.940 the workplace it's needed. Now you can always encourage them to continue to be, and they 00:30:27.940 --> 00:30:33.040 need to be each and every believer in our congregation needs to be a great worker. Does it mean 00:30:33.040 --> 00:30:36.100 they have to be the best worker at the place? They might not be talented enough. They might 00:30:36.100 --> 00:30:39.560 not be gifted enough. They might be number two or number three in their office. That's 00:30:39.560 --> 00:30:43.960 okay. They can be the person who loves. They can be the person who encourages. They can 00:30:43.960 --> 00:30:48.580 be the person, a person of integrity. They can be a lot of things where they're at, but 00:30:48.580 --> 00:30:51.940 we've got to teach them how to do it. We've got to preach towards that. We've got to 00:30:51.940 --> 00:30:57.160 encourage them to live that out. And also we have to model that as well. Something 00:30:57.160 --> 00:31:03.000 that we do at CF that I love, we'll encourage some of our own pastors to go and have lunch 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:08.500 at the person's job. So not too long ago, I went to go visit Chuck Frady. He's a member 00:31:08.500 --> 00:31:12.780 at our Coral Gables campus. And Chuck works with Royal Caribbean. I went to go down there 00:31:12.780 --> 00:31:16.740 and see him. And I got to see him in his environment. I got to talk to him about how God uses him 00:31:16.740 --> 00:31:20.620 at work. It was awesome. And I even got to give him some more ideas about what I can do with him 00:31:20.620 --> 00:31:26.800 at work. I love that. One of the ways that I started engaging with Chuck, search online. He's 00:31:26.800 --> 00:31:31.060 always, even though he attends in person, he's when he's out there in Royal Caribbean, out there on the 00:31:31.060 --> 00:31:37.960 cruise stuff, he's also engaging with us on the go. And so great ways to encourage people. Just do it. 00:31:38.520 --> 00:31:43.260 Visit your folks, encourage them. Work is the mission field. It is. Do it. 00:31:43.900 --> 00:31:49.940 Ray, what else you got? Jesus loves your coworkers. He does. And you got to remember that Jesus loves 00:31:49.940 --> 00:31:53.520 the coworkers that are out there. The mission field, the mission field in ministry is not just 00:31:53.520 --> 00:31:57.700 our folks coming to church on Sunday. And we can't just talk about it in the sense of, Hey, 00:31:57.700 --> 00:32:03.480 give invites to your coworkers. That's not enough. We've got a lot better content now that we can 00:32:03.480 --> 00:32:07.380 encourage our people to share. So let's not be afraid to give it to them. Let's give them handles 00:32:07.380 --> 00:32:11.440 on how to do that. Let's show them how to do it. In some cases, if you want to do a workshop 00:32:11.440 --> 00:32:16.000 online and record yourself on YouTube, as far as how some of these things go, even if you want to 00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:20.580 share this episode and just send it to somebody and say, Hey, look, they talked about how you can 00:32:20.580 --> 00:32:24.060 reach Jesus in your workplace. Why don't you take some of these ideas and just see if any of them 00:32:24.060 --> 00:32:29.040 work for you and then talk to me about it. And let's see if we can equip you to go, go for it. 00:32:29.440 --> 00:32:33.160 You'd be surprised as to what could happen. Just give it a shot. 00:32:34.820 --> 00:32:40.000 Awesome. Hey man, this is great. Uh, hopefully there's some, some lessons here. Uh, we can take 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:46.080 away, uh, church so that we can help empower people, uh, to create disciples outside of the 00:32:46.080 --> 00:32:54.580 church building, uh, and impact them, uh, in the workplace, the number two spots. Don't try to make 00:32:54.580 --> 00:33:00.880 church the number three spot, the hub, help whatever number two is, be the spot. So work towards that. 00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:05.920 Ray, man, thanks for this. This has been, uh, been a great, uh, session and looking forward 00:33:05.920 --> 00:33:10.080 to what's next. Uh, Ray, 20 seconds, uh, as we're landing the plane. 00:33:11.500 --> 00:33:14.800 Give, give it a try folks. You'd be surprised how many people you could reach at work. 00:33:14.940 --> 00:33:18.760 If you've got questions about workplace small groups from Saddleback, I'd Google it, take a 00:33:18.760 --> 00:33:22.800 look at what they've done there. Work, uh, workplace small groups, look up Steve Gladen's stuff. 00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:26.920 It's been phenomenal. They've already done the legwork as far as researching HR practices 00:33:26.920 --> 00:33:31.480 and everything else. So just check out what they've done and run with it because it's been 00:33:31.480 --> 00:33:36.820 phenomenal. And don't forget, you already make content. Tell your people to share it. Just do it. 00:33:37.920 --> 00:33:42.360 Awesome. For Ray, uh, my name is Jeff with the church digital. Thanks for joining us. And we'll 00:33:42.360 --> 00:33:45.500 catch you next time here at the church digital podcast. Y'all have a good day.