WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.580 Hey everybody, welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff and I am excited that 00:00:04.580 --> 00:00:09.440 y'all are here today. This is episode 19. By the way, can you believe we've done 19 of these 00:00:09.440 --> 00:00:14.360 episodes? I just, on a personal note, I just wanted to tell y'all, I hope that this has been 00:00:14.360 --> 00:00:21.560 a beneficial resource for you all. It's been great having these conversations, digging deep 00:00:21.560 --> 00:00:27.660 into what church online can be, what church online should be, and hopefully these resources, 00:00:27.660 --> 00:00:32.420 not only in the technical aspects, but in the ministry side, in the small group, biblical 00:00:32.420 --> 00:00:38.240 community, the discipleship aspect of church online. Hopefully this has been a rewarding 00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:43.280 benefit for you, and it's making your ministries better. By the way, we are not slowing down. 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:48.240 The next couple months are going to be phenomenal, and I'm really excited to continue this podcast 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:55.260 and bring you all into these conversations as we discover what's working at church online, 00:00:55.260 --> 00:01:01.100 how people are seeing success, and how God is blessing the ministry of church online's across 00:01:01.100 --> 00:01:06.180 the country. Well, cool. We've got a great episode here at episode 19. We're going to be digging in 00:01:06.180 --> 00:01:11.800 talking about discipleship in context of Church Anywhere. This is our third week talking about 00:01:11.800 --> 00:01:17.660 Church Anywhere. As you may remember, Church Anywhere is a program that's set up by First Capital 00:01:18.020 --> 00:01:25.000 Christian Church that really utilizes their online campus as a way to cluster and gather people together 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:31.680 in the physical space. They're literally doing micro locations in office workspaces, in prisons, 00:01:32.060 --> 00:01:39.380 in hospital rehab centers, in homeless centers, in after-school centers, even in homes, gathering people 00:01:39.380 --> 00:01:48.080 together to watch the broadcast, to do Bible studies, to grow together in the physical space, as well as 00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:55.460 watching and processing things through the Church Online broadcasts. And they've seen some phenomenal 00:01:55.460 --> 00:02:03.640 results of it. We've talked about it in past podcasts, but as many as 450 people scattered across this small 00:02:03.640 --> 00:02:11.020 town in Indiana, Court in Indiana, have watched and are part of these Church Online locations. And it's 00:02:11.020 --> 00:02:17.640 phenomenal to see this ministry happen. But the challenge before First Capital Christian is how to 00:02:17.640 --> 00:02:25.480 create a disciple who can in turn create disciples. As that ministry has grown, as many as 16 micro locations 00:02:25.480 --> 00:02:31.720 that are meeting in a given week, they've grown past the ability to have staff. So we've got to empower 00:02:31.720 --> 00:02:37.820 volunteers to do that. How do you take a volunteer, how do you take in a church attender, how do you take a 00:02:37.820 --> 00:02:45.160 consumer and groom that person to the point that they are now a disciple who can create a disciple? And it's 00:02:45.160 --> 00:02:51.420 that discipleship process that I want to dig in. What's the material? What's that conversation? What does that 00:02:51.420 --> 00:02:59.100 look like? That span of time where you take someone who was an outsider to the church, may not truly 00:02:59.100 --> 00:03:05.700 understand, and then groom them to the place where they are a disciple who's now capable of leading 00:03:05.700 --> 00:03:12.480 others to Christ and leading others to a deeper relationship with Christ through discipleship. 00:03:13.060 --> 00:03:17.640 And so that's the core of the conversation today. And to dig in, here's what we're going to do. We're 00:03:17.640 --> 00:03:23.840 going to bring in Tyler Sampson, once again, from First Capital Christian. He's the engagement pastor over 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:28.840 there at First Capital. We're going to bring in Ray DeArmis, who is the online pastor of Christ Fellowship 00:03:28.840 --> 00:03:36.600 Miami and a dear friend, of course. And we're also going to bring in Jared Kirkwood. Jared is the pastor 00:03:36.600 --> 00:03:42.900 in charge of this discipleship material called Rooted, which is based out of Mariner's Church. Now, 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:48.300 here's what's interesting. Jared is a pastor at Mariner's Church. Some of you may remember back in 00:03:48.300 --> 00:03:54.300 episode nine and 10, Eric Geiger, lead pastor at Mariner's Church, was on this podcast. It was a 00:03:54.300 --> 00:03:59.800 complete coincidence that we're going back to Mariner's for this. We were interested in having 00:03:59.800 --> 00:04:05.700 this conversation on discipleship at First Capital Christian. Come to find out that First Capital 00:04:05.700 --> 00:04:12.680 Christian has based their discipleship pathway off of this material called Rooted, which is distributed 00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:20.120 and managed here in the United States by Mariner's Church out in California. So we're going coast to 00:04:20.120 --> 00:04:26.860 coast here, conversations in Miami, talking with a church in California about how people in Indiana 00:04:26.860 --> 00:04:34.000 make disciples. Online church is phenomenal. I love what we're seeing here. So ladies and gentlemen, 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:40.600 I bring to you this conversation of discipleship in context of church online. Jared Kirkwood from 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:45.760 Rooted, Tyler Sampson, Engagement Pastor at First Capital, Ray DeArmis, Christ Fellowship Miami, 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:50.400 and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital. Hope you all enjoy this, and here you go. 00:04:50.860 --> 00:04:56.160 So Rooted's a 10-week small group experience that helps people within the church get connected to God, 00:04:56.300 --> 00:05:01.620 the church, and ultimately to discover their purpose. We use Rooted at Mariner's as a tool to help 00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:06.580 anybody who comes to our weekend service that's looking for their next step. This is not only an 00:05:06.580 --> 00:05:12.800 assimilation tool, but it's a generator of small groups. It's a cultural baseline. It's the way in 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:17.760 which we create shared experiences and common language so that everybody who comes to our church 00:05:17.760 --> 00:05:22.560 that says, how do I get involved? They go through Rooted. At the other side of that, that Rooted group 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:28.140 becomes a life group. That life group has a rhythm of serving and praying and these other rhythms that 00:05:28.140 --> 00:05:33.260 exist within the Rooted material. That helps them understand what does it look like to be equipped for 00:05:33.260 --> 00:05:38.900 group life at Mariner's. And so now part of my role is overseeing Rooted at Mariner's, but also 00:05:38.900 --> 00:05:44.620 equipping the roughly 800 churches that are using Rooted all across the country. And so I spend a large 00:05:44.620 --> 00:05:48.980 part of my day doing coaching calls, coming alongside churches that are trying to figure out how to 00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:53.280 implement Rooted within their context. And then we run various training retreats and all that kind of 00:05:53.280 --> 00:05:58.800 stuff throughout the year. Awesome. And so that's Mariner's Church, by the way. That's Eric Geiger. If you 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:04.820 want to go back to episode, I want to say it was nine and 10, the famous Geiger, we're bringing in some 00:06:04.820 --> 00:06:11.100 more people from Mariners. And honestly, like that wasn't intentional. The real reason we brought this 00:06:11.100 --> 00:06:16.600 podcast together was because we were talking about First Capital Christian and how they've created this 00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:26.140 discipleship process that takes a volunteer and creates an opportunity to create a disciple who's comfortable with 00:06:26.140 --> 00:06:33.260 leading and doing more discipleship. A disciple is creating a disciple. And we're seeing that happen in 00:06:33.260 --> 00:06:40.680 context with First Capital's Christian Church Anywhere program. A couple episodes ago, episode 17, we were talking with 00:06:40.680 --> 00:06:50.100 Cindy and Brad, Brad Reed, my brother from another mother, who are volunteers, who are basically campus pastors 00:06:50.100 --> 00:06:56.280 at these Church Anywhere programs. Cindy leads a Hodgkin's Rehab Center, I think, that sees like 40 00:06:56.280 --> 00:07:03.300 people a week coming together to experience church. And that church is, or in that rehab center is basically 00:07:03.300 --> 00:07:12.460 conference room or community center. And Brad is part of a church service for, man, it was, I felt like it was 00:07:12.460 --> 00:07:18.800 anywhere between 30 to almost 300 people sometimes. About 350. Yeah. And so just depending upon what week 00:07:18.800 --> 00:07:24.580 it is and whether the prisoners can all come together or not. But that's a phenomenal thing when you think 00:07:24.580 --> 00:07:32.880 that, you know, First Capital Christian is empowering these people to basically go out and be the spiritual shepherds 00:07:32.880 --> 00:07:41.340 responsible for it for these souls at at these these locations. And so I wanted to explore a little bit more of 00:07:41.340 --> 00:07:47.520 this. And Tyler, you guys have been using at First Capital, you've been using the rooted material for for a while 00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:55.060 now, right? Yeah, yeah, we, we went through it as a staff and a elder group first. We call our elders 00:07:55.060 --> 00:08:00.460 shepherds. So if I slip up and say shepherds, know that that's the same thing as elders. But we went 00:08:00.460 --> 00:08:07.300 through it as staff and shepherds first and loved it. And then we launched our first group, I would say 00:08:07.300 --> 00:08:12.940 probably a year and a half ago. So we've been doing rooted for about a year and a half, two years. 00:08:14.460 --> 00:08:19.040 How's that experience gone for you, Tyler? Like, what does that what does that felt like? What is 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:25.520 that? What what have you seen come from that? Oh, man, it's been amazing. I love it. It was really 00:08:25.520 --> 00:08:32.640 hard at first. So we did it at the 10 week experience during workday. The first time we did it just 00:08:32.640 --> 00:08:38.060 because of scheduling and it was just staff. So that made it a little difficult to motivate yourself to 00:08:38.060 --> 00:08:43.620 want to stop for an hour or two during a workday. But man, it was it was so rewarding. 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:50.000 Specifically, there's a prayer experience that really stands out that every time I've done it, 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:56.180 I feel like I've got a different God telling me something out of it, even though I've done 00:08:56.180 --> 00:09:00.080 rooted multiple times now. And I've heard about that prayer time, even from from other people that 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:06.340 have gone through it and seeing how that's really has had an impact in people's lives. Before we go 00:09:06.340 --> 00:09:10.360 any further, let's let's stop and kind of just pick this apart. Because the word discipleship, 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:14.680 I mean, I can say that to probably 10 different people, what does discipleship mean? And I'll 00:09:14.680 --> 00:09:21.500 probably get back 15 answers, because it just it's so varying at levels. And so, you know, Jared, 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:26.720 as somebody who's written this discipleship material that that's really used as the framework, 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:33.460 the way that you guys have created it at Mariners, kind of this front door to leading towards groups and 00:09:33.460 --> 00:09:39.280 other community and things. You know, how do you guys at Mariners define discipleship? 00:09:39.920 --> 00:09:44.780 Sure. So just to clarify, while I have done lots of writing and contribution to rooted, I didn't 00:09:44.780 --> 00:09:49.360 originate this program. It actually comes from a partner church of ours in Kenya, which is a big 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:54.180 part of our story. So, you know, the funny thing about trying to make disciples is an intentional 00:09:54.180 --> 00:09:58.740 conversation that really points back to the gospels about what does it mean to follow Jesus. And I think 00:09:58.740 --> 00:10:04.820 you said it really well, Jeff, that disciples make disciples. So it's not a what conversation as much 00:10:04.820 --> 00:10:10.640 as it's a how. So it's a real strategic conversation about, okay, so how and how on earth do we help 00:10:10.640 --> 00:10:17.020 the average person become more like Jesus? And a part of that is an entire conversation around 00:10:17.020 --> 00:10:23.180 church strategy. What is it? What are the markers of a Jesus follower? It's a leadership development 00:10:23.180 --> 00:10:27.940 conversation. There's a maturity conversation. So there's a lot of stuff that goes into how do we 00:10:27.940 --> 00:10:33.700 help someone become more like Jesus, right? In America, that's usually a Western approach, which is 00:10:33.700 --> 00:10:40.020 about intellect and knowledge informing our behavior. If I can learn enough, it should inform how I live my 00:10:40.020 --> 00:10:45.000 life. Well, we all know, and Romans 7 is a good validation for this, that I can know what is right and 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:49.900 still do what is wrong. So there's got to be more than just an intellectual approach to understanding 00:10:49.900 --> 00:10:56.120 what does it mean to follow Jesus. And for us at Mariners, for years, we had great small group 00:10:56.120 --> 00:11:01.660 programs, we had lots of, you know, adult education, we had classes, we had great opportunities for people 00:11:01.660 --> 00:11:08.200 to grow in their understanding of God, hoping that that would be would really help inform their behavior 00:11:08.200 --> 00:11:14.100 to become more like Jesus. But what we learned from our partners in Kenya was that it's more of an 00:11:14.100 --> 00:11:20.100 experiential model that leads to the true kind of behavioral change, which then of course, knowledge 00:11:20.100 --> 00:11:25.360 and intellect is all wrapped up into that. But if we aren't going to the places that Jesus went, doing 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:30.320 the things that Jesus did, we aren't actually becoming more like Jesus, we're just thinking more 00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:38.620 like Jesus. So we found this program that they were doing over 10 years ago, we met them through our 00:11:38.620 --> 00:11:44.720 partnership. And we said, Hey, could we kind of translate this and bring it back into to contextualize 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:47.920 it really to what it would look like to use for our church in Southern California. And they said, 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:53.920 sure. So we brought it back, did it at Mariners, and we taught it. And it was more like a small group 00:11:53.920 --> 00:11:59.200 model with a curriculum that was sort of fueling it. And quite frankly, it just didn't work. So we went 00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:05.520 back to them and said, what did we do wrong? And they said, you did everything wrong. So they said, 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:09.480 well, we'll come back and we'll help you figure out how to do it. We spent the next year or two after 00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:15.220 that. This is around 2008, nine, 10, right around in there, where they started helping us understand 00:12:15.220 --> 00:12:21.740 more of a, for lack of a better generalization, an Eastern approach, which ties in much more 00:12:21.740 --> 00:12:28.260 experiential learning than just intellect and understanding. And so that really informed the 00:12:28.260 --> 00:12:32.920 way in which we wanted to approach discipleship at Mariners. And so since then, Rooted has been a 00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:38.340 program that hinges on these experiences. And Tyler mentioned the prayer experience already. 00:12:38.860 --> 00:12:44.760 We would also talk about the serve experience be an element where we need, as a group, we need to go 00:12:44.760 --> 00:12:50.820 out and serve our community so that we can go be a part of what Jesus is doing in our city, be a part 00:12:50.820 --> 00:12:56.780 of the story that God is writing in our neighborhoods, right? We'd also would include sharing our story as a 00:12:56.780 --> 00:13:02.240 critical component of that. So one of the things that I think the Western church has, you're either really 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:08.440 good at it or you don't do it, which is evangelism, right? Sharing our own story, you either do it because 00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:13.520 you're seeing your pastor loves evangelism and it's hardwired into your DNA, or you don't do it because 00:13:13.520 --> 00:13:18.680 it's really hard. Well, what Rooted does is it helps people see that evangelism doesn't have to be 00:13:18.680 --> 00:13:23.360 telling my testimony. It can actually be talking about what God's doing in my life right now, 00:13:23.780 --> 00:13:28.340 and leads me to my family or my workplace or neighborhood and allows me to share my story 00:13:28.340 --> 00:13:32.380 of what God's doing in my life today, right? A little different than how we typically talk about 00:13:32.380 --> 00:13:37.620 evangelism. So as you can see, when we approach discipleship, we want to come from an experiential 00:13:37.620 --> 00:13:45.080 angle that allows people to intermingle intellect and experience so that we might actually think like 00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:51.560 Jesus, but also do things more like he did, hoping that we develop more integrated spirituality in our 00:13:51.560 --> 00:13:58.220 life rather than just simply knowledge-based. I've worked in churches personally that have been on 00:13:58.220 --> 00:14:05.000 both sides of that coin, that have been very evangelical-driven where we're out there, 00:14:05.100 --> 00:14:12.400 we're witnessing, we're sharing. I've worked with churches that do the, hey, let's invite to the 00:14:12.400 --> 00:14:15.680 service, let the lead pastor do the witnessing, but your job is just to get them in the pew. 00:14:16.160 --> 00:14:24.600 And I've worked with churches that are very grow-oriented where it's not necessarily evangelism 00:14:24.600 --> 00:14:29.880 as much as, hey, when a person outgrows the evangelical church, they're going to come over 00:14:29.880 --> 00:14:35.660 and just take part of what's over here. We get our growth when churches just want to get more in a 00:14:35.660 --> 00:14:40.800 growth. And there's obviously, there's pros and cons to all that. Some churches would say that there's a 00:14:40.800 --> 00:14:45.100 difference between discipleship and small groups, some churches that would say it's the same. I'm just 00:14:45.100 --> 00:14:50.320 curious as a guy who works so much in context of coaching and helping churches through this, 00:14:51.140 --> 00:14:56.000 like, what's your opinion on all this? What is the role of discipleship in groups? What's that 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:57.160 relationship look like? 00:14:57.980 --> 00:15:03.260 Sure. It would be very difficult to separate the two out as if they're mutually exclusive. 00:15:04.620 --> 00:15:10.540 But I do believe that those of us who are growing to become more like Jesus would have a very difficult 00:15:10.540 --> 00:15:16.200 time doing it outside of community. Community is a critical element to being a part of following 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:21.040 Jesus. And so you saw Jesus build it with his disciples. You saw those apostles then do that 00:15:21.040 --> 00:15:25.920 with their communities. You saw Paul travel around the ancient Near East building churches that were 00:15:25.920 --> 00:15:32.460 communities that were sharing things. They were praying for one another. They were working together for 00:15:32.460 --> 00:15:40.100 the good of the city. So a small group has become our approach to ensure that to become more like Jesus, 00:15:40.100 --> 00:15:46.200 I have to do it with others, right? That's also discipleship. The problem though is that most churches 00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:51.200 that I've worked with, and to be honest, it was our own church a number of years ago, that most small 00:15:51.200 --> 00:15:57.020 groups turn into cul-de-sacs. They become, to make it actually a little bit of a sadder phrase, most small 00:15:57.020 --> 00:16:01.900 groups become support groups. They become places in which we spend time together so that I can 00:16:01.900 --> 00:16:08.560 talk about my problems, I can be, you know, I can vent my frustrations, and I can receive prayer that I 00:16:08.560 --> 00:16:14.540 kind of need for my people. But a support group is not what I saw Jesus create with his disciples. 00:16:14.940 --> 00:16:19.920 I saw him activating people who are following Jesus and saying, we're going to go and do something. 00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:24.620 This is going to be about us, but it's also going to be about, actually, it may be better said is it's 00:16:24.620 --> 00:16:29.640 going to be God's work within us, but also God's work through us to benefit those around us. 00:16:30.340 --> 00:16:32.520 So, you know, what do you guys think? 00:16:32.900 --> 00:16:37.540 No, that's solid, Jared. You know, and I've even seen this in my own small group, where when 00:16:37.540 --> 00:16:42.680 challenge is presented in small group, it seems like folks want to take a step back, 00:16:43.180 --> 00:16:48.760 as opposed to embracing the challenge, and taking a step forward in their faith. And so what are some 00:16:48.760 --> 00:16:52.740 ways that you guys encourage folks to take a step forward? Because it almost seems like small groups 00:16:52.740 --> 00:16:57.280 tend to be the pathway that we introduce new Christians who are obviously like the most excited 00:16:57.280 --> 00:17:01.640 people about growing in their faith. At least that's, that's been my experience. So they're willing to 00:17:01.640 --> 00:17:06.520 like take those big leaps early on. Whereas the people who've kind of been coddled in church, 00:17:06.520 --> 00:17:10.980 or they've been in church for a while, I'm just here to receive and I'm just kind of here to just 00:17:10.980 --> 00:17:14.000 check things out. And so how do you guys kind of wrestle with that tension? 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:22.280 Yeah, great question, Ray. So part of it is, within Rooted, which becomes our, it's our cultural 00:17:22.280 --> 00:17:26.580 baseline, where we're going to help you understand what does it look like to be equipped for life 00:17:26.580 --> 00:17:31.140 in community to really be in a life group at our church. And so there are these seven rhythms. And 00:17:31.140 --> 00:17:34.580 I'd actually love to hear Tyler talk about how this has been expressed at First Capital. But 00:17:34.580 --> 00:17:40.560 in these seven rhythms, we're going to create some habits that your group is going to eventually do 00:17:40.560 --> 00:17:45.100 together once you graduate Rooted. So when you move on to become a life group, you're not going to forget 00:17:45.100 --> 00:17:48.700 everything you learned in Rooted. Instead, you're going to use it as a launching pad for the things 00:17:48.700 --> 00:17:53.840 that we did together. Like that prayer experience, we're going to continue to pray together, both in 00:17:53.840 --> 00:17:58.460 our group, but we're going to set aside extended periods of time to pray for our city, for our neighbors. 00:17:58.560 --> 00:18:03.780 We might do a prayer walk, we might get out into our city, and truly pray for the government or for 00:18:03.780 --> 00:18:09.440 our school district or whatever that may be. We're going to not just talk about those areas of sin or 00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:14.400 struggle in our life. We're going to pause for a moment, have a moment of honesty, and then I'm 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:20.400 going to ask my group to pray for me to experience spiritual freedom in whatever that area is in my 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:25.260 life. So with everything that we talk about, these rhythms are not just things that we're trying to 00:18:25.260 --> 00:18:30.140 seek to understand. We're truly developing a practice that's going to be something we do together 00:18:30.140 --> 00:18:36.480 in community. So serving is another good example of that. We don't just study serving or study the poor 00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:42.260 in the marginalized. We're going to invite groups on a reoccurring basis to go out into the city and 00:18:42.260 --> 00:18:47.080 they're going to go serve together. Good. So that one right alone is actually a great example of a 00:18:47.080 --> 00:18:52.660 group that has fighting as they're drifting towards, and it's a natural drift. This is actually something 00:18:52.660 --> 00:18:59.540 that Eric Geiger talks about. Churches naturally drift towards complexity. Small groups naturally drift 00:18:59.540 --> 00:19:05.820 towards inward focus. So we need to introduce outward focused invitation for them so that they 00:19:05.820 --> 00:19:10.140 might be able to go into the community and see that the world really is bigger than just them 00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:15.660 and that Jesus cares for people beyond just who's right in front of them. So again, we want to invite, 00:19:15.760 --> 00:19:21.280 we want to try to help them step outside of what they're normally comfortable with. And that breaks down 00:19:21.280 --> 00:19:25.980 some of that support group type things that start to take place in a group. 00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:28.620 Oh, go ahead, Tyler. 00:19:28.760 --> 00:19:37.880 Yeah, I think that the struggle in churches, period, is to get out of that inward mindset. So imagine how 00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:46.400 much harder that is to facilitate online. Whereas, I mean, you watch church online a vast majority of 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:53.200 time as a consumer. The typical person that I talk to that joins us online does not get on there to be 00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:58.040 like, man, I hope this church fills me up so I can go talk to my neighbor about Jesus later. That's not 00:19:58.040 --> 00:20:05.200 how that works. And so what we have tried to do by using the rooted material, we thought that that would 00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:12.220 be a really good way to start moving towards the outward focus rather than just the inward focus. 00:20:13.100 --> 00:20:19.100 And so we're actually doing rooted online with a group of 10 people right now. It's kind of like 00:20:19.100 --> 00:20:25.200 the guinea pig for it. But it's been amazing to see how that has shifted that small group mindset of 00:20:25.200 --> 00:20:31.600 inward focus to outward focus. I would love to hear how you are approaching those group experiences like 00:20:31.600 --> 00:20:35.900 prayer, like serve. How are you doing that with your online community? Because this is so intriguing to me. 00:20:35.900 --> 00:20:44.000 Sure. Yeah. So I'll hit the prayer one first. We met on a zoom call for the first hour and we prayed 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:52.520 together. So we went through some guided prayer from the group leader. Actually, I'm not leading this 00:20:52.520 --> 00:20:58.300 one, which is really cool to be able to just kind of sit and observe and participate. So the group leader 00:20:58.300 --> 00:21:04.400 was, uh, let us through some guided prayer. We prayed on the zoom call and then we just left the zoom call 00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:11.920 open. Um, and, uh, we told everyone to, uh, either set an alarm on their phone, but keep their phone out of 00:21:11.920 --> 00:21:17.980 reach. Um, so like they know when to come back or like go take a walk and pray while you're walking, uh, 00:21:17.980 --> 00:21:23.840 whatever you feel comfortable with. But then we, we broke off for another hour, um, came back and broke 00:21:23.840 --> 00:21:28.940 our fast together at the very end. So we finished off by praying. Um, obviously we weren't in the same 00:21:28.940 --> 00:21:34.240 room eating together, but we were watching each other on zoom eat, which is a super weird thing to do. 00:21:34.760 --> 00:21:39.760 Um, but yeah, so it was, it was basically the exact same as how you could do it in person. Um, 00:21:39.760 --> 00:21:45.220 just without being able to touch someone. Um, as far as the serve experience, we gave them three 00:21:45.220 --> 00:21:51.140 options. You could serve, um, someone in your neighborhood. You can serve with, uh, your 00:21:51.140 --> 00:21:55.940 community. So for example, like a soup kitchen or something like that. Um, and then, or you could 00:21:55.940 --> 00:22:02.700 serve, um, a specific person. So that could be a family member. It could be a friend. Um, and we gave 00:22:02.700 --> 00:22:06.680 them those three options and came back the next week and just talked about what, how, what we did to 00:22:06.680 --> 00:22:12.520 serve. So we couldn't do that as a group because of the, uh, the physical distance between us, but we were 00:22:12.520 --> 00:22:17.160 all on the same page of what type of service that we were doing. And so that's, that's incredible, 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:22.640 Tyler. Did you then, you've been in groups, both physical and then now this online one, 00:22:22.680 --> 00:22:26.700 I would love to hear some of the contrast of what you felt like really worked, what didn't work, 00:22:26.700 --> 00:22:32.020 um, between being someone together, serving together and praying together versus when you 00:22:32.020 --> 00:22:38.120 were able to do this through zoom. Obviously it is, uh, more personal. Um, if you are seeing them 00:22:38.120 --> 00:22:44.320 face-to-face, uh, and being able to touch them and, and, um, and be in their physical presence. 00:22:44.780 --> 00:22:50.860 But with that being said, technology, uh, has continued to advance to a point where I, um, 00:22:51.400 --> 00:22:55.980 I don't know in the, uh, most of these people in the group, I'm not, I don't have personal 00:22:55.980 --> 00:23:01.680 relationships with outside of online yet. I still know them as friends and as, as people that 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:08.560 I'm close to. Um, and so while it's not exactly the same, it is really good for specific types of 00:23:08.560 --> 00:23:15.240 people that do not interact well, um, in person. So you just, Tyler, you just wrapped up this group, 00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:20.660 right? Uh, one more week. I knew it was, I knew it was right around here. So when this airs, 00:23:20.660 --> 00:23:26.420 you've wrapped it up. Um, what, what's the next step for, for the group in, in your application at 00:23:26.420 --> 00:23:31.780 first capital, you got six, eight people all over the country. Like where are they going? 00:23:32.340 --> 00:23:37.080 We're going to be a small group. Um, and we're going to do that through a Facebook group. We'll 00:23:37.080 --> 00:23:41.040 do it through, uh, obviously text messaging, calling and things like that. Um, but we are also 00:23:41.040 --> 00:23:46.880 on Marco Polo, um, which I don't know if you guys know what that is. Yeah. But, um, it, because of 00:23:46.880 --> 00:23:51.100 the time differences and things like that within the group, it makes it a lot easier to, um, not have 00:23:51.100 --> 00:23:56.480 to be live, um, when we meet. And so, um, moving forward, I think that's the route we will go. 00:23:56.860 --> 00:24:00.800 I don't know if you remember, Jeff, we had someone that I told you was going to be from London in the 00:24:00.800 --> 00:24:06.020 group and the time difference just killed him. And so something like Marco Polo could really help that 00:24:06.020 --> 00:24:13.420 out with, um, moving forward. And here, here's my question because once again, Geiger groups point 00:24:13.420 --> 00:24:19.200 towards inward systems point towards complexity. Uh, I probably would have that as a tattoo if I was 00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:23.080 getting tattoos back in the day. Cause he just would say that so much. I love him for that. 00:24:23.460 --> 00:24:32.080 Uh, at what saddleback online to offline and Tyler, you know, this, like they, they push people out of 00:24:32.080 --> 00:24:36.060 their online groups, like six to nine months at that. Hey, I'm glad you could be in this group. 00:24:36.100 --> 00:24:39.920 It's time to birth something different. And there is, there is an aggressive strategy, not saying it's 00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:44.180 right, not saying it's wrong, but there's an aggressive strategy towards them towards, okay, 00:24:44.180 --> 00:24:48.960 Hey, we're going to go birth something over here. So it's, it's really, let me help you with 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:54.680 these finishing touches, but we're, we're training you to go do that. At first capital, have you wrestled 00:24:54.680 --> 00:24:57.860 with something like that? What, what does that look like over there with you guys? 00:24:58.260 --> 00:25:04.280 Yeah, they, they have, um, a little thing called church anywhere that they can, uh, that they can 00:25:04.280 --> 00:25:09.120 start. Um, that's, that's pretty much kind of what we're training them up to do is, is to one, 00:25:09.200 --> 00:25:14.380 find their purpose. Uh, so, uh, Jared, you don't know a whole lot about church anywhere, but it's, 00:25:14.380 --> 00:25:19.060 it's very passion and purpose based. Um, we, we try to empower someone that like when 00:25:19.060 --> 00:25:23.020 they have this purpose, when they have this passion, for example, the person with the Huntington's 00:25:23.020 --> 00:25:27.720 disease rehab center, she worked there. Um, so she had a passion for these people. So we 00:25:27.720 --> 00:25:33.260 said, Hey, let's help you go in and do this. And so through rooted, people are finding their 00:25:33.260 --> 00:25:38.060 purpose, finding their passion. Um, we're using the serve experiences to give them exposure 00:25:38.060 --> 00:25:44.620 to church anywhere. So many of our rooted groups, um, in person or online are serving within church 00:25:44.620 --> 00:25:50.980 anywhere groups outside of our, um, our physical location. Um, so their serve experience could be 00:25:50.980 --> 00:25:56.540 like, I'm going to go create a meal for, um, our homeless shelter, um, church anywhere. Um, and so 00:25:56.540 --> 00:26:01.760 we're, we're giving them that exposure and we've already seen, uh, probably 30, 40 people that have 00:26:01.760 --> 00:26:06.360 either jumped in a church anywhere location as a volunteer or began to lead one. 00:26:06.740 --> 00:26:18.940 And so, um, I, I, I, I'm excited to meet with my team after this and share some stories of what you 00:26:18.940 --> 00:26:23.840 guys are doing out there. Cause it's, it really is incredible. And this to really speak to something 00:26:23.840 --> 00:26:28.860 here, you know, we're working with lots and lots of churches and, and a lot of them are asking this 00:26:28.860 --> 00:26:35.200 online digital strategy kind of thing. And we've yet to really hear a story of a church utilizing 00:26:35.200 --> 00:26:39.560 rooted in this way. That's been this impactful and effective. And so Tyler, I'm going to be calling 00:26:39.560 --> 00:26:43.920 you up soon to get some more wisdom from you. Cause this is amazing. This will be a huge blessing 00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:45.260 to so many churches. So well done. 00:26:46.100 --> 00:26:50.060 Awesome. So we're going to expect to see lots of little rooted communities, 00:26:50.260 --> 00:26:56.020 a lot of studies popping up all over the place. And out of the 16 micro locations are currently 00:26:56.020 --> 00:27:00.700 running, uh, going to get some rooted going on in, in some of the prisons. You know, Brad mentioned, 00:27:00.900 --> 00:27:04.860 I would love that. Yeah. That's a Bible study. Is he doing rooted with them? 00:27:05.100 --> 00:27:09.820 He's not, but, um, I, we, we've been in talks of figuring out how we can get that it within, 00:27:09.820 --> 00:27:14.580 uh, like obviously the kids one, it wouldn't work, things like that. But, um, for specific 00:27:14.580 --> 00:27:19.040 locations where the people will be there, um, I absolutely think we can get it in there. 00:27:19.260 --> 00:27:24.940 We do have some churches that have used rooted in a prison environment. We created a specific 00:27:24.940 --> 00:27:30.400 format for them because you can't have any kind of hard binding or wire or anything like that. So 00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:34.840 we created a glue bound for them so that they could do that. And it's been really pretty amazing. 00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:40.200 We even have some global stories of some global partners who have used it in prison systems down 00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:45.380 in the Dominican Republic. And I've seen some really remarkable life change stories of like 00:27:45.380 --> 00:27:54.660 300 men in a prison of 500 go through rooted 300 baptisms. It's just remarkable stuff that we've 00:27:54.660 --> 00:27:59.860 been able to see, uh, God. And it's not because there's any magic sauce in the curriculum, right? 00:27:59.860 --> 00:28:04.640 It's, it's really is God's hand. This is such a beautiful picture of God's favor utilizing this 00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:04.880 thing. 00:28:05.020 --> 00:28:10.160 Both of these things we're talking about church anywhere and rooted are very simple. Um, it's, 00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:15.900 it's already stuff that we're called to do as Christians. Um, it's just putting it into 00:28:15.900 --> 00:28:19.580 practice. And it's, it's, it's a, um, a strategy to actually put that into practice. 00:28:19.960 --> 00:28:21.060 That's it. That's it. 00:28:21.780 --> 00:28:27.520 It's interesting to me. Uh, and, and, and Jared, you said this came from, from Kenya. Um, 00:28:27.580 --> 00:28:32.760 and I know like I've, I've experienced with the Timothy initiative, which was, uh, David Nelms 00:28:32.760 --> 00:28:40.440 out of India, I think somewhere out in that area. Um, why, and I just, maybe it's a two minute 00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:46.800 conversation, but why is it that the, the international curriculum has this effect and 00:28:46.800 --> 00:28:52.520 usefulness here in America? What is there, is there something about the culture here? Like 00:28:52.520 --> 00:28:56.740 what, what, what are the things that we're sensing and struggling with here where, where maybe 00:28:56.740 --> 00:29:03.560 it's not as, as comfortable? Well, that's a pretty, that's a huge question that I don't 00:29:03.560 --> 00:29:09.460 want to pretend I'm any kind of expert in responding to, but I can say that I think one 00:29:09.460 --> 00:29:15.580 of the saddest things in the history of the church as of late has been the West to the 00:29:15.580 --> 00:29:21.320 rest kind of mentality, as if America knows everything and we can inform the rest of the 00:29:21.320 --> 00:29:27.620 world on how to follow Jesus. Right. I think that kind of arrogance has done the damage, 00:29:27.780 --> 00:29:33.060 you know, it's done a lot of damage in America. And so there's been a really beautiful shift 00:29:33.060 --> 00:29:37.800 in an openness and a recognition that maybe we don't have everything figured out. And there 00:29:37.800 --> 00:29:43.680 are brilliant people globally. I mean, there are some amazing things happening all around the 00:29:43.680 --> 00:29:49.340 world that now we're finally willing to listen and to open our hands and say, okay, maybe we 00:29:49.340 --> 00:29:53.240 don't know everything. And so that doesn't mean that you have to do it exactly the way that 00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:57.600 they did it, but it is more of a posture of learning and listening that I think the church 00:29:57.600 --> 00:30:02.200 in America is now way more open to than it ever has been. Well, in my lifetime, at least. 00:30:02.340 --> 00:30:08.000 And so I am, I am so grateful now that we live in a generation that's looking to our global 00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:13.260 partners to say the church globally is more important than just simply the church in America 00:30:13.260 --> 00:30:19.500 getting better. And so it becomes a mutually beneficial relationship when we choose to listen 00:30:19.500 --> 00:30:24.480 and to learn rather than to try to inform and to teach in every environment we're in. 00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:32.040 That's good. Jared, as, as obviously folks are, are looking to, you know, expand, I mean, 00:30:32.060 --> 00:30:36.520 how does Rude help them kind of come to an understanding of, hey, listen, so there's a big 00:30:36.520 --> 00:30:41.080 difference between creating disciples and creating leaders at your church, because some folks try to 00:30:41.080 --> 00:30:45.920 lump them all in the one, in the one thing, like, are we creating new small group leaders or are we 00:30:45.920 --> 00:30:50.960 creating, you know, people who are closer to Jesus? Like, how is all this working out and how is 00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:56.880 Rude helping people kind of clarify those conversations? Sure. So this is a little bit of 00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:02.940 the shifting gears, right? And kind of the conversation, but we would say that you cannot 00:31:02.940 --> 00:31:07.960 have a conversation about discipleship or helping people become more like Jesus and separate out 00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:12.620 leadership development. If we're becoming more like Jesus, that means we're influencing others, 00:31:12.800 --> 00:31:19.100 which means we're becoming a leader, right? So there's, there's just a, it's all encompassing in 00:31:19.100 --> 00:31:24.440 one way. And so what I love a lot about Rude, it is that you see people get their first glimpse of 00:31:24.440 --> 00:31:29.220 what it means to serve and to, to be involved in some things. And so they start to tap into that passion. 00:31:29.340 --> 00:31:34.480 A lot of what Tyler's saying about people recognizing that they do have experience or 00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:40.640 passion or love for nursing facilities or, you know, whatever it is, the prison system, 00:31:40.640 --> 00:31:45.640 that's a really beautiful thing where people start to tap into how God has hardwired them 00:31:45.640 --> 00:31:50.080 and then utilizing their experiences and then getting a chance to serve the kingdom of God in that way. 00:31:50.280 --> 00:31:54.740 Well, that's leadership development, right? So within Rooted, we're giving people a chance to 00:31:54.740 --> 00:31:59.440 try some things on and to develop some leadership skills. But another thing that we're starting to do 00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:05.000 is we ask people to consider if you want to really be involved in any ministry of Mariners, 00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:10.940 we want you to be as best a leader as possible. And I know in our church, the very best leaders are the 00:32:10.940 --> 00:32:16.780 people who facilitate Rooted because it gives you within 10 weeks, a really good chance to lead a 00:32:16.780 --> 00:32:22.180 discussion, deal with crisis, learn to defer, deal with conflict. You've got to lead experiences. 00:32:22.520 --> 00:32:28.020 There are so many things that you're going to do in a 10 week window that will equip you to be a great 00:32:28.020 --> 00:32:33.540 leader anywhere in our church. And I can say that actually as the former high school pastor of our 00:32:33.540 --> 00:32:38.720 church, the very best volunteers I had in high school ministry were people that I led through Rooted 00:32:38.720 --> 00:32:43.360 that I then intentionally asked them to be involved in student ministries. 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:49.560 They were well equipped to be a part of our student ministries program. So, and I would imagine that if 00:32:49.560 --> 00:32:54.580 you ask Tyler that same question, you're going to see those who have facilitated Rooted are uniquely 00:32:54.580 --> 00:33:00.700 equipped to lead anywhere within the church. Awesome. What challenges or what advice would 00:33:00.700 --> 00:33:05.740 you kind of give to somebody who's starting out in groups and trying to do this from a discipleship 00:33:05.740 --> 00:33:11.960 perspective? Yeah. Communication throughout the week is very key. That's key in person for any small 00:33:11.960 --> 00:33:19.020 group too. But it's, it's a lot easier to forget that you have an online small group on like a Monday 00:33:19.020 --> 00:33:26.280 night. So constant communication to keep it in the forefront of people's minds is huge. We haven't 00:33:26.280 --> 00:33:33.620 really faced very many issues. It's been a really, really good and surprisingly good experience for us so 00:33:33.620 --> 00:33:40.720 far. One of the absolute craziest stories that I've ever had in ministry came out of this rooted thing. So I think that 00:33:40.720 --> 00:33:45.680 my view is very skewed because of how insane this was that came out of it. 00:33:46.180 --> 00:33:49.220 Well, you're going to share that story now. So you can't set it up. 00:33:49.280 --> 00:33:57.120 We alluded to it on, on the podcast with Randy and I, but one of the people, so the Rooted 00:33:57.120 --> 00:34:03.360 online group that we did, you were only allowed to join it if you were from the online campus only. 00:34:03.360 --> 00:34:07.440 So like you couldn't just be in our location and join it online. 00:34:08.820 --> 00:34:15.200 One of the ladies, I mean, my care team has talked to her multiple times. Like we know who she is, 00:34:15.200 --> 00:34:20.980 but I've never met her physically before. But she joined the, the rooted group online. 00:34:21.820 --> 00:34:27.580 And, um, we quickly found out that she, she was struggling with some, some anxiety and depression. 00:34:28.380 --> 00:34:34.320 And, um, she became very comfortable with us. Uh, like we, we became a family to her, um, even though 00:34:34.320 --> 00:34:40.660 it was online. And, uh, she reached out a couple of weeks ago and said, um, she can't take it any 00:34:40.660 --> 00:34:47.460 longer and she was going to take two bottles of pills. Wow. So it, yeah, we, she reached out to the group 00:34:47.460 --> 00:34:53.900 and said that. So, uh, immediately we kind of sprang into action. Um, because of church anywhere, um, 00:34:53.900 --> 00:34:58.560 I have a good relationship with several of the sheriffs in our area, um, because we're in their prisons. 00:34:58.720 --> 00:35:04.240 So I was able to call his personal cell phone. He, uh, he traced her phone number to get her location. 00:35:04.240 --> 00:35:12.180 Um, we talked to her on the, uh, the entire time that, uh, the paramedics were coming and, um, and now 00:35:12.180 --> 00:35:18.000 she's okay. Um, and I, I don't say this to sound arrogant, but she literally texted us the next day 00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:25.000 and said, thank you for saving my life. Um, and so that would have never, ever happened had she not 00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.900 decided to join this rooted group. I mean, I would have known her from like seeing her on the online 00:35:29.900 --> 00:35:35.120 campus, but that was it. Um, and so now we specifically are able to pray for her. We have 00:35:35.120 --> 00:35:40.640 people from out of state that are wanting to come and visit her driving five or six hours because 00:35:40.640 --> 00:35:46.660 they're in this group with her. Um, so it was just a, an absolutely humbling experience to be a part of 00:35:46.660 --> 00:35:53.360 that. That's awesome. Wow. You know, so often we hear when we're talking about church online, it's not real 00:35:53.360 --> 00:35:58.820 community. It's, it's not real. It's, it's, it, there's no relationship aspect to it because you're not 00:35:58.820 --> 00:36:04.640 breathing the same air, um, conversate like stories like that. And I wanted you to tell that again, 00:36:04.640 --> 00:36:12.180 like that, that, that redefines what church online is. That would, that would have been a very real 00:36:12.180 --> 00:36:19.240 suicide. And now she has an extremely real testimony to share. Wow. Um, because of that. 00:36:21.320 --> 00:36:28.320 Very cool. Ray. Um, and I know you're doing a deep Christ fellowship. Miami's got a lot of groups 00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:34.440 going down there, your online pastor there. Um, man, what, what feedback, what, what, what experience 00:36:34.440 --> 00:36:39.180 in context of, of groups and doing things like what, what are the groups look like there at Christ 00:36:39.180 --> 00:36:44.080 fellowship? So some of our more successful groups have actually done something like rooted in that 00:36:44.080 --> 00:36:47.520 they did foundations. I mean, Jeff, you know, you're aware of this, you helped establish this, 00:36:47.520 --> 00:36:52.760 you know, before, before you went on to some different things. And yeah, that's Timothy initiative, 00:36:52.760 --> 00:36:57.500 by the way, I mentioned that earlier. We, we, with David Nelms permission kind of rewrote that. 00:36:57.500 --> 00:37:01.860 So, but go ahead, Ray. We tweaked it and we adapted it, which actually gave people a good 00:37:01.860 --> 00:37:05.820 intro in the spiritual disciplines, but it also gave people a great introduction in the small group 00:37:05.820 --> 00:37:12.140 ministry, which was huge. And so, you know, for us, that was very helpful early on and helping 00:37:12.140 --> 00:37:17.540 establish a pattern for many of these groups. And so hearing this, you know, it's great to hear how 00:37:17.540 --> 00:37:22.260 rooted is being used over at first capital, but also over at Mariners. And the fact that this kind 00:37:22.260 --> 00:37:27.740 of structure it's, it's proven true that people need an introduction to not just spiritual disciplines, 00:37:27.740 --> 00:37:33.020 but really rhythms of the faith and just a better understanding of what it means to be a Christian 00:37:33.020 --> 00:37:38.420 and how that affects their personal lives on the day to day and giving them the simple tools of how 00:37:38.420 --> 00:37:39.200 to break that down. 00:37:39.620 --> 00:37:45.080 Man, this is, this has been great. I'm just looking at the table of contents here. Who is God? How does God 00:37:45.080 --> 00:37:50.560 speak to us? Where is God in the midst of soft suffering? There is an enemy. How can I make the most 00:37:50.560 --> 00:37:57.940 of my life? Part one and part two. How does God view money? Why and how should I tell others? Why is the 00:37:57.940 --> 00:38:06.320 church important? Like that's, and so that's, that's your nine of 10 week, you know, stuff there. And so 00:38:06.320 --> 00:38:14.440 taking people through that. And then with, with the adage of now that you know, this go and, and take 00:38:14.440 --> 00:38:20.560 someone else through that, that, that duplication process, training somebody, training for trainers, 00:38:20.760 --> 00:38:26.740 you know, just, just that approach of helping somebody understand it and then empowering them and 00:38:26.740 --> 00:38:32.460 challenging them and holding them accountable to, to go as well. Um, that's an exciting thing. And so, 00:38:32.600 --> 00:38:37.920 man, Jared, thanks for, thanks for doing this. Sounds like this materials had a, had a, a lifelong 00:38:37.920 --> 00:38:43.360 impact or at least a long impact with you guys, even outside of when you were at, at Mariners, right? 00:38:44.040 --> 00:38:51.320 So, yeah, absolutely. This, this thing, it really is by God's grace, transforming not only our church, 00:38:51.320 --> 00:38:56.240 but a lot of the churches that we're working with. There's something to be said about, 00:38:56.540 --> 00:39:02.420 the, the American approach to lowering the bar and trying to make things as easy as possible to be 00:39:02.420 --> 00:39:08.580 involved. Rooted is quite frankly, the opposite, right? It is raising the bar and it is asking people 00:39:08.580 --> 00:39:14.280 to do things that are in, in some cases, well outside of their comfort zone. It's demanding of 00:39:14.280 --> 00:39:19.980 their time and their resources. It asks a lot of people, but we found a direct correlated relationship 00:39:19.980 --> 00:39:25.040 to the lower, the lower, the bar we, the lower we brought the bar of discipleship, the lower the impact 00:39:25.040 --> 00:39:29.680 we saw. And so we just started raising the bar higher and higher and higher. And people continue 00:39:29.680 --> 00:39:35.560 to exceed our expectations, no matter how high we place it. Um, and that beyond just the table of 00:39:35.560 --> 00:39:42.860 contents, it really is a remarkable thing to see people rise to the occasion and take a risk experience 00:39:42.860 --> 00:39:47.900 like going out and serving or praying or sharing their story or leaning into honesty and confession 00:39:47.900 --> 00:39:54.260 through that strongholds week. When we get outside of our comfort zone, that is really where God wants 00:39:54.260 --> 00:39:58.920 to write the best stories in our life. We cannot go on an adventure if we're going to stay in our own 00:39:58.920 --> 00:40:03.700 comfort zone. And so those, and those kinds of things, everybody wants to live a great story, 00:40:03.700 --> 00:40:08.160 but no one really knows how to go do that. Right. That's why we love the entertainment industry right 00:40:08.160 --> 00:40:11.420 now is somebody else is living a great story and we get to pretend like we're part of it, 00:40:11.420 --> 00:40:16.420 but really following Jesus, there is no greater story than that. And so when we take people and say, 00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:20.940 Hey, let's go actually do the things that Jesus did. It blows their mind that they look back and they 00:40:20.940 --> 00:40:27.340 go, I actually am living a pretty courageous story right now. So I'm really excited about, I'm excited 00:40:27.340 --> 00:40:32.120 about any church that's leaning into this kind of discipleship conversation. That's about spiritual 00:40:32.120 --> 00:40:36.360 growth. And it's about people becoming more like Jesus. I really could care less if people use 00:40:36.360 --> 00:40:40.220 rooted or not. Cause if what they're, if they're, whatever they're doing, if it's making disciples 00:40:40.220 --> 00:40:44.980 that are living this way, praise God, I'm so excited about that. I just know that I've had a front row 00:40:44.980 --> 00:40:50.000 seat to rooted and it's been a pretty impactful part of my story. And we get to see some pretty amazing 00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.220 things, both in America and around the world. So I'm really grateful for you guys giving me some time 00:40:54.220 --> 00:40:57.460 to talk about this. So Tyler, I'll be talking to you soon, my friend. Yeah. 00:40:58.460 --> 00:41:03.420 Well, Hey, we're going to, we're going to wrap here. Tyler, any 20 seconds, closing thoughts 00:41:03.420 --> 00:41:09.360 before we land the plane? I got nothing, man. Got absolutely nothing. Three weeks of talking 00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:13.940 about church anywhere on this podcast and the guy's out of gas. All right, Ray, you got anything? 00:41:14.520 --> 00:41:19.500 It's just a wonderful thing to hear how it's happening. Discipleship is taking place online 00:41:19.500 --> 00:41:23.420 and people are growing in their faith and they're being sent out to make an impact in their communities. 00:41:23.420 --> 00:41:28.360 And so for those of you churches that are still on the fence, this is possible. This is something that can 00:41:28.360 --> 00:41:31.880 happen. You've, you've heard it here. You've seen it over the past couple of weeks. If not, go back 00:41:31.880 --> 00:41:35.320 into the archives and check out some of the other stuff that's going on with church anywhere. 00:41:35.820 --> 00:41:37.660 It can happen for you too. Yeah. 00:41:38.460 --> 00:41:40.280 Jared, you got any closing thoughts before we go? 00:41:41.720 --> 00:41:46.540 Two quick things. If you are interested in rooted, experience rooted.com is the website to find all 00:41:46.540 --> 00:41:51.220 information for the pastor that's looking to implement rooted. And then Tyler, you might be interested 00:41:51.220 --> 00:41:56.080 to know that we have just released an app. So there's a digital version of the rooted workbook. 00:41:56.860 --> 00:41:58.760 Yes. Email me. I'll get you a code. 00:41:58.760 --> 00:42:01.540 I'm going to tell you to do that. So well done. I don't have to say. 00:42:02.060 --> 00:42:06.680 Yeah. We're really excited about it. It's, it's still in version one. There's lots of great things 00:42:06.680 --> 00:42:11.960 that we want to do. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm pressing our app developer guys to help us on 00:42:11.960 --> 00:42:16.000 the connectivity piece to it so that a group could go through it and they could have a, 00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:20.160 a feed or a wall or some kind of a social connectivity piece to it. 00:42:20.160 --> 00:42:24.700 So we're moving that way right now. It's a, it's a platform to go through the workbook and 00:42:24.700 --> 00:42:28.720 there's some great features involved, but we're working on that connectivity thing that I think 00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:32.360 will help the church online even better. So good things to come. 00:42:32.960 --> 00:42:37.760 That's good to know that that app is going to make, especially in the digital realm, 00:42:37.760 --> 00:42:43.820 it's just going to make it a lot less clunky. I mean, it's a, it's a, I'm making fun of the book. 00:42:43.820 --> 00:42:47.980 I'm not making fun of the book. It's a big book. I get it. I get it. It's good stuff. 00:42:48.980 --> 00:42:53.480 I don't, I like as a former bookstore owner, like I don't, I don't get anybody giving me books 00:42:53.480 --> 00:42:58.480 anymore. I just don't. Cause like, you know, Amazon and iPad. And so when, when Tyler's like, 00:42:58.700 --> 00:43:03.000 Hey, let me mail you this book. I'm like, wow, somebody still out there is using paper. That's, 00:43:03.080 --> 00:43:07.280 that's awesome. Hey, so we're good. We're going to wrap here. This has been the, 00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:13.260 the end of a three week conversation about church anywhere which I really believe is, 00:43:13.320 --> 00:43:18.440 is the future model of what church is going to look like. I think churches will continue to, 00:43:18.540 --> 00:43:21.040 to operate the way they are. The mega church is going to get bigger, 00:43:21.040 --> 00:43:24.860 but I think the smaller churches are going to get smaller and you're going to see more and more of 00:43:24.860 --> 00:43:31.560 these volunteers pop up and start to lead at the micro level. And, and so I hope you've enjoyed 00:43:31.560 --> 00:43:37.080 this three week deep dive in as, as we've talked about, um, about the, the, the serving, 00:43:37.200 --> 00:43:41.420 the volunteering, about the leadership and about the discipleship of what's involved here. And so 00:43:41.420 --> 00:43:46.660 Tyler, man, thanks for, thanks for your patience, um, going through all of this for three weeks. 00:43:47.120 --> 00:43:52.920 Uh, Jared, uh, man, thanks for jumping on this and I'm excited to see that app. I'm excited to see 00:43:52.920 --> 00:43:59.220 where rooted goes. And, uh, I know that already in the amount of time since I've been exposed to it, 00:43:59.220 --> 00:44:03.800 I've already been recommending it and passing it on to other pastors and churches that I'm working 00:44:03.800 --> 00:44:10.780 with and helping to go through, um, these steps. So man, I pray that the ministry there with rooted 00:44:10.780 --> 00:44:16.800 and, uh, with, um, Mariners and in general continues to go well, Ray, uh, man, I feel like I see all the 00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:21.520 time. So we'll just continue to see each other. That's awesome. No big deal. Hey, but this has been 00:44:21.520 --> 00:44:25.080 the church digital podcast. Uh, thanks for being here and hope to see you next time.