WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.980 Jeff here. We'll get back to the podcast in a second, but I wanted to let you know of an 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:13.180 opportunity to help you further develop your church online. Here at The Church Digital, 00:00:13.360 --> 00:00:18.300 we found some of the best ways for churches to grow their ministry online is to work alongside 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:25.080 other churches. To that end, The Church Digital is opening up some coaching cohorts in January 2020. 00:00:25.080 --> 00:00:29.540 Through our cohorts, you'll be connected with churches with similar goals in place in ministry, 00:00:29.740 --> 00:00:34.020 and work through these goals together over the six months under the guidance of the crew 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:40.000 here at The Church Digital. In 2020, invest in your church online. Invest in you. For more 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:47.220 information and to find out how you can save 20%, visit thechurch.digital.com. 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:55.400 Welcome to The Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff, and it is a pleasure to have you all join 00:00:55.400 --> 00:01:02.320 me today. We are on episode 18, and this is a phenomenal episode we've got set up for you. 00:01:02.460 --> 00:01:09.400 We're in the midst of a little micro series talking about micro locations and micro sites, 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:15.440 and that's one of many, many puns that are coming in this interview. You've been warned. If you're not 00:01:15.440 --> 00:01:21.680 familiar with First Capital, it's a small church in a small town in Indiana who's had a huge success 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:27.360 doing micro sites and micro locations using Church Online through their Church Anywhere program. 00:01:28.020 --> 00:01:33.000 Episode 17, we talked with some of their volunteers that are basically operating as the leaders, as the 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:40.300 campus pastors at some of these locations, reaching as many from, you know, 30 to over 300 people a week 00:01:40.300 --> 00:01:46.860 doing ministry. And we just heard some awesome stories about how God is moving in a big way 00:01:46.860 --> 00:01:51.960 through some of these small locations. If you didn't listen to episode 17, you definitely want 00:01:51.960 --> 00:01:57.260 to take some time and go back and listen to it later. Today, episode 18, we're going to dive in 00:01:57.260 --> 00:02:03.420 with Randy Kirk, who's the lead pastor over at First Capital. And honestly, I was a little surprised 00:02:03.420 --> 00:02:09.000 by Randy a bit. He was on the older side. I mean, I'm not putting a number on that, but he was 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:17.120 definitely more experienced in ministry and closer to retirement than not. But looking at him, it made me 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:22.180 want to ask some questions like, how could someone at this stage of life be on board with such a 00:02:22.180 --> 00:02:28.480 non-conventional model of ministry, non-traditional model like micro sites and micro locations, 00:02:28.940 --> 00:02:33.780 even the church online and a lot of the things that their Church Anywhere program does. You typically 00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:40.020 don't see someone on board with somebody who's at that age and stage of life. So what was that like, 00:02:40.120 --> 00:02:45.400 Randy, as the lead pastor? How were you able to get on board? How were you able to turn the corner 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:50.840 for this? The conversation, by the way, was incredible. Straight up, Randy's a humble guy, 00:02:50.980 --> 00:02:56.200 transparent. I can honestly tell you, I've never heard a pastor say the thing that came out of his 00:02:56.200 --> 00:03:01.360 mouth publicly like it did here on this broadcast. What specifically that was, hey, you're just going to have 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:08.500 to listen to hear that one in real time. So audience, I give you Radiarmus, online pastor at Christ 00:03:08.500 --> 00:03:14.340 Fellowship Miami. I give you Tyler Sampson, engagement pastor over at First Capital, and Randy Kirk, lead 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:21.140 pastor over at First Capital. In a conversation on Church Anywhere that I'm calling, it's not my kingdom. 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:28.780 Hey everybody, here you go. So Church Anywhere is a ministry philosophy that was birthed out of our 00:03:28.780 --> 00:03:37.200 online campus. We started streaming online about three years ago, and we noticed that we had some 00:03:37.200 --> 00:03:45.020 viewers. And so we decided to look into what it would look like to gather them in physical locations. 00:03:46.500 --> 00:03:54.160 And we started in a county jail, and from there it expanded to more prisons and jails, and then from 00:03:54.160 --> 00:04:01.200 there to elementary schools and nursing homes and even neighborhood. And yeah, that's been our 00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:06.940 ministry shift over the last couple years. And I think God has really done some amazing things through 00:04:06.940 --> 00:04:12.520 that. I'll tell you, since the last time we talked that evening, we had two jail services, and they had 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:18.800 a spontaneous baptism at one of them, which was the coolest thing ever. Yeah, so we just did that podcast, 00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:24.120 and like a couple hours later, my volunteer that leads that campus called me and was like floating 00:04:24.120 --> 00:04:30.420 out of the jail because he was so excited. So that's awesome. And what I love about this is the 00:04:30.420 --> 00:04:35.680 church is getting outside of its four walls. It's getting involved into the community. It's utilizing 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:42.760 some of the content that the church is creating, and it's empowering volunteers to be the ministers, 00:04:42.760 --> 00:04:51.560 to be the pastors, to be the heroes of this story. And so I wanted to get a little bit into Randy Kirk. 00:04:51.560 --> 00:04:55.000 And by the way, if you want to hear some of those stories in the episode that Tyler was just talking 00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:01.560 about, it's episode 17. And so check that out. It's the stories of Church Anywhere and those 00:05:01.560 --> 00:05:08.800 volunteers with it. But on that episode, I said I wanted to start off by asking Randy a question. 00:05:09.440 --> 00:05:16.440 And so this is a loaded one. Randy, gear up for this. It's coming. So Randy, and let me set the stage 00:05:16.440 --> 00:05:21.600 because I'm looking at Randy on video, but podcast listeners may not be. Randy, you're on the older 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:28.180 side of life. And I don't want to offend because I don't want you coming after me all the way from 00:05:28.180 --> 00:05:36.880 Indiana down to Miami. But he's closer to the retirement age than not with that. And so obviously, 00:05:36.880 --> 00:05:43.520 some of the things that Tyler is doing and that Church Anywhere is doing is really stretching the 00:05:43.520 --> 00:05:51.040 norms of established church. You know, like, hey, we want to do church outside in 16 locations. 00:05:51.720 --> 00:06:00.040 Normally, like church is this idea of, in today, 2019 churches, come to this big building. It's more 00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:05.340 more attractional. It's just if you build it, they will come time type of thing. Let's set up these 00:06:05.340 --> 00:06:11.240 church or let's set up these micro or these multi site locations around and get people to come to it. 00:06:11.700 --> 00:06:15.320 What you've done is you kind of turned it on its ear. And now you're pushing people, 00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:21.220 you're pushing people out of your building into the community to do church where the community is. 00:06:21.760 --> 00:06:28.440 So when when Tyler cast that vision to you for the first time, I just I got to know, like, 00:06:28.440 --> 00:06:32.920 what was your response? What was the first thing that went through your head? When you heard about 00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:33.280 this? 00:06:34.340 --> 00:06:38.860 First of all, I'm old. So I'm not held responsible for anything that happened three years ago. 00:06:39.060 --> 00:06:39.460 Correct. 00:06:40.320 --> 00:06:46.580 I just I'm not responsible for that. So, but no, when we first started talking about it, 00:06:46.980 --> 00:06:51.740 my initial reaction, and again, I had no context. 00:06:52.020 --> 00:06:52.940 This was just online. 00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:58.020 This was when we were talking about going online. And I told him I didn't want to give people an excuse 00:06:58.020 --> 00:07:04.940 to stay home in their pajamas and not come to church. And that's what I believed it to be, 00:07:04.940 --> 00:07:12.980 was just a way that people would start not coming to the building and engaging in our worship 00:07:12.980 --> 00:07:25.060 experience. And we dialogued about it for several weeks back and forth. But I believe that Greg 00:07:25.060 --> 00:07:33.500 Rochelle says that we'll do anything short of sin to help people come to Jesus. And we believe that. 00:07:34.280 --> 00:07:42.360 And so we just said, let's give it a try. And let's see what happens. And so we went online. And about 00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:50.080 six weeks into our online experience, we had people showing up. And we heard the same story over and 00:07:50.080 --> 00:07:56.140 over and we still hear it today. And that is we've been stalking you. That's no language, not ours. 00:07:56.460 --> 00:07:56.880 Sure. 00:07:57.160 --> 00:08:03.940 We've been stalking you. We've been watching you online. And we have a sense and a feel for what we're going 00:08:03.940 --> 00:08:12.060 to experience when we get here. And so we came in a lot more comfortable and confident about the experience 00:08:12.060 --> 00:08:14.520 because of our online experience. 00:08:15.440 --> 00:08:23.760 Yeah. And with that, we are located in the actual worst location you could possibly be located for a 00:08:23.760 --> 00:08:30.860 church. We are in a neighborhood that's like we're the only thing non-residential on our street. And it's 00:08:30.860 --> 00:08:36.780 a dead end street on the wrong side of town. But there's no drive by traffic. You can't even see us. 00:08:36.920 --> 00:08:43.120 And we're also connected to the high school parking lot. So nobody knows where we're at, 00:08:43.300 --> 00:08:49.400 even in town, really. And so the big thing for us online that we noticed was even people within our 00:08:49.400 --> 00:08:53.860 own city limits were like, I didn't know there was a church that did the things that we do in our own 00:08:53.860 --> 00:08:57.800 town. And so they started coming just because they didn't even know we were here before that. 00:08:57.800 --> 00:08:58.560 That's powerful. 00:08:59.520 --> 00:09:05.260 So now, picture that. I don't know if you can even picture this, but we're on the back end 00:09:05.260 --> 00:09:12.100 of a dead end street on the wrong side of town in a small town. And you can't find us. When I first 00:09:12.100 --> 00:09:17.560 came here 16 years ago, my first slogan was, you'd like us if you can find us. 00:09:18.020 --> 00:09:26.160 Because you can't find us. And people didn't know we existed. And again, our parking lot backs up to 00:09:26.160 --> 00:09:31.780 the high school, but it's a half a mile from the high school entrance to our parking lot, because 00:09:31.780 --> 00:09:39.020 you've got to go all the way around to get there. And so we have this unique location that we've 00:09:39.020 --> 00:09:44.480 turned into a positive. And the only way people are going to find us is if we tell them and bring 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:50.900 them with us. And so we've created a culture where it's bring with, not invite to. 00:09:51.540 --> 00:09:57.920 That's good. You know, those kinds of things are, they seem like small shifts in terms of 00:09:57.920 --> 00:10:02.340 language, but they're big shifts in terms of perspective. And I think it's great that you 00:10:02.340 --> 00:10:07.120 guys took those shifts. Both. First, I mean, you mentioned, Randy, that, you know, hey, so we're 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:11.860 going to open ourselves up to doing anything short of sin to reaching folks. And I've heard Craig say 00:10:11.860 --> 00:10:16.160 that too. A lot of folks, of course, get offended by that, you know, in the wrong way. They're taking it in 00:10:16.160 --> 00:10:21.120 the wrong sense. They're focusing on the sin portion of that statement as opposed to the reaching folks 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:29.420 portion of that statement. But the other thing of being willing to encourage folks to gather as 00:10:29.420 --> 00:10:35.600 opposed to just watch, that's huge. When did you guys make that shift to encouraging people to get 00:10:35.600 --> 00:10:38.580 together and actually watch the service? That's a big deal. 00:10:39.080 --> 00:10:47.480 So that would have been about a year and a half ago. Actually, I brought that to you shortly after 00:10:47.480 --> 00:10:55.520 we started online. And it was a lot of conversation. Two years ago, I put one microsite in the budget. 00:10:55.800 --> 00:11:01.360 I will never get this. And that was, that was literally the first thing that our elders cut from 00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:05.680 the budget for the year. So we were, they tried to, they always go through a final check and they're 00:11:05.680 --> 00:11:09.600 like, what can we cut to cut this down a little bit? Number one was microsites. Cause like nobody 00:11:09.600 --> 00:11:15.840 understood it at that point. Like, I mean, go back to two and a half years, like nobody's doing 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:20.940 microsites. This is still a fresh thing. So it's not like there was a lot of churches we could model 00:11:20.940 --> 00:11:26.040 these after, um, or people would have heard of them or anything. So they cut that first thing. 00:11:26.520 --> 00:11:30.600 Um, and so we really didn't get to try our first one until about a year and a half ago. 00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:38.200 Hmm. Well, I'm going to throw a number at you. You've got 16 of these locations scattered around 00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:45.020 cordon and surrounding areas, right? You got a prison ministry in a couple areas, but, um, 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:50.940 you know, and just Tyler to just to summarize, uh, four or five prison ministries that are happening in, 00:11:50.940 --> 00:11:59.580 in area prisons, um, hospitals, schools, homes, rehab centers for, uh, for Hodgkin's, 00:11:59.580 --> 00:12:06.360 which is by far my favorite story. Huntington's, I'm sorry, Huntington's disease. Um, that's by far 00:12:06.360 --> 00:12:14.360 my favorite story of, of all of them. Um, like what this does is, is it encourages people to 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:20.340 get out of the building? Uh, maybe the best place for them to be in a given Sunday is not sitting in 00:12:20.340 --> 00:12:26.720 a pew watching your service in your building on the wrong side of town, but instead doing ministry out 00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:33.540 in the community and being the pastor, being the, the, the campus pastor, being the, the representative, 00:12:33.700 --> 00:12:39.780 being the, being the person that God called them to be right now. And, and, you know, Tyler, you had 00:12:39.780 --> 00:12:44.460 this conversation, you guys have been on this road two or three years, like churches struggle with that 00:12:44.460 --> 00:12:50.800 today. Um, there are many conversations that I've had where, where pastors, uh, Randy, they, 00:12:50.800 --> 00:12:57.680 they struggle, like they're not ready to let people go out of the building. Um, did you, 00:12:57.740 --> 00:13:03.220 did you struggle with that? Was your DNA already wired to go outside? Like, I want to dig in a little 00:13:03.220 --> 00:13:11.780 bit to you here. How does it feel to shove people out the door? Go for it. Is that me? That's you. Yes, sir. 00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:18.720 I thought that was you. Jeff, you need to know a little bit about who I am very, very quickly. And, 00:13:18.820 --> 00:13:27.600 and, um, uh, my background is I was a college basketball coach. And so for 20 years, I coached. 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:34.520 And all I do today is I coach a church, coaching a basketball team, but everything I know about 00:13:34.520 --> 00:13:42.200 church, I learned in a gymnasium. And so with that, what you do, the first thing you do is you recruit 00:13:42.200 --> 00:13:48.300 people that have the potential to be all Americans. If you don't recruit talent, you're never going to 00:13:48.300 --> 00:13:56.980 be good. And so we recruited talent and Tyler is one of those all Americans. Yeah. Yay, Tyler. 00:13:57.500 --> 00:14:02.640 Yeah. We could, we could spend, we could spend 10 minutes talking about the story of how I found 00:14:02.640 --> 00:14:09.320 Tyler and how he ended up here initially with us. That's a great story, but I'm going to skip past 00:14:09.320 --> 00:14:14.140 that. But what we've done is we put together a staff that then are all Americans or potential 00:14:14.140 --> 00:14:20.300 all Americans. And then how do you make those all Americans into a team? Because a team is better 00:14:20.300 --> 00:14:27.040 than the sum of its parts. But a part of that is you trust them and you turn them loose. 00:14:27.160 --> 00:14:35.300 You don't, you don't, you don't buy a stallion. If you're in Kentucky, you don't buy a thoroughbred 00:14:35.300 --> 00:14:44.060 and put him in a stable and expect him to be what you want him to be. You've got to let him get out 00:14:44.060 --> 00:14:50.220 and run. And you got to let him run. Well, what we did is we recognized that in Tyler, we had an 00:14:50.220 --> 00:14:58.040 extremely gifted and extremely good outside the box thinker. And we just, we turned him loose. 00:14:58.360 --> 00:15:04.860 Now that doesn't mean that that was carte blanche and that we never had conversations because we had 00:15:04.860 --> 00:15:12.280 some really hard conversations. We still have hard conversations, but it is don't recruit your staff 00:15:12.280 --> 00:15:16.060 unless you're going to turn them loose to do what you've recruited them to do. 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:16.800 Okay. 00:15:17.420 --> 00:15:21.680 And so we have created this, again, it's, it's just, it's just good coaching. 00:15:21.680 --> 00:15:28.240 Talk to me about this. Because I, and I understand like the, the staff is, is one piece. One of the 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:35.640 things that I, that I see a lot of, or that I hear a lot of, um, and, and with pastors is they have to be in the, 00:15:35.800 --> 00:15:43.980 the, the people, the, the audience, the church has to be together. The ecclesia, the church body 00:15:43.980 --> 00:15:50.220 has to be in the worship center, worshiping together. Uh, and so that's where, when I, 00:15:50.280 --> 00:15:55.580 when I have these conversations about the micro locations and getting out there, like the pastor 00:15:55.580 --> 00:16:01.820 struggles with the theology of, no, they, we need to be gathering together. They need to be part of this 00:16:01.820 --> 00:16:07.520 larger thing and not necessarily, I, I don't know if it's, they don't trust the people to be the 00:16:07.520 --> 00:16:11.940 ministers. They don't feel like they've equipped them well enough. Like, I don't, I don't know what 00:16:11.940 --> 00:16:17.280 the, the, honestly, I don't know what the struggle is. I'm just curious, like, were there struggles 00:16:17.280 --> 00:16:23.100 for you? Because you're a lead pastor. You've been doing this for a while coming into this. And so like, 00:16:23.520 --> 00:16:26.840 did you struggle with this different way of thinking or was it natural for you? 00:16:28.460 --> 00:16:33.020 Um, one of the things Tyler and I have in common is we're both outside the box thinkers. 00:16:33.580 --> 00:16:39.300 So that makes it easier for us. But, but one of the pieces that we have discovered, 00:16:39.300 --> 00:16:46.080 um, I'm going to walk you through another piece that leads to a philosophy. Um, when I was a, 00:16:46.220 --> 00:16:52.180 back when I was a boy, that was before you all were even thought of, but back when I was a kid 00:16:52.180 --> 00:17:00.460 in the fifties and the sixties, the model was that you had a revival or a crusade and people came to 00:17:00.460 --> 00:17:09.780 Jesus. And then out of that revival or crusade, they came to church where they identified a cause 00:17:09.780 --> 00:17:15.140 or a place where they would plug in and serve in the church. And that's the way it was that they 00:17:15.140 --> 00:17:21.200 became, it was this, this, uh, uh, uh, revival or a crusade that led them to the church that led them. 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:29.380 Then, uh, uh, along came this little church called Willow Creek. And in the, uh, late eighties, early nineties, 00:17:29.380 --> 00:17:37.780 everything shifted and it became about the church. And you became this attractional model of church 00:17:37.780 --> 00:17:43.460 where you brought people to church because they liked what you were doing church. And that's where 00:17:43.460 --> 00:17:50.260 they met Christ. So before you, they had met Christ, then came to church. Now they've come to 00:17:50.260 --> 00:17:54.760 church and they meet Christ. And then they find a place to use their giftedness and plug in. 00:17:55.540 --> 00:18:02.760 But along about 2010, there was another shift that's taken place and it took place outside the church 00:18:02.760 --> 00:18:07.720 rather than in the church. And that is you've raised up a generation that are looking for a 00:18:07.720 --> 00:18:14.340 cause. They're looking for a cause, a place to plug in, a place to serve, a place to make a difference. 00:18:15.240 --> 00:18:25.740 And so we use cause in order to bring people to the church, to bring them to Christ. But sometimes 00:18:25.740 --> 00:18:32.080 in the cause, they come to Christ. That's what happened Tuesday night. We were out in the cause 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:40.140 and people found Christ. And they come to church. But it is understanding that our generation is, 00:18:40.140 --> 00:18:45.460 everybody's looking for a place where they can use their giftedness and their passion. 00:18:46.120 --> 00:18:54.520 And what we want to do is help people identify their passion and purpose and give them the opportunity 00:18:54.520 --> 00:19:02.420 to explore that and use that. And several years ago, we began tracking, not baptisms. We've tracked 00:19:02.420 --> 00:19:10.820 baptisms all the way through. We started tracking baptizers. Wow. How many baptizers do we have? 00:19:11.140 --> 00:19:16.320 They are responsible not to bring them to the baptistry. Baptistry is just an entry point. 00:19:17.360 --> 00:19:25.260 Their job is to take them on and mentor them beyond that. And so we track baptizers. And 00:19:25.260 --> 00:19:35.740 you know, last, we'll have about 90% of our baptisms, about 90% of them will have a different baptizer. 00:19:36.580 --> 00:19:44.320 And, which is pretty cool. And our staff barely is in the water anymore. I mean, you know, we are, 00:19:44.420 --> 00:19:50.220 it's not like we aren't leading people to Christ too, but compared to most churches. Does that all make 00:19:50.220 --> 00:19:59.100 sense? I'll add on to that. With that shift from like big, if you build it, they will come to let's 00:19:59.100 --> 00:20:06.320 find a cause and use that to bring people to the kingdom. It has, Randy said it a couple years ago, 00:20:06.320 --> 00:20:12.500 and it's stuck with me since then. We've spent like 15 to 20 years figuring out why in the world 00:20:12.500 --> 00:20:17.500 God would plant a church on the wrong side of town on a dead end street. And it's, we realize this 00:20:17.500 --> 00:20:21.780 because it doesn't matter where the church building is because we are the church. And so like the, 00:20:21.780 --> 00:20:26.100 the walls don't necessarily matter as much as long as we're empowering people to go follow these 00:20:26.100 --> 00:20:32.100 passions and these causes. Um, and that kind of gave us our answer. It was a strange way. So 00:20:32.100 --> 00:20:39.800 one of the things that came up in the last episode, episode 17, talking with your, your volunteers 00:20:39.800 --> 00:20:49.300 was this, um, was the passion that your church has to love on the community. Like I, I just, I can 00:20:49.300 --> 00:20:57.800 remember Cindy, um, going, Cindy, right? Yeah. Cindy going on and on about how that's just wired into 00:20:57.800 --> 00:21:05.380 who the church is. Um, did that happen overnight? Did that, I, obviously it didn't happen overnight, 00:21:05.380 --> 00:21:11.880 but like, tell me about that, that Genesis of how, you know, a lot of times churches talk about loving 00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:17.420 the community and loving the community means passing out a bottle of water or, um, you know, 00:21:17.420 --> 00:21:22.960 doing yard work, uh, for a church or something like that, or for a school, not, not to downplay those 00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:29.440 acts of service, but what you, what you're doing is, is forming discipleship relationships with people 00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:35.680 in the community for the purpose of making disciples and leading them to Jesus. And there, that's a big 00:21:35.680 --> 00:21:42.100 shift that some churches struggle with today. How did that happen for, uh, for First Capital? 00:21:42.100 --> 00:21:49.860 Um, I, I wish that we could take credit for that, but that predates our coming. The congregation was 00:21:49.860 --> 00:21:59.600 founded in, in, uh, November of 1990. And it's, the, the first pastor was Drew Ashwell. And, uh, Drew was 00:21:59.600 --> 00:22:07.240 a really, really young guy, 22 years old when he started pastoring here in this new church. And, uh, 00:22:07.240 --> 00:22:15.560 Drew brought in this relational piece. I believe that any time that a, uh, uh, a guy is the lead 00:22:15.560 --> 00:22:21.580 guy for five years or more, he leaves a mark on the church's DNA, good or bad. He's going to leave 00:22:21.580 --> 00:22:31.520 a mark. The mark that drew left was relationship and this welcoming, uh, everybody, every God loves 00:22:31.520 --> 00:22:37.100 everybody. And so do we kind of a idea. He didn't market it that way. He didn't language it that way, 00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:45.500 but that was what was, was here. And so from the get go, they had this, uh, uh, we had the advantage 00:22:45.500 --> 00:22:53.160 of being a church that already had that here. All we had to do was build on it. All we had to do is 00:22:53.160 --> 00:23:00.140 play to it or just tell them, sick them because they, they, they were there. And, uh, so Drew left 00:23:00.140 --> 00:23:06.600 that with us. The guy that followed Drew taught him about worship. And, uh, that was the mark that 00:23:06.600 --> 00:23:12.760 he's left on our DNA. And then I'm the third pastor in the history of the church. And I've just got to 00:23:12.760 --> 00:23:19.360 build on what they've already done. That's, that's awesome. What are some ways, you know, and we're 00:23:19.360 --> 00:23:26.920 talking about this like discipleship, um, rich relationship, empowering the, uh, attenders of your 00:23:26.920 --> 00:23:32.480 church, the people involved in your church, the volunteers to be the hero of ministry, the, the 00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:39.540 baptizers, the, the spontaneous baptisms, the campus pastor of the, of these micro locations. Um, I'm 00:23:39.540 --> 00:23:46.620 just curious, what are some other ways, maybe less technological, more, um, physical where, where it's 00:23:46.620 --> 00:23:56.040 this discipleship rich volunteer is able to, to thrive and lead in your church? Like how, how, what does that 00:23:56.040 --> 00:24:05.800 look like in a, in a physical sense, less, uh, virtual or digital? Um, in the, uh, in the last six 00:24:05.800 --> 00:24:11.840 years, our shepherds group, which is our, our elders, our leader, elder, and those, that's 00:24:11.840 --> 00:24:17.560 completely volunteer. I mean, it's, it's, it's all of those are volunteer, but me. Okay. I'm the only 00:24:17.560 --> 00:24:28.580 one that's a shepherd that is on our staff and, um, I'm old enough to be one, but, uh, um, that room 00:24:28.580 --> 00:24:36.040 has turned over in the last six years. There's only one other than me that, uh, continue to serve 00:24:36.040 --> 00:24:43.200 in the room. So in the, in the, they, what they have done is they have raised up men to take their 00:24:43.200 --> 00:24:50.400 place. Uh, Jim Collins says that, uh, and, and good to great that you get the right people on the bus 00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:57.380 and you get the right people in the right seat on the bus. But then he comes along about eight years 00:24:57.380 --> 00:25:03.280 later and he says, but then you have to recognize when I am the right person in the right seat on the 00:25:03.280 --> 00:25:09.860 bus that I have to be ready to give up my seat, even though it's the right seat for me, for the next 00:25:09.860 --> 00:25:17.980 guy. And I have to be willing to give up my seat on the bus for the next guy. So we are right now, 00:25:18.020 --> 00:25:25.380 we're talking succession plan for me. And I have to be willing to give up the seat that I love 00:25:25.380 --> 00:25:32.700 and the seat that I could rightly call my seat, but it's not my seat. It's just the seat that I 00:25:32.700 --> 00:25:39.980 have been given the privilege to occupy. And it's not about me. And so I went to the leaders a couple 00:25:39.980 --> 00:25:47.140 of days ago and we're talking about a succession plan and, uh, we have some names in mind that could 00:25:47.140 --> 00:25:55.360 be viable. And I said, what if we hire two of those and I step aside? Um, I just think it's appropriate 00:25:55.360 --> 00:26:04.240 that we consider that. Um, if, if we get guys, if we find two all Americans and they can take us 00:26:04.240 --> 00:26:11.740 places that we need to go, I don't need to get in the way. Yeah. Um, just, just transparently, 00:26:11.740 --> 00:26:20.060 I can't believe you just said that on a podcast. I mean, like, yeah, I mean, I'm not saying listening 00:26:20.060 --> 00:26:27.220 audience all over 43 States, uh, 20 countries. I don't know, but like, so this is, um, this is 00:26:27.220 --> 00:26:35.560 amazing to me, um, because of, of your, your humility and transparency in this. Um, I, I don't, 00:26:35.560 --> 00:26:41.280 I don't see, I'm forgive me. I don't, I don't want to speak bad of, of, of the pastors I work with, 00:26:41.280 --> 00:26:47.660 but that right there, like, that's not something that, that transparency, humility of, Hey, you know 00:26:47.660 --> 00:26:53.220 what, uh, Jim Collins, I may need to give up my, my seat. And by the way, if, if we can get people, 00:26:53.360 --> 00:26:59.140 better people to do this, let's, let's look and have those, those conversations like that's healthy 00:26:59.140 --> 00:27:04.860 in the long, in the long stretch organizationally. But, but just out of respect for you, sir, 00:27:04.860 --> 00:27:10.420 like it takes a chunk out of you to be able to step aside and say, Hey, um, you know, 00:27:10.560 --> 00:27:18.140 God must be glorified. I'm, I'm not pieces, two pieces. The first is it's not my kingdom. 00:27:18.140 --> 00:27:26.300 It's his kingdom. It's not my kingdom. It never has been. It's never been about me. And number two is 00:27:26.300 --> 00:27:30.240 we work with a homeless ministry that I can plug right into. 00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:44.940 So to go back to your initial question about how, how do we empower volunteers? 00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:51.020 I would say a vast majority of our staff would have a similar answer to Randy. Like I have a tattoo on 00:27:51.020 --> 00:27:55.980 my arm that says not the kingdom of Tyler. It's a constant reminder. And I, we, we're intentional 00:27:55.980 --> 00:28:01.980 about bringing people on staff that like we, I don't want to just talk the talk. I want to walk the walk 00:28:01.980 --> 00:28:07.620 as well. So I'm okay. If, if I don't get the glory for, uh, for ministry being done, if that means that 00:28:07.620 --> 00:28:13.500 someone like a Brad Reed from the last podcast gets to fulfill his potential, that dude was only 00:28:13.500 --> 00:28:19.020 baptized two years ago. Um, before that he was living in, um, an apartment that he couldn't even 00:28:19.020 --> 00:28:23.680 pay for the electricity because he was so on drugs and things like that. So in two years, God has taken 00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:29.460 him from that to leading a church anywhere side of 300 prisoners. I mean, I'm okay with that. If that 00:28:29.460 --> 00:28:35.300 means that he gets to further the kingdom. Um, and I think that's really important to, uh, to this whole 00:28:35.300 --> 00:28:41.600 thing is you have to have that sense of humility of it's not about you anymore. And people will follow 00:28:41.600 --> 00:28:46.300 that. We can empower people. If, if, if you live that life, they will want to follow and they will 00:28:46.300 --> 00:28:53.860 want to do it as well. Yeah. So like, I mean, the picture you're painting is you're not recruiting 00:28:53.860 --> 00:29:00.200 these, these leaders. You're, you're developing your discipling, you're, you're growing them. Um, 00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:05.240 you're not coming out and saying, Hey, I need somebody to do this. They are growing up within 00:29:05.240 --> 00:29:10.340 your system and they're saying, I want to go here. I mean, is that, is that, is that kind of where it's 00:29:10.340 --> 00:29:18.320 at? But, but here's another place. And that is the people that are most hungry to serve are those 00:29:18.320 --> 00:29:25.500 that have just come into the kingdom. The longer somebody's in and doesn't serve, the harder it is 00:29:25.500 --> 00:29:33.240 to move those people. And so many churches are just filled up with those people. And they, the, 00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:38.180 so the, the, the guys in our roles are trying to move people that aren't going to move. 00:29:38.840 --> 00:29:46.140 But it's, if you can create the inertia where, uh, lost people are being found and they come in 00:29:46.140 --> 00:29:54.000 and they value what they have and you start working with a, with Brad immediately upon his accepting 00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:00.040 Jesus and, and just say, you don't have to have experience and you don't have to, to know all the 00:30:00.040 --> 00:30:05.260 answers. You just have to know Jesus and be able to tell your story. And that's really all that we 00:30:05.260 --> 00:30:13.900 require. Um, and so, so what we're trying to do is cultivate, uh, a, um, an environment 00:30:13.900 --> 00:30:20.100 where, uh, where that happens. And then what happens is some of these old timers start watching 00:30:20.100 --> 00:30:26.820 these new people and they say, I want some of that. I like that. I want some of that. And the next 00:30:26.820 --> 00:30:31.980 thing you know, you've drug one of those in that you would have had to have him kicking and screaming 00:30:31.980 --> 00:30:39.520 before. And now he gets it. And one of the craziest parts of it is the thing that we hear the most is, 00:30:39.520 --> 00:30:44.380 uh, even with like baptizing someone, it's, well, I'm not qualified to do that. Or even praying out 00:30:44.380 --> 00:30:52.540 loud. I'm not qualified to do that. This kind of a, a model gives people no excuse. Um, we, we just did 00:30:52.540 --> 00:30:58.120 a story on a guy named Nick that we put on Facebook that, um, got to baptize his very first person ever 00:30:58.120 --> 00:31:03.760 at a church anywhere location. And, um, so he told his story on a video and he basically just said, 00:31:03.800 --> 00:31:08.640 I didn't feel qualified to baptize somebody, but he left different because of that. Um, they, 00:31:08.800 --> 00:31:12.740 because he stepped out of his comfort zone, because we gave him permission to do that. Um, 00:31:12.740 --> 00:31:16.720 he left different and now he was actually the guy that baptized the spontaneous baptism this 00:31:16.720 --> 00:31:21.940 Tuesday night. Um, so he went from not feeling qualified to do ministry to now have baptized two 00:31:21.940 --> 00:31:28.620 people in the last four weeks. Wow. You know, and it's that, that idea of, of decentralizing 00:31:28.620 --> 00:31:33.700 ministry. And we've talked about this in, in previous podcasts, but it's like, I, I love this 00:31:33.700 --> 00:31:37.960 idea of counting the baptizers. And we've, we talked to, you know, we talked about this with, um, 00:31:38.380 --> 00:31:43.220 it's, uh, with, uh, man, I can't think of the guy's name was the online pastor, uh, the online 00:31:43.220 --> 00:31:48.880 groups pastor from Saddleback. And so like, uh, not Jay, it's the guy who works under Jay, Kevin Lee. 00:31:49.360 --> 00:31:54.760 Kevin, if you're listening and now you are, I'm sorry. It took me a while, but, uh, but Kevin was, 00:31:54.840 --> 00:32:02.100 was talking about how they've, they've got like pages of people that need to get baptized. And it's 00:32:02.100 --> 00:32:07.120 like, they're all over the country and, and, and how you baptize these people, you know? And so 00:32:07.120 --> 00:32:13.240 instead of them flying all over the country, you know, to do these fly, but literally fly by baptisms, 00:32:13.240 --> 00:32:18.100 let me fly into the city, take an Uber to where you are, dunk you, and then fly back home. 00:32:18.300 --> 00:32:23.600 They started training people, uh, getting them spiritually capable to the place of where they 00:32:23.600 --> 00:32:29.200 could baptize someone. And, and, and that by doing that, it decentralizes and it allows 00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:34.880 the, the people to grow spiritually deeper because they're challenged to do things like 00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:40.700 pray publicly, uh, share, share their faith, be able to stand up and speak towards spiritual 00:32:40.700 --> 00:32:45.380 things, complimenting, uh, something that, that said from, from the stage, like that's phenomenal. 00:32:45.380 --> 00:32:51.360 I will, I'll say this. I would say about 15% or so of our volunteers are not from first capital. 00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:55.900 Um, so we have several other churches that we've, um, like, we don't want this to be an 00:32:55.900 --> 00:33:01.000 only first capital thing. This is a kingdom thing church anywhere. And so, um, let's, let's park 00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:07.680 there. Cause, cause that like that is another thing of this collaboration in, in context of, 00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:11.760 of church. It's not often found. How did that happen? Tell me that story. 00:33:12.380 --> 00:33:17.640 Well, it's, it's, it just go, it goes back to this tattoo on my arm for, for me, it's really not my 00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:24.240 kingdom. Um, I have never sought to make the name first capital famous, but to make, um, make the 00:33:24.240 --> 00:33:33.100 capital C church, the kingdom, uh, famous. And so, uh, I know that there's a thriving jail ministry 00:33:33.100 --> 00:33:37.780 that, um, there's a community of people that like to do jail ministry. So why would we not tap into 00:33:37.780 --> 00:33:42.200 those people? We're already going in jails every single week and these people love prisoners. So 00:33:42.200 --> 00:33:46.440 of course we want them to come along. Um, we found out there's a, there's a homeless ministry, 00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:51.400 um, and they, they already provide a meal for, for people every Sunday. So why not do church 00:33:51.400 --> 00:33:57.580 and the meal? Um, and so now like we, we don't send hardly any volunteers there. They have recruited 00:33:57.580 --> 00:34:03.920 all their own volunteers to do church. We just provide the material, um, and so on. And if you can 00:34:03.920 --> 00:34:09.300 get past, if you can get past yourself a little bit, um, God makes some pretty amazing and big 00:34:09.300 --> 00:34:15.520 things happen, which, um, has been really fun to watch. That's right. Wow. What have been 00:34:15.520 --> 00:34:20.360 the response response from other churches when they're like, you want to do what? Or are they 00:34:20.360 --> 00:34:25.620 on board? Like the, the relationship that you have with the other, other churches? How is 00:34:25.620 --> 00:34:32.380 that positive? Yeah. Both. Yeah. You have some that value it and appreciate it and you have 00:34:32.380 --> 00:34:39.540 others. Um, they're like, what the heck are you talking about? I lead, I lead another thing that's 00:34:39.540 --> 00:34:46.760 completely different from this. It's large churches in small towns. And, um, uh, so, so we meet 00:34:46.760 --> 00:34:53.480 together and talk about the unique challenges of being the large church in a small town. And, uh, with 00:34:53.480 --> 00:34:59.900 that, one of the things that you learn very rapidly is when your church starts, becomes the large church 00:34:59.900 --> 00:35:07.120 in town. The other churches resent you. And, uh, there's a resentment that can build up because 00:35:07.120 --> 00:35:14.140 you are having success that they are not having. And, um, so we, we face some of that and that's 00:35:14.140 --> 00:35:21.060 just reality. You just can't, you can't focus on that. And yet those that want to partner with us, 00:35:21.060 --> 00:35:29.180 uh, then they're welcome. And, uh, those that want to, uh, want to learn from us, uh, we want to, 00:35:29.180 --> 00:35:35.140 we want to share that. This isn't, uh, uh, um, you know, we're not looking at copywriting material 00:35:35.140 --> 00:35:41.220 and charging you to, uh, to go there. This is, it's not ours. It's, it's God's. 00:35:41.220 --> 00:35:48.120 Amen. And all we want to do is I'm going to stand before him someday. And I want to hear, 00:35:48.440 --> 00:35:55.580 well done, good and faithful servant. That's all good and faithful. That's all. And, uh, it's not 00:35:55.580 --> 00:36:02.140 measured on how many we did or what numbers we did. It was, were you, were you good and were you 00:36:02.140 --> 00:36:08.600 faithful? That's what I want to be. And that's what we want to be. And it's, it's not rocket science. 00:36:09.380 --> 00:36:15.280 It's, it's, as long as you understand that it's his, then, uh, we do what we can with what we've 00:36:15.280 --> 00:36:19.760 got. So with that, when somebody wants to give their life to Christ and be baptized on our online 00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:24.220 campus, we have absolutely no problem saying, man, that's awesome. Let's connect you with a local 00:36:24.220 --> 00:36:28.880 church where you're at and, and, uh, and we'll hand you over to, to a physical body of people. 00:36:29.440 --> 00:36:34.940 Um, we have no problem with that whatsoever. Where is this going? You're, you're doing the 00:36:34.940 --> 00:36:42.180 micro locations. Um, we can tell you, and like, and, uh, and, uh, Randy, you just quit your job on air 00:36:42.180 --> 00:36:49.240 level, but like, um, so when churches talk micro locations, uh, a lot of times, especially in the 00:36:49.240 --> 00:36:54.020 multi-site movement, multi-site churches, you know, they're doing the, the micro locations for purpose 00:36:54.020 --> 00:36:59.240 of one day combining them into a campus to launch maybe a satellite multi-site campus, something like 00:36:59.240 --> 00:37:06.000 that. Are you guys like, what is, is, what's the, what's the next step in this? Or have you even 00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:12.800 gotten there yet? I don't know the, I don't know the end. I really don't know the end of where this 00:37:12.800 --> 00:37:20.220 ends. I know the things we wrestle with. I know the challenges that we are concerned about. Uh, we are 00:37:20.220 --> 00:37:28.980 concerned about engagement and we, we believe that, uh, yeah, Carrie Newhoff has said, internet's, internet's 00:37:28.980 --> 00:37:38.200 not going away. And, uh, and so, uh, uh, we know that that's where the world's going and, and, uh, you 00:37:38.200 --> 00:37:44.760 can either sit back and take shots at, well, these people aren't in a, in a body and all that and do 00:37:44.760 --> 00:37:50.540 nothing. And they're going to be on the internet anyway, whether you want to be or not. So we have 00:37:50.540 --> 00:37:57.420 to figure out what engagement looks like and how do we enhance engagement. And so Tyler and Jared, 00:37:57.840 --> 00:38:04.300 another guy on our staff have started a rooted, uh, experience online. Jeff was actually involved 00:38:04.300 --> 00:38:08.740 in this for a little while. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And we're going to, I'm excited. We're going to talk 00:38:08.740 --> 00:38:14.260 with Jared, uh, and Tyler, I think in the next episode, uh, cause I, and I really want to dive into 00:38:14.260 --> 00:38:20.120 that. I'm actually trying to get, uh, somebody from rooted to jump on the podcast with us. So you just 00:38:20.120 --> 00:38:25.200 even dive into what that online discipleship piece looks like. I didn't mean to trump where you're 00:38:25.200 --> 00:38:31.860 going, but. Well, all I'm saying is we're trying to gather a, how do we create engagement? Yeah. What 00:38:31.860 --> 00:38:38.440 does engagement look like? And what does community look like? How do you define community in our culture 00:38:38.440 --> 00:38:45.880 today? And we don't know the answers to all that, but we also know that we create a culture 00:38:45.880 --> 00:38:54.000 with what we present and leaders, leaders create culture. You're talking to a lead pastor out there 00:38:54.000 --> 00:39:00.240 who's considering some of this, but may have some questions on where this is going. What's the finish 00:39:00.240 --> 00:39:06.300 line? Yeah. Talk to that lead pastor out there and explain to him your stance and your take on this. 00:39:06.300 --> 00:39:15.120 Okay. I don't know. Cause I think the finish line's moving. I think it moves. Uh, but here's what I do 00:39:15.120 --> 00:39:22.280 know. And that is that there are people that, uh, that are lost that don't even realize they're lost 00:39:22.280 --> 00:39:28.000 and there are people missing out. They don't even realize what they're missing out on. And there are 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:36.980 people that are needy and we have what they need. And I can't wait till I've got it all figured out 00:39:36.980 --> 00:39:45.560 before I go to those people. I go to them with what I've got and I say, let's figure it out together. 00:39:46.560 --> 00:39:53.420 And the line's moving. And so we're already at places that I didn't see us going when Tyler came 00:39:53.420 --> 00:39:58.520 and said, let's do something. Let's do our services online. We already have moved. 00:39:59.060 --> 00:40:03.580 We're, we're already moving like the, the micro sites that are awesome, but we're going to continue 00:40:03.580 --> 00:40:09.820 expanding, but we're in talks of like, what is next? Um, so on that, beyond that. And, and it comes 00:40:09.820 --> 00:40:14.220 back to this cause piece, by the way. And if we tell you more, we do have to kill you. So 00:40:14.220 --> 00:40:27.880 Jeff, to answer it. And that is, all I know is if this is the tool that I have available 00:40:27.880 --> 00:40:37.480 to connect to people who need what we have found, then I use the tool. And, uh, uh, that's what, 00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:45.140 that's what happened when we started with the organ, uh, in, in the 1500s, the organ was the tool that 00:40:45.140 --> 00:40:51.340 brought people to the assembly because that's the only place you could hear an organ and take 00:40:51.340 --> 00:40:57.360 advantage of it. That's great. Well, we have a new tool and, uh, we just want to use the tool 00:40:57.360 --> 00:41:07.760 and, and, and how can we maximize that? And, uh, so we have a really creative team and, but the one 00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:14.100 thing they have in common is they all love Jesus a whole lot and they want people to have what they 00:41:14.100 --> 00:41:18.620 have found. So we're just going to turn this team loose and I'm going to try to stay out of the way. 00:41:21.480 --> 00:41:33.040 That was awesome. Um, I, I, I literally don't even know what to say. I will utilize church online is 00:41:33.040 --> 00:41:41.880 the new church organ analogy for years. I, I, I just, I, that, that right, you know, Tyler's got his 00:41:41.880 --> 00:41:47.340 little tattoo there. Um, I, I have, I have a running joke on this podcast that whenever there's a mic drop, 00:41:47.340 --> 00:41:52.680 whenever there's a bubble quote, like, is that tattoo worthy? And, and will I put Randy Kirk's 00:41:52.680 --> 00:41:59.880 name on my body? Um, that right there may actually make the cut. Um, my wife won't let it happen. 00:41:59.880 --> 00:42:05.260 And it's listening to this. Don't worry. It's not ever going to happen. Um, but my gosh, that was 00:42:05.260 --> 00:42:11.220 like, I may be tearing up here just thinking about that. Um, this has been a great podcast. I want to 00:42:11.220 --> 00:42:17.280 thank you for this. I know lead pastors are busy and, uh, just your transparency and openness 00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:22.280 in this conversation has been encouraging for me. It's been encouraging for the listeners out there. 00:42:22.280 --> 00:42:27.560 Uh, Ray was on with us and I don't know if the listening audience noticed, he just disappeared, 00:42:27.560 --> 00:42:34.600 uh, where he was, where he was broadcasting from, uh, lost internet. And so, uh, he's, was just, um, 00:42:34.840 --> 00:42:43.760 out of luck. So he, uh, will listen in and, um, and, and sure enjoy this as much as I did. But as we're 00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:50.100 landing the plane here, wrapping up, um, Tyler, Randy, 20, 30 seconds, any, any closing thoughts, 00:42:50.140 --> 00:42:55.140 anything to add at this point? I would just on the, on the talking to lead pastors, you had asked me 00:42:55.140 --> 00:43:01.160 that question last podcast and I didn't have a good answer, but, um, yesterday we had a, a pretty real 00:43:01.160 --> 00:43:06.820 crisis in the morning with a person that watches us online. That's, uh, in an online small group, 00:43:06.820 --> 00:43:15.360 um, that had, um, since a really serious emergency text to the church. Um, and so for a, for a lead 00:43:15.360 --> 00:43:22.420 pastor that thinks online viewers are not people or not like they can't see them. So they're not 00:43:22.420 --> 00:43:28.880 actually there. Um, I had, we had to deal with a very real problem with a very real person, um, 00:43:28.880 --> 00:43:35.780 yesterday that I only know because of the online campus. I've never met her. Um, but I know her 00:43:35.780 --> 00:43:42.740 because I'm her on, I'm her, I'm her pastor. And so she, we were the first people that she came to. 00:43:42.740 --> 00:43:48.260 And, um, because, because she came to us, we were able to get her the help that she needed, um, 00:43:48.680 --> 00:43:50.820 in an, in a crisis, a very real emergency. 00:43:50.820 --> 00:43:58.440 She reached out to Tyler. She's with, with a life threatening situation. Tyler, because of our 00:43:58.440 --> 00:44:03.820 microsites reaches to the sheriff. Like, I mean, on speed dial, like give me immediately. Yeah. 00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:10.780 And he has access to the sheriff because of our relationship with the jail. The sheriff sends out, 00:44:10.780 --> 00:44:17.520 uh, he tracks her, he tracks her, which we couldn't do, but he can, because he's got the stuff to do 00:44:17.520 --> 00:44:26.280 that. He gets then, uh, EMTs to her in time to save her life. All, all while, uh, Donnie, who's the 00:44:26.280 --> 00:44:29.660 other pastor on staff that helps a lot with, with Church Anywhere, the one I mentioned yesterday with 00:44:29.660 --> 00:44:35.600 the jails or Tuesday, um, all while she, he's, he's talking to her on the phone until the paramedics 00:44:35.600 --> 00:44:41.360 get there. Um, so it was a team effort, but all, all because she's an online campus viewer, right? 00:44:41.600 --> 00:44:46.300 That is, that's it. Yeah. So if you're a pat, if you're a senior pastor and you hear stories like 00:44:46.300 --> 00:44:51.200 that, I want, I want them to know, like, these are real people that have real problems that may, 00:44:51.340 --> 00:44:54.920 they may have a legitimate reason not to come to church. They may not, but what does it matter 00:44:54.920 --> 00:45:02.280 if you're bringing them to the kingdom? That's a, a, okay. So I've had a conversation with a pastor, 00:45:02.280 --> 00:45:07.820 um, not dropping names. He's not listening to this podcast, but at the end of the day, 00:45:07.820 --> 00:45:12.440 I would, I've told him a story, not a life threatening story, but a story like that. 00:45:12.580 --> 00:45:18.740 And that pastor would say, yeah, that person online is not my responsibility. And so, I mean, 00:45:18.860 --> 00:45:26.800 literally in this situation, you've, it sounds like you've saved a life and we're part of not a virtual 00:45:26.800 --> 00:45:35.100 salvation, but a physical, this person is still alive today as a result of you guys being a church 00:45:35.100 --> 00:45:42.400 in a virtual space and connecting with people, um, who aren't just sitting in a pew in your 00:45:42.400 --> 00:45:48.180 building. Yeah. I'll tell you this on that though, with, with this online small group that she's in, 00:45:48.220 --> 00:45:54.660 we now have, we have a couple from West Virginia who want to drive up to, to where she's at to visit 00:45:54.660 --> 00:45:58.940 her because they're in an online small group together. That's like a five hour drive. 00:45:58.940 --> 00:46:07.540 So, yeah. And so like they want to visit just the, the, uh, the relationship, the, the, is so tight 00:46:07.540 --> 00:46:14.520 through talking through like, you guys use what zoom for the online. So, so talking through a webcam 00:46:14.520 --> 00:46:20.400 using zoom software, the relationship is so tight. These people are willing to drive five hours, uh, 00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:26.820 to come and check and to be with this person in her time of, my gosh, like if, if that's not the church, 00:46:26.820 --> 00:46:35.020 I don't know what is. So, um, to, to you guys and, and, and what you've done, uh, with embracing this 00:46:35.020 --> 00:46:40.760 church online model with running with it as a small church, you know, and, and 800, sorry, 00:46:40.820 --> 00:46:46.520 I'm using numbers again. It's, it's big, big church, small town that majority of churches out there, 00:46:46.520 --> 00:46:53.040 there's 365 evangelical, 365,000 evangelical churches in America today, maybe 10 to 15,000 are 00:46:53.040 --> 00:46:59.640 broadcasting any given Sunday. So you're embracing of this, this technology is rare, especially with, 00:46:59.840 --> 00:47:06.260 with smaller size churches and you're seeing results from it and you're using it for discipleship. 00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:13.300 You're growing your base, not just to consume content, but to actually live out the, the disciple 00:47:13.300 --> 00:47:19.700 making disciple model that God's called us to. Um, and so if I was wearing a hat, I'd say hats off, 00:47:19.700 --> 00:47:26.940 but I can tell you, I, I, I respect and I honor, uh, what you guys are doing and have done, um, 00:47:26.940 --> 00:47:33.280 in the virtual space by making disciples who are making disciples. And so thank you for, for doing 00:47:33.280 --> 00:47:39.920 that and modeling what, honestly, uh, what I would call a good solid biblical model of what 00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:48.120 the church should be in 2019. Um, now is to take what we've given you and make us look good. 00:47:48.720 --> 00:47:52.960 Yes. It may take some editing. We'll see. 00:47:56.020 --> 00:48:01.660 But you don't need my help a lot for that. And, and, and I just, and I'm, I'm going to keep that in. 00:48:01.660 --> 00:48:09.560 Um, you guys have done, I want to encourage you. You've done a phenomenal job and, and the things 00:48:09.560 --> 00:48:17.180 that you're wrestling with the way that you're marching forward with, um, uh, doing this realizing, 00:48:17.180 --> 00:48:22.640 Hey, God is going to say, yes, it may not make sense, but God's being glorified through it. So why 00:48:22.640 --> 00:48:29.060 would I stop? God's bigger than my problems. Um, thank you. And, and my, my prayer, literally 00:48:29.060 --> 00:48:34.580 my prayer is that people listening to this, that there are going to be church staffs. There's going 00:48:34.580 --> 00:48:39.640 to be online pastors. There's going to be volunteers listening to this saying, my church needs to do 00:48:39.640 --> 00:48:44.720 this. And they're going to forward this podcast on to their lead pastor. And hopefully that lead 00:48:44.720 --> 00:48:51.100 pastor is encouraged to realize, Hey, there are opportunities here to utilize technology, to get 00:48:51.100 --> 00:48:57.680 people out of the building, to get people into the community where they can love disciple and grow 00:48:57.680 --> 00:49:02.720 people closer to God. And that God can be glorified through the efforts of, of what's happening. 00:49:03.820 --> 00:49:08.800 Technology's not the abandonment of community. It's the birthing of new communities, uh, which is what 00:49:08.800 --> 00:49:14.340 we're literally seeing through your church anywhere program. So, um, if you can inspire one church 00:49:14.340 --> 00:49:19.640 through this, um, it's a win. And I'm telling you, many will be inspired by, by what's happened 00:49:19.640 --> 00:49:26.060 here. And we're not even done. We're going to come back with, uh, with Jared, uh, and some guys 00:49:26.060 --> 00:49:31.480 talking about your online discipleship. Cause I really want to talk about how that, that is fostered 00:49:31.480 --> 00:49:39.580 and grows. Cause that's a big deal, uh, in creating, um, uh, a disciple, uh, who's capable of training 00:49:39.580 --> 00:49:44.740 other disciples. And so I really want to explore that, which is what's coming up here in the next 00:49:44.740 --> 00:49:52.720 episode. Gentlemen, this has been phenomenal, uh, for, uh, for Tyler, uh, for Randy, uh, for Ray, 00:49:52.760 --> 00:49:56.880 who was here for a little while and, and, and disappeared. My name is Jeff, uh, with the 00:49:56.880 --> 00:50:01.080 church digital podcast. Uh, looking forward to next time. See you then.