WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.880 Welcome to the Church Digital podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological 00:00:04.880 --> 00:00:10.960 innovations within the church. But more than Ted for Tech itself, we'll address deeper questions. 00:00:11.780 --> 00:00:16.680 Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:22.480 Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does the metaverse 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:27.960 fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a startup church 00:00:27.960 --> 00:00:33.880 plant. The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church, 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:40.500 digitally and physically. Our heart? That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on 00:00:40.500 --> 00:00:46.860 disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:52.460 Hey, my name is Jeff Reed, and it's great to be here. Man, I love modern technology, especially 00:00:52.460 --> 00:00:57.620 when it doesn't work like it's supposed to. By the way, this entire show is an experiment. 00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:04.420 Normally, the average organization would be like, hey, let's actually run a couple dry runs, 00:01:04.540 --> 00:01:08.980 test this out, make sure we can do this. Nah, forget all that. Let's just do it for real and a bunch 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:13.900 of people. And if it blows up, hey, that just makes it even a more fun story. So, hey, listen, 00:01:13.980 --> 00:01:19.880 we're doing a live show here. Digital ministry doesn't have to be weird. I don't know if you've 00:01:19.880 --> 00:01:24.920 experienced stories like this or even have that from your own life. But coming from me, 00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:30.120 if a guy has been doing ministry, digital ministry for a long time, I've heard plenty of people tell 00:01:30.120 --> 00:01:37.740 me that this stuff is weird and get the side eye and talk to me about how ministry doesn't happen in 00:01:37.740 --> 00:01:43.280 ones and zeros and all sorts of crazy stuff. And we're going to get into some of that here in a 00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:48.160 little bit. But what I really wanted to do is even just open it up here. And I want to introduce, 00:01:48.360 --> 00:01:53.820 I want you to meet some of my friends here. So let's do this. Tom, why don't you go first? Tom, 00:01:53.860 --> 00:01:58.200 tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, and even talk a little bit about the 00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:01.500 podcast and the live show that you've got coming up next week, right? 00:02:01.500 --> 00:02:08.900 All right. Yeah. So I'm Tom Pounder. I am the online campus pastor at New Life Christian Church 00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:14.080 in Chantilly, Virginia. I have a student ministry background. And in fact, I still do student ministry 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:22.060 to this day. But my passion is digital and online ministry. I live just outside of Washington, D.C. 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:27.440 I've lived here most of my life, except for a few years in Germany when I was younger and college 00:02:27.440 --> 00:02:35.140 time period. But I've been basically born and raised in Washington, D.C. And I am a cowboy fan. 00:02:35.620 --> 00:02:42.640 I root for all Washington teams, except for that, the Washington commanders, I guess is what we call 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:49.120 them now. Betrayal. So you choose the cowboys? Betrayal. How is it better? I don't understand. 00:02:50.140 --> 00:02:53.640 I'm a cowboy fan. There's 26 other better options, aren't there, than the cowboys? 00:02:54.640 --> 00:03:01.800 Yeah. There are a lot of options out there, but I love my cowboys. And, you know, when I was a 00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:05.980 teenager in the 90s, when the cowboys were winning all the Super Bowls, everyone called me a bandwagon 00:03:05.980 --> 00:03:10.180 fan. But no one's calling me that anymore. They're just calling me an idiot right now. 00:03:12.640 --> 00:03:22.200 Yeah. So that and I have a last thing about me is I have four daughters ranging from ages 00:03:22.200 --> 00:03:28.400 20 to 14. So I am the one male in a female dominated household. 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:33.360 You're doing great, Tom. You're keeping it up. You're you're rooting for the wrong teams. 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:36.240 But I mean, you're you're surviving. So congrats. 00:03:37.080 --> 00:03:38.320 Thanks. I appreciate it, guys. 00:03:38.440 --> 00:03:41.840 Totally. Totally. I think. Yeah, there we go. We're back. 00:03:42.820 --> 00:03:48.180 That's in back. I have bad Internet here at the house, and it's the only option like anywhere near 00:03:48.180 --> 00:03:52.900 me. So there's no chance of it getting better, which is horrible. Andy, why don't you go next? 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:54.920 Talk a little bit about who you are, what you're up to. 00:03:54.920 --> 00:04:01.140 Yeah, definitely. I'm currently trying to hold this ship afloat right now on this here live stream. So if 00:04:01.140 --> 00:04:07.260 you see me looking and looking and there's a kind of a note of terror in my eyes, just understand 00:04:07.260 --> 00:04:13.100 that these things are held together by chicken wire sometimes. And if you see things moving on the 00:04:13.100 --> 00:04:17.700 screen, don't be freaked out. That's not Jeff's bad Internet. That's just me playing with some boxes. 00:04:17.700 --> 00:04:24.280 But yeah, I'm Andy Mage. I'm a digital pastor here in Tampa. I'm also a video, the video content 00:04:24.280 --> 00:04:30.780 creator and community manager for Altar Live. I'm also helping out with the church digital. I run a 00:04:30.780 --> 00:04:37.140 podcast called Breaking the Fifth Wall. I run another podcast called The Weekday. I run another podcast 00:04:37.140 --> 00:04:45.320 on that after that called The Altar Live Show. I also try to stream video games on Twitch and help out 00:04:45.320 --> 00:04:52.300 with a awesome digital community called Lux Digital Church. I also try to sleep every once in a while, 00:04:52.300 --> 00:05:00.140 and I am trying to be a good husband to my three children and two dogs and fish, which I don't know 00:05:00.140 --> 00:05:05.700 if you can see them over there. They have been a wonderful addition to this peaceful studio around 00:05:05.700 --> 00:05:13.620 here. Yeah, we got a whirlwind going on. That's a lot. Man, like fish, just all that headache and you 00:05:13.620 --> 00:05:18.880 just do fish on top of that. Listen, dude, they're like my bonsai tree. For whatever reason, at the end 00:05:18.880 --> 00:05:23.400 of the day, I turn off the lights. I turn off everything and I turn around and I feed them. 00:05:23.760 --> 00:05:32.080 Yep. And I just, for whatever reason, it's my sand raking or clipping my bonsai tree and the dog 00:05:32.080 --> 00:05:36.580 will come in. One of the dogs will come in and we just hang out for like 10 minutes. It's great. 00:05:37.380 --> 00:05:41.340 Yeah, let's be honest. When you do this to the kids, it just does not have the same calming. 00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:46.160 This is just, I've got a 17-year-old, a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old. So this means 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:48.600 keys or money. Yeah, it's keys or money. 00:05:48.640 --> 00:05:49.980 You can do it with dollar bills. 00:05:50.200 --> 00:05:50.660 Yeah, exactly. 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:57.340 So, hey, the fun thing about these two guys is they do create some content through the 00:05:57.340 --> 00:06:02.220 church digital and obviously there's a lot that's happening there. Now, both of their shows, 00:06:02.320 --> 00:06:07.040 they're going to start doing live shows Tuesday, 6 p.m. as well. And so we're going to rotate 00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:13.320 some different shows in here. And for us, part of this experiment is doing things live. And Andy 00:06:13.320 --> 00:06:18.740 actually mentioned Alter Live. And so we're actually broadcasting this right now in the Alter 00:06:18.740 --> 00:06:22.700 Live community. And so I'm looking over here. We got some people over here in Alter Live. 00:06:22.700 --> 00:06:26.860 That's great. We got three or four people. Yay, Alter Live. That's awesome. Here's what 00:06:26.860 --> 00:06:30.480 I want you to do. If you're watching this in Facebook, you're watching this in YouTube, 00:06:30.740 --> 00:06:35.260 LinkedIn, wherever it is in social media, I want you to swing over here to the Alter 00:06:35.260 --> 00:06:42.600 Live. It's thechurchdigital.alterlive.com. Come in, create an account. If you don't have 00:06:42.600 --> 00:06:49.300 one, join the community. But we'd love to have you in this space and hanging out with us 00:06:49.300 --> 00:06:52.520 in the community. For us, one of the things that I've really been leaning on, and Jason, 00:06:52.520 --> 00:06:56.680 I'm going to get to you in a second, we really want to use content to drive towards community. 00:06:56.680 --> 00:07:01.280 And so for us, doing this live show for us is a way to start to connect people together 00:07:01.280 --> 00:07:05.880 into the family, into the community that we're creating through the Church Digital and Digital 00:07:05.880 --> 00:07:14.220 Church Network. So come see us over in Alter Live, thechurchdigital.alterlive.com. 00:07:14.840 --> 00:07:19.780 And this actually sets up Jason Morris. Jason, we had a scheduling conflict at the last minute, 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:26.600 and Jason dropped everything he's doing with his new life in Dallas. I'm hopefully not a Cowboys 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:34.080 fan. We'll ask that question in a second. But not yet. That's a good answer. I lived in 00:07:34.080 --> 00:07:38.640 Dallas for nine years, and I'm still able to say not yet. So I'm going to hold you through that. 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:43.580 But Jason, man, you've had so much change. You were at Westside Family. Why don't you tell 00:07:43.580 --> 00:07:48.020 us a little bit kind of what you're up to and what your new role is there with Resi? 00:07:49.020 --> 00:07:57.740 Well, I'm a new product manager here at Resi. And what that means is I get to influence and help 00:07:57.740 --> 00:08:04.360 develop the new features that are coming out in Resi, which is one of the major streaming platforms 00:08:04.360 --> 00:08:13.200 platforms that the church has. And with its recent acquisition by PushPay, there are some very 00:08:13.200 --> 00:08:18.400 fascinating and exciting ways that all of these tools can start to integrate with one another 00:08:18.400 --> 00:08:22.820 in ways that have never been done before. And that's one of the reasons why I came on to Resi 00:08:22.820 --> 00:08:31.060 to be a part of that initiative. And so right now I'm learning a ton and trying to get the new 00:08:31.060 --> 00:08:37.820 version of studio for Resi out, which lays a lot of the groundwork for us to be able to do a lot of 00:08:37.820 --> 00:08:43.400 really cool things at a cadence that's a lot faster than we've been able to do before. So super excited 00:08:43.400 --> 00:08:51.060 to be on the other side of church tool development, because I was a user of the tools for a long time. 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:58.740 And now I can be a developer of these tools. Now that I have this experience, and it's been really 00:08:58.740 --> 00:09:03.800 great to be able to influence that. Yeah. What's it feel like to get out? What's it feel like to be 00:09:03.800 --> 00:09:11.380 walking on the other side? Oh, dude, it is so weird. Because, okay, first off... Am I allowed to say 00:09:11.380 --> 00:09:15.680 that? Are we going to get in trouble, Jeff? Why not? I mean, I don't know who's going to get you in 00:09:15.680 --> 00:09:21.080 trouble. We'll just come out swinging. That's cool. What does it feel to get out? 00:09:21.080 --> 00:09:27.620 Well, one thing, I moved, right, to Dallas. Right. We, my wife and I, have never been church 00:09:27.620 --> 00:09:34.140 shopping ever in our lives. Ooh. Because... Wow. It was either something that my parents decided for me, 00:09:34.140 --> 00:09:42.000 or my job decided for us. And this is completely new territory. And I gotta tell you, seeing church 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:50.060 from a different perspective is really been mind-blowing for me, because I know what happens 00:09:50.060 --> 00:09:55.200 in the kitchen, right? So when I see it all happen on stage, and when people are talking, you know, 00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:04.320 membership classes and stuff, I don't know. It's just, for me, it's going to be really rough for any 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:11.520 church to meet expectations for Maria and I, because we've been living it for so long. And oddly enough, 00:10:13.040 --> 00:10:23.040 my digital connection with Westside hasn't changed. So I'm there every Sunday. I am part of a, you know, 00:10:23.040 --> 00:10:29.520 a small group, a Westside small group online every Wednesday night. Um, and so my community really 00:10:29.520 --> 00:10:35.200 hasn't changed all that much. And if I were smarter, I would have just told them to just keep on paying 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:44.560 me and I could still do the job. But, um, anyway, it's, it's just, I'm in a weird state that way. Um, 00:10:44.560 --> 00:10:53.040 because I've never been in this position before and, you know, I haven't not been a pastor for, 00:10:53.040 --> 00:11:00.880 or not better said, I haven't been in non-vocational ministry since before I was in college. So this is 00:11:01.680 --> 00:11:10.720 really new territory for me, but it's really interesting now how much I understand how valuable 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:18.080 weekends are to people that I didn't quite understand before having my job and my church 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:24.960 being one in the same. So I'm beginning to get a little bit more empathy for families and couples 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:30.640 that only have two days together. If that, and being able to squeeze everything in, 00:11:31.920 --> 00:11:38.080 I get it at a different level now. Hmm. Awesome. Well, I tell you what, I'm excited about some of 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:43.280 the stuff that's going to be coming out of Resi and anytime your streamer, your streaming solution 00:11:43.280 --> 00:11:49.040 breaks, uh, it doesn't matter the time or day. Jason's cell phone number is going to be 00:11:51.280 --> 00:11:56.640 I'll put it in the comments right now. We'll add it in at a later time, but no, we're definitely 00:11:56.640 --> 00:11:58.640 excited about Resi. 00:11:58.640 --> 00:12:04.880 Honestly, our support team is awesome. They have a better call answer rate than 9-1-1. 00:12:04.880 --> 00:12:07.760 Hmm. So they're, they're incredible. 00:12:08.640 --> 00:12:12.960 We use Resi at my church. So now I know who to call when I, when I got some issues, 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:14.880 I'll just go right to, right to Jason. 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:20.800 Yeah. Evidently, he can be found at facebook.com/jcmorris. And so feel free to 00:12:20.800 --> 00:12:25.840 message him just incessantly. Any, anytime there's an issue, that'll be great. Hey, 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:30.080 um, let's, let's do this. And so I want to get into it. I want to get into the conversation. 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:35.280 If you're watching out in social media world, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, feel free to jump 00:12:35.280 --> 00:12:40.800 over to the churchdigitals.altralive.com. Join the community that we've got in there. We've got some 00:12:40.800 --> 00:12:45.440 friends hanging out already. Hey, if, and by the way, if there are questions or thoughts, uh, from the, 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:49.440 the chat, bring them up. I'd love to talk to them through, but the heart of what I want to get into here with the 00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:53.520 conversation is we're kind of having fun here, relaxing. I'm missing my jam right now in my head. 00:12:53.520 --> 00:12:55.920 Where's my jam? It's coming. It's coming. It's very subtle. 00:12:55.920 --> 00:12:58.800 The beat's got it. Yeah. The beat's got to drop, man. You got to give it space. 00:12:59.920 --> 00:13:05.280 Yeah. I'm not a patient guy with the beat. So, um, but Hey, so like, so the, the idea, 00:13:05.280 --> 00:13:11.200 the question here is digital ministry is perceived as weird, right? I mean, let's, let's just embrace it. 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:14.960 Uh, Tom, you've been doing this. How many years I've been doing this? How many years? Jason 00:13:14.960 --> 00:13:20.160 outdates all of us. Andy has been doing all sorts of stuff in this space for a long time. 00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:25.360 Um, man, what, and we're going to talk about some of this. We're going to drill into some deeper, 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:30.560 uh, specifics on, on individual, uh, episodes later on down the road, but even just to open up the 00:13:30.560 --> 00:13:36.240 conversation and get started today, man, what are some examples? What are some of the weird stuff that 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:41.920 you hear people saying, well, church online is really this, or digital discipleship is nothing but this. 00:13:41.920 --> 00:13:46.880 Like some of what are the weird negative comments that you hear describing digital ministry? 00:13:48.720 --> 00:13:53.920 Okay. I'll, I'll go first, but just because this is kind of on my heart a lot. Um, I was at a 00:13:53.920 --> 00:14:00.720 conference, uh, in November. I won't name the conference. Um, but the conference, I went to 00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:05.760 two digital ministry, uh, sessions and I was like, this is going to be awesome. We're going to learn 00:14:05.760 --> 00:14:10.800 some more strategy and everything. And the two things that both of those things said, 00:14:10.800 --> 00:14:16.000 the one thing actually that both of them said was that, uh, online relationships are not real 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:22.480 relationships. Online discipleship is not real discipleship. You cannot have real discipleship 00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:32.160 in online. The purpose is to get it in person. And finally, I just had to, I'm sorry. I just had to 00:14:32.160 --> 00:14:38.480 raise my hand and say, sorry, we, we haven't experienced that. We ours is kind of contrary, 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:41.360 but that's some of the negative stuff that I've been dealing with a lot lately. 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:48.240 What? Okay. What, what prompted that? Was that just completely unbidden? Was it an actual 00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:51.360 question from the audience? Like, where does that come from? 00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:57.280 Yeah, they were doing, uh, in one segment, it was like a kind of a round table discussion and some 00:14:57.280 --> 00:15:02.080 of the things that they've been learning. And one guy was really just pushing that we need to get 00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:07.280 back in person. We need to not be online anymore. We need to be back in person. Again, this was in 00:15:07.280 --> 00:15:12.000 November and things were a little bit different than they are now, but, um, it, it just kind of blew 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:17.200 my mind because again, these guys were people who were sharing success stories of online and then 00:15:17.200 --> 00:15:24.000 went a complete 180 and saying, we've got to get back on person and you know, real, real relationships 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:33.920 and real discipleship can't happen online. So. Yeah. For me, it, it always ends up well. And Jason, 00:15:33.920 --> 00:15:38.560 I share your tearing your hair out motion there. That's, that's that emoji, right? That, that one. 00:15:38.560 --> 00:15:48.080 Yes. And Tom, I hear that a lot from, I work in a, uh, uh, a large denomination, uh, that 00:15:49.440 --> 00:15:53.120 my church fortunately gets it, but there are a lot of people inside the denomination that 00:15:53.920 --> 00:16:02.080 do not understand that real relationship can happen no matter what. And the question then 00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:06.480 always comes to, well, how do you do communion? It's always, it always, at least in my denomination, 00:16:06.480 --> 00:16:13.040 always gets to the sacraments real quick because that supposedly is what defines what is church is. 00:16:13.040 --> 00:16:18.880 How do you do communion? How do you do baptism? Et cetera, et cetera. And it's like, hold on a 00:16:18.880 --> 00:16:25.760 second. Um, we were actually at a conference last week at exponential in Orlando and our good buddy, 00:16:25.760 --> 00:16:34.400 Mark from Lux digital, uh, did actually Jeff kind of facilitated a bunch of stuff, uh, in the pre-conference 00:16:34.400 --> 00:16:40.080 and Mark stood up there and he gave kind of his testimony of where Lux digital church came from. 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:46.960 And he was recounting the fact that being in a digital ministry with people all across the globe 00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:54.160 that are having the Holy spirit fall upon him or upon them, excuse me, is the closest that you can feel 00:16:54.160 --> 00:17:02.240 to omnipotence and omnipotence. And that right there, if the Holy spirit can do that while you're in 00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:09.920 Pittsburgh and I'm in Tampa and that dude's in South Africa, then why can't digital ministry be happening? 00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:13.840 So that's, that's kind of the thing I'm wrestling with Tom along that, that same path that you're 00:17:13.840 --> 00:17:19.920 journeying. Yeah. I like Steven to scratch that itch a little bit. And, and first off, 00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:25.200 let me say, I wrestle with this one, like theologically, I'm not sure how to use the 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:30.720 words that are in my head. And so I'm, I'm, I'm researching this one, but when people talk about 00:17:31.280 --> 00:17:37.520 incarnational ministry and, and like needing to be in physical space and, and like the physical 00:17:37.520 --> 00:17:44.240 connection of, of people together and how that's really the only way that, that this works, I, 00:17:45.360 --> 00:17:52.640 we do realize that the Holy spirit is, is like not it's present everywhere. Like God's in heaven. 00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:59.600 Jesus is distanced somewhere else. Like this whole, this whole thing is based off of an, and yes, 00:17:59.600 --> 00:18:04.880 an understanding of scripture. Yes. A presence of the Holy spirit in our lives, but it's not like 00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:10.960 we're tangibly touching said Holy spirit with our fingertips. Yet everything that we're doing 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:16.880 relationship is based off of the same physical, like to me, it's, and I'm not comparing like a 00:18:16.880 --> 00:18:21.840 physical relationship to one of the Holy spirit, but to me, it's just like, can we get some consistency? 00:18:21.840 --> 00:18:26.800 Cause, cause you say one thing, but then you expect the other on that side, Jason, you're smart. 00:18:26.800 --> 00:18:29.760 Let's be honest. You're smarter than the rest of us on this screen. So 00:18:29.760 --> 00:18:38.880 I love what you're saying. I love what you're saying. And even the Bible is like the perfect 00:18:39.440 --> 00:18:47.600 example of asynchronous discipleship because we are being discipled 2000 years later than when it was 00:18:47.600 --> 00:18:54.240 written. That's asynchronous discipleship. If you ask me, that's like slack on steroids, people, 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:58.080 this score is happening right here. It's called the book of James. 00:18:59.040 --> 00:19:06.480 Right. Exactly. And I, I think here's, here's, here's something that I think is going to help tie 00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:13.360 together a lot of what I've heard. One of the, one of the comments that I got when I was showcasing 00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:22.720 online church back in 2010, someone came up to me and it was, it was fascinating because way even back 00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:28.160 then they were wrestling with the same types of problems that people wrestle with today. And it 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:34.000 was a, our, it was a pastor that had one of his friends and he was showing them the online stuff that 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:38.720 we were putting together. And the first thing that his friend said was, aren't you worried that 00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:44.240 this is going to keep people from coming to church? And the first response, this was 00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:50.560 12 years ago. The first response that this pastor said was, oh, don't worry about it. It's an inferior 00:19:50.560 --> 00:19:59.200 experience. And that, you know, I wanted to punch him in the throat right. Because in my mind, 00:19:59.840 --> 00:20:08.720 it's not inferior compared to what, you know, I think that there are, no one can, I'll get out of a whole 00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:15.760 thought here in a minute. There is, there's probably no relationship that means anything that we don't 00:20:15.760 --> 00:20:24.240 enhance in a digital way. Like I was texting my son minutes before coming on this call. I haven't 00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:31.680 seen him physically in probably six months. That doesn't mean our relationship isn't any good. That 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:38.160 doesn't mean he's not family, but I'm going to use every tool I've got to maintain my relationship with 00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:46.400 my son. He's still my son. Would I like for him to be with me? Absolutely. But that's just not realistic 00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:51.440 all the time. And one thing that I think we need to be thinking through is at what frequency 00:20:53.440 --> 00:21:01.280 is physical church or physical gatherings really necessary today? And I think one of the things that 00:21:01.280 --> 00:21:07.920 even our church planning brothers have discovered is that you don't have to have a gathering every week. 00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:13.920 You can have it once a month or even once a quarter and do micro gatherings or online gatherings, 00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:19.120 filling in the gaps, very much like how we fill in the gaps in our most meaningful relationships 00:21:19.120 --> 00:21:25.680 digitally. It's not really any different. Yeah. I get just even build off that. I hear 00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:33.280 Hebrews 10:25 at least twice a week. Do not abandon the gathering. You know, it's funny, 00:21:33.280 --> 00:21:37.760 like this morning there was actually an article about some of the stuff I'm doing new thing. It was 00:21:37.760 --> 00:21:44.160 published publicly at 7:00 AM this morning. And by 7:10 this morning, somebody commented, 00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:50.640 this is all wrong and quoted that Hebrews 10:25. Don't abandon the gathering. Do not give up NIV 00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:57.600 meeting together. And what's interesting to me is I feel like we're meeting right here. 00:21:57.600 --> 00:22:05.840 Like I am talking with, with three, four friends. I think so. Like I'm not breathing your air molecules. 00:22:05.840 --> 00:22:09.760 I just, I feel like it's happening in this moment. I think, is it? 00:22:09.760 --> 00:22:15.600 And if it's not, if it's not, then we need to get really clear about what proximity's limits really 00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:23.840 are. Is it a hundred feet? Is it half a mile? Well, then you better not build your auditorium too big. 00:22:23.840 --> 00:22:32.880 Yeah. That, that, that, that, that, that nursing room that may be in another building with the 00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:35.920 closed caption TV. We got to worry about those moms and babies. Doesn't count. 00:22:35.920 --> 00:22:43.520 Doesn't count. Absolutely. Jason, real quick. I need to ask you a serious, serious question. 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:50.800 Are you in your laundry room right now? No. Okay. No, I'm in my office right now. Okay. 00:22:50.800 --> 00:22:57.280 All right. Cause I saw, I saw a post from somebody and you were doing a meeting in your laundry room. 00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:06.720 And I laughed and understood all at the same time. Like I got, I felt that there we go. Yes. I felt 00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:13.040 that in the interior part of my soul. And I went that right there. That's a digital guy. 00:23:15.760 --> 00:23:20.800 It was the only quiet room in the house. I love it. I am, I am all for it. 00:23:23.040 --> 00:23:29.600 You know, guys, I actually, uh, just talked to a guy today, um, a church planter today. Uh, and I 00:23:29.600 --> 00:23:35.280 interviewed him for my podcast and, uh, because what he did was he was supposed to launch his in-person 00:23:35.280 --> 00:23:43.200 church in October of 2020. And he was setting up, he was gearing up and, um, and of course the pandemic 00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:50.480 happened. And he shared with me the story about how he said, we can do what we need to do online. 00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:57.680 So let's figure it out how we can do. And they weren't able to launch in person for until Easter 00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:04.480 the following year, but they met every single week online. They created watch parties where the people 00:24:04.480 --> 00:24:09.680 were meeting together and they were experiencing church together. They were having discipleship 00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:17.840 meetings on zoom. Like this guy launched his church in the midst of a pandemic. And he's saying, guys, 00:24:17.840 --> 00:24:23.680 how can we figure out? It's not, if you should use online, it's how you should incorporate online 00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:29.040 tools for your ministry. And that's what really motivated me to see this guy forward thinking 00:24:29.040 --> 00:24:33.440 on this. And he launched his church and now they're, they're, you know, they're, they're a 00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:39.040 church planter a year old, uh, and they've got ups and downs, but they did it all online to start. 00:24:39.040 --> 00:24:47.040 And it was so encouraging. You know what I love about that, Tom is, is you could, you could probably, 00:24:47.840 --> 00:24:56.880 um, have more church planters, start a church online so much easier and so much faster because the 00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:01.760 fundraising, how much do you need to really raise? You don't need all that much for a building. 00:25:02.320 --> 00:25:07.280 Right. And you could probably do it. Well, do it by vocationally so much easier. 00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:15.280 Um, I, I personally think that doing things online because of the fact that it is so much 00:25:15.840 --> 00:25:21.280 more inexpensive to pull it off. We should be experimenting in lots of different ways 00:25:21.280 --> 00:25:24.640 because what do you got to lose? Really? What do you got to lose? 00:25:25.760 --> 00:25:31.040 Yeah. And, and the reality is, is that there are churches like, I want to give credit sometimes. 00:25:31.040 --> 00:25:35.760 And I'll just be honest. Sometimes I receive more of the negative than praising of the positive. 00:25:35.760 --> 00:25:41.280 It's very easy for me confession hour. It's very easy for me to kind of on, on my sleeve, 00:25:41.280 --> 00:25:45.840 wear my emotions and be overly critical of some of the negative. Yeah. Just a little bit. If you, 00:25:45.840 --> 00:25:50.800 if you know me, you know, um, but here's the deal. I talked with the church today. 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:55.680 Yeah. I talked with the church today that they were like, yeah, we, we once a month physically 00:25:55.680 --> 00:26:02.720 week two, uh, we, we meet at homes week three is exclusive online week four. We meet in homes again. 00:26:02.720 --> 00:26:07.520 And then the next week we meet, we meet physically together. I can tell you there was a church we were 00:26:07.520 --> 00:26:14.960 hanging out with in, in exponential, um, uh, epic church up in Philadelphia. They shut down three 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:21.440 weeks of four. They were, um, they were physical service. And then everything for three weeks in a 00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:26.400 row was micro or online, micro or online, micro online. And they did that for nine months, 00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:29.840 trying different things. Now they learned lessons and they're iterating off of that. 00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:35.600 But really in this season, there's so many, I mean, my gosh, right now, the gas is 420, 00:26:35.600 --> 00:26:42.240 what a gallon, at least where I am down here in Miami, you know, as economy shifts and cost goes up, 00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:48.080 we need to be considering other options. And it'd be one thing if we're not seeing results, 00:26:48.080 --> 00:26:52.000 but the churches that are leaning in, they're seeing incredible results on this stuff 00:26:52.640 --> 00:26:58.480 digitally. It just, it feels like it's this old guard that necessarily isn't open to seeing new 00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:03.840 things because they're, they're stuck in a paradigm or they don't understand conceptually some of the 00:27:03.840 --> 00:27:13.120 stuff that's happening. Well, if you think about, um, everything as a tool for its use, you could think 00:27:13.120 --> 00:27:21.600 of a church service as a tool. You could think of your own body as a tool. Um, if you look at it in 00:27:21.600 --> 00:27:28.960 that way, then you have at your disposal, probably more tools than your, than you would have considered 00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:36.800 before. And what's, what's hard about tools, once you start using them a lot, is that you end up having 00:27:36.800 --> 00:27:43.280 favorite tools to do your job. And you're not, and this is true of any, any kind of discipline, by the 00:27:43.280 --> 00:27:49.200 way, because you get good at a certain kind of tool and using it a certain kind of way, even if it's less 00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:58.720 effective down the road, you know, you could, I can remember the days when I in high school took a manual 00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:06.080 typing class and they made me type on a manual typewriter, not even an electric typewriter, a 00:28:06.080 --> 00:28:13.520 manual typewriter, because that was the classic way to do it. And I don't know why I did that. 00:28:13.520 --> 00:28:20.320 I did that because they made me do it, but what's a typewriter. I think today we need to not be using 00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:27.120 old tools to do new work. And God is wanting to do new things. And so I want to give us, I want to 00:28:27.120 --> 00:28:32.000 give a shout out to Hector right now. Uh, he just said something that was incredible over here in the 00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:39.120 altar live chat. So altar or the church, digital.altralife.com to sit Hector here, Hector Martinez to say 00:28:39.120 --> 00:28:45.920 that it isn't a move of God because it's not in person. How would we know we've, we've never been 00:28:45.920 --> 00:28:52.240 in, in person. We have to understand what our words mean, you know, even in context of like, 00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:59.360 how do we know what the heart of God is often like, even for me, like, I don't think I've ever came out. 00:28:59.360 --> 00:29:04.320 At least I don't think I have and said physical is bad. Physical is horrible. Physical doesn't, 00:29:04.320 --> 00:29:07.920 doesn't work. There are challenges to physical. They need to be figured out. 00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:13.360 Uh, there are challenges to digital. They need to be figured out for me. It's not slamming one or the 00:29:13.360 --> 00:29:18.640 other as much as it is, man, there's an opportunity to reach a different person in some, it's something 00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:23.280 that's that, you know, I've within the, within the church digital podcast, I'm really starting to beat 00:29:23.280 --> 00:29:28.560 on this phrase here with the next season, but it's, it's the, the humble disruptor. Hey, listen, 00:29:28.560 --> 00:29:32.960 I'm going to do things different, but my posture isn't, it's not to aggravate. It's not to 00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:36.720 frustrate. It's not the anger. It's not to criticize other models and make mine better. 00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:42.160 I want to take the posture of, of humility. I want to take the posture of a learner while I'm in the 00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:47.600 midst of championing and while we're, we're disrupting here. Like it's, it's the humility, 00:29:47.600 --> 00:29:54.000 uh, that often at times I think it's heard more efficiently than the, than the, you know, the, 00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:59.760 the anger, the, the, the frustration voice, the battle, you know, I've talked about on my battlefield. 00:29:59.760 --> 00:30:05.040 It's when I'm, I haven't, we're not, I can never win these conversations like the face to face. 00:30:05.040 --> 00:30:12.880 It never happens. But if, if, um, my battlefields like on the discipleship, it's, it's on actually 00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:17.360 seeing success in these churches. It's, it's on those metrics and the change lives and the 00:30:17.360 --> 00:30:21.600 multiplication of that. I think that's where we win this argument overall. 00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:30.640 And, and I will say, look at the original church planters, Paul, Timothy, Titus to a degree, 00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:37.120 even Apollos did well, did not have a building started with community based, whatever. And, 00:30:37.120 --> 00:30:41.520 you know, I'm not saying that we need to go get crucified upside down and I'm not saying, 00:30:41.520 --> 00:30:48.240 you know, we need to get exiled to the Isle of Patmos, but the idea that they were humble 00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:54.400 disruptors, you know, the idea of the holy war didn't happen until three something with St. Augustine. 00:30:54.400 --> 00:31:00.800 And, and before that, it was just this sort of, Hey, I'm going to confront you with the gospel 00:31:01.360 --> 00:31:08.480 and we're going to let the gospel do the work. And now, I mean, Jason, you're in Texas, Tom, 00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:14.400 you're in a really weird part of the country. And then Jeff and I are in an even weirder part of 00:31:14.400 --> 00:31:19.600 the country. And yet we're connected and we're talking. I'm not even sure I'm in the same country 00:31:19.600 --> 00:31:24.320 as you. No, no. You're in Miami. It might as well be Cuba. Yeah. North Cuba. 00:31:24.320 --> 00:31:29.120 Yeah. Yeah. We get our freedom, but it's, it's really good food. Go ahead. 00:31:29.120 --> 00:31:30.400 Totally. Totally. I'm sorry. I cut you off. 00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:36.640 Way better cafecito. But the, but then we've got, you know, Hector is up in the Northwest, 00:31:36.640 --> 00:31:43.040 all these people that can connect quicker with the idea that we can be humble disruptors. And that 00:31:43.040 --> 00:31:49.280 honestly was one of the biggest things that I took away from exponential that has changed drastically 00:31:49.280 --> 00:31:56.560 in even just eight months of really kind of looking at this through the lens of ultra live. Yes. But also 00:31:57.760 --> 00:32:02.320 as we've started to take steps away from the pandemic, God willing in the creek, don't rise, 00:32:02.320 --> 00:32:11.440 is that there's a new level of humble disruption happening. It's less about left and right politics. 00:32:11.440 --> 00:32:16.240 It's left less about my camera looks better than yours and all that. And more about, Hey, 00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:22.560 here's the gospel. Let me show you how we can actually change the world through our technology. And Jeff, 00:32:22.560 --> 00:32:29.440 I really appreciate what you're doing with church planters all over the place in the digital church 00:32:29.440 --> 00:32:34.800 network that you and kind of Chesley and everybody else are running is that you're approaching it with 00:32:36.080 --> 00:32:41.680 humility, but also with power and focus. So keep on keeping on young man. 00:32:43.840 --> 00:32:48.880 Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And moving on. What, what, what other, 00:32:48.880 --> 00:32:55.200 what is another thing that that's weird in, in this, in, in digital ministry? What, what's another, 00:32:55.200 --> 00:32:56.800 Tom, you've been around a while. What else you got? 00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:02.080 Well, let me just say this. I'm going to give a shout out to Jason, because the first time I ever met 00:33:02.080 --> 00:33:11.680 Jason, it was at the IMC, the I ministry conference. It was in Dallas. It was Dallas, Texas, years and years ago. 00:33:12.320 --> 00:33:17.760 And he gave us, Jason gave all the attendees. It was like 30, maybe 40 people, 50 people or something 00:33:17.760 --> 00:33:23.760 like that. He gave us all these goggles that you could stick your iPhone in. And it was like, 00:33:23.760 --> 00:33:29.600 kind of like VR of sorts. Those are awful. It was like the preview. But Jason was like, 00:33:29.600 --> 00:33:35.840 I always admire Jason because he's such a futurist. He's looking to the future and what's going to be 00:33:35.840 --> 00:33:43.120 in the future. And you know, I, I like, you know, so bringing it to the forefront of VR. I mean, 00:33:43.120 --> 00:33:50.720 everyone thinks I have kids because student minister, um, I have kids that are now in their thirties. 00:33:50.720 --> 00:33:56.240 They're millennials. They're now in their thirties with families of their own who think VR is not real 00:33:56.240 --> 00:34:03.440 ministry or not real life either. And I'm like, of all the people who should be getting VR or metaverse 00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:09.920 stuff, it's millennials. And these guys are the ones who are telling me, Tom, it's weird. Uh, it's not 00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:16.080 good. It's not church. It's like, and I'm like, you guys of all people should get this. But again, 00:34:16.080 --> 00:34:26.640 and I'm trying to figure it out, but I'm 47 and I'm like, Hey, it's a mission field. It's a mission field. 00:34:27.760 --> 00:34:33.600 I love it. I don't know how many layers of disintermediation we need. So, so it's like 00:34:34.960 --> 00:34:42.880 all of us live with at least two, right? Cause our soul spirit, you know, and the body, 00:34:42.880 --> 00:34:46.720 we're already a couple of layers already. Right. And we think that's normal 00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:53.520 when my soul ministers to your soul after going through all of those layers, just add a couple 00:34:53.520 --> 00:35:01.120 more and it's no big deal. People have used other layers, whether it's books or TV or a phone call 00:35:01.120 --> 00:35:07.840 to encourage somebody and pray for somebody. All of those things have their place in the discipleship 00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:18.080 continuum. And I, I would argue that understanding what each tool does best is probably a better way 00:35:18.080 --> 00:35:24.000 to approach it because there are some digital tools that break through barriers that physical tools 00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:31.200 like a building and a service intrinsically have, they have these limitations to them, whether they be 00:35:31.760 --> 00:35:39.200 by space or by time at the very least, not to mention even how much they cost. And one of the things that 00:35:39.200 --> 00:35:49.040 always bugs me about VR for those who criticize it is when I drop into VR, it blows my mind how many 00:35:49.040 --> 00:35:55.040 worlds and rooms there are for people to talk about spiritual things that have nothing to do with 00:35:55.040 --> 00:36:01.600 Christianity. They're talking to some guru somewhere. They're talking to some atheist about grief. 00:36:01.600 --> 00:36:06.880 There's all these worlds out there of people that are searching for Jesus. They don't know it. And I 00:36:06.880 --> 00:36:12.880 feel like in a sense, almost, you know, with my VR headset in, you know, in the laundry room, 00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:19.040 some days I feel like that I'm like the apostle Paul on Mars Hill, looking at all of these different 00:36:19.040 --> 00:36:23.920 idols of all of these different things that people worship, trying to find meaning in their life. 00:36:24.560 --> 00:36:29.440 And I look around and I'm like, guys, we've got to be in the public square making a difference 00:36:30.160 --> 00:36:36.000 because they cannot outnumber us five to one. That's just not right. Anyway. 00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:43.840 I was speaking at a, I don't know, one of the dozen exponential things I've spoken at in the past 00:36:43.840 --> 00:36:51.280 year. And I was talking about VR and I was talking specifically about one of these worlds called 00:36:51.280 --> 00:36:56.560 VR chat, which is like, if you don't know VR, it's like the red light district of virtual reality. It's 00:36:56.560 --> 00:37:03.840 like Wild Wild West. All sorts of crazy goes on there. And it was funny, right? When I said VR chat, 00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:10.080 there was a woman, a girl mid twenties out of my view over here on my, on my left. I thought she fell 00:37:10.080 --> 00:37:16.720 out of her chair. She just, she just had this like immediate reaction. Okay. And I thought she sneezed. 00:37:16.720 --> 00:37:20.240 I kind of looked over a little bit to make sure she was okay. Just kept talking, kept telling the 00:37:20.240 --> 00:37:26.400 story of VR chat. And every time I said it, like she, she had this physical reaction to the words VR chat. 00:37:27.120 --> 00:37:31.040 And, and, and at some point I'm like, it was, it was wrapping up the story. It was right at the end. 00:37:31.040 --> 00:37:34.720 It was like, Hey, let's, let's take a break. Uh, and, and so everybody exits out. It was kind 00:37:34.720 --> 00:37:39.280 of in between sessions and she sticks around and I'm like, are you okay? Is there anything going on? 00:37:40.080 --> 00:37:49.040 She starts to tell me about the, the dark things, the dark places, the manipulative, the destructive, 00:37:49.040 --> 00:37:56.800 the toxic environments that she was personally exposed to the toxic relationships, the, um, I mean, 00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:02.400 I hate to use the word avatar abuse. And this is one side of the story. I don't know both sides, but she 00:38:03.120 --> 00:38:09.280 definitely was carrying a lot of baggage towards virtual reality. And it was funny. She, she looked at me 00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:17.280 and she says, the church has no business being in VR chat. And, and I just, I, I looked back at her 00:38:17.280 --> 00:38:24.240 and I was like, because of everything that virtual reality was for you is the reason why the church 00:38:24.880 --> 00:38:32.000 has to be in VR chat. Yeah. And, and as much as we see these dark places and dark stories and dark 00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:37.280 things, the church has to be the light. That's not the reason to stay away. That's the reason to run 00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:42.800 towards it. Now we can talk about ecclesiology and is it a church? Is it a mission field? We can all day 00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:48.240 long. I, that conversations are relevant there. The workers, uh, are, excuse me, the harvest is plenty 00:38:48.240 --> 00:38:52.480 and the workers are few and it's time to get into that space. Go ahead. Somebody wanted to say something. 00:38:53.120 --> 00:39:00.640 Yeah. Um, you know, if you have someone that has such a strong reaction to a virtual experience, 00:39:01.680 --> 00:39:07.120 one has to wonder if this whole argument of, is it real or not 00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:14.080 should just get thrown out the window? Yes. Because for that person, it was nothing but real. Yep. 00:39:15.040 --> 00:39:22.960 For the negative. Right. So could it not all the more be something positive and real? 00:39:24.560 --> 00:39:32.960 Uh, the, the real thing I think has lost a lot of weight, especially with the pandemic. We've, 00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:37.920 everybody knows that the pandemic has been the great acceleration tool. And then there's, 00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:41.840 I don't know if you heard, there's some stuff going on over in Eastern Europe right now. That's also 00:39:41.840 --> 00:39:51.200 accelerating some things. And, uh, the idea that we can't have real relationships, that people can't 00:39:51.200 --> 00:39:56.160 really do all of their work from home that, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, 00:39:56.800 --> 00:40:04.800 I think is getting thrown out the window more and more, thankfully. But I, I, I struggle with, 00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:12.720 and Keturah, uh, said it in the altar live chat. Sometimes I struggle with sharing people, 00:40:12.720 --> 00:40:20.320 the necessity of digital options when they are so reluctant to jump in. How do you, how do you do 00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:27.200 that? You know, how do you convince the dyed in the wool or been going on every Sunday for the last 50 00:40:27.200 --> 00:40:33.360 years that, you know, nickels and noses type of church pastor? How do you do that when they're just 00:40:33.360 --> 00:40:39.760 going to look at us as the young whippersnappers, even though none of us are young and we're, 00:40:40.400 --> 00:40:46.400 we're the ones that are just disrupting every budget thing that they have going for the next two years. 00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:47.600 What are you guys doing about that? 00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:55.120 I love how the music stopped right then. That was gorgeous. 00:40:55.120 --> 00:40:57.920 Yeah. I didn't. That was, that was magic on my part. I didn't do that. 00:40:59.040 --> 00:40:59.760 Go ahead, Jason. 00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:09.120 You know, as you were talking pretty much the church to try to get a strategy to make people move 00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:15.760 from one mode that they have imprinted on to another, I don't think is going to be worth your time 00:41:16.560 --> 00:41:21.680 because historically missionaries have always been a small percentage of the church. 00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:31.360 But those missionaries, those are the ones that love to discover all of these new ways to do ministry. 00:41:32.160 --> 00:41:36.320 Those are the ones that are probably already talking to you about it. Those are the ones that 00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:42.320 you just empower. And then, then you build off of the people that are natively in that platform, 00:41:42.320 --> 00:41:48.240 just like a missionary would. You send a missionary and then he grows the community from that place. 00:41:48.240 --> 00:41:54.160 And if you think of platform as place, then all those relational connections work the way that they 00:41:54.160 --> 00:42:00.080 would normally do. And then they can build a church right there in that native environment. 00:42:00.080 --> 00:42:06.800 So the, the, I think it's a little bit, we're not going to get a bunch of people to, to change 00:42:06.800 --> 00:42:11.680 modes. I don't, I don't think that's going to work for them. And that's okay. Because you do, 00:42:11.680 --> 00:42:17.360 you need different types of churches and different expressions to reach different types of people. 00:42:18.240 --> 00:42:24.640 So let them be what they're, what they want to be. But for those who feel discontent or have that 00:42:24.640 --> 00:42:31.360 missionary call, give them the vision to go into a different space, a different place, a different 00:42:31.360 --> 00:42:38.640 platform, and give them the power to raise up a church in the harvest. Because, you know, that's just 00:42:38.640 --> 00:42:40.720 how it's always been done, you know, biblically. 00:42:40.720 --> 00:42:44.000 Yeah. Go ahead, Tom. 00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:49.280 I was going to say, I almost wonder, you know, as the new generation, you know, the Gen Zers and 00:42:49.280 --> 00:42:55.440 the Gen Alphas come in, if they, there won't be a shift. So almost where, what are our family 00:42:55.440 --> 00:43:01.360 ministers and our student ministers and our children's ministers teaching with the students? Like, how are 00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:09.040 they embracing this? Yeah. So that when these kids get older, online is not foreign to them. It's 00:43:09.040 --> 00:43:11.840 natural to them. I mean, it's already natural. Yeah, they're VR native. 00:43:12.640 --> 00:43:16.640 Yeah. Right. But, but here's the interesting thing that's going to happen that at least I'm seeing 00:43:17.200 --> 00:43:23.840 is that we've got youth pastors that are trained in traditional Bible colleges. Again, not a bad thing. 00:43:23.840 --> 00:43:27.840 You need to have some sort of education and some sort of semblance of what you're doing. But the 00:43:27.840 --> 00:43:33.360 traditional Bible colleges are going to take another 15 years to catch up. You know, they're more of a 00:43:33.360 --> 00:43:40.960 lag factor than a lead factor. So we're going to miss right now, we're missing sort of that 10 to 15 00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:45.760 year gap. I was hoping that COVID was going to speed it up and it, it sped some things up in the church, 00:43:45.760 --> 00:43:52.080 but I think it also hindered a couple of other things. And that is one of them. We, you know, 00:43:52.080 --> 00:43:56.880 Jason said that, that these kids are VR native. And like my youngest as a 12 year old was just 00:43:56.880 --> 00:44:01.760 upstairs playing one of the star Wars experiences on his Oculus. Like, cool. That's awesome. 00:44:02.560 --> 00:44:07.360 It was also said during exponential and it's really been resonating with me. These kids are not 00:44:07.360 --> 00:44:12.720 defined. You know, there, there is no sort of separation between what happens online and in the VR 00:44:12.720 --> 00:44:19.520 world and what happens in school. Their screen name is them. Yep. There is a synergy that is happening 00:44:19.520 --> 00:44:26.640 within their soul from the second that they are two years old, they can pick up my iPhone and make calls 00:44:26.640 --> 00:44:33.360 on it. You know, they don't know anything different. And we're going to miss like five or 10 years here, 00:44:33.360 --> 00:44:40.240 unless we are supremely confident in what we're doing online and supremely confident in what Jesus 00:44:40.240 --> 00:44:47.680 has to say to them through these digital spaces. Yeah. And Keturah, this is why you go with the goers. 00:44:49.120 --> 00:44:53.840 You, you, you go with the people that are going, you go with the innovators. That's, that's the 00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:59.760 battlefield is, is getting them to succeed. It's, it's funny. Um, I'm going to drop a name and whatever. 00:44:59.760 --> 00:45:04.480 Jim Tomberlin is a guy that's been influential in my life. He was, was probably one of the founding 00:45:04.480 --> 00:45:10.560 fathers of the multi-site movement. And it was funny in pre a conversation I had with Jim. I had the 00:45:10.560 --> 00:45:16.880 community attitude. I need to change the world. I need to get everybody in freaking a planet to buy 00:45:16.880 --> 00:45:23.200 in the church online. How do I get seven people saved and adopted into the mindset? And, um, yeah, 00:45:23.200 --> 00:45:28.560 it's, it's a lot. Uh, Jim, Jim looked at me and he told me once he he's like, Jeff, you got to get 00:45:28.560 --> 00:45:34.160 enough people to buy into it, to make it worthwhile. And, and, and at this point, thank you. This, uh, 00:45:34.160 --> 00:45:40.320 Andy, this is the thing that COVID did. COVID made it so that enough people have purpose to make it 00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:47.520 worthwhile. And, and, and today we are fighting for the right and we're celebrating the successes today 00:45:48.160 --> 00:45:53.200 so that the next generation is already that much better prepared. Totally. Uh, so that we're further 00:45:53.200 --> 00:45:58.960 along for that. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to convince, uh, an 80 year old blue hair, uh, to, 00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:04.480 to buy into online small groups or digital discipleship. It can happen. If you've not heard 00:46:04.480 --> 00:46:09.040 me tell them the story of my mom, my mom leads, she's 70 something. I'm not allowed to say the age, 00:46:09.040 --> 00:46:14.800 but she leads three online small groups. She's very successful in digital ministry. So blue hairs can't 00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:20.480 get it. Technically hers is a little more brownish than blue, but the purpose is not to convince 00:46:20.480 --> 00:46:27.520 everybody. The purpose is to help those that are on the way, make a difference with what you can today. 00:46:27.520 --> 00:46:33.760 And let's pave the road for, for those that are coming after us in, whether it's physical, 00:46:33.760 --> 00:46:38.160 whether it's digital, whether it's digital, whether it's meta, whether it's micro, it doesn't matter. 00:46:38.160 --> 00:46:42.720 If anything, that's another thing COVID did. It allowed us to diversify. Let's break up and do 00:46:42.720 --> 00:46:48.080 all sorts of different things instead of feeling like we were locked into one model. Because as a result 00:46:48.080 --> 00:46:52.560 of all of those different strategies and tactics, we're now seeing different people 00:46:52.560 --> 00:46:55.520 find Jesus that we're not finding Jesus in those buildings. 00:46:59.120 --> 00:47:04.960 Hey man. Awesome. Hey, listen, I just kind of like landed the plane without even meaning to land 00:47:04.960 --> 00:47:11.040 the plane. I apologize for that. Hey, and that's because I did want to keep this around an hour. I didn't 00:47:11.040 --> 00:47:15.520 want to go long and so we're at 50 units. We got like four of us as we're, and so we'll, we'll, 00:47:15.520 --> 00:47:20.800 it's funny. Keturah is like, uh, just for context, I'm a Kidman director. Uh, no, this is interesting. 00:47:20.800 --> 00:47:26.080 I, I, let's ask this one question. I'm, I'm theorizing something. I had, I had a fascinating 00:47:26.080 --> 00:47:33.120 conversation today. Keturah, I'd like your take on this too, in a second. I had a, a student-led 00:47:33.680 --> 00:47:40.240 organization, um, reach out to me, uh, and ask, inquire about some, some digital ministry. Now 00:47:40.240 --> 00:47:44.800 this is not a church. This is one of these parachurch student organizations, empowering 00:47:44.800 --> 00:47:50.000 students to reach students, you know, like more of the disciple making stuff that may be typically 00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:55.920 more in the Bible. I'm not taking shots, just a thought, but it was interesting to me where, um, 00:47:55.920 --> 00:48:01.920 they were more receptive to, I mean, I started, you know, me, I started talking crazy VR church, 00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:07.760 Roblox church, Minecraft church, video game church. Like I'm, I'm living in the fringes and, 00:48:07.760 --> 00:48:12.480 and if people are buying it, that's great. And it was interesting. This parachurch organization, 00:48:13.440 --> 00:48:19.840 which has a little more of a discipleship centric feel, um, they, they were like buying it hook, 00:48:19.840 --> 00:48:25.440 line and sinker. Like I didn't, I didn't have to sell real hard. They caught the vision quickly 00:48:25.440 --> 00:48:32.160 for that. Um, man, do any of you guys pair a church organization, student led organizations, 00:48:32.160 --> 00:48:38.160 have you seen, um, like more of, more of a leaning towards digital in, in some of that? You know, 00:48:38.160 --> 00:48:42.960 I always feel like people, like the churches are saying, kids don't like student, student ministry 00:48:42.960 --> 00:48:47.440 doesn't work online. They don't like zoom. Well, of course they don't like zoom. That was school for 00:48:47.440 --> 00:48:53.520 two years and school sucks. Like, is there, is there experiences? Like, give me some insight here. 00:48:53.520 --> 00:48:59.120 I would love to answer some, some kid men as well. Like when you look at student ministry, 00:48:59.120 --> 00:49:02.960 kids ministry, what are some of those, those tensions? What, what are you feeling or seeing? 00:49:05.360 --> 00:49:11.200 Well, I'll say for a student ministry, we had success. Middle school students were more apt to, 00:49:11.200 --> 00:49:17.360 to come and do a online gathering than high school students were. But we also had some, some success 00:49:17.360 --> 00:49:23.520 thinking outside the box and, and changing how we did the, the group. You know, we, we played some more 00:49:23.520 --> 00:49:30.480 games, um, and, and where they were interactive games, like how your scavenger hunt in your home, 00:49:30.480 --> 00:49:34.880 go look for this and bring it back. You know, interactive games where they could be interactive, 00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:40.560 but also on the screen together as well. Um, we found some really good success with like 00:49:41.120 --> 00:49:46.640 PowerPoint games, like, you know, fun little weird things. So we brought back some old tech 00:49:46.640 --> 00:49:51.760 to get to the new kids and they were kind of, you know, floored by it. So we, we've had some success 00:49:51.760 --> 00:49:57.600 with that with students. Um, and we, we don't hesitate when, if we need to go online and do something 00:49:57.600 --> 00:50:03.920 neat and add a different element, we add an online game night or an online trivia night. Um, I know 00:50:03.920 --> 00:50:09.600 some people have done online gaming nights, um, student ministers, like video gaming nights, and that's 00:50:09.600 --> 00:50:18.000 been really helpful for them as well. Awesome. Uh, Jason, what have you, what have you seen or done? 00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:22.240 You seen anything? I mean, you're, you're kind of the guy. Yeah. Um, I think there's about three 00:50:22.240 --> 00:50:29.120 things at play here when it comes to a parachurch organization that works with young people. One, 00:50:29.120 --> 00:50:33.680 you know, young people, that's their life anyway. So they're already digitally native. They're already 00:50:33.680 --> 00:50:38.720 VR native. So it's no big deal for them. That's one thing. Another thing about a parachurch organization 00:50:38.720 --> 00:50:45.120 is they're not bound to the same liturgy that a church would be. And so they have more freedom 00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:50.640 to, to do different things that a church may not feel the freedom to do. Um, 00:50:50.640 --> 00:50:57.600 and another thing about it as well is parachurch organizations that work with kids are very used to 00:50:57.600 --> 00:51:04.320 using a lot of different tools, not just one tool, the Sunday service to get a particular job done. 00:51:05.200 --> 00:51:12.080 And what's great about, um, what Tom was kind of, um, alluding to was that a lot of these parachurch 00:51:12.080 --> 00:51:19.280 organizations would use technology as a tool in a different way than how a normal person running a 00:51:19.280 --> 00:51:26.000 church service or a youth service would do it. For example, if you look at the basketball court 00:51:26.640 --> 00:51:33.440 in the same way that you would look at Minecraft, you're probably getting closer to the way that 00:51:33.440 --> 00:51:40.400 old school, um, youth ministry used to work around a shared activity. It's just a digital 00:51:40.400 --> 00:51:46.320 shared activity that you're using to create relationships that are then leveraged for 00:51:46.320 --> 00:51:56.160 discipleship. So if you have that basic understanding of using a shared common activity, whatever it is, 00:51:56.160 --> 00:51:59.920 it could be physical, it could be digital. It doesn't even really matter. You're using that to 00:52:00.560 --> 00:52:05.600 just spend time together, create relationships and then leverage that for discipleship. That's kind of 00:52:05.600 --> 00:52:11.920 what happens in these parachurch organizations. And really that's kind of what probably all of us 00:52:11.920 --> 00:52:17.760 should be doing is using all of these shared activities, no matter what they are to enhance 00:52:17.760 --> 00:52:25.600 relationships for discipleship to occur. Yeah. Keturah, what I, what I said to, uh, what I said to this 00:52:25.600 --> 00:52:30.560 organization is they were like, well, how do we start? Um, and, and, and the first thing that I said was, 00:52:30.560 --> 00:52:35.760 I was the disciple of the kids to the point where you trust them spiritually. Um, and then ask them, 00:52:35.760 --> 00:52:43.280 where, where's God calling you? And, and, and if they say something stupid, like, like, uh, uh, VR or 00:52:43.280 --> 00:52:51.840 Roblox or Minecraft or, uh, World of Warcraft or even shoot, DJ Soto right now is experimenting 00:52:51.840 --> 00:53:00.640 with Grand Theft Auto. Yeah. Like they are sending digital missionaries into GTA right now. Uh, and 00:53:00.640 --> 00:53:05.200 they're having conversations about Jesus. Hey, let me murder this prostitute. I'll be right with you. 00:53:05.200 --> 00:53:10.880 Then I'll, I'll, I want you to tell me about God. I don't know. Maybe the line's there. Maybe the 00:53:10.880 --> 00:53:17.680 line's not there. I don't know. That is called cognitive dissonance that somebody is using with 00:53:17.680 --> 00:53:23.200 that. And that, you know, if the, you know, remember the Pharisees, they brought in the prostitute, 00:53:23.200 --> 00:53:28.480 told him, you know, what is the law say? It is no different. It's just in a digital space. That's all. 00:53:31.120 --> 00:53:36.800 Well played. Well played. Awesome. Hey, this has been fun, 00:53:36.800 --> 00:53:42.400 right? So we're talking about the weirdness. It's not, it's not weird. There there's ways to look at 00:53:42.400 --> 00:53:48.160 it beyond the weird. Okay. Maybe the GTA thing is a little weird. I will tell, but, but at least we're 00:53:48.160 --> 00:53:53.600 acknowledging going in that that one's weird. Uh, and so listen, I've, I've loved this conversation. 00:53:53.600 --> 00:54:00.400 Here's what we're going to do Tuesdays at 6 PM. We will be doing some sort of a live stream here, 00:54:00.400 --> 00:54:04.960 uh, in, in all through live tied to the church, digital digital church network. So this week, 00:54:04.960 --> 00:54:09.840 and actually once a month, we're going to do this show as a panel, digital church doesn't have to be 00:54:10.480 --> 00:54:16.000 weird. Uh, and then at subsequent weeks, uh, Tom's going to do a show and he's going to do a show. 00:54:16.560 --> 00:54:21.360 Uh, John Pyle wasn't able to join us tonight. He's doing a live show as well. So you'll see 00:54:21.360 --> 00:54:27.200 those guys roll out. Some others probably throw into the mix when Jason Morris gets his life figured 00:54:27.200 --> 00:54:32.560 out. Cause he just had a move. I'm going to be like, yo, Jason, it's time to start. Let's, 00:54:32.560 --> 00:54:37.120 let's do something together. And so we don't know what it looks like. He's, he's got some ideas. 00:54:37.120 --> 00:54:40.240 I've got some ideas, but we're, we're going to, we're going to keep it on the down low, 00:54:40.240 --> 00:54:45.360 hopefully until, uh, until he kind of gets settled in and the new life in Dallas and looking forward 00:54:45.360 --> 00:54:50.400 to bringing him into a lot of the fun stuff. Cause I don't know a smarter guy, at least who will answer 00:54:50.400 --> 00:54:55.760 my texts and respond quickly. I don't know anybody smarter than Jason Morris. And so I, I love having 00:54:55.760 --> 00:55:02.240 him involved in this conversation moving forward. Hey, as we're landing the plane, any, any closing 00:55:02.240 --> 00:55:06.320 thoughts on your side? Uh, let's uh, Tom, as we're wrapping up anything from you, 00:55:07.760 --> 00:55:12.880 don't hate on the cowboy fans. Why? Oh my gosh. That's what you want to land a plane on. 00:55:13.600 --> 00:55:19.280 Yeah. You got nothing, bro. It's the cowboys. Yeah. My, my turn. The cowboy fans are the worst. 00:55:21.680 --> 00:55:27.680 Take that. Okay. Tom, do you want to take another shot? Are you going to stick with that? Like, 00:55:27.680 --> 00:55:35.280 I'll give you one shot to redeem yourself. I love the idea that the online mission, it's a mission field 00:55:35.280 --> 00:55:40.960 and be open to doing ministry in a new mission field, uh, so that more and more people can hear 00:55:40.960 --> 00:55:46.160 about Jesus. Let's go. Awesome. Love, love that. Love the mission field. Andy, what do you got? 00:55:46.160 --> 00:55:51.520 Yeah. Right along that same line. If your kids start coming to you and saying, Hey, I'm feeling like 00:55:51.520 --> 00:55:57.360 God's telling me to go do this weird thing in tick tock, or I feel like God's telling me to go put on a 00:55:57.360 --> 00:56:03.840 headset and do this church thing. Let them don't, don't knock it until they've tried it until they've 00:56:04.880 --> 00:56:09.920 ran that race just a little bit, just to see it. It turns out that this whole digital thing actually 00:56:09.920 --> 00:56:17.840 has legs and we need people to actually work the fields for the harvest. Amen. I tell you what, 00:56:18.480 --> 00:56:23.920 people will argue. I know because they argue with me. People will argue the idea of a digital or a 00:56:23.920 --> 00:56:31.360 meta church. I, I, they won't argue on a mission field. And if so, my gosh, it is so easy to make them 00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:36.080 look foolish. You tell me I can't go into virtual reality and tell people about Jesus. Like, that's 00:56:36.080 --> 00:56:41.200 really what you're telling me right now, pastor. It, that is such a, the argument you can win, 00:56:41.200 --> 00:56:45.600 digital and meta as a mission field. Ain't, ain't no way you're going to lose that. At least with 00:56:45.600 --> 00:56:51.920 anybody who has any semblance of, of like gospel in them. Uh, Jason, as, as we're wrapping up here, 00:56:51.920 --> 00:56:57.840 any, any closing thoughts on your side as my dog barks? Um, mission fields become churches and the 00:56:57.840 --> 00:57:05.360 vast majority of people, um, thought that Jesus was weird. So go with it. 00:57:07.760 --> 00:57:09.680 Oh, we just lost Jeff. Hold on. He's coming back. 00:57:11.440 --> 00:57:20.000 Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Nope. This is, this is fun. Oh, and there he is. Boom. 00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:25.280 Hello. Okay. I clicked on the mute button. I clicked on the mute button because my dog 00:57:25.280 --> 00:57:30.560 was barking and I, and I, and I, and I hang up. I don't, I don't. Anyway, I'm sorry. I really did. 00:57:30.560 --> 00:57:35.680 We can talk about this offline. It was mute. I swear. Jason, I have no idea what you said. Was it good? 00:57:35.680 --> 00:57:38.640 Do we need to say it again? It was great. It's typically Jason, typically great. 00:57:39.280 --> 00:57:45.360 Awesome. Well, I, I got, I got Tector saying, woo, say that Jason. So evidently that's enough 00:57:45.360 --> 00:57:50.080 to, to make it work. Um, by the way, did I mention, this is an experiment. We're trying to 00:57:50.080 --> 00:57:55.040 figure this stuff out. We're kind of playing it by ear. And so I apologize for that. And I got to give 00:57:55.040 --> 00:58:01.520 Ecamm credit because I was able to get in really quick after I hung up on myself. Listen, um, I, I 00:58:01.520 --> 00:58:06.800 love the idea of a mission field. I love these conversations and we, Digital Church Network, we're 00:58:06.800 --> 00:58:12.240 here to help empower you to the digital ministry that that's happening. So look for more of these 00:58:12.240 --> 00:58:17.600 live shows. I'll be doing a live podcast on Thursday as well. Uh, Chesley's doing round 00:58:17.600 --> 00:58:23.840 tables and trainings on Monday nights. And so we're leaning hard into helping people like you, 00:58:23.840 --> 00:58:30.720 churches like you, individual digital missionaries like you get into this, uh, digital ministry stuff. 00:58:30.720 --> 00:58:38.080 So look for us moving forward, hang out at the digital church network fam. That's fam.digitalchurch.network. 00:58:38.080 --> 00:58:46.800 I think I said that right. Yes. And, uh, look for more streams on this in the near future. Hey, 00:58:46.800 --> 00:58:51.680 so here's what we're going to do to wrap up the, this here. If you're an alter live, uh, 00:58:51.680 --> 00:58:55.280 I'm going to kick you into the lobby. I would challenge you all spend some time, 00:58:55.280 --> 00:59:01.200 click on, sit at a table, sit with each other and, and dialogue and ask yourself takeaways from, 00:59:01.200 --> 00:59:06.640 from this conversation. What are maybe some of the struggles that you have with leadership 00:59:06.640 --> 00:59:13.120 and maybe collectively start to process and work through different ways to, to solve those problems. 00:59:13.120 --> 00:59:17.920 And so, you know, I see some, some people in, in, in the, in the, uh, audience here, 00:59:17.920 --> 00:59:22.480 I'm going to kick it to the lobby in, in about five seconds, as soon as I stop talking and just 00:59:22.480 --> 00:59:28.000 engage in some of those conversations as you have time. And so as always with church digital, 00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:32.960 with, with, uh, fam, with digital church network, we're here for you, uh, working through that. So 00:59:32.960 --> 00:59:38.880 questions hit us up and fam, but this has been great for Tom, for Andy, Andy, thank you for handling all 00:59:38.880 --> 00:59:44.480 the tech as we're, uh, exploring and digging this, uh, out, uh, for Jason, uh, Jason, thank you for 00:59:44.480 --> 00:59:49.520 for showing up at the last second. Tom, thank you for like being cool. Who's the oldest guy here? 00:59:50.960 --> 00:59:54.000 Oh, is it, is it Tom or is it Jason? Who wants to throw down? 00:59:54.000 --> 00:59:57.200 It's probably me. Cause I'm, I'm 51. 00:59:57.200 --> 00:59:58.320 Oh, oh yeah. 00:59:58.320 --> 01:00:03.920 Oh yeah. Yeah. You, you, you win. Okay. So for grandpa, Jason Morris, uh, this is Jeff with the 01:00:03.920 --> 01:00:08.240 church digital and a digital church network and a whole bunch of other stuff, man. Thanks for jumping 01:00:08.240 --> 01:00:12.320 on here as we're doing digital ministry. It doesn't have to be weird. Y'all have a good day.