WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.820 Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. 00:00:02.340 --> 00:00:06.340 Through this podcast, learn about how God is using technology and innovation 00:00:06.340 --> 00:00:09.400 in digital and digital environments around the world. 00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:13.800 Our goal? To help churches like yours learn to be the church digitally. 00:00:14.480 --> 00:00:19.420 Our heart? That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple-making 00:00:19.420 --> 00:00:21.440 that will revolutionize your church. 00:00:21.840 --> 00:00:24.480 And now, your host, here's Jeff Reed. 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:27.600 All right, hey, welcome to Episode 200. 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:33.360 This is Jeff with the Church Digital, and I can't believe we've done 200 of these episodes. 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:37.680 I'm really looking forward to the conversation that's at hand. 00:00:37.760 --> 00:00:45.180 But let's take a moment here and celebrate the fact that we have done successfully 199 podcast episodes. 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:50.400 And it has been an awesome learning experience and an awesome opportunity, 00:00:50.580 --> 00:00:55.740 at least for me, to really start to explore what's happening in the idea of digital church 00:00:55.740 --> 00:00:59.680 and metachurch and digital and digital discipleship. 00:00:59.780 --> 00:01:02.240 And there's just so many topics that we've hit. 00:01:02.620 --> 00:01:06.480 Mental health and the capacity that digital and meta will do for that. 00:01:06.600 --> 00:01:08.900 So many topics, so many challenges. 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:14.240 I could not even go back and today, honestly, list out my top 25. 00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:18.240 Like, there's just been so many solid conversations along the way. 00:01:18.300 --> 00:01:23.960 So for the many guests that have been on here with the Church Digital podcast that have helped us get to 200, 00:01:23.960 --> 00:01:27.120 I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you for that. 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:34.660 For my producer, Garrett Silji, Deanna Spallone, who's worked the back end of this, the data side, for so long, 00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:39.140 thank you all for helping to produce this thing and to make it happen time and time again. 00:01:39.340 --> 00:01:41.060 It's been an incredible experience. 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:44.440 And looking forward, and also we're going to talk a little bit here about it here in a minute. 00:01:44.740 --> 00:01:51.640 We're looking forward to the next 200 and where the Church Digital is going in the near future. 00:01:51.740 --> 00:01:58.460 By the way, we are coming into a new season here with the Church Digital, the podcast, and in other areas. 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:04.760 And this really gets to the heart of what I've wanted to talk to about here in episode 200. 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:08.020 Episode 199 or 198, let's give and go back. 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:13.360 We talked about Meta and Leadership Network and the role that I'm taking as their director of Meta, 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:19.060 really championing the idea of Meta Church within Leadership Network and the relaunching of that organization. 00:02:19.620 --> 00:02:21.840 199 was a fun conversation. 00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:28.840 I discovered literally five seconds after I recorded episode 199 that I do have COVID, which is fun. 00:02:29.340 --> 00:02:32.820 And I'm coming off it right now, but I'm still tested positive this morning. 00:02:33.340 --> 00:02:35.540 And so I can tell you my cough is horrible. 00:02:35.720 --> 00:02:36.940 I've got a cough button over here. 00:02:36.980 --> 00:02:40.380 I'll click if it gets bad in this recording and it's bad. 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:46.520 But aside from a cough and brain fog, like I'm not actually sure what day it is right now. 00:02:46.900 --> 00:02:51.220 Aside from those things, life is getting okay and we're trying to get back to normal. 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:58.080 But with 199, what we really started to focus on was the role of the church digital, 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:01.760 helping the established church by launching the equipping store, 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:10.380 by bringing on more people that are going to start to create content that can help you on your digital, 00:03:10.540 --> 00:03:12.260 your fidgetal, whatever that journey is. 00:03:12.260 --> 00:03:15.680 We want to help established churches expand into that. 00:03:16.480 --> 00:03:19.320 As a matter of fact, we're bringing in here into the conversation. 00:03:19.580 --> 00:03:26.080 As we get into 200, we're bringing in one of those people, Chesley Lundy, lead pastor with King City Church. 00:03:26.260 --> 00:03:29.420 So, hey, Chesley, why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself? 00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:30.920 Hey, guys, I'm Chesley. 00:03:31.180 --> 00:03:36.040 I think this is my third or fourth time on the Church Digital Podcast. 00:03:36.440 --> 00:03:38.320 You know, I was actually trying to remember. 00:03:38.500 --> 00:03:40.100 I think this is your third. 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:43.480 Let's just detail it out here because I couldn't remember number two. 00:03:44.020 --> 00:03:50.080 One, we had you on talking about with some of the other stadia planters, planting a digital church. 00:03:50.740 --> 00:03:51.320 I don't know what it was. 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:56.180 The second one was Rob Wagner when we were talking about Starfish and the Spirit. 00:03:56.980 --> 00:03:58.120 I think this is the third. 00:03:58.360 --> 00:04:00.340 Am I missing one or is this really three? 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:00.900 No. 00:04:01.060 --> 00:04:04.960 The third one was the best podcast of 2021. 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:06.000 Oh, that's right. 00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:10.600 So just January is talking about the podcast network and that. 00:04:10.880 --> 00:04:16.480 So, man, tell us a little bit about what you do and do a tease towards what you're doing with the podcast network. 00:04:16.640 --> 00:04:21.000 Yeah, so I'm a part of the Church Digital's podcast network. 00:04:21.140 --> 00:04:22.520 I'm super excited about it. 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:24.040 I love innovation. 00:04:24.520 --> 00:04:28.680 And obviously, we all know that we are living in a time of disruption. 00:04:29.400 --> 00:04:32.440 And so disruption in the business world is awesome. 00:04:32.580 --> 00:04:34.360 You want to be at a disruptive company. 00:04:34.660 --> 00:04:37.260 In the church world, yeah, not so much. 00:04:37.640 --> 00:04:41.080 Disruption causes a lot of problems and we're trying to keep up with those. 00:04:41.080 --> 00:04:46.580 And I think the only way we can really keep up with digital disruption is to innovate ourselves. 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:58.620 And innovation is taking inventions that may or may not have been used for our current industry and begin to creatively use them to make our places of worship better. 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:10.440 And so I'm taking opportunities to talk with people outside of the church industry and say, hey, what are you guys doing that actually can help us succeed better? 00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:14.340 So my first podcast drops next week, actually. 00:05:14.860 --> 00:05:16.840 I'm talking to Carrie Melissa Jones. 00:05:17.760 --> 00:05:20.260 She wrote Building Brand Communities. 00:05:20.380 --> 00:05:21.400 You'll have to excuse me. 00:05:21.620 --> 00:05:23.760 I also have COVID right now. 00:05:24.060 --> 00:05:25.220 We are recording. 00:05:25.740 --> 00:05:29.920 So if you hear me like coughing or whatever, same issue. 00:05:30.520 --> 00:05:34.380 But Carrie Melissa Jones wrote Building Brand Communities. 00:05:34.820 --> 00:05:39.020 She worked for Sephora, worked for two presidential campaigns, Nike. 00:05:39.460 --> 00:05:45.000 One of the best community consultants out there in the in the business world. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:48.900 And she begins to talk to us about how we might be able to implement that in our church. 00:05:49.020 --> 00:05:50.440 People like that, man. 00:05:50.660 --> 00:05:55.140 And then also people like you who have problems that need creative solutions. 00:05:55.140 --> 00:06:02.600 We're going to have you on the podcast as well so we can be able to talk about those problems and help give you innovative solutions. 00:06:03.100 --> 00:06:07.220 You guys get to use them or you guys don't have to use anything that we talk about. 00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:08.940 But, hey, maybe it'll be good listening. 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:17.400 I'm excited to be a part of this network and excited to have fun today in our conversation about where we're headed. 00:06:17.760 --> 00:06:19.740 Yeah, thank you for not giving away the tease. 00:06:19.860 --> 00:06:21.720 I could see Chesley was going that way. 00:06:21.780 --> 00:06:23.300 It's like, wait, that hasn't been officially said. 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:23.980 We're going to wait for it. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:24.840 That was beautiful. 00:06:24.960 --> 00:06:25.860 Well executed there. 00:06:26.280 --> 00:06:27.800 Hey, so here's where we're going with 200. 00:06:28.800 --> 00:06:35.000 We, the church digital, we're launching a digital church network. 00:06:35.300 --> 00:06:36.800 Like we've talked about this. 00:06:36.920 --> 00:06:37.900 We've teased this. 00:06:38.740 --> 00:06:50.100 But, but here's the back story here with, within Stadia by launching digital churches and love Stadia, love that organization, love how they're championing and doing things. 00:06:50.100 --> 00:06:59.580 And this is not anything against the organization of Stadia, but there were problems that we, I personally observed while trying to help launch churches. 00:06:59.580 --> 00:07:19.520 And it's the, it's the large fact that we were addressing 75% of people that we were talking with about planting churches were probably looking at more of an organic expression of church that didn't necessarily fit within the model that, that Stadia was using to, to plant churches. 00:07:19.520 --> 00:07:34.760 I literally, over the span of two years, had 200 conversations with people that were wanting to plant a digital church, but it was not something, the majority of them didn't fit the model that Stadia was, was working with. 00:07:34.760 --> 00:07:49.560 And to, I, to honestly, I just felt led to kind of step out of that environment, love Stadia, step out of the environment and try to figure out maybe there's a different way, a more organic approach to, to launch a digital church. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:58.700 And, and it's, and it's ironic within maybe two weeks of me making this decision, or at least the mental capacity of maybe this is an option. 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:03.620 I started like having conversations with people coming out of the woodworks. 00:08:03.820 --> 00:08:07.240 Hey, Jeff, what would a, what would a digital church network look like? 00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:11.520 Hey, Jeff, um, I'm, I'm really thinking about launching a digital church. 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:16.620 Hey, Jeff, have you ever thought about what micro and digital would look like if they kind of like overlapped? 00:08:16.620 --> 00:08:23.040 It was ridiculous the amount of people that were having conversations with me virtually overnight. 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:28.820 And like every one of these conversations quickly became affirmations that, hey, you know what? 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:33.960 This is the road that God has us on, um, in a need to, need to pursue this. 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:45.460 And so, you know, as much fun as, as the, the helping the established churches in the church digital, as much fun as it is to, to make some noise about meta and maybe rock some, some boats through leadership network. 00:08:45.700 --> 00:09:03.700 Uh, the real heart for me in, in, in doing this is centered around helping churches really get into this idea or helping individuals, maybe even recognizing that there is the pastor of the future is going to look much more bivo covo than full-time at an established church. 00:09:03.700 --> 00:09:20.540 And maybe even as, as a network here, start to, uh, endorse and build out a different model of church than what we typically would see, uh, on any given Sunday morning at any given physical corner of your town or neighborhood. 00:09:20.540 --> 00:09:23.140 So yeah, we're kind of rocking the boat a little bit here. 00:09:23.260 --> 00:09:32.860 Uh, but the interesting thing is like, I, I, I personally have had conversations around the world with people that are jacked up and excited, uh, about this just this today. 00:09:32.860 --> 00:09:39.640 We'll talk to this in a little bit, but just today I get some woman who schedules a meeting with me at 4 a.m. 00:09:39.640 --> 00:09:43.200 Her time, by the way, she's in Cape town, South Africa by 6 p.m. 00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:44.640 That night, she's talking to me. 00:09:44.820 --> 00:09:50.960 She's telling me, uh, she's literally saying, Jeff, I have this crazy idea about doing church in the metaverse. 00:09:51.080 --> 00:09:52.940 I don't necessarily understand what I'm doing. 00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:57.140 I Googled and you're like the only person on the internet that's thinking this way. 00:09:57.180 --> 00:09:57.800 Can you help me? 00:09:58.540 --> 00:10:09.500 I, that's literally a conversation that I had and it's been phenomenal to see how much interest there is in this area and the opportunity we have to maybe reach a different type of person, uh, 00:10:09.500 --> 00:10:09.920 through it. 00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:13.860 And, and I'll tell you, Chesley has been one of those just even to throw it back at you, sir. 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:20.480 Uh, there's a, he's been, was one of those guys early on that's like, Hey, I'm, I'm thinking about starting a digital church network. 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:21.800 I'm not, I'm not sure what that means. 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:23.940 And I know I looked, I looked at Chesley as well. 00:10:23.960 --> 00:10:24.580 It's like, it's funny. 00:10:24.660 --> 00:10:27.200 I'm, I'm actually feeling like those same questions. 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:33.420 I don't know what it means either, but we need to work together to do this because it's one thing to be two crazy people. 00:10:33.700 --> 00:10:36.700 It's one thing to be like two crazy people who have COVID by the way. 00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:38.980 Uh, but if we could figure out how to, 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:49.940 bring that together and work together, which is really our heart here with the digital church network and some other things is to kind of bring the crazies together and get them to work through that. 00:10:49.940 --> 00:10:59.460 So Chesley, even just talking digital church network, like maybe what's some of the, some of the appeal for you, what, what's your story in this and how you've kind of felt led to this moment? 00:10:59.820 --> 00:11:08.140 Yeah, I think, uh, you know, my story starts in a few years ago when I was like, what if the church didn't have a building? 00:11:08.140 --> 00:11:08.780 What would it look like? 00:11:08.780 --> 00:11:09.380 What would it look like? 00:11:09.540 --> 00:11:12.040 And then lo and behold, COVID happens. 00:11:12.040 --> 00:11:19.080 And I'm one of the guys that starts talking to you going, Hey, I'm not crazy, you know? 00:11:19.620 --> 00:11:30.040 And, uh, you know, we've been at this for about two years now and realizing because of the beauty of what digital platforms provide us. 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:39.580 There's this unique moment, I think, in our history here where we can be the ecclesia and diaspora simultaneously. 00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:44.220 Uh, we don't have to gather and then scatter. 00:11:44.420 --> 00:11:48.200 We can be gathered and scattered all at the same time. 00:11:48.500 --> 00:11:50.280 And for me, that's amazing. 00:11:50.280 --> 00:11:57.580 And I'm asking the questions of what does that do to maybe our institution and the way we've handled this in the past. 00:11:57.580 --> 00:12:07.660 And I think it might look in the future a lot more like a digital network than it does a, uh, than it does the typical church building. 00:12:07.720 --> 00:12:13.660 So that way we're all the church and, uh, we're all part of the same community all at the same time. 00:12:13.760 --> 00:12:27.920 Now, maybe that's a pipe dream of mine, but I could see worldwide, like the network makes the most sense in a, in a world where it's completely decentralized, decentralized and connected all at the same time. 00:12:27.920 --> 00:12:38.280 By the way, that actually may be my favorite podcast was, uh, Sam George talking about God moving through the, the diaspora and that we, we need the diaspora. 00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:39.340 We need the break. 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:45.120 We need that, that separation to allow God to transverse from one ecclesia to another ecclesia. 00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:50.400 It's, it's, it's the creating of the ecclesias that God moves through it. 00:12:50.400 --> 00:12:56.860 And so that was, that was a beautiful life altering conversation that just kind of happened on a whim. 00:12:56.940 --> 00:12:57.320 You can go back. 00:12:57.380 --> 00:12:59.220 We'll put a link in the show notes that, that podcast. 00:12:59.340 --> 00:13:02.760 So guys, listen, we're literally, I'm literally titling this, this podcast. 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:07.100 Uh, if COVID doesn't kill us, we're launching a digital church network. 00:13:07.580 --> 00:13:09.580 Congratulations to episode 200 here. 00:13:09.860 --> 00:13:12.400 Uh, and, and so, so here we go with that. 00:13:12.440 --> 00:13:13.180 Well, let's, let's do this. 00:13:13.260 --> 00:13:16.580 Let's kind of like work through the framework here, uh, in this conversation. 00:13:16.800 --> 00:13:18.600 What does a digital network do? 00:13:18.980 --> 00:13:32.460 Um, you know, that, to be honest, that was, I can remember early on having a conversation with other network guys, people who run physical networks and saying, Hey, uh, so I feel like God's leading me to, to run a, a network for digital churches, but I'll be honest. 00:13:32.460 --> 00:13:34.480 I have no clue what you actually do. 00:13:34.660 --> 00:13:38.600 Can you, can you tell me like what you do so I can figure out how to apply that digitally? 00:13:38.740 --> 00:13:41.540 And so this is very much a, a learning thing for me. 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:49.740 Uh, but it's coming down towards being, uh, training, uh, helping with training, helping with apprenticing, uh, basically. 00:13:49.740 --> 00:14:02.740 And what I'm discovering is of those 200 conversations that I had, 95% of the people I were talking with had no sending organization, no denominational connection, no sending church. 00:14:02.740 --> 00:14:10.720 You know, a lot of times these meta people, they're alone in this and, and, and, and the, and the digital planters, they're alone in this. 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:16.200 And so it's, it's all about providing almost a community aspect for the digital churches. 00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:26.520 You know, I was talking about the, the woman today who, who, uh, with, uh, that was in Cape town and, and, and she stumbled on, uh, uh, one of the cohorts that, that we're, we're doing. 00:14:26.520 --> 00:14:31.420 And she was asking about the, you know, some, some funding resources towards that. 00:14:31.420 --> 00:14:42.940 Cause there was costs to the cohort and, uh, just being in South Africa, she couldn't afford it for whatever purpose, which was an interesting conversation about, about even the economy differences and how do we support globally. 00:14:42.940 --> 00:14:48.540 But really the thing that I was, was challenging her was, it was like, that's not actually a thing that's going to help you. 00:14:48.880 --> 00:14:50.700 This is the help that you need. 00:14:50.700 --> 00:14:59.400 And, and, and as I started talking to her, her eyes just lit up, you know, for me, it's, it's like, we want to try to figure out, you know, what is this? 00:14:59.420 --> 00:15:02.100 It's Proverbs 27, iron sharpening iron, right? 00:15:02.180 --> 00:15:04.780 Like that's, that's the biblical kind of parallel with that. 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:07.780 What does that look like in digital space? 00:15:07.900 --> 00:15:13.460 How can we get you connected with other digital pastors and meta pastors that are in the, in that space? 00:15:13.820 --> 00:15:16.260 Um, what lessons can you learn from each other? 00:15:16.340 --> 00:15:20.800 How can these ideas that you have, how can they get beat up? 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:22.860 How can they get formed better? 00:15:22.940 --> 00:15:25.640 How can they be iterated in such way? 00:15:25.640 --> 00:15:34.600 And who's helping you on that journey more often than not, what I'm discovering are digital pastors, digital planters, um, are, are alone in this. 00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:45.160 The ones that are on church staffs, they don't, they don't get the support or even the vision, um, with among their, their church teams towards digital, because there's so little true understanding beyond broadcasting. 00:15:45.580 --> 00:15:49.660 Really just that service on Sunday, which even just scratches the surface of that. 00:15:50.160 --> 00:16:02.660 I don't know, Chesley, as you're wrestling through some of this, like, what are the things that are exciting you as you're looking at like digital church, uh, network and, and really trying to be that resource, uh, for churches, for pastors, for planters? 00:16:02.660 --> 00:16:19.500 Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that I see is going to break through in the next few, um, iterations of what the church can be is probably this idea of five-fold making its full-fledged return. 00:16:20.060 --> 00:16:31.540 Um, when you look at, uh, the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher in the American church, uh, it's been very much about the pastor and the teacher. 00:16:32.200 --> 00:16:35.720 Um, we, we celebrate those two. 00:16:36.040 --> 00:16:51.680 We don't have a nice box to put, uh, the apostle, the prophet, and the evangelist in, but when I'm looking at the metaverse, pastors aren't the one to go into that because pastors are the ones that are about the in, not so much about the out. 00:16:52.060 --> 00:17:01.600 And so the out function of the church is always about reaching to the margins and the metaverse is absolutely the margin. 00:17:01.740 --> 00:17:09.400 So what we're seeing probably everybody that we're calling pastors that are in the metaverse aren't actually gifted as pastors. 00:17:10.220 --> 00:17:14.820 They're probably more gifted as evangelists for the most part. 00:17:14.820 --> 00:17:27.420 I think there's some apostolic people there, but, um, what I noticed is you got guys like Jade Earhart that on Twitch, you guy, you got guys that are in the metaverse that I don't even know. 00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:43.160 Maybe Pastor Brock is one of them, um, but they're in these places where, you know, they are in a culture that is inundated by sin and inundated by, uh, people that don't know God at all. 00:17:43.420 --> 00:17:51.460 And one of the things that makes them come alive is that they're able to talk about Jesus to a place that has never heard of him. 00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:56.720 And so the metaverse is one of those areas that to me is the mark of an evangelist. 00:17:57.060 --> 00:18:06.680 Now, if you look at scripture, what happens after the evangelist goes and saturates the place with the gospel, that's when the apostles would come in and begin to organize. 00:18:07.080 --> 00:18:14.900 And so I'm beginning to see some of that coming right behind these guys on the edges and what happens when you start organizing? 00:18:15.100 --> 00:18:22.900 Well, there's a prophetic back backing that needs to happen because there's a lot of spiritual warfare, a lot of lies that come in, in the middle of this. 00:18:23.020 --> 00:18:28.800 They're going to be arguments because we're, we're disrupting the way, uh, the institutional church has formed. 00:18:28.980 --> 00:18:42.720 And so what we're going to see is we're going to see the, uh, in my estimation, we're going to see the emergence of the three out of the five gifts that have been relegated to the back of the bus in American Christianity. 00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:45.860 We're going to begin to see those emerge again. 00:18:45.860 --> 00:18:47.160 And that really excites me. 00:18:47.460 --> 00:18:48.160 Yeah, totally. 00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:53.040 And completely that to me, that's one of the things that I think excites me the most as well. 00:18:53.360 --> 00:19:00.400 Uh, seeing, you know, within the physical church where Stadia would, would tell you this. 00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:14.780 It's one of the things that I, one of the first lessons that, that I learned there, like the, the typical planter that's planting churches within a physical environment, you know, Stadia calls them as the characteristics of being a catalytic leader. 00:19:15.120 --> 00:19:20.320 Uh, this is the type of person, the characteristic, they're going to stand on stage in front of thousands of people. 00:19:20.460 --> 00:19:31.120 They're going to say a message and they're able to communicate and lead people towards action from a physical stage or, or platform. 00:19:31.120 --> 00:19:40.180 And, and, and what's, what's fascinating is in the typical physical environments, uh, the catalytic leader is very high. 00:19:40.760 --> 00:19:49.120 Um, it's a very high skill or quality for people that are leading in these large physical and even, even small physical environments. 00:19:49.120 --> 00:19:58.580 I mean, to stand up in front of 250 people and get them to change, like it takes a catalytic leader to even work in a smaller or a medium sized church. 00:19:58.800 --> 00:20:05.120 But what's interesting is that we all have influence, um, and we all can leverage that influence. 00:20:05.120 --> 00:20:07.040 Like for me, it's not one person. 00:20:07.040 --> 00:20:07.720 I've said this a lot. 00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:18.980 It's not one person standing behind a podium on a stage, exuding their spiritual gifts, their, their, their, their, you know, their leadership in front of thousands of people. 00:20:19.120 --> 00:20:25.440 It's a much more interesting, and I think a much more beneficial, a much more healthy environment. 00:20:25.580 --> 00:20:29.920 If we're all those thousands of people are exuding their spiritual gifts. 00:20:29.920 --> 00:20:36.160 If they're being the church to their tens, twenties, fifties, or even, even a hundreds. 00:20:36.320 --> 00:20:46.380 Like if we cannot turn our, our rooms instead into a place where they were consuming product, but we're exuding a product for others, we're, we're being the church for others. 00:20:46.460 --> 00:20:50.680 Man, it's such a great opportunity to multiply into that. 00:20:50.840 --> 00:20:54.780 And, and, and I think this is a big thing that's missing within the current church today. 00:20:54.780 --> 00:21:05.460 And there's opportunities as we're seeing people, exodus from, from the church staffs, the, the, the great exodus of, of, of people leaving the, the pastorship. 00:21:05.460 --> 00:21:13.620 You know, we've talked about this even with Ray DeArmis in, uh, as, as a, as a prime example, here's a guy, former, um, by the way, I should thank him for episode 200. 00:21:13.740 --> 00:21:14.300 Ray was phenomenal. 00:21:14.500 --> 00:21:16.020 Ray was the reason we started with episode one. 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:16.920 Oh my gosh, Ray. 00:21:16.940 --> 00:21:17.980 I can't believe I didn't mention you. 00:21:18.040 --> 00:21:19.460 I feel bad right now. 00:21:19.720 --> 00:21:25.900 Uh, well, I'm mentioning you here, so it pays off, but with, with Ray, like Ray walked away, Ray had a masters of divinity. 00:21:25.900 --> 00:21:33.720 He, he had literally, he spent, um, you know, graduate level time to get the degree to be that pastor. 00:21:34.320 --> 00:21:39.600 Um, and what Ray discovered is that, Hey, my mission field is not in the church building. 00:21:39.840 --> 00:21:42.440 His mission field is actually a hospital. 00:21:42.580 --> 00:21:44.640 That's where God's calling him to be. 00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:50.860 And he's going back to school to get the medical technician degree so that he can get assigned to a church. 00:21:50.860 --> 00:22:01.220 And so he's setting one master's degree aside and is reinserting himself back in to really go towards more of a co-vocational approach where he's going to have a job. 00:22:01.220 --> 00:22:06.000 And that job is going to be the mission field that he's actively searching in. 00:22:06.080 --> 00:22:22.800 And, and I think we're going to see more and more trends this way, moving away from catalytic leaders, but really what we start to see more in, in digital and meta churches are not people that have that high catalytic leader approach, but it's really more of a, of a relational approach. 00:22:22.800 --> 00:22:30.760 It's much more of a, a network approach where you're able to connect with different people, um, with that. 00:22:30.860 --> 00:22:36.720 And so like that relational strength plays very well in digital space. 00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:40.380 There are models that work for catalytic and we'll, we'll talk about some of that. 00:22:40.500 --> 00:22:48.920 I know Chesley's passionate about this influencer approach with that, but I guess my, my statement here would be, we have an opportunity to empower. 00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:57.420 Different types of people to do different types of people to do a different type of ministry through digital and meta methods. 00:22:57.640 --> 00:22:59.780 And that's really what, what excites me here. 00:22:59.900 --> 00:23:01.580 So what, what do we want to do here? 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:03.480 Here's really the nuts and bolts of this. 00:23:03.580 --> 00:23:09.260 We, we, through the digital church network, we're going to champion this meta and digital disciple making, 00:23:09.260 --> 00:23:17.480 how to utilize digital tools and, and meta tools to really start to pioneer in disciple making. 00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:20.620 I use that word intentionally multiplication towards that. 00:23:20.620 --> 00:23:25.700 We want to champion the idea of digital and meta as a mission field. 00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:33.500 Uh, the idea of utilizing digital tools to connect others with Jesus, or even to engage in the metaverse. 00:23:33.600 --> 00:23:36.680 You mentioned pastor Brock, pastor Brock's a great example of this. 00:23:36.760 --> 00:23:42.500 Somebody who is actively evangelizing, actively sharing Jesus in the metaverse state as well. 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:46.840 Like there should not be any controversy surrounded around the metaverse. 00:23:46.940 --> 00:23:50.660 You want to, you want to have controversy around the ecclesiology of a digital or a meta church. 00:23:50.760 --> 00:23:51.640 We can have that conversation. 00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:53.340 I get that metaverse. 00:23:53.460 --> 00:23:59.640 These first two discipling people, utilizing these tools, engaging with people in those communities for the purpose of Christ. 00:23:59.720 --> 00:24:02.300 Like that's not, that's not controversial. 00:24:02.540 --> 00:24:04.500 Chesley, let me, and you've got through King city. 00:24:04.660 --> 00:24:10.360 I mean, you're doing this, you're engaging with people, uh, through disciple making and through the mission field. 00:24:10.360 --> 00:24:17.100 Like tell me some stories, tell me some engagement points, maybe even some challenges that, that you're facing here in that space. 00:24:17.460 --> 00:24:17.620 Yeah. 00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:26.020 So one of the things that we're doing is we're using Brian Phipps is followers made, uh, leaders made what his company's called disciples made. 00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:31.360 And so we've got, uh, we've got groups from all over the country. 00:24:31.360 --> 00:24:34.140 I've got two in particular that I'm thinking of right now. 00:24:34.660 --> 00:24:48.780 Um, the, the leader of one of our followers made courses, uh, groups is basically, he lives in Arkansas, whereas the majority of his students live in Arizona where I'm at. 00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:51.860 And then I've got another group that is doing recovery. 00:24:52.560 --> 00:24:54.260 Um, they're all over the map. 00:24:54.380 --> 00:24:58.540 They're in New Mexico, Arizona, Missouri, North Carolina. 00:24:59.080 --> 00:25:02.880 So we are, we're able to come together all over. 00:25:03.100 --> 00:25:09.280 I think the difference for me is, uh, I'm not so much on a platform, uh, like a gaming platform. 00:25:09.280 --> 00:25:15.540 We connect with people on Facebook, but I use it more as my, uh, nice to meet you. 00:25:15.600 --> 00:25:17.780 Let's go on a date rather than get married. 00:25:18.440 --> 00:25:24.960 Uh, once we have a relationship and we're trying to push you to face to face as much as possible. 00:25:25.460 --> 00:25:29.420 So like a zoom, like we're, we're doing right now. 00:25:29.420 --> 00:25:32.020 I love, I love seeing people's expressions. 00:25:32.660 --> 00:25:41.380 Um, and these guys, they love each other and they go and try to figure out a way to, uh, hang out with each other offline as well as online. 00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:49.120 And so we're seeing, we're seeing that happen, uh, from people all over the country that want to be a part of these groups. 00:25:49.120 --> 00:26:02.900 So digitally we're finding people, you know, on social media, and then we bring them in through a marketing funnel into our community, which is own space rather than rented space on social. 00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:08.980 So that's, you know, that's a nice, fast snapshot of some of the things that we're doing at the moment. 00:26:09.820 --> 00:26:09.900 Yeah. 00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:15.680 I love all of this, by the way, we're going to put, um, we're going to go through some notes and stuff here and kind of talking through this. 00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:22.520 We're going to put this in the show notes of the church digital, and, and we're going to put all this on digital church.network. 00:26:22.620 --> 00:26:24.860 We're going to go ahead and launch out a landing page. 00:26:25.120 --> 00:26:40.900 Uh, and so if you're, if you're interested in more information, want to be a part of this, maybe if you're interested in supporting and being, being one of our supporters, this, this nonprofit is, is we're literally launching this and, and building it while the plane's flying and figuring a lot of this out. 00:26:40.900 --> 00:26:51.220 And, and, and, and, and others are going to be so instrumental, uh, in that process, but yeah, feel, feel free to check out the social show notes or digital church.network. 00:26:51.220 --> 00:27:00.920 And so obviously digital as, and meta as that disciple making tool, engaging in that mission field, getting face to face as quickly as possible. 00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:10.060 That, that is always the challenge, uh, and so I have Chesley's heart spot on there, uh, and even this idea of doing, and this may be a little more controversial. 00:27:10.060 --> 00:27:10.420 Okay. 00:27:10.600 --> 00:27:19.000 We're doing church in the digital and, and, and, and meta space and we're encouraging, uh, a, you know, call it essentially ecclesiology in that space. 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:29.540 You know, we've talked in the past, Ed Love, uh, thank you, Ed, with the Wesleyan church, redefining the ecclesiology for the Wesleyan denomination because the Wesleyan church wasn't seeing multiplication. 00:27:29.540 --> 00:27:32.300 Why is Wesleyan church not seeing denomination, uh, multiplication? 00:27:32.980 --> 00:27:37.260 Because there are issues within their ecclesiology that are preventing it. 00:27:37.260 --> 00:27:39.560 And by the way, those issues aren't biblical. 00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:45.060 They were opinions that were just placed in as, as fact over the decades. 00:27:45.320 --> 00:27:46.760 They're bureaucratic or institutional. 00:27:47.220 --> 00:27:47.340 Yeah. 00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:56.520 I mean, listen, I'm not, I'm not going to point fingers, but all I can say is, uh, the committee that the Wesleyan denomination put in place realized, hey, they're there. 00:27:56.620 --> 00:28:03.720 These things are limiting us and we need to move past them or figure out how to re-imagine them. 00:28:03.720 --> 00:28:07.440 And by the way, that Wesleyan conversation had nothing to do with digital. 00:28:08.080 --> 00:28:25.160 Uh, and so for us to come in and to re-imagine some of that ecclesiology, to experiment with some things, to understand these universes, these meta verses, these, uh, tools, these digital communities better, uh, and to re-imagine the ecclesiology mapped in there. 00:28:25.420 --> 00:28:26.380 Uh, that's our hope. 00:28:26.680 --> 00:28:32.240 Uh, and so we want to help planters, uh, that are wanting to re-imagine in that space. 00:28:32.380 --> 00:28:32.860 Yeah. 00:28:33.060 --> 00:28:39.160 I mean, obviously disciple making a mission field, uh, on a digital platform, that is not controversial. 00:28:39.160 --> 00:28:44.140 We'll go where people are going and we'll do anything short of sin to reach people for Jesus. 00:28:44.380 --> 00:28:57.980 I think when we look at the church as a whole and we're asking ourselves, what does something, uh, look like, what does it have to have the minimal characteristics of what makes a church a church? 00:28:58.380 --> 00:29:01.500 That's when it becomes, uh, uh, uh, controversy. 00:29:02.140 --> 00:29:05.240 And I think that's probably the next war. 00:29:05.480 --> 00:29:06.580 We have the worship wars. 00:29:06.700 --> 00:29:18.940 I think the ecclesiology wars are coming because what we look like, what we look at is when you have the minimal essentials, which is devotion, community, and mission converged. 00:29:20.140 --> 00:29:21.600 We can do that online. 00:29:21.600 --> 00:29:26.840 Uh, and so now it becomes, okay, how do we nuance that out? 00:29:27.540 --> 00:29:29.440 And I think that's a tribal thing. 00:29:29.760 --> 00:29:34.480 I think that's a denominational community covenantal piece. 00:29:34.700 --> 00:29:41.820 And we agree on how we see that, but at the end of the day, we have these three pieces of community, devotion, and mission. 00:29:41.820 --> 00:29:46.760 And when those things are done online, I think Jesus might be in the center of it. 00:29:47.200 --> 00:29:49.480 And so I think that's the, that's the conversation. 00:29:49.620 --> 00:29:52.740 We're going to have a lot more in the upcoming years. 00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:55.100 A years is a great point there. 00:29:55.300 --> 00:30:04.500 I, I truly do believe that we, the big C church is not going to agree or embrace the idea of a digital and meta ecclesiology. 00:30:04.500 --> 00:30:06.340 I think, I think we're getting, it's going to be decades. 00:30:06.740 --> 00:30:08.560 I would love to go into Marshall McLuhan. 00:30:09.260 --> 00:30:11.700 So this is not a new idea. 00:30:12.520 --> 00:30:20.560 This is a man from the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan, who, if you're a marketer in the, in the marketplace, you know who he is. 00:30:20.620 --> 00:30:22.260 But if you're in the church world, you don't. 00:30:22.700 --> 00:30:29.220 But he was a Catholic and he was a language professor that saw what TV was doing to the young minds. 00:30:29.220 --> 00:30:37.980 And he said, by the time that the flower children, which were boomers, have their children, which are millennials, everything will have shifted. 00:30:38.860 --> 00:30:52.180 We will move from left brain, a left brain, a left brain acoustic society that's about auditory and logical learning to a right brain holistic approach to learning, which is about vision. 00:30:52.180 --> 00:30:57.600 And he said, the problems with that, that are going to occur, are here. 00:30:57.700 --> 00:31:02.720 It says McLuhan sees three trends dominating what he calls the global village. 00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:07.500 He coined that in the 60s before there was anything called the internet. 00:31:08.060 --> 00:31:20.580 And he said, these three are what's going to happen, decentralization, software prevailing, meaning information dominating technological hardware, and role playing rather than goal setting. 00:31:21.240 --> 00:31:28.340 These three pieces are changing the way we see the church as the church. 00:31:28.340 --> 00:31:39.240 The church in his mindset as a Catholic, although he has a different ecclesiology, what he saw was that now the church is one. 00:31:39.340 --> 00:31:47.380 It's one community, one body, not a hundred million different communities and bodies all over the planet. 00:31:47.380 --> 00:31:55.600 Now they can embody one essential group, one community like never before. 00:31:56.260 --> 00:31:59.180 And I think Marshall McLuhan in the 60s was onto this. 00:31:59.740 --> 00:32:09.320 Like we are going to obsolescence in the old way of doing ministry because we haven't understood what digital has caused us. 00:32:09.340 --> 00:32:19.960 Which is, I can be very close in a relationship with somebody in China right now. 00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:26.180 I can build a relationship where we're one in spirit, one in values, one in community. 00:32:26.560 --> 00:32:33.880 The only thing we're missing is physical proximity, but that's where the metaverse comes in. 00:32:34.300 --> 00:32:37.240 And that'll be 10 years down the 10, 20 years down the line. 00:32:37.240 --> 00:32:41.720 They're going to figure it out how to be in somebody's house without actually being in somebody's house. 00:32:42.040 --> 00:32:54.260 But what we're seeing is we're taking an old framework that is obsolete and we're trying to apply it to the digital platform, which is more holistic and not logical. 00:32:54.500 --> 00:32:57.540 So we've got to think from four sides instead of just one. 00:32:58.180 --> 00:33:09.240 And Marshall McLuhan in the 60s was picking up on this just when they had the TV, not including social media, digital platforms, the internet, and the internet of things. 00:33:09.860 --> 00:33:19.380 And just wait till we actually get hypersonic travel when we can physically be somewhere across the country in 30 minutes to an hour. 00:33:19.520 --> 00:33:23.500 It's going to shift everything we know to be true about humanity. 00:33:23.900 --> 00:33:27.280 We're going to have to do a reworking of our frameworks. 00:33:27.980 --> 00:33:29.740 And I think that's what's happening today. 00:33:29.840 --> 00:33:32.620 And we're going to continue to see it more down the line. 00:33:33.120 --> 00:33:36.860 And what's fascinating is, you know, thank you, Chesley. 00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:39.180 We'll put a link to the show notes for the book. 00:33:40.540 --> 00:33:42.500 God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 00:33:43.280 --> 00:33:45.780 Like, no one is questioning that. 00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:52.780 But our strategy needs to change because our strategy is how we, the church, engage with culture. 00:33:53.120 --> 00:33:55.860 Culture is shifting because things are advancing. 00:33:56.400 --> 00:34:04.680 We, the church, have to change how we are addressing culture, how we're connecting, what those strategy is. 00:34:04.680 --> 00:34:25.500 And so this is why having a fresher, this is why a book written 60 years ago, all of a sudden for the Catholic Church is so telling because he was already seeing some of these and was suggesting changes 60 years ago that need to be addressed today as the church. 00:34:25.500 --> 00:34:36.000 Because we're seeing something that he was, I don't want to say foretelling, something that he was forecasting, something that he was seeing coming in the future is the reality of where we are now. 00:34:36.580 --> 00:34:39.700 And similarly, we, church, we need to get ahead of that curve. 00:34:40.380 --> 00:34:45.000 The experimental people that want to do digital church should not be ridiculed. 00:34:45.080 --> 00:34:46.260 They should be encouraged. 00:34:47.280 --> 00:34:51.180 They need to be trained on the ecclesiology. 00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:53.280 What does the Bible call the church to be? 00:34:53.280 --> 00:35:04.220 And let's not box you in, but let's encourage you to reimagine what that can be biblically and what that can be in the metaverse and what that can be. 00:35:04.560 --> 00:35:07.580 What does a biblical church look like in the metaverse? 00:35:07.720 --> 00:35:08.380 Great question. 00:35:08.840 --> 00:35:11.180 Let's explore that and dig into that. 00:35:11.600 --> 00:35:13.860 And so here's where we've been talking about it. 00:35:13.860 --> 00:35:21.420 The environments that we want to pioneer this decentralized, organic, almost micro church approach. 00:35:21.880 --> 00:35:25.860 We want to see this happen in the metaverse. 00:35:26.740 --> 00:35:29.060 You know, DJ Soto doing the thing that he's doing. 00:35:29.580 --> 00:35:33.320 Jay, Pastor Brock, Jay Poe with Cornerstone VR. 00:35:33.560 --> 00:35:37.140 Stewart doing what he's doing through Lakeland VR. 00:35:37.520 --> 00:35:40.300 Like there are so many people. 00:35:40.440 --> 00:35:41.380 I say so many. 00:35:41.680 --> 00:35:45.680 Oh, at least a dozen that I know of that are doing this in the metaverse. 00:35:45.740 --> 00:35:46.560 That's a lot of people. 00:35:47.020 --> 00:35:48.800 I mean, OK, yeah, we need a lot more. 00:35:49.480 --> 00:35:59.200 And what's what's interesting is I'm having conversations now internationally and in multiple continents about what metaverse church can look like. 00:35:59.200 --> 00:36:03.620 And for we, man, I want to help platform people. 00:36:04.340 --> 00:36:05.140 I don't want to. 00:36:05.240 --> 00:36:05.580 It's funny. 00:36:05.680 --> 00:36:08.980 Like the model of power has shifted. 00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:10.400 It's shifted away. 00:36:10.520 --> 00:36:13.200 There was a season where power was all about control. 00:36:13.460 --> 00:36:25.340 The more control that I have, the more that I can micromanagement you, the more pawns and pieces that I own and that I can dictate influence over. 00:36:25.480 --> 00:36:27.720 That's where power is from. 00:36:28.380 --> 00:36:30.180 And so but I think that model is shifted. 00:36:30.180 --> 00:36:37.560 I think we're moving more towards a a releasing and an empowering model where it's not about controlling. 00:36:38.240 --> 00:36:42.280 It's about equipping and multiplying into. 00:36:42.620 --> 00:36:48.160 And so with the digital church network, we want to multiply what's happening in the metaverse. 00:36:48.220 --> 00:36:54.180 And we want to start to equip and empower others to be churches in the metaverse. 00:36:54.880 --> 00:36:58.520 But in addition to to metaverse, there's there's digital now. 00:36:58.620 --> 00:37:00.200 Look, I know I would even say this. 00:37:00.240 --> 00:37:03.640 I think that right now I'm going to list out four silos. 00:37:03.940 --> 00:37:07.760 And in 2022, I think they're silos in 2025. 00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:09.960 I don't think these are silos. 00:37:09.960 --> 00:37:21.880 I think it's all one melded idea because I think the metaverse is going to bleed into the digital space and augmented reality is going to bleed into physical. 00:37:22.640 --> 00:37:32.140 And all of a sudden, you know, all of this is really going to be thousands of shades of gray, more than distinct areas that we're trying to highlight. 00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:43.600 It's it's a much more nuanced conversation moving forward because you've got the idea of the metaverse, the virtual reality, the augmented reality, the avatar communities that exist. 00:37:43.980 --> 00:38:00.940 But in addition to that, you've also got the idea of digital communities where it's more like Facebook and it's more like social media and it's and it's helping planters, potential pastors, individuals understand their circle of influence that they may have. 00:38:00.940 --> 00:38:13.840 Maybe it's a bunch of college roommates that are that are connecting together via IG messenger or maybe it's somebody that wants to maybe do something in the tick tock realm and to really build out a digital church in that space. 00:38:13.840 --> 00:38:26.900 But it's people that are using non-avatar communities to start to build a community that can point people to Jesus and eventually point people towards a church in that space. 00:38:26.900 --> 00:38:35.320 Just with those two, Chesley, is anything virtual, you know, the metaverse communities, the digital, anything kind of jumping out at you? 00:38:35.720 --> 00:38:40.320 Yeah, I think just thinking through the methods that will work there. 00:38:40.540 --> 00:38:44.180 I learned something, non-avatar communities. 00:38:44.360 --> 00:38:46.400 I'm like, yes, that's exactly what I do. 00:38:47.120 --> 00:39:03.180 You know, so I don't think it'll take till 2025, but I'm looking at meta, digital and fidgetal, and I see very much an ability to, you need training. 00:39:03.180 --> 00:39:17.780 You need to be able to be sent out as a missionary, and we're all looking for what the method should look like in being able to pull that off because we're trying to create a bunch of different communities that are all attached to one community. 00:39:18.560 --> 00:39:32.420 And I think what Kansas City Underground is doing with the decentralized model and hubs are probably the best way to connect those as I'm hearing what you're talking about. 00:39:32.420 --> 00:39:34.560 Yeah, I'm excited about the KC model. 00:39:34.680 --> 00:39:37.060 We're going to dig into that here in just a little bit. 00:39:37.120 --> 00:39:46.140 So we've got this idea that with the environments, the metaverse, the digital, he mentioned fidgetal, where it's this idea of, and we're borrowing the word from Stadia. 00:39:46.260 --> 00:39:47.260 Thank you very much, Stadia. 00:39:47.400 --> 00:39:50.040 They literally trademarked the word fidgetal church. 00:39:50.160 --> 00:39:55.100 What a great, well, I told them to, so it ended up working well, but I still get to use the word, which is exciting. 00:39:55.620 --> 00:40:05.880 So the idea of fidgetal, we're really trying to champion this idea of people utilizing digital tools, maybe even to create a physical community. 00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:29.380 So we're even looking at how a micro church would work in your physical neighborhood or in your workplace, but it's reinforced, it's re-infused, it's running off of a digital method of discipleship, or maybe it's a mixture of physical relationships and digital relationships and what that looks like. 00:40:29.380 --> 00:40:37.180 And so once again, all of this is different shades of gray, more than it is strong silos in one or the other, because it all kind of blends in. 00:40:37.460 --> 00:40:46.280 And that actually comes into play very much here as we get to this fourth category, metaverse, digital, physical, and then number four, this influencer approach. 00:40:46.320 --> 00:40:49.980 And I know this is something Chesley's really passionate about with some of the stuff that he's doing. 00:40:50.080 --> 00:40:53.700 So Chesley, why don't you describe to us a little bit this idea here of the influencer? 00:40:53.700 --> 00:41:03.360 Yeah, what I have been seeing is the emergence of previously unknown people creating a community around a message. 00:41:03.660 --> 00:41:18.540 And that message can be anywhere from Charlie D'Amelio on TikTok, which is dancing to guys on YouTube that are playing, you know, playing World of Warcraft or, I mean, that's an old one. 00:41:18.540 --> 00:41:28.360 But Roblox is another one, you know, multiple types of communities around a message and people tend to follow messengers. 00:41:28.360 --> 00:41:34.260 Now, I think of Oprah Winfrey as being somebody that used to do it in just the TV age. 00:41:34.260 --> 00:41:46.240 But we have some kids that are, you know, 18, 19 years old that have millions of followers on TikTok, on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Snapchat. 00:41:46.920 --> 00:41:55.040 These guys are creating a following there where they can tell them, hey, be a part of who we are and, oh, buy my stuff. 00:41:55.720 --> 00:42:02.380 And I'm saying, what if you harness the power of that to create a church community? 00:42:02.880 --> 00:42:10.060 I'm watching, this is how the prevailing model of business is done online anyways. 00:42:10.680 --> 00:42:14.880 You create a personal brand that spreads a message. 00:42:15.120 --> 00:42:17.500 That message is usually built around a product. 00:42:17.860 --> 00:42:20.020 And you build a marketing funnel. 00:42:20.660 --> 00:42:30.260 Churches can do this and create a funnel into your community through discipleship or through development and coaching. 00:42:30.880 --> 00:42:33.880 I don't think very many people have learned how to do it. 00:42:34.300 --> 00:42:45.000 Some people have stumbled into it from the influencer side, just gaining a lot of notoriety and a lot of awareness around who they are and what their message is. 00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:55.260 But nobody has harnessed the marketing to create an actual community because nobody's thought about it before or hasn't, like, went mainstream with it. 00:42:55.700 --> 00:43:00.420 But you have to understand, like, there is pros and cons to every one of these models. 00:43:00.420 --> 00:43:06.280 With this one, I think will be the prevailing model moving forward for digital. 00:43:06.600 --> 00:43:08.140 And it can be in the meta. 00:43:08.300 --> 00:43:09.580 It can be in the digital sphere. 00:43:09.700 --> 00:43:12.640 It can be in the fidgetal sphere as well. 00:43:13.200 --> 00:43:15.800 It'll inundate every one of these. 00:43:16.220 --> 00:43:23.620 But it's the one that people will attach onto the most because it's the way to gain a community. 00:43:24.020 --> 00:43:30.520 It's just a matter on, you know, great power comes great responsibility. 00:43:31.200 --> 00:43:33.640 Oh, dude, way to play the Spider-Man card, man. 00:43:34.160 --> 00:43:36.220 With great power comes great responsibility. 00:43:37.500 --> 00:43:40.580 It's Uncle Ben is now rolling over in his proverbial grave. 00:43:40.740 --> 00:43:41.560 That's horrible. 00:43:41.620 --> 00:43:43.100 Yes, we're talking about church. 00:43:43.180 --> 00:43:44.440 And it is the same way. 00:43:44.760 --> 00:43:46.260 I mean, you can do something. 00:43:46.860 --> 00:43:48.880 I could think of a guy like Billy Graham. 00:43:49.280 --> 00:43:52.300 Man, he never harnessed this to build his own community. 00:43:52.440 --> 00:43:53.560 He built a bunch of others. 00:43:54.080 --> 00:43:58.460 And in a decentralized model, there's so much you could do to pull that off. 00:43:58.920 --> 00:44:02.080 Or you can go probably another direction. 00:44:02.320 --> 00:44:03.080 It's Mark Driscoll. 00:44:03.500 --> 00:44:08.000 Same guy, same amount of reach, powerful, talented. 00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:15.980 And we all know how the character flaws ended up coming in there and rooting out Mars Hill. 00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:19.280 And so this is dangerous and it's powerful. 00:44:19.280 --> 00:44:28.360 But I think it's the one that people are going to gravitate more towards once they understand you have the leverage to be able to build a community in it. 00:44:28.700 --> 00:44:29.720 So here's what we're doing. 00:44:29.720 --> 00:44:36.860 If you are interested in learning more about these, and we're going to continue on the podcast here, but just a commercial break because I can. 00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:55.300 If you're interested in being part of groups as we're starting to ramp up trainings and resources centered around how to be an organic, decentralized expression of church in the metaverse, in digital communities. 00:44:55.300 --> 00:45:01.660 With a digital approach or even this influencer model of what he's talking about in these types of environments. 00:45:02.180 --> 00:45:03.220 Man, we want to hear from you. 00:45:03.440 --> 00:45:05.360 Swing over to digitalchurch.network. 00:45:06.360 --> 00:45:08.400 Digitalchurch.network. 00:45:08.820 --> 00:45:11.180 And so on that page, there's a landing page. 00:45:11.260 --> 00:45:13.320 The link's in the show notes for this as well. 00:45:13.680 --> 00:45:16.920 And so you can connect with us and we want to have conversations. 00:45:16.920 --> 00:45:18.640 We're going to start cohorts. 00:45:18.820 --> 00:45:34.840 We're linking together discipleship processes that are influenced by the Kansas City Underground, Rob Wagner, some other partners that we're working with and individuals that are helping us to really create a digital disciple making process. 00:45:34.840 --> 00:45:38.820 That's going to help you get started on this journey. 00:45:38.820 --> 00:45:42.600 And so Chesley, with his influencer approach, is breathing into it. 00:45:42.600 --> 00:45:52.360 We're already talking with leaders about leading some of these cohorts that are very familiar with the individual environments that we're talking about here. 00:45:52.820 --> 00:45:54.420 And we want to create some prototypes. 00:45:54.660 --> 00:45:57.440 We want to create success stories. 00:45:57.980 --> 00:45:59.120 You know, it's interesting. 00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:07.100 The lady that I was just talking with this morning, she's interested in meta churches in Cape Town, South Africa. 00:46:07.700 --> 00:46:11.060 And she's like, Jeff, I want to be a huge influence. 00:46:11.060 --> 00:46:21.620 I want to understand this for myself so that I can turn around and I can help churches in Cape Town understand the power of the metaverse and start to build into those. 00:46:21.840 --> 00:46:26.060 And my answer to her was, yes, please, let's let's let's bring you in. 00:46:26.100 --> 00:46:37.360 Let's have some of these conversations so that you can understand the power of a metaverse church and that you can be platformed to help others understand the metaverse church. 00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:46.040 I don't in Cape Town, South Africa, like I don't I don't know that I gain any brand recognition or award by platforming her in Cape Town. 00:46:46.160 --> 00:46:51.520 But I do see kingdom benefit as a result of what's happening, even on the other side of the country. 00:46:51.520 --> 00:46:54.400 And so I'm interested in having those conversations. 00:46:54.400 --> 00:46:58.300 You know, my plan wasn't to go and open it up global, at least in 22. 00:46:58.540 --> 00:46:59.720 But hey, why not? 00:47:00.040 --> 00:47:00.760 Wherever you are. 00:47:00.840 --> 00:47:04.720 And I've had conversations, like I've said, with people all over the country, all over the planet. 00:47:05.240 --> 00:47:16.020 And so if you're interested in really getting serious with this from the guy in Saskatchewan to the to the guy in freaking Philippines, fill up in the Philippines. 00:47:16.020 --> 00:47:17.280 I'm talking to you right now. 00:47:17.340 --> 00:47:25.800 If you're interested in being a part of this, swing over to digitalchurch.network. 00:47:25.800 --> 00:47:28.940 I had so many domains just about come out of my mouth right then. 00:47:29.020 --> 00:47:29.720 They were all wrong. 00:47:29.920 --> 00:47:32.500 But the right domain is digitalchurch.network. 00:47:33.280 --> 00:47:33.820 Hey, listen. 00:47:34.220 --> 00:47:41.440 And like I said, what we're doing is we're partnering this up with we're going through some already established methods. 00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:52.640 And a lot of what we're doing, Chesley and I were actually with Rob Wagner, we went up to Kansas City and spent maybe three, four days up in the KC area. 00:47:53.340 --> 00:47:57.860 Actually going through one of their intensives through KC Underground, meeting with their team. 00:47:58.180 --> 00:48:09.740 Also spent a lot of time, you know, individually, just kind of whiteboarding through some stuff digitally with with their team and brainstorming with some others kind of with that. 00:48:09.880 --> 00:48:10.120 Brian. 00:48:10.880 --> 00:48:11.680 Oh, my gosh. 00:48:11.740 --> 00:48:14.180 I'm blanking on Brian Phipps. 00:48:14.580 --> 00:48:15.860 Brian Phipps was where I was going. 00:48:15.960 --> 00:48:17.160 Brian Johnson was in my head. 00:48:17.240 --> 00:48:19.660 Both Brian's we talked with and yeah, others. 00:48:20.300 --> 00:48:25.560 But, you know, and there's a there's a method that that's involved that that I really like. 00:48:25.600 --> 00:48:30.040 And it's the organizing identities is kind of the structure of what they're going through. 00:48:30.120 --> 00:48:34.660 And I know, Chesley, you're far more of the expert on Rob's system than I am. 00:48:34.660 --> 00:48:39.520 But you want to maybe highlight some of those organizing entities and maybe how that ties into digital? 00:48:39.920 --> 00:48:42.760 Yeah, we all know expert means I'm only like two steps ahead. 00:48:42.760 --> 00:48:47.200 So in 2022, expert would be one step ahead. 00:48:47.320 --> 00:48:48.140 That's still an expert. 00:48:48.280 --> 00:48:49.380 One step ahead. 00:48:49.440 --> 00:48:49.940 There we go. 00:48:50.300 --> 00:48:50.500 Yeah. 00:48:50.620 --> 00:48:52.340 So missionary leaders. 00:48:52.700 --> 00:48:57.760 So these guys are missionaries where they live, work, learn or play. 00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:01.940 And obviously in 2022, we play online. 00:49:02.420 --> 00:49:07.560 So we have the ability to become missionaries where we live, work, learn or play. 00:49:07.560 --> 00:49:12.760 Now, missionaries may the word missionary may scare you a little bit. 00:49:12.840 --> 00:49:13.280 That's OK. 00:49:13.620 --> 00:49:14.280 That's all right. 00:49:14.780 --> 00:49:22.980 What we want you to be is somebody that can take the message of Jesus to your friends and your network of relationships. 00:49:22.980 --> 00:49:38.220 And so the first organizing identity for the undergrounds model is training regular, normal people to take the gospel to their network of relationships. 00:49:38.220 --> 00:49:39.480 So they call them missionary leaders. 00:49:39.480 --> 00:49:59.240 The second one is as these missionary leaders go and saturate their networks of relationships with the gospel, the Holy Spirit, we believe, activates in that network and creates a smaller community of people that are coming to Jesus and wanting to be more like him. 00:49:59.780 --> 00:50:07.220 When that happens, the missionary leader is beginning to take them and huddle them and say, hey, there's more. 00:50:07.520 --> 00:50:08.820 Let me show you how to do that. 00:50:08.920 --> 00:50:15.080 And out of that emerges emerges what the Kansas City Underground calls a micro church. 00:50:15.320 --> 00:50:21.980 Now, these micro churches are extended spiritual families that are on the mission of Jesus together. 00:50:22.120 --> 00:50:38.440 So they are learning to care for one another, pray for one another, become family with each other, and then help each one of them find their masterpiece mission that God has placed on the inside of them, has wired them for. 00:50:38.440 --> 00:50:46.700 Through their gifts, their passions, their story, and through that, they will begin to become a missionary leader themselves. 00:50:47.020 --> 00:51:07.220 But when you have tons of missionary leaders that come out of the missionary leaders that have planted the gospel and created micro churches, you're going to need a training hub, a team of people that will begin to train new people that want to be a part of this decentralized network. 00:51:07.220 --> 00:51:37.200 As it grows and becomes more viral. 00:51:37.200 --> 00:51:45.120 These micro churches getting together, sharing your relationship and community with each other and sharing what we would call eldership. 00:51:45.280 --> 00:52:01.920 So these are enclosed communities that are so that they can care for each other so that they can care for, love one another, train each other while the hub can focus on training and sending and equipping like a missions agency would. 00:52:01.920 --> 00:52:17.900 So those are the four organizing leaders, missionary leaders, missionary leaders, missionary leaders, and then as the hub creates more and more of those micro church and missionary leaders, you're going to need the collective. 00:52:17.900 --> 00:52:29.740 So I believe that as the underground grows larger and larger, you're going to see more and more of those collectives, even in Kansas City. 00:52:29.820 --> 00:52:43.420 And with the idea of digital, there's a possibility that you have a collective in Twitch and you have a collective in Facebook and you have a collective and maybe you have tens of collectives in those and one hub for each one of those. 00:52:43.660 --> 00:52:54.160 And they're all decentralized network that builds a community that is all for each other and being missionaries on each one of these digital platforms. 00:52:54.160 --> 00:52:57.160 Yeah, love, love, love all of that. 00:52:57.400 --> 00:53:03.580 And what it's, it's interesting for me, it's this idea of like a, of, of a network of, of networks. 00:53:03.580 --> 00:53:06.200 We're, we're not wanting to control individuals. 00:53:06.200 --> 00:53:12.700 There are supports, there's, there are standards as minimal as possible, but standards that that'll be in place with that. 00:53:12.700 --> 00:53:18.800 But, you know, I'm actually reflecting back on, um, what's funny, we've, we've been talking people's names, dropping names. 00:53:18.800 --> 00:53:29.720 Jake Earhart, uh, recently had a conversation with Jake and, uh, and, and, and he was like, yeah, I'm, I'm actually working on multi multiplying myself into other, uh, streamers. 00:53:29.720 --> 00:53:41.120 Like he is creating, discipling, growing, multiplying streamers, um, that, that are flying under the, the new, uh, I'm sorry, uh, love clan banner that, that he's creating. 00:53:41.120 --> 00:53:43.500 And, and that to me, that's awesome. 00:53:43.500 --> 00:53:47.700 Like a digital planters, once we get it figured out, we need to be multiplying. 00:53:47.700 --> 00:53:55.460 And even if we don't have it figured it out, we still should be multiplying and letting others help us work through some of the problems that, that may be existing. 00:53:56.120 --> 00:54:07.100 And that's really, I mean, it's part of this idea of, of, of, of the, of the hubs where we're establishing and then growing and expanding into other, uh, areas and, and regions like this. 00:54:07.400 --> 00:54:15.680 I had someone tell me, I had, uh, um, uh, uh, influential leader here within, uh, the Western church, definitely global. 00:54:15.680 --> 00:54:22.140 Uh, I would draw, I'm not going to drop names on this, but if I did well known, he's been a guest on the show and, uh, one of my favorite guests on the show. 00:54:22.480 --> 00:54:23.560 Anyway, I've set it up. 00:54:23.580 --> 00:54:23.920 It's weird. 00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:25.080 I just need to tell this story. 00:54:25.340 --> 00:54:27.980 I told, I was talking to him about this idea of the digital church network. 00:54:28.540 --> 00:54:33.660 And, um, and, and he said to me, he says, Jeff, you know, if this thing works, you're bigger than the Catholic church. 00:54:34.560 --> 00:54:36.740 And, uh, I, you know, I'll be honest. 00:54:36.820 --> 00:54:39.940 I, that I thought had not come to my mind at that level. 00:54:40.020 --> 00:54:47.740 Uh, but the idea of an organic movement, uh, decentralized, empowering spread at a global level. 00:54:48.220 --> 00:54:50.340 Um, yeah, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. 00:54:50.440 --> 00:54:52.120 Maybe God blesses this. 00:54:52.220 --> 00:54:55.020 Maybe it, it grows into, into, into something else. 00:54:55.080 --> 00:54:55.960 Time will tell. 00:54:55.960 --> 00:54:57.680 And we'll see God in that. 00:54:58.120 --> 00:55:03.000 Um, the, the larger question is more of how do we structure? 00:55:03.160 --> 00:55:07.700 How do we, uh, support something that grows at that level? 00:55:07.740 --> 00:55:12.600 The, the support model of a 50 church or a hundred church network is going to look different 00:55:12.600 --> 00:55:15.580 than a 500 church or a thousand church. 00:55:15.760 --> 00:55:22.600 And so now being able to adjust it in time, uh, and having some of the freedom to adapt towards 00:55:22.600 --> 00:55:25.300 this, meanwhile, praying that God blesses it. 00:55:25.540 --> 00:55:29.640 Uh, you know, Chesley, honestly, I think the best thing that we said really in this podcast 00:55:29.640 --> 00:55:34.400 was this idea of, um, is Jesus at the center of this? 00:55:34.660 --> 00:55:36.040 Uh, it's, it's very easy. 00:55:36.100 --> 00:55:38.680 And it's confession hour for me here with episode 200. 00:55:38.940 --> 00:55:44.320 It's very easy for me to become the control freak and just muscle things through. 00:55:44.640 --> 00:55:49.460 Uh, but what's, what's funny is that I've really felt in this season just, and we talked 00:55:49.460 --> 00:55:53.180 about it when one 99 is just, I need to let go. 00:55:53.380 --> 00:56:00.960 I need to release, um, because the release allows other people to, to influence decisions. 00:56:01.180 --> 00:56:08.680 Uh, but what's interesting is the release also allows God to move in that decision, uh, beyond 00:56:08.680 --> 00:56:11.080 what I am capable of doing. 00:56:11.080 --> 00:56:17.620 And so just like God moves through the diaspora, I feel like God moves when we release control. 00:56:18.060 --> 00:56:20.440 Uh, I just, I've had so many people in my life. 00:56:20.540 --> 00:56:23.680 Hey, Jeff, you want to kill a movement, try to control it. 00:56:23.940 --> 00:56:29.300 And so how do we release in that and, and, and, and really put God first front? 00:56:29.300 --> 00:56:35.340 Well, in a decentralized environment, control doesn't work like in a decentralized environment, 00:56:35.340 --> 00:56:40.160 control doesn't work in this new way, uh, of relating with each other. 00:56:40.160 --> 00:56:41.560 And this isn't just in church. 00:56:41.560 --> 00:56:43.420 This is the business sector. 00:56:43.500 --> 00:56:44.260 This is marketplace. 00:56:44.260 --> 00:56:52.660 This is the digitization of our entire existence as humans in a decentralized environment. 00:56:53.480 --> 00:56:57.980 Those that empower are the ones that people endear themselves to. 00:56:58.560 --> 00:57:04.640 If you can equip and release people, you will be, people will endear themselves to you because 00:57:04.640 --> 00:57:05.740 you empowered them. 00:57:05.900 --> 00:57:08.060 If you control them, they'll leave. 00:57:08.780 --> 00:57:10.080 They don't need it. 00:57:10.180 --> 00:57:11.040 They don't want it. 00:57:11.120 --> 00:57:12.720 It's not how they're wired anyways. 00:57:13.280 --> 00:57:16.500 That's the reason why we have the great resignation going on right now. 00:57:16.640 --> 00:57:20.040 The more you want to clamp down and control, the more people will say goodbye. 00:57:20.300 --> 00:57:20.780 I'm out. 00:57:21.680 --> 00:57:24.480 People endear themselves to those who empower them. 00:57:24.480 --> 00:57:27.080 And that is true now more than ever. 00:57:27.600 --> 00:57:28.720 And so what do we do? 00:57:28.880 --> 00:57:30.460 We have to do something different. 00:57:31.060 --> 00:57:35.940 We need to test, um, new wine skins and see if it can hold the new wine. 00:57:36.180 --> 00:57:39.040 And that's, that's literally where we are today. 00:57:39.220 --> 00:57:44.520 Uh, we are, um, I mean, quit my job, trying something different. 00:57:45.180 --> 00:57:51.620 Chesley's, uh, moving into a new environment as well, uh, with King city church and even porting 00:57:51.620 --> 00:57:54.080 into different areas in addition to that. 00:57:54.080 --> 00:57:57.540 And so, uh, both of us collectively along with the others. 00:57:57.540 --> 00:58:02.560 The volunteers that, that we're working with, uh, are, are championing this idea of starting 00:58:02.560 --> 00:58:05.060 a digital church network. 00:58:05.060 --> 00:58:09.560 And so if you are, and I'm going, shifting into commercial mode here, sorry. 00:58:09.980 --> 00:58:14.300 Uh, if you're interested in being a part of it, if you're interested in, in, in working 00:58:14.300 --> 00:58:18.460 with us and with being one of these planters, or maybe you're an established church or, 00:58:18.460 --> 00:58:24.980 or a, uh, uh, a digital church that wants to support it, uh, with, with manpower, 00:58:24.980 --> 00:58:28.200 with training power financially, we would love to hear from you. 00:58:28.200 --> 00:58:32.180 All the resources are going to be over at digitalchurch.network. 00:58:32.300 --> 00:58:34.940 You can, you can check out that link. 00:58:35.080 --> 00:58:41.000 You can also, uh, swing by, uh, the show notes here for this podcast, uh, and, and check that 00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:41.220 out. 00:58:41.320 --> 00:58:43.500 If you're on YouTube, we'll include the links there in the description. 00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:47.140 Uh, but would love to hear from you right now. 00:58:47.180 --> 00:58:52.880 We're looking for, um, honestly, we're looking for people to guinea pig on a jump in here, 00:58:52.940 --> 00:58:57.860 be part of this process and be that first wave, that prototype, uh, for the, for the meta 00:58:57.860 --> 00:59:02.260 environments, for the digital environments, for the fidgetal environments, and for the, 00:59:02.260 --> 00:59:07.180 um, uh, for that influencer approach that, that Chesley was talking about earlier. 00:59:07.680 --> 00:59:10.380 And, and, and just to be blunt, we're looking for financial support. 00:59:10.760 --> 00:59:15.220 Uh, and, and I can tell you that money's not going to Chesley or I, like, uh, I've, I've 00:59:15.220 --> 00:59:21.200 worked very hard to, uh, to set this network up so that, uh, at least in the year 2022, 00:59:21.200 --> 00:59:23.080 I am not pulling a salary from it. 00:59:23.080 --> 00:59:28.080 And, and I know similar, similarly Chesley has, has structured his life as such as well. 00:59:28.080 --> 00:59:33.740 And so the money is going into the ministry for championing this new wave of digital churches, 00:59:33.740 --> 00:59:39.720 uh, that's moving beyond just broadcasting a church service that is embraced and solidified 00:59:39.720 --> 00:59:46.460 with the idea of at least discipleship, uh, digital and meta spaces moving towards, uh, 00:59:46.460 --> 00:59:53.260 recognizing a mission field as well as recognizing a, um, that churches can exist in that space. 00:59:53.260 --> 00:59:57.420 And it's funny, even while I've been having this conversation, I received a text, uh, from 00:59:57.420 --> 01:00:02.060 Jason Poling, uh, JPO, uh, as I, I called him earlier, he's lead pastor of Cornerstone Church, 01:00:02.340 --> 01:00:08.520 small church, 300 people, Yuba city, Northern California, uh, the, they run a virtual reality 01:00:08.520 --> 01:00:08.980 church. 01:00:09.180 --> 01:00:15.780 And so they made an investment, an initial investment of two headsets, uh, for their church, 01:00:15.780 --> 01:00:16.800 a totaling $600. 01:00:17.620 --> 01:00:23.180 Um, they came back, they ran some of their numbers, uh, and as a result of that $600 investment, 01:00:23.180 --> 01:00:29.580 they have connected with over 8,000 people in the metaverse, um, sharing the gospel with 01:00:29.580 --> 01:00:31.600 them through their church services and things like that. 01:00:32.040 --> 01:00:36.520 Uh, and that's, that's not, that's the, maybe it's more of a meta church model as opposed 01:00:36.520 --> 01:00:41.440 to a, an organic model of what I'm describing with the decentralized, but that information 01:00:41.440 --> 01:00:49.360 just coming in now, uh, from, from 2021 tells you the power of what's happening in the metaverse 01:00:49.360 --> 01:00:52.040 of what can be with the metaverse. 01:00:52.040 --> 01:00:58.920 If we would really recognize meta as the mission field that it is, uh, and these are people that 01:00:58.920 --> 01:01:00.160 are not coming to your buildings. 01:01:00.160 --> 01:01:05.220 These are people that are, uh, in a completely different culture and environment than what 01:01:05.220 --> 01:01:06.240 you are. 01:01:06.440 --> 01:01:12.980 And so it's so important for us to engage in that space and to support people like JPO and, 01:01:12.980 --> 01:01:18.760 and to train people through this, through this network and provide resources that can help 01:01:18.760 --> 01:01:20.240 them, uh, address it. 01:01:20.240 --> 01:01:24.600 You know, one thing we didn't even mention earlier was like the, uh, when I, when I talk 01:01:24.600 --> 01:01:28.940 with people about digital or meta and some of the stuff that we're doing, there's a lot 01:01:28.940 --> 01:01:30.840 of, um, mental health concerns. 01:01:31.480 --> 01:01:35.080 Jeff, is it healthy to, to be in a church that exists only in the metaverse? 01:01:35.300 --> 01:01:40.080 Is, is it, is it healthy to not have a physical component that complements that? 01:01:40.540 --> 01:01:45.680 Um, you know, and, and to be honest, I mean, I have an opinion, uh, but one of the things 01:01:45.680 --> 01:01:50.100 that, that we're already doing here, uh, through, through the network is working with experts to 01:01:50.100 --> 01:01:51.860 try to come up with an answer. 01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:57.920 Cause I think right now it's so soon we don't, we don't have, um, scientific data on that. 01:01:58.080 --> 01:01:59.280 What we've got is opinions. 01:01:59.860 --> 01:02:04.720 Uh, and so how do we make sure that we're asking the right questions to get to the right 01:02:04.720 --> 01:02:05.100 place? 01:02:05.100 --> 01:02:06.740 How do we get with the experts that can? 01:02:06.740 --> 01:02:12.620 And so we're already asking that of mental health experts, um, and talking with soul care 01:02:12.620 --> 01:02:19.260 people that, that deal with, uh, you know, those types of, of issues and trying to come 01:02:19.260 --> 01:02:25.060 up with a solid answer that's grounded in fact, uh, that can help all of us as we're trying 01:02:25.060 --> 01:02:31.920 to figure out what's best to, to utilize how we yield, wield, uh, these digital and meta 01:02:31.920 --> 01:02:32.280 tools. 01:02:32.280 --> 01:02:37.260 So lots of this and more coming up here through this idea of, of the digital church network. 01:02:37.260 --> 01:02:41.500 So, hey, Chesley, as, as we're wrapping up here, landing the plane in any closing thoughts 01:02:41.500 --> 01:02:45.480 or anything on your side, man, no, we've hit a lot today. 01:02:45.860 --> 01:02:52.620 I would just, I would say this, um, as you begin to think in your own context, maybe you 01:02:52.620 --> 01:02:56.700 hear something that we have that you like, or maybe you're like appalled by over half 01:02:56.700 --> 01:02:57.080 of it. 01:02:57.280 --> 01:03:04.200 I'd say if you could take anything, do take this, that in this upcoming era of the church, 01:03:04.540 --> 01:03:07.340 control is going to be a four letter word. 01:03:07.840 --> 01:03:14.520 And so create an environment where you empower people and they will endear themselves to you. 01:03:14.700 --> 01:03:21.340 If you do not do that, you're going to continue to show, you're going to continue to lose people 01:03:21.340 --> 01:03:23.760 like we've been losing people through COVID. 01:03:24.380 --> 01:03:25.820 That is what I would say. 01:03:25.880 --> 01:03:30.720 We're in a different era of what the church can be and what the church is and what human 01:03:30.720 --> 01:03:36.800 existence is, and it is all based and predicated upon this decentralized environment. 01:03:37.360 --> 01:03:38.940 So take empowerment to heart. 01:03:39.500 --> 01:03:42.440 The killer of movements is control. 01:03:43.100 --> 01:03:48.060 And I, to me, I think this is actually the biggest obstacle in the church world today. 01:03:48.440 --> 01:03:54.560 Uh, and what's funny is the Jeff Reed from four years ago would have laughed in Jeffrey 01:03:54.560 --> 01:03:55.660 22's face. 01:03:55.980 --> 01:04:02.780 Um, and this is, this is, this has been a lesson that's been literally learned in the firestorm 01:04:02.780 --> 01:04:05.020 that has been COVID 2020. 01:04:05.360 --> 01:04:12.880 I pre even starting the podcast, like I just in that season, 2018, when I walked away from, 01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:18.380 from CF, it was, I was very much a centralized mindset guy. 01:04:18.800 --> 01:04:24.000 And what's interesting is just the more that I've seen the extremes of that model. 01:04:24.000 --> 01:04:29.960 The more that I realized that that model doesn't hold up in those extreme seasons. 01:04:30.140 --> 01:04:31.340 I do believe this. 01:04:31.340 --> 01:04:32.320 And I hinted at it earlier. 01:04:32.320 --> 01:04:36.120 I think there's, there's different methods, uh, for different seasons. 01:04:36.380 --> 01:04:40.860 Uh, and I think like how you run a church of a hundred is not going to run at a thousand 01:04:40.860 --> 01:04:42.280 or 5,000 or 10,000. 01:04:42.800 --> 01:04:46.860 Um, a church plant is not the way that you're going to run a 250 person church. 01:04:46.940 --> 01:04:50.460 There's different methods that, that change and adapt through it. 01:04:51.240 --> 01:04:51.720 Contextualizations. 01:04:51.900 --> 01:04:57.260 And, and I think that that contextualization is, is key, but the, the larger part of this 01:04:57.260 --> 01:05:04.400 is in, in pastors out there, cause this is not just about digital or, uh, organic expressions 01:05:04.400 --> 01:05:04.560 here. 01:05:04.600 --> 01:05:05.880 Let's talk established for a second. 01:05:06.280 --> 01:05:10.840 I really believe that you've got people in your church that are ready to do incredible 01:05:10.840 --> 01:05:11.540 things for God. 01:05:11.740 --> 01:05:14.500 And you've got them serving coffee Sunday morning, nine o'clock. 01:05:14.500 --> 01:05:19.720 Uh, now I don't want to disparage or discredit anything that's happening within your physical 01:05:19.720 --> 01:05:20.100 buildings. 01:05:20.100 --> 01:05:23.520 They're necessary, but there's also a mission field outside of that building. 01:05:23.640 --> 01:05:30.920 Uh, and sometimes service, uh, as in serving God gets replaced by serve us, serve the church 01:05:30.920 --> 01:05:31.400 building. 01:05:31.640 --> 01:05:37.300 Uh, and so my challenge for you is maybe there's an opportunity to start to empower other people 01:05:37.300 --> 01:05:46.320 to do the ministry that God's calling them to do as opposed to being the people that are doing the 01:05:46.320 --> 01:05:53.960 ministry or that are serving in a capacity that's just within your building, not the mission field 01:05:53.960 --> 01:05:59.720 that God's leading them to care a little bit, empower them, help them in what God's calling 01:05:59.720 --> 01:06:00.780 them to do. 01:06:00.780 --> 01:06:01.860 And maybe see what happens. 01:06:02.240 --> 01:06:04.380 Maybe it doesn't fit within your centralized model. 01:06:05.040 --> 01:06:07.160 Maybe it's an opportunity to plant and do something different. 01:06:07.500 --> 01:06:11.880 If an involving digital meta or fidgetal spaces, we want to be a part of that. 01:06:12.140 --> 01:06:17.480 Uh, and so feel free to send that conversation our way, digitalchurch.network. 01:06:17.560 --> 01:06:19.780 Well, Hey, listen, Chesley's not going away. 01:06:19.860 --> 01:06:25.140 Uh, we're going to take a little break here, um, with 201 for, for, for the month of February, 01:06:25.140 --> 01:06:25.580 really. 01:06:25.780 --> 01:06:32.080 We're going to dive into, uh, the digital, the, the, the, sorry, once again, the church digital 01:06:32.080 --> 01:06:33.680 network, I've got too many domains on the head. 01:06:33.760 --> 01:06:34.780 COVID fog's not good. 01:06:34.940 --> 01:06:35.860 I can normally keep it straight. 01:06:36.240 --> 01:06:37.220 Digital church network. 01:06:37.220 --> 01:06:42.320 We're going to highlight for the next couple weeks, uh, different podcasts, uh, through 01:06:42.320 --> 01:06:43.260 the digital church network. 01:06:43.260 --> 01:06:48.100 Next week, for example, we're highlighting Tom Pounder, who's been doing TCD sidekick 01:06:48.100 --> 01:06:48.740 podcasts. 01:06:48.780 --> 01:06:51.520 And we're going to bring in a conversation and we're going to bring in Tom, talk about 01:06:51.520 --> 01:06:54.040 it and highlight one of his podcast episodes. 01:06:54.480 --> 01:06:56.940 Chesley's coming up here, I think a couple of weeks after that. 01:06:57.080 --> 01:07:01.980 And so really the month of February, 2020, we're going to be highlighting different conversations 01:07:01.980 --> 01:07:06.660 that, that are centered around a lot of this podcast network, uh, Andy Mage as well, John 01:07:06.660 --> 01:07:09.740 Pyle and giving an opportunity to explore some of that. 01:07:10.220 --> 01:07:15.680 And then we're going to kick off season three of the church digital podcast in, in, uh, March, 01:07:15.680 --> 01:07:22.340 which is going to be Chesley Lundy and I really digging in to the philosophy that's centered 01:07:22.340 --> 01:07:23.760 around this digital church network. 01:07:23.760 --> 01:07:26.920 We were doing a podcast takeover. 01:07:27.040 --> 01:07:31.740 The digital church network is, uh, and, and so we're going to really spend season three 01:07:31.740 --> 01:07:37.460 focusing bit by bit on, on the philosophies and the strategies and maybe some of the background 01:07:37.460 --> 01:07:41.580 stories centered around the idea of the digital church network. 01:07:41.580 --> 01:07:46.260 And so once again, uh, if you have any questions on digital church network, feel free to find 01:07:46.260 --> 01:07:50.720 me on social media, send me an email, Jeff at the church digital, uh, all that information 01:07:50.720 --> 01:07:58.000 will be in the podcast show notes, or you can hit me up on, um, digital church.network. 01:07:58.000 --> 01:08:00.580 So this has been an awesome experience. 01:08:00.660 --> 01:08:07.300 I cannot think of any better conversation to wrap up episode 200 than, uh, with you Chesley. 01:08:07.420 --> 01:08:11.660 So thanks for jumping in this, uh, but we're going to land the plane and we're going to wrap 01:08:11.660 --> 01:08:11.880 up. 01:08:12.500 --> 01:08:18.480 So for Chesley, uh, I'm Jeff with the church digital and with digital church network. 01:08:18.480 --> 01:08:23.000 thanks for being on the podcast here we'll see you next time on the show y'all have a good day