WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.100 Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. My name is Jeff Reed. Thanks for joining 00:00:05.100 --> 00:00:10.980 us today. It's episode two. We've made it through episode one. Now we're on number two. 00:00:11.420 --> 00:00:11.880 We made it. 00:00:12.380 --> 00:00:18.740 Yes, we have made it. Life is good. Hey, so in the future, we will have guests and different 00:00:18.740 --> 00:00:23.780 people from across Church Online, across the country, kind of jumping on the podcast and 00:00:23.780 --> 00:00:27.580 sharing and dialoguing through this. But really with this episode, once again, we wanted to 00:00:27.580 --> 00:00:34.420 bring in. Ray is our co-host. Ray D'Armas is in here from Christ Fellowship Miami. He's 00:00:34.420 --> 00:00:39.200 the online pastor there. And we really just wanted to dialogue a little bit more about us, 00:00:39.260 --> 00:00:43.840 let you get to know who we are and what we're about here doing this Church Digital Podcast. 00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:46.780 And so, hey, Ray, man, you just want to tell them a little bit about yourself? 00:00:47.380 --> 00:00:52.660 It's so great to be back with you guys. I'm very excited just about what God is doing both 00:00:52.660 --> 00:00:57.300 with what we're doing here at Church Online over at Christ Fellowship. God has really opened 00:00:57.300 --> 00:01:01.140 doors and expanded in a lot of ways, just not just the type of people that we're able to 00:01:01.140 --> 00:01:05.440 reach, but really even just the kind of community that we're able to create and the people that 00:01:05.440 --> 00:01:09.680 we're able to engage. It's just fascinating how we're helping just bridge the gap between 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:14.000 the physical and the digital space. And God has given us a lot of great things here. But 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:19.180 on the personal side, I'm thrilled to tell you guys about my wife, my kids, got a wonderful 00:01:19.180 --> 00:01:23.980 wife, Lauren, got two beautiful girls. And God has just blessed us with an overflowing 00:01:23.980 --> 00:01:27.640 ministry. And we're glad to share our heart and whatever we can with you guys. And so 00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:30.340 glad to be here with Jeff. And we have a lot of fun things to share with you today. 00:01:31.720 --> 00:01:37.560 That's awesome. Way to totally call me out for not talking about my kids. But you, you go 00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:39.940 ahead and doing that and bragging about how awesome they are. 00:01:39.940 --> 00:01:43.640 I had to take my shot out there, man. I got to get my romance points where I can. 00:01:43.980 --> 00:01:48.980 Very good. I talked about my kids in episode one. So we'll just ignore that and just keep moving 00:01:48.980 --> 00:01:53.540 for what's next. And I'm sure knowing my kids, they're going to come up down the road. Hey, 00:01:53.600 --> 00:01:58.280 well, I'm excited about this episode today. It says we're going to unpack some things. And so 00:01:58.280 --> 00:02:02.040 Ray and I were dialoguing, trying to figure out, hey, what do we want to talk about in the space? 00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:07.340 How best can we can encourage people out there that are, that are considering doing church online, 00:02:07.340 --> 00:02:12.800 that are, that are maybe starting to do church online, maybe just trying to kick the tires and 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:17.940 figure out what to go, where to go, how to do this thing. And so here's the topic that we wanted to 00:02:17.940 --> 00:02:24.060 come up with. And so Ray and I sat down and we figured out six things that we wish pastors knew 00:02:24.060 --> 00:02:29.540 about church online. And so the, the goal here is we're talking through these, or maybe these are 00:02:29.540 --> 00:02:34.420 things that these are conversation starters that you can have with, with your, with your pastors, 00:02:34.520 --> 00:02:39.520 that your church, your leadership teams, you know, whoever's kind of over that, or, or maybe you are 00:02:39.520 --> 00:02:44.760 one of these guys and you're trying to figure out how to connect with an online audience that you're 00:02:44.760 --> 00:02:50.480 a pastor. You're trying to figure out how to engage more in that, in that field. And so collectively 00:02:50.480 --> 00:02:55.200 between Ray and I, we've got a lot of years of experience and in church ministry, as well as 00:02:55.200 --> 00:03:03.980 on the digital side. And our takeaway from that are these six items, six points that we wish pastors 00:03:03.980 --> 00:03:09.740 would know about church online. And so I'll go ahead and read them. And then Ray, we can just dialogue 00:03:09.740 --> 00:03:17.240 and kind of work through it. Go for it. Number one, the people online are part of your church. 00:03:17.420 --> 00:03:21.400 The people online are part of your church. Hey Ray, you want to, you want to tackle that? 00:03:21.760 --> 00:03:26.320 Yeah, they are. First of all, yes, they are. They are very much part of your church. You know, 00:03:26.360 --> 00:03:30.280 in episode one, Jeff talked about three different door environments through which people engage. He 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:33.600 talked about the front door, which is kind of like your first time guests and your outsiders and people 00:03:33.600 --> 00:03:38.100 who are just looking in. He talked about the side door, which are your folks who attend on a regular 00:03:38.100 --> 00:03:43.180 basis, or maybe they consider your home, your church, their home church. And for whatever reason, 00:03:43.180 --> 00:03:47.300 the digital space is where they engage when they can't be there physically in the room. And then 00:03:47.300 --> 00:03:53.040 there's the people that this is their only means of connecting. Now in all, in all three cases, 00:03:53.180 --> 00:03:59.920 okay, they are your responsibility as a shepherd. And, you know, just like the person who comes in as a 00:03:59.920 --> 00:04:04.000 first time guest in a physical environment, well, they may never come back. They're just an Easter 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:09.220 or Christmas only person. Okay. But they're your responsibility. Okay. They are your responsibility, 00:04:09.220 --> 00:04:14.520 both in that moment. And even over the hall, you got to do everything you can to engage you to engage 00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:18.840 them and to get them engaged in your discipleship process. And so whether they're engaging your 00:04:18.840 --> 00:04:23.400 church purely online, whether they're attending once in a while and engaging the rest of the time 00:04:23.400 --> 00:04:27.680 online, or whether they're on the outside looking in, I'm telling you, they are under your care. 00:04:28.020 --> 00:04:29.880 They are part of your church. It's a big deal. 00:04:31.560 --> 00:04:36.460 Yeah, that that's so good. You know, it was funny. I was talking about this with a pastor recently, 00:04:36.460 --> 00:04:41.740 and I was like, church online isn't fake news. And he looked at me and he's like, what? And I was like, 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:47.840 hey, like, we don't sit around and make this up. Like, and so, you know, right. So if somebody, 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:52.340 let's, let's, let's hone in here and let's, let's break it down specifically. Somebody out there right 00:04:52.340 --> 00:05:00.840 now has a person, has a, has a pastor who doesn't know this. How can that person out there really 00:05:00.840 --> 00:05:07.160 convey, hey, we're still part of the church online as part of the church? What steps do they need to 00:05:07.160 --> 00:05:12.820 do? How do they approach that conversation? From, from what I've seen over time and, and, you know, 00:05:12.820 --> 00:05:16.200 we've grown through this process here at Christ Fellowship. And Jeff, you're a part of that because 00:05:16.200 --> 00:05:21.240 we asked a lot of these questions early on and we didn't know necessarily, we stumbled through a lot 00:05:21.240 --> 00:05:24.720 of these spaces. And so, you know, if you're a lead pastor and you're listening to this, you're like, 00:05:24.780 --> 00:05:28.000 well, you guys, you know, I don't even know how you arrived at this thing. Just know that we 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:32.460 struggled with all the same theological questions and with all the struggles and with all the love 00:05:32.460 --> 00:05:39.360 and heartache that you did as well. And what worked for us was just gathering stories, just pure 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:45.440 stories of not just people coming to know Christ, but people growing in Christ over time. People 00:05:45.440 --> 00:05:50.620 engaging in serving, people engaging in giving, people engaging in a lot of the same spiritual 00:05:50.620 --> 00:05:56.660 disciplines that we would ask them to engage in a physical space happening online. These are 00:05:56.660 --> 00:06:00.700 phenomenal things that we're doing. And it's not just tools. These aren't just tools that we're 00:06:00.700 --> 00:06:06.340 developing. The tools are part of it, but really it's a means of a growing community and a growing 00:06:06.340 --> 00:06:11.300 spiritual community in which people are taking real, tangible, physical, spiritual steps. Now, 00:06:11.320 --> 00:06:16.260 they may not be in the room with you, but they are growing spiritually. And so you have to keep this 00:06:16.260 --> 00:06:19.560 in mind. And pastor, if you're out there and you're struggling with this, I just want to encourage you. 00:06:20.020 --> 00:06:25.680 Okay. It's okay to struggle with it, but you must ask some hard questions about what you're going to do 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:30.980 for that individual that comes to know Christ by either listening to your podcast, by consuming your 00:06:30.980 --> 00:06:35.580 content in some kind of way, by listening to your podcast, by watching your message. You got to ask 00:06:35.580 --> 00:06:39.700 what's their next step. And if you already come up with step one, you're already giving them a 00:06:39.700 --> 00:06:45.420 discipleship pathway. Yeah, that's awesome. Hey, and it's important here to remember that 00:06:45.420 --> 00:06:53.380 analytics lie. And so we're going to talk about this a lot, but you know, I'm a pastor at a small 00:06:53.380 --> 00:07:00.480 church. I got 250 people that come and I got 2000 views on Facebook live. Reality of this guys, 00:07:00.820 --> 00:07:07.360 those Facebook live views are based on three seconds. A person's literally scrolling through the phone, 00:07:07.740 --> 00:07:15.580 watching the pop up in their newsfeed and they pause to sneeze and keep scrolling. That person is through 00:07:15.580 --> 00:07:20.800 here. I'm not saying that the person who sneezes while scrolling through Facebook live is part of 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:27.840 your church, but it's, it's important to really hone in who the important people are, who the people 00:07:27.840 --> 00:07:34.560 who are connected to your church are. And so, and by Ray, what Ray's saying with the stories is so 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:40.860 important, but the numbers like lie. They give the appearance that things are much grander and much 00:07:40.860 --> 00:07:48.060 bigger when really embrace the smallness of it, embrace the individualism of these people that are 00:07:48.060 --> 00:07:55.480 and, and solve their problems to getting them plugged in, getting them connected, getting them 00:07:55.480 --> 00:08:02.260 discipled, like solve it on the small level, create those systems so that it will grow with you as, 00:08:02.260 --> 00:08:07.340 as your ministry in the physical space, as well as in the digital and the virtual space, as they both 00:08:07.340 --> 00:08:14.020 grow together. That's right. And that interestingly segues very well into number two, what works in 00:08:14.020 --> 00:08:22.120 physical locations does not always work online. And so I'll dig into this one a little bit. And I've, 00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:27.680 I have produced, I've been, I've produced thousands of church services. I have been production director 00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:33.720 for, for, for churches for years. I've been weekend experience director, creative director. 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:38.240 And so like, I've been danced all around this environment and have seen it from, from many 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:46.700 different angles. And what's important is, is that you have someone who stops and pauses and says, 00:08:46.760 --> 00:08:52.540 is this going to work in context of online? Yeah. So like, I'm going to give you a, um, uh, just 00:08:52.540 --> 00:08:58.020 several examples of, Hey, you know what? If, um, if the announcements that you're doing 00:08:58.020 --> 00:09:06.340 in the service are all aimed towards serving locally in your community, that doesn't mean much 00:09:06.340 --> 00:09:11.360 for the guy who's watching your service on the other side of the country. Does not take it even a 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:17.500 step further? If you've, and Ray was talking about the front door, side door, uh, digital door. If 00:09:17.500 --> 00:09:24.920 you've got somebody who is, um, maybe sick at home with a sick kid and not in the service they're 00:09:24.920 --> 00:09:29.900 watching, but the only way to sign up for your local service project this, the, in the coming week 00:09:29.900 --> 00:09:36.200 is in the lobby. That doesn't do anything for them either. And so it's, it's, it's making sure 00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:42.460 that you've got systems where people that want to engage with your church to be part of your 00:09:42.460 --> 00:09:47.880 discipleship process, to be, uh, serving, to be part of a small group, to be part of, of giving, 00:09:48.100 --> 00:09:52.940 making sure that you've got systems and you're communicating to those people's how, how to do 00:09:52.940 --> 00:09:59.240 that. You know, just even in my experience, like, um, as, as online pastors, sometimes the application 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:04.240 point would make a lot of sense in the, in the room of, of a message. Like, you know, 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:09.400 the pastors landing the plane has done this really creative thing where you write down the name of 00:10:09.400 --> 00:10:12.420 people that you're praying for, that you want to witness to, and you come up and you nail it on the 00:10:12.420 --> 00:10:17.440 cross and, and all this, this elaborate, you know, all it gives chills in the room and everybody's 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:23.760 excited and you can just feel the Holy spirit, um, you know, coming down. But as a viewer online, 00:10:23.760 --> 00:10:29.160 there, there's a level of, of disconnect to that. Absolutely. And so trying to figure out, 00:10:29.220 --> 00:10:33.340 make sure not that you can't do the creative stuff for the room because you don't want online to 00:10:33.340 --> 00:10:38.300 hold back the room, but don't forget them or turn them into the redheaded stepchild, 00:10:38.500 --> 00:10:45.620 uh, start to kind of create some of those environments, um, or figure out how they can be 00:10:45.620 --> 00:10:51.600 part of it, what they need to do to get those same application and touch points with that. 00:10:51.880 --> 00:10:56.960 Yeah. And I think the big deal there, Jeff is, is just representation, right? Like, like acknowledgement 00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:01.380 of, of, of the fact that they exist, you know? So if you are going to do those big creative 00:11:01.380 --> 00:11:06.000 elements, maybe designing something that's unique to them or for them, um, you know, we're going to 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:10.700 talk to Jay Cranda eventually. I love what Jay does for communion, you know, um, before Saddleback 00:11:10.700 --> 00:11:15.080 does communion online, you know, he lets them know in advance, he tells them the materials to buy. He, 00:11:15.400 --> 00:11:20.260 he, you know, gives them a list of, of instructions to kind of take part in so that they can be part of 00:11:20.260 --> 00:11:25.520 the experience as well. That's so crucial and so important. And, you know, many people would look at 00:11:25.520 --> 00:11:28.920 communion and say, well, that that's unique to a physical space. Well, no, no, no. Yeah. If, 00:11:28.920 --> 00:11:33.860 if you make it that way, or if you design it that way, but if you design it in such a way that it can 00:11:33.860 --> 00:11:38.100 be inclusive of your people online, you can have something special. 00:11:39.900 --> 00:11:44.700 Yeah. And so, and I want to really hone in on this in a later episode, but like the power 00:11:44.700 --> 00:11:50.460 of online, this is what this was, this got cut off, off my list. This would be my number seven. I'll 00:11:50.460 --> 00:11:55.380 just go and tease it and we'll, we'll do it later. The power of online isn't in our pastors. The power 00:11:55.380 --> 00:12:01.620 of church online is in the people, you know, and using church line to empower the people with that. 00:12:01.620 --> 00:12:07.560 But that is a much richer conversation. So that's a tease for something that'll be coming up here very 00:12:07.560 --> 00:12:15.980 soon. Okay. Hey, let's, let's get into number three. Just because this scales well, doesn't mean we 00:12:15.980 --> 00:12:25.100 should do church online cheap, right? You want to, you want to tackle, tackle that one? 00:12:25.540 --> 00:12:29.860 Yeah. And, and mind you, none of it's funny is Jeff and I were putting this list, you know, 00:12:29.860 --> 00:12:34.760 together. We wanted to make sure that everybody just did none of this are, none of these are like 00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:40.180 shots at like, uh, at any organization we ever worked with or anything like this. Really, this is just what 00:12:40.180 --> 00:12:44.880 we've, what we've encountered as we talk to different people who engage these spaces and 00:12:44.880 --> 00:12:50.740 have to do this. And so church online does scale. Well, listen, you can reach the masses with church 00:12:50.740 --> 00:12:55.840 online and you can do it for pennies on the dollar. You know, you can either go and rent out a huge 00:12:55.840 --> 00:13:00.300 amphitheater and, and have like a bunch of people come to your amphitheater and spend, you know, 00:13:00.380 --> 00:13:05.940 hundreds of thousands of dollars on, on a big event, or you can leverage church online to hit people 00:13:05.940 --> 00:13:12.460 consistently every week and do and hit a lot of the same numbers of people over time and really engage them 00:13:12.460 --> 00:13:18.620 in a lot of different meaningful spaces. Now, keeping that in mind, um, my heart breaks sometimes when I've seen 00:13:18.620 --> 00:13:24.900 massive churches, I mean, churches with unlimited resources and then the, the content that they're putting 00:13:24.900 --> 00:13:30.640 out there online, the, uh, the way that they're showcasing their services, uh, and mind you, that's on the 00:13:30.640 --> 00:13:34.760 content side, but then even on the community side, the fact that they're not resourcing it well, the fact that 00:13:34.760 --> 00:13:39.700 they're not staffing it with volunteers or even putting any kind of effort or emphasis towards 00:13:39.700 --> 00:13:44.820 this, uh, it shows very little value for what's going on there. Now I can't speak into what all 00:13:44.820 --> 00:13:50.200 those churches do and what's their aim, but I can tell you that those people, uh, whether you value 00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:55.700 them or not, uh, it's still being communicated across the board. And so, you know, if you've got a 00:13:55.700 --> 00:14:01.580 church online experience and in the room is just a phenomenal mix, but online, I mean, your audio is 00:14:01.580 --> 00:14:06.360 terrible. Uh, you're getting bad camera shots. Uh, the camera falls over and hits the floor and 00:14:06.360 --> 00:14:11.760 nobody picks it up for half the service. There's all sorts of things going on there. And so, yes, 00:14:11.760 --> 00:14:17.500 this scales very well. It doesn't take much to get up and running, but if you keep it bad, or if you 00:14:17.500 --> 00:14:22.620 continue to just do it on the cheap, uh, over time, you're going to get called out on it. And that's 00:14:22.620 --> 00:14:29.360 not necessarily something that's good. Yeah. And so it's, it's doing it, you know, 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:35.380 not on the cheap, making the investments, you know, built going with what works on the small 00:14:35.380 --> 00:14:41.140 and expanding. And we'll, we talked with David Erzie, uh, with Cape first in a future episode. 00:14:41.140 --> 00:14:48.300 And he really pours into this idea of start small, create systems that work on the small 00:14:48.300 --> 00:14:55.080 and then build off of that, build off of the success of, of the small, rather than going 00:14:55.080 --> 00:15:01.980 huge and trying to, um, you know, maintain off of that. And so allow your, um, and honestly, 00:15:01.980 --> 00:15:06.940 and I've had this conversation before where it's like, you allow the staff to grow your leadership 00:15:06.940 --> 00:15:13.560 to grow with you. Confession in my life. And I've talked about this actually on Jay's, uh, 00:15:13.620 --> 00:15:18.580 Cranda's YouTube channel, uh, in an interview with him about a year ago where I, I, I ran, 00:15:18.740 --> 00:15:25.680 you know, and quickly I found myself literally at the end of the dock, uh, the metaphysical dock 00:15:25.680 --> 00:15:31.980 getting ready to jump in the water and nobody's behind me because I hadn't brought the leadership 00:15:31.980 --> 00:15:37.840 team and other staff behind me. I carried the weight of everything on my shoulders and then turned around 00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:45.960 and nobody understood the basics. And so allowing it to scale effectively is, is very important in 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:51.980 context of, of online. And so man, Ray, Hey, thanks for, for sharing that one. Let's get into number four. 00:15:51.980 --> 00:15:58.440 Number four, church online does not replace meeting in physical locations. 00:15:58.780 --> 00:16:05.240 Shocker. This is the shocker. Church online does not replace meeting in, in physical locations. And 00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:09.200 so let me breathe on this a little bit and then, and then I'll hand it over. Now there are, listen, 00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:14.460 and, and somebody is going to be like, but what about that, that virtual church, uh, VR church that 00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:19.580 I saw on Wired Magazine. Okay, look, here's, and, and, and we're going to hopefully get DJ Soto 00:16:19.580 --> 00:16:27.120 on this podcast. Uh, I've, you know, had lots of conversations with him. And so there are exceptions 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:34.060 to this. And I know people who are trying to create digital church in, in context of, uh, 00:16:34.060 --> 00:16:40.420 exclusively online. I'm not going to lie. Um, I've thought about it myself. Uh, but at, at the end of 00:16:40.420 --> 00:16:45.940 the day, and we see this a lot, like, and this has been, uh, it was actually in a USA Today article. Uh, 00:16:45.940 --> 00:16:49.700 you can check out the church.digital. We'll link to it in the show notes, but I've, I've blogged on 00:16:49.700 --> 00:16:58.960 this, that students are lonelier today than five years ago. That's right. Something like, uh, I think 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:05.820 it was seniors, high school seniors reported 13% more high school students, seniors reported being 00:17:05.820 --> 00:17:12.840 lonely now than even like five years ago. Yeah. And a lot of it equated down to this idea of social 00:17:12.840 --> 00:17:18.900 media. They're, they're engaging people, but they're not relationally connecting with them. 00:17:19.320 --> 00:17:24.340 And so the one thing that I really want to hone in on, and while the point of point of my blog was 00:17:24.340 --> 00:17:28.640 like, Hey, church online, um, this is why we shouldn't do church on. This is what people have 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:34.120 said. People are lonely. Technology isn't physical community. Like, and I would actually say, no, 00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:39.460 that's why you do church online. That's right. Engage with people and pull them into physical 00:17:39.460 --> 00:17:45.580 community. The end game of church online is not to be a self-contained ecosystem. Uh, and, and VR 00:17:45.580 --> 00:17:51.300 church and what I know of DJ Soto, he believes the same thing, you know, and we'll talk about this idea 00:17:51.300 --> 00:18:00.220 of online to offline, where the message that we hear online impacts our offline world. If the only place 00:18:00.220 --> 00:18:05.220 where I wear my Christian hat, okay, I don't have a Christian hat, but if I did have a Christian hat, 00:18:05.520 --> 00:18:11.320 if the only place that I wore that was in virtual environments, if my friends who knew me in real 00:18:11.320 --> 00:18:17.800 life, didn't know me as a Christian, that doesn't make me a very good Christian, does it? And so it's, 00:18:18.100 --> 00:18:22.300 and so it's, it's living it not only in the, in the virtual world, because the same thing is said 00:18:22.300 --> 00:18:30.600 virtually as it is in the physical. And so church online does not replace the physical world. It's, 00:18:30.660 --> 00:18:37.320 it's not that what, what I believe it is. It's meant to compliment it and to help it help the physical 00:18:37.320 --> 00:18:42.120 and the virtual. And so we're going to be talking a lot. Hey, and Ray, you want to just like give like 00:18:42.120 --> 00:18:46.860 a 30 second overview omni channel? Cause you're so good. I know you're passionate about that. 00:18:46.860 --> 00:18:50.020 You know, when folks talk to me about this, I always give the personal story of the fact that 00:18:50.020 --> 00:18:54.520 my wife and I were long distance in our relationship for about a year, year and a half while we were 00:18:54.520 --> 00:18:59.220 dating. And you know, this is like the introduction of FaceTime, right? And so we had the benefit of 00:18:59.220 --> 00:19:01.800 that. We didn't have to do letters. We didn't have to just, you know, be there on the phone. 00:19:02.140 --> 00:19:05.920 We were able to engage face to face, but if you were to ask me, Hey, which is better? My wife next 00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:10.580 to me in the room, or at the time, my girlfriend next to me in the room or having her via FaceTime, 00:19:10.620 --> 00:19:13.960 I would tell you, I would, I would throw my computer out the window every day of the week. 00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:18.980 If you would tell me that I could have her here in the room with me, there's no question about it. 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:24.480 And so the reality is it, because that was our primary means, the only way that we could 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:29.100 meet on a regular basis, face to face, we took advantage of the technology that was given to us 00:19:29.100 --> 00:19:35.220 at the time. And so we used it for everything that was worth. Now, in the same way, technology is great. 00:19:35.460 --> 00:19:40.740 Technology can, you know, can allow for, you know, community and for relationship to take place. 00:19:40.780 --> 00:19:45.620 It's a great platform. However, it, we're still physical beings. We're still tangible beings. 00:19:46.060 --> 00:19:51.620 We need to be around in the physical presence of other people. And we can't sacrifice that. We 00:19:51.620 --> 00:19:56.680 can't say that church online is going to go ahead and take over for that for folks. No, no, no, no. We 00:19:56.680 --> 00:20:00.740 still believe in scripture where it says that we should not forsake the gathering together of the 00:20:00.740 --> 00:20:05.920 saints. And sure, church online is a medium for that, but it's not a replacement for physical spaces 00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:11.040 for that. And so for folks out there who are expecting us to say the opposite, you know, no, 00:20:11.120 --> 00:20:16.360 we don't believe that either. You know, we believe that this is a way to take, to transfer people into 00:20:16.360 --> 00:20:20.080 community. And, and we've seen that happen over and over again online. 00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:27.320 That's, that's awesome. Well said. So, um, let's roll to number five. Cause we're, we are hammering 00:20:27.320 --> 00:20:31.400 these things through and I want to spend some time on this one. Cause this is, this is a go 00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:37.320 right here. Um, effective church, number five, if you're keeping score at home, effective church 00:20:37.320 --> 00:20:43.500 online is more than just content. Effective church online is more than just content. Let me say this 00:20:43.500 --> 00:20:47.380 one thing. And then Ray, I'm going to give it to you. Cause I know Ray is, is like the content 00:20:47.380 --> 00:20:54.540 guy. There is a difference, uh, pastor. There is a difference church online person between digital 00:20:54.540 --> 00:21:01.040 communications and caught digital mission, caught digital discipleship. Digital communications is 00:21:01.040 --> 00:21:08.440 essentially marketing and communicating a message to a group of people. Uh, digital mission, digital 00:21:08.440 --> 00:21:15.560 discipleship is utilizing technology to look at the world through a digital mission field lens 00:21:15.560 --> 00:21:24.800 to the end of where you want to disciple them. And so if you as a church believe that discipleship 00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:31.900 cannot happen virtually, it can only happen within a physical space, uh, your church campus, 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:37.840 an office, a home. If you can only do discipleship there, then what you really want to do is, is 00:21:37.840 --> 00:21:44.640 digital communication. But if you're, if you're interested in taking a step further and you want 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:52.160 to impact and change lives virtually, not just within the physical realm, then you need to also not only 00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:58.960 look at it as digital communication, but look at ways that you can disciple and help people grow deeper 00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:04.480 in their faith in the virtual realm. So Ray, you want to dig into some of that? Yeah. You know, 00:22:04.480 --> 00:22:10.800 for so long, um, we've seen, and we've heard great things about pastors and what takes place, 00:22:10.800 --> 00:22:15.580 not just on Sunday morning, but in, in spaces like Sunday schools or small groups. And the thing that 00:22:15.580 --> 00:22:21.960 we've all struggled with is, um, is there's a difference between content and then community. 00:22:22.360 --> 00:22:26.800 And I think that's, that's a hard thing for all church leaders to wrestle with content and community 00:22:26.800 --> 00:22:30.880 in terms of what changes lives and how the two are supposed to work in relationship together. 00:22:31.320 --> 00:22:37.840 Now listen, uh, church leaders, the worship music and the, the sermon, they are very spiritual items. 00:22:37.840 --> 00:22:42.120 Uh, they're very important to our spiritual walk, but that's still content at the end of the day 00:22:42.120 --> 00:22:47.640 and content without community doesn't necessarily transform lives. And so I think it was Ed Stetzer. 00:22:47.640 --> 00:22:51.160 I think I'm going to be paraphrasing Stetzer when he talked about how, you know, we want our people 00:22:51.160 --> 00:22:55.060 to be missional, but we're building our churches like theaters in that even people who are sitting in 00:22:55.060 --> 00:22:59.340 the room, you know, we've got one guy on stage and the majority of the people are there watching him 00:22:59.340 --> 00:23:05.280 enact his spiritual gift. Meanwhile, everybody else is a consumer. Everybody else in the room is a 00:23:05.280 --> 00:23:11.280 consumer of watching one person enact their spiritual gift. And so effective church online and effective 00:23:11.280 --> 00:23:15.920 church ministry in general, isn't just, Hey, we're going to watch content. You got to give people 00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:21.240 handles. Okay. It's got to be teaching and content that leads somewhere that gives them an action step 00:23:21.240 --> 00:23:26.200 that challenges them to take it to that next level. And then you have to provide a discipleship pathway 00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:30.340 through which people can experience community, grow in relationship with others, take part in 00:23:30.340 --> 00:23:35.380 spiritual disciplines that can happen both in social media and in person. So if you're thinking, 00:23:35.520 --> 00:23:39.540 Oh, well, that's just church online where that happens. No, that's not true. Even in our physical 00:23:39.540 --> 00:23:45.740 church spaces, we can be great about content distribution, but terrible about effective discipleship 00:23:45.740 --> 00:23:46.400 if we're not careful. 00:23:47.520 --> 00:23:51.220 So true. That was golden. Thank you for that. That was Ed Stetzer. 00:23:51.240 --> 00:23:55.160 Ed Stetzer. We'll find it in the show notes. I'll try to link to it. I know I've heard him say 00:23:55.160 --> 00:24:00.460 that several times in messages. I'm willing to bet he's got it in writing somewhere. I don't know 00:24:00.460 --> 00:24:04.720 if he pulled it from a book. So, but yeah, we'll, we'll dig into that and we'll link to it in the 00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:10.460 show notes. And so it's, it's, you have to be very careful if all we're doing is creating content. 00:24:10.460 --> 00:24:15.940 And sometimes honestly, like we may, we may think we're doing more than we are, or maybe we need to 00:24:15.940 --> 00:24:22.220 just stop and analyze if what we're doing is, is actually what we mean to do, what we set out to do. 00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:27.360 But I would say this, like church online, and we will, we'll talk about this later. So I'll church 00:24:27.360 --> 00:24:33.220 online is a mirror for the, for the physical church. And so if you're, if you're angry and you're 00:24:33.220 --> 00:24:36.820 frustrated with your church online, that all it's doing is just generating content. 00:24:37.460 --> 00:24:42.220 Um, maybe pause and look and see, well, is that happening at the, at our physical church? Is 00:24:42.220 --> 00:24:48.200 that happening? And we just haven't, um, or because what happens online drips from the 00:24:48.200 --> 00:24:56.780 physical. And so sometimes the, um, the, the actual church online is just mirroring the, the values 00:24:56.780 --> 00:25:01.840 that you, that you're showing intentionally, or, or even sometimes unintentionally. So pastor that's 00:25:01.840 --> 00:25:09.000 out there, pause, look, evaluate, maybe ask around, get input from other people that are outside. 00:25:09.200 --> 00:25:16.080 And because the, the end game of our, of our church biblically is to go and make disciples 00:25:16.080 --> 00:25:23.540 and, and, and yes, you know, content is a way to do it. Uh, but if content, you know, is, 00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:31.080 is not the end church online is not the end. It's the means to creating a discipleship model in place. 00:25:31.080 --> 00:25:39.180 So pastors be, be aware of that. So let's, let's land the plane here. Number six, church online is a 00:25:39.180 --> 00:25:44.320 reflection of our church strategy. Well, I kind of let the cat out of the bag there. Uh, church online 00:25:44.320 --> 00:25:50.140 is a reflection of our church strategy. A little bit there about talking about the mirror, but, but 00:25:50.140 --> 00:25:57.600 that does, that does hone in true that, um, you cannot do something, um, separate from the church. 00:25:58.260 --> 00:26:03.020 We've seen this time and time again, we'll bring these guys on the podcast to really unpack it 00:26:03.020 --> 00:26:10.200 and break it down. But what, what happens when you do that is, is the, you, uh, you create two 00:26:10.200 --> 00:26:14.680 different hemispheres and they don't talk to each other and there's, there's self implosion. It's, 00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:19.680 it's inevitable that that'll happen. And so utilizing your church online to create, 00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:26.880 a, a unified structure from your campus, from your church is vital. Ray, you want to unpack some of 00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:33.860 this? Yeah. It's just so important. You know, um, now, now we're going on over like 20 years since 00:26:33.860 --> 00:26:37.980 our former executive pastor released his book, simple church, right? Like it's been, it's been a 00:26:37.980 --> 00:26:44.380 good while at this point. Um, maybe, maybe not quite 20 just yet, but, but it's one of those things 00:26:44.380 --> 00:26:49.920 where, you know, we need effective and effective church strategy in order to make disciples. And 00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:54.600 it has to be clear. It has to be concise and it has to be something that even makes sense doing in 00:26:54.600 --> 00:26:59.860 digital spaces as well, because so many people are engaging in your church, not just in a physical 00:26:59.860 --> 00:27:04.940 space, but also in a digital space. And so you need to be sure and have flexible options for them 00:27:04.940 --> 00:27:10.920 because so many people are living in two environments anyways, uh, here, uh, where I'm at in my context, 00:27:11.020 --> 00:27:16.180 Miami is a very transient city. And so people are in and out of town all the time. In fact, 00:27:16.180 --> 00:27:20.340 even though they call Miami home, the reality is, is they may do life between two or three different 00:27:20.340 --> 00:27:25.360 cities, uh, just in a given week or in a given month. And more and more, because our world is 00:27:25.360 --> 00:27:29.660 getting smaller, thanks to advanced travel, uh, thanks to advancements in communication, 00:27:29.660 --> 00:27:35.620 and even in energy and every other area that we're seeing in tech. Um, right now, people are able to 00:27:35.620 --> 00:27:41.180 live in multiple physical spaces, but they still want to engage in that same spiritual space. They 00:27:41.180 --> 00:27:45.640 still want to have their same church home. And so whatever effective strategy you're utilizing, 00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:51.140 uh, at your church in a physical space, you need to make sure and have a plan as to how it's going 00:27:51.140 --> 00:27:55.800 to reflect in your digital space as well, because church online, it is a reflection of your church 00:27:55.800 --> 00:28:01.640 strategy. Uh, you know, we, we talk a lot around here in my, in Christ fellowship about if we reach 00:28:01.640 --> 00:28:05.620 Miami, we really have the capability of reaching the world because so many people are from so many 00:28:05.620 --> 00:28:11.120 different spaces, but Miami is not the only unique space like this anymore. New York, LA, Chicago, 00:28:11.120 --> 00:28:16.460 all these cities are becoming, uh, these great hubs of international communication. And even not far 00:28:16.460 --> 00:28:21.560 from us, Orlando, where Mickey mouse calls his home, it's more and more becoming this international 00:28:21.560 --> 00:28:26.720 melting pot where people from different countries are coming together and they're calling it their 00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:32.160 home community, but they don't just stay in Orlando. They go about and around. And so for churches over 00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:37.680 there, it's becoming crucial for them to have a reflective strategy for church online that also 00:28:37.680 --> 00:28:43.520 reflects what they do in their physical spaces. That's awesome. By the way, uh, Ray was, when you 00:28:43.520 --> 00:28:49.540 referenced executive pastor, he's referencing Eric Geiger, uh, current, uh, was it Mariners, uh, 00:28:49.540 --> 00:28:53.640 Mariners church out Eric, all the way out there at Mariners. They're so lucky to have you as a 00:28:53.640 --> 00:28:59.880 senior pastor. Yes, yes, yes, they are. So, and Eric is, uh, I'm working details right now, uh, 00:28:59.940 --> 00:29:05.500 with, uh, Eric joining the podcast. So he'll be on at some point. Uh, he wrote up a follow-up on 00:29:05.500 --> 00:29:11.200 the Omni channel that was very good. And so I'm looking forward, uh, to having, having Ray and him on to, 00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:17.980 to unpack that even more so and to help us apply it, uh, to our churches today. Uh, but it's, 00:29:17.980 --> 00:29:25.720 it's a, it's not an either or it's an and. And so I think that's, that's really the, uh, where this 00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:33.400 is going to land. Like it's not, uh, online church or physical church. It's a both in the organization 00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:40.860 who can interweave themselves, um, to the point where it's the same, whether it's virtual or physical, 00:29:40.860 --> 00:29:45.980 man, those organizations are going to win. Uh, and those are the ones that are going to be, 00:29:45.980 --> 00:29:52.980 uh, ready for what the future holds as, as God continues to unravel and show this digital mission 00:29:52.980 --> 00:29:59.300 field that's open for us in the future. And so be, be ready, be flexible. Remember, it's not just 00:29:59.300 --> 00:30:07.060 creating content and having our content available online. It's creating a discipleship system so that 00:30:07.060 --> 00:30:13.920 you're utilizing online to impact lives, to help people grow deeper in their faith, regardless of 00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:19.160 where they're located, whether that's next door to your church or whether that's on in another 00:30:19.160 --> 00:30:25.520 hemisphere. At the end of the day, we are, we are, as the church are called to create disciples 00:30:25.520 --> 00:30:33.380 of these people. And, and, and rather than saying, that's not my responsibility church, it's time to pick 00:30:33.380 --> 00:30:39.340 it up and to utilize technology in this tool to just reach out. You know, it's, and it's funny, 00:30:39.380 --> 00:30:43.100 like I was talking in this conversation, I want to, want to close on this the other day or close on 00:30:43.100 --> 00:30:46.940 this today, but I had this conversation the other day with a pastor and he just made the statement, 00:30:46.940 --> 00:30:52.000 could you imagine what, what Billy Graham would do with the internet? Oh my gosh. Yeah. And he's 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:56.880 like, could you imagine what Paul would do with the internet? And it's like, and suddenly it's, 00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:03.200 it's in my, my joke, you know, in passing was, yeah, but, but we do Fortnite. I mean, come on, come on. 00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:08.820 We got, we got gaming. There's always like yelling at each other on Facebook. Like we've got the power 00:31:08.820 --> 00:31:14.940 to do so much with it. Absolutely. And instead we're, we're, we're squandering it on things that 00:31:14.940 --> 00:31:21.760 aren't, aren't kingdom impacting. So, Hey, pastor chalk that up as number seven. And we're going to close 00:31:21.760 --> 00:31:28.500 with that. Um, the power of the internet, uh, for the kingdom is, is ready and ripe and ready to go. 00:31:28.780 --> 00:31:34.020 It's just a matter of catching that vision and, and running with it. Hey, um, we're going to close 00:31:34.020 --> 00:31:41.600 up the podcast right here. Uh, Hey, church leader, church volunteer, church staff person who's out 00:31:41.600 --> 00:31:48.700 there fighting this battle. Um, continue fighting, uh, testimony on my side. There has been seasons of 00:31:48.700 --> 00:31:55.720 my life where I felt so isolated and alone because nobody out there saw what I saw. Nobody saw 00:31:55.720 --> 00:32:01.680 purpose and vision behind this. And literally I felt like I was alone. I felt like it was weird. I was 00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:09.940 weird. And I felt like I was wrong because nobody else saw it. And so I want to take a moment here 00:32:09.940 --> 00:32:15.680 and just encourage you. You're not alone. You're not, well, you may be weird, but in this context, 00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:22.780 you're not weird. Um, and you're not wrong. It's, it's helping getting leadership, getting people 00:32:22.780 --> 00:32:28.520 to see, to understand the vitalness of this. And we here with the church digital, we want to help 00:32:28.520 --> 00:32:36.700 create, uh, resources to encourage, to inspire, um, and to, to help you have these conversations. So 00:32:36.700 --> 00:32:43.080 check out the website, the church.digital, the church.digital for more of that. Uh, and you can 00:32:43.080 --> 00:32:47.700 find this, uh, on social media. Ray is, uh, where are you on social media? 00:32:47.800 --> 00:32:54.140 At Ray DeArmas, R-E-Y, uh, for Ray, R-E-Y-D-E-A-R-M-A-S. You can catch me on almost every social 00:32:54.140 --> 00:33:00.600 media platform. Come talk with me. Awesome. And I'm Deerfedge, uh, as in like Jeff Reed backwards. 00:33:00.920 --> 00:33:05.380 And that's weird. So you may want to check the show notes to get that, but you can find either 00:33:05.380 --> 00:33:11.040 one of us, uh, there and man, we would love to dialogue. Uh, we'd love to share with you. And 00:33:11.040 --> 00:33:15.260 more than that, like, we just want to hear your story. So hit us up and let's talk it through. 00:33:15.740 --> 00:33:20.120 Uh, but for Ray, uh, my name is Jeff and it has been a pleasure to be with you guys here on the 00:33:20.120 --> 00:33:26.180 church digital podcast. And we will see you with the next episode, uh, featuring Jay Cranda from 00:33:26.180 --> 00:33:30.020 saddleback, which is going to be awesome. So see you guys then.