WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.920 Maybe people meeting in homes together, doing church together, will give them the gift of time 00:00:05.920 --> 00:00:10.980 with each other, and they'd be able to create real relationships with one another. The other 00:00:10.980 --> 00:00:15.820 thing we thought was, we think this could be a really cool way, a missional way to reach people, 00:00:16.020 --> 00:00:20.380 because instead of having five locations around the city, we're going to have 1,500, 1,600 locations 00:00:20.380 --> 00:00:25.380 around the city, which, man, you know, I mean, yeah, they're in homes, but I'll take that, 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:29.080 I'll take that all day long. You know, we think reaching every person in the city starts by 00:00:29.080 --> 00:00:34.000 reaching every person in your circle. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, 00:00:34.120 --> 00:00:38.900 we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than tech for tech 00:00:38.900 --> 00:00:46.260 itself, we'll address deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach 00:00:46.260 --> 00:00:52.660 the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where does 00:00:52.660 --> 00:00:58.100 the metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church, or a 00:00:58.160 --> 00:01:04.080 startup church plant? The Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying 00:01:04.080 --> 00:01:10.880 church, digitally and physically. Our heart? That churches like yours will discover a newfound focus 00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:17.540 on disciple making that will revolutionize your church. And now, here's your host, Jeff Reed. 00:01:18.040 --> 00:01:24.460 All right, hey, we got episode 213. Hey, it's Jeff here with the Church Digital Podcast. And excited about 00:01:24.460 --> 00:01:29.860 this conversation bringing it here. We were at Exponential. And so I brought this church in, 00:01:30.180 --> 00:01:37.700 brought them down to speak at one of the tracks we were doing. And just they shared so much and so 00:01:37.700 --> 00:01:42.280 little of a time. I was like, oh, we got to dig in deep. We got to have more of a conversation. And so 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:48.120 excited to bring in Epic Church into the conversation here on episode 213 of the Church Digital 00:01:48.120 --> 00:01:52.720 Podcast. I think I said all those words, right? Hopefully. But we've got, hey, we've got Kent 00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:59.600 Jacobs, lead pastor there with Epic Church in Philadelphia. Justin De La Cruz, who operates as 00:01:59.600 --> 00:02:07.200 the executive pastor of campuses, locations, something like that. And it was my first exposure 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:15.720 to this church was in COVID. Like, I knew them by name. And somehow we got connected during, or maybe 00:02:15.720 --> 00:02:22.980 early, mid 21, early 21 in COVID. And they were thinking some crazy ideas. Oh, like, listen, a lot 00:02:22.980 --> 00:02:27.680 of churches were thinking crazy ideas in 21, right? And so it's, they were thinking some crazy ideas. 00:02:27.720 --> 00:02:31.020 And some of them, I was like, that's awesome. Do it. Some of them were like, that's awesome. 00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:35.480 I don't think you should do that. But here's, if you do, here's some things to be wary of. 00:02:35.820 --> 00:02:41.260 And it was, it was really fun just to hear maybe some of the lessons, the observations. Did the 00:02:41.260 --> 00:02:46.100 craziness work? Where were their takeaways from that? You know, so many of us, we were doing crazy 00:02:46.100 --> 00:02:51.860 stuff during the COVID season, but to actually take and learn something from it and try to figure out 00:02:51.860 --> 00:02:56.960 even how to apply some of those lessons to where we are in 22 and beyond. That's really the heart of 00:02:56.960 --> 00:03:01.820 this. And so guys, thanks for jumping on the call. Kent, Justin, appreciate y'all being on here. 00:03:01.820 --> 00:03:07.860 Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Well, hey, just to open this up, Epic Church, talk a little bit about this. 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:11.520 What is Epic Church? What's, what's the vision? Tell us a little bit about who you are. 00:03:11.780 --> 00:03:17.940 Yeah. So we started Epic in Philadelphia 13 years ago in a movie theater. To this day, 00:03:17.940 --> 00:03:22.320 when I smell buttered popcorn, I'm ready for church. It's a thing. It's in me. There's no 00:03:22.320 --> 00:03:26.760 getting that out. My favorite location, even today is the one that meets in a movie theater. I think 00:03:26.760 --> 00:03:32.240 this is a fun place to have church. So there's that. Our name, Epic, actually, it wasn't meant 00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:38.080 to be pretentious or arrogant in any way at all. It actually stands for something, EPIC. It stands 00:03:38.080 --> 00:03:42.180 for every person in the city. And that's because our vision is to see every person in the city 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:48.520 follow Jesus. When we started the church, it wasn't because Philadelphia needed another church. 00:03:49.200 --> 00:03:53.060 What Philadelphia needed was a different kind of church, a church that wasn't just for church 00:03:53.060 --> 00:03:58.760 people, you know? And I, it takes me back to when I first became a follower of Jesus, I was 12 years 00:03:58.760 --> 00:04:04.480 old. And I remember just being so amazed that you could know God, that you could have a relationship 00:04:04.480 --> 00:04:08.580 with God. And I remember thinking, man, I want everybody to know God. Like I feel like I've had 00:04:08.580 --> 00:04:13.760 a chance to know God. And I've just never lost that. So all these years later, we started a church 00:04:13.760 --> 00:04:18.280 and with that same kind of heart to try and create a place where people who are far from God 00:04:18.280 --> 00:04:22.160 would discover that they didn't have to be. So that's been our story. The church grew 00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:28.460 over the years from one location to five locations in and around the city. And one thing that's really 00:04:28.460 --> 00:04:33.080 cool about the church is because we're in the city, we're a reflection of the city and the church is 00:04:33.080 --> 00:04:38.940 super diverse. So racially, socioeconomically, just in every way. And it's just a beautiful community 00:04:38.940 --> 00:04:44.200 of people are on mission together to help reach every person in our city. So that's, that's our story 00:04:44.200 --> 00:04:44.620 in a nutshell. 00:04:45.280 --> 00:04:51.780 I love that. I love gathering people together, racially different people mixed together and 00:04:51.780 --> 00:04:58.040 getting them on mission together. Like having that be the shared unified value is just a lot 00:04:58.040 --> 00:04:59.440 of fun. Justin, you were going to say something? 00:04:59.740 --> 00:05:08.000 Yeah. I joined the team in 2013 and got to learn about multi-site as we cut our teeth on what that 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:14.120 looks like and how to innovate in that direction. And I just want to say, Jeff, thanks for having us, 00:05:14.300 --> 00:05:18.440 having us on. We love talking shop. We love talking church and innovating and we're learners. 00:05:18.700 --> 00:05:24.520 We are learners to the max. And so we listen to all the stuff you put out there and everybody else. 00:05:24.520 --> 00:05:28.780 And we're trying to figure out the best way to do things and experiment with stuff. And that's what 00:05:28.780 --> 00:05:33.280 we're going to get into some of the experiments we made today. But one of my favorite, one of the things 00:05:33.280 --> 00:05:40.600 that shows like kind of the DNA of what we do and, and even what led us into the stuff we've tried 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:46.500 throughout the pandemic. And what we've learned is, you know, we always wanted to create space for 00:05:46.500 --> 00:05:52.480 the people who aren't there yet and make sure that we were going to try innovative ways, whatever we 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:57.840 could to do that. And so once our first venue in the movie theater got filled up, our very first 00:05:57.840 --> 00:06:03.220 venture into multi-site was we opened up another location directly across the hall. And so at 00:06:03.220 --> 00:06:10.320 the same time at the same service, we had two bands directly across the hall, two hosts during the 00:06:10.320 --> 00:06:14.780 service. And then when Kent got up to speak, we would pipe that over onto the other screen 00:06:14.780 --> 00:06:19.160 happening at the same time. And so we just tried to make the most of all the theater spaces we could. 00:06:19.640 --> 00:06:25.000 Now's our first venture into, into all this stuff. And, and since then we've been trying to innovate 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:29.020 and do whatever we can in the city. So it's been fun. 00:06:29.020 --> 00:06:34.060 Yeah. And that, that was back when it was like, you know, some bubble gum and some tape. That's 00:06:34.060 --> 00:06:38.680 how we figured out how to stream from one location to, you know, to the other auditorium. And yeah, 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:41.140 it's been cool to see, you know, how things have changed. 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:46.660 Oh, it's, it's a lot of fun to do church, like that level church, that craziness, uh, of, of a church 00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:51.980 in a movie theater. Like that, that, that just takes me back. We were, uh, in a story for another day, 00:06:51.980 --> 00:06:56.920 but we were, we were streaming from one theater to another. We were like, let's create a whole other 00:06:56.920 --> 00:07:03.220 service in another theater in Spanish. So we're like bilingual out of a theater. And, uh, okay. 00:07:03.220 --> 00:07:07.080 So Frank Hopkins, you're not listening to this, but, but I love you. Thank you. Like he was, 00:07:07.140 --> 00:07:11.740 he was the campus pastor at this church and the man was borderline crazy. If you're at Christ 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:16.100 Fellowship Miami, you know, and it's just, yeah, it was good, good times, good times back in, 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:16.720 back in the day. 00:07:16.720 --> 00:07:21.980 I used to pray. This is funny. I used to pray at the end of the service. And, um, as I was praying, 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:26.680 I would be walking up the aisle to get to the other auditorium because I was the drummer in the 00:07:26.680 --> 00:07:31.160 other auditorium to close the song. So I had to run, jump on the kit. I'd say, amen. And we'd jump 00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:36.380 into the song. It's just, wow. You know, do what you gotta do, do what you gotta do, man. Listen, 00:07:36.460 --> 00:07:40.940 if you're multi-site, that's what it, whatever it takes, it's just going to happen. And you probably 00:07:40.940 --> 00:07:46.060 have, what'd you say, which was the line bubble gum and tape, uh, bubble gum and string. That's, 00:07:46.060 --> 00:07:50.500 that's probably the budget to make it happen. Well, well, well done. Hey, so, so listen, we, 00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:55.000 we talked, um, you know, as, as you said in the intro, like you guys were experimenting with some 00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:00.000 things. So you were, you, you had told me off air, you were five campuses at one point. Um, 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:03.900 now you're three. So you've restricted some, some things during the COVID season, like many 00:08:03.900 --> 00:08:08.860 multi-site churches have just kind of restructuring and, and trying to get to a place of health. 00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:14.280 Uh, but so talk to me a little bit, like what was, uh, what is, what happened to your church? What 00:08:14.280 --> 00:08:18.200 was some of your experiences, what's the story of your church kind of in the COVID season? 00:08:18.660 --> 00:08:22.660 Yeah. So during COVID, there was a couple of things that were, um, uh, well, first of all, 00:08:22.660 --> 00:08:27.660 we got thrown into online church, like the deep end of the pool, just like everybody else did. Um, 00:08:27.700 --> 00:08:33.200 prior to that, our online church experience was just an upload of the thing we captured on Sunday 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:37.760 that we'd uploaded at some point on Monday. Um, and so all of a sudden we had to figure out what, 00:08:37.940 --> 00:08:41.720 what is, what does online church look like? Cause we're not able to, to gather and meet together. 00:08:42.280 --> 00:08:46.540 Um, so we got thrown to the deep end of the pool on that and, um, start to innovate and think about 00:08:46.540 --> 00:08:52.020 what, what that should be and what it could be, um, going forward quickly. Also had to shift and 00:08:52.020 --> 00:08:57.240 make the pivot to online groups and zoom groups and all of that stuff. And you had to try and retain 00:08:57.240 --> 00:09:03.000 some sense of community and connection with people. Um, and then during COVID, another big part of, 00:09:03.220 --> 00:09:08.700 of, of what the church looked like was it was so cool to see the church in action. Um, food insecurity 00:09:08.700 --> 00:09:15.600 is a big challenge in Philadelphia specifically, uh, one fourth of, um, uh, residents of Philadelphia 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:22.720 live under the poverty line. So it's a family of four living on less than $26,700, um, a year. 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:27.680 And so, you know, that, that became a big priority for, it was so cool to see so many churches 00:09:27.680 --> 00:09:32.480 come and stack hands together around making sure people had food, particularly the elderly 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:36.940 in our community who weren't able to leave their homes at all, uh, to access food banks and things 00:09:36.940 --> 00:09:41.300 like that. So, um, you know, everybody kind of jumped into action. We're trying to figure out 00:09:41.300 --> 00:09:47.180 online church, trying to figure out online groups and, uh, finally kind of settled in with some online 00:09:47.180 --> 00:09:52.880 stuff that we were, we were pretty excited about. Um, and then which led us toward the end of the 00:09:52.880 --> 00:09:57.760 COVID season where we could begin to start gathering again. And that's when we kind of got into some 00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:03.760 of the, uh, the experiment. Yeah. We faced some, some challenges specifically in Philly. Um, 00:10:03.760 --> 00:10:09.760 things were locked down, like shut down, close up shop. Um, we were meeting plus all of our, 00:10:09.760 --> 00:10:15.680 our locations, um, meet in rented facilities, places like performing arts theaters, movie theaters, 00:10:15.780 --> 00:10:20.680 high schools, which we were just, we're not getting into those anytime soon. And so while some churches 00:10:20.680 --> 00:10:25.680 had options of utilizing buildings to reopen, we didn't. And so we had extended a period of time. 00:10:25.680 --> 00:10:31.440 It was a long time. So we even couldn't even get in talks about potentially returning to a physical 00:10:31.440 --> 00:10:35.820 venue. And so we had to, we had to get creative and that led us to some of these other things. 00:10:36.400 --> 00:10:41.100 Awesome. So, so let's unpack some, some of the other things like you, so you're, you're all online, 00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:45.480 you're feeling tension where you can't open up the building. You're on lockdown over a longer period 00:10:45.480 --> 00:10:50.400 of time. Let's, let's unpack here. What were some of these experiments? Uh, what were, were we guys 00:10:50.400 --> 00:10:55.500 trying? Yeah. So, um, uh, the, the, the first big thing was, it was all the online church stuff. 00:10:55.500 --> 00:10:59.800 So, I mean, that came with a ton of experiments, like service times. I remember when we first 00:10:59.800 --> 00:11:04.740 started, we were like, yeah, 10 service times, that's what we'll do. And, uh, so yeah, we like 00:11:04.740 --> 00:11:08.780 staffed them and, you know, figured all that out. And then we're like, wait, we can leverage this 00:11:08.780 --> 00:11:13.320 on demand thing. And, you know, so we kind of settled in on service times, um, figuring out, 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:18.160 experimenting with different platforms, you know, do we, do we diversify and throw our stuff over 00:11:18.160 --> 00:11:23.400 like three different platforms? Or do we consolidate and bring it down on to one platform? We ended up 00:11:23.400 --> 00:11:28.340 landing on, uh, YouTube as our, our primary spot. Uh, there's a bunch of reasons why we landed there. 00:11:28.700 --> 00:11:35.100 Um, and then even experimenting with what online church looks like for us, it related to the content, 00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:38.700 you know, like what, what does this online church service look like? Because you can't just 00:11:38.700 --> 00:11:43.720 do what we did in the building and throw that online and expect that to, uh, you know, let's 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:47.380 shorten the service, uh, shorten the sermon by a little bit and think that's going to be okay. 00:11:47.380 --> 00:11:51.740 Um, it's a completely different platform. It's experienced in a completely different way. And so 00:11:51.740 --> 00:11:56.640 it needs a completely different product. So, uh, we did a lot of experiments with that. Um, and a, 00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:02.220 I think the bright spot coming out of COVID was looking back and saying that really worked for us. 00:12:02.420 --> 00:12:07.400 And I think we landed on some things that we're really proud of and some things that are, 00:12:07.560 --> 00:12:13.240 we know are going to be a big part of our future going forward 2022 and beyond. So there's an online, 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:19.020 online church experiment, um, for us. The other side was we did this experiment where we, we thought, 00:12:19.100 --> 00:12:25.980 man, what would happen if, as we're able to regather, what if we met once a month in person? 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:31.400 And then we had people use the online church experience and meeting homes together the other 00:12:31.400 --> 00:12:37.280 weeks of the month. And, uh, there's a couple of reasons that kind of led us to, to saying, man, 00:12:37.280 --> 00:12:42.560 maybe this, maybe this is a better way of, of, of doing church going forward, or at least this, 00:12:42.800 --> 00:12:47.620 this season that we're in affords us the opportunity to experiment with this, which we never would 00:12:47.620 --> 00:12:53.580 have, uh, had we not gone through the pandemic and, and been in that situation. So, um, a couple of 00:12:53.580 --> 00:12:59.160 things that kind of led to that one was, uh, we just, we really sensed that, um, wanting to create 00:12:59.160 --> 00:13:03.860 an opportunity for real community. You know, one of the challenges with a church like ours is you can 00:13:03.860 --> 00:13:08.480 walk in the building and you can see someone who kind of knows you, you kind of know them, 00:13:08.600 --> 00:13:12.780 you wave at each other, you have the service and then you leave and you call that community, 00:13:12.780 --> 00:13:17.840 but come on, like, that's not, that's not real community. That's not life on life. That's not, 00:13:17.920 --> 00:13:21.680 you know, that's, you know, real community is you got refrigerator rights. You can come to my house 00:13:21.680 --> 00:13:27.200 and get something out of the fridge and I'm not going to fight you, you know, like, but, but we call it, 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:33.040 you know, we call this, this kind of, you know, thing that we've settled for in, um, in our kind of 00:13:33.040 --> 00:13:36.880 church as community and, and there's, you know, there's just something so much more. And so we 00:13:36.880 --> 00:13:42.780 thought, man, maybe, maybe people meeting in homes together, doing church together, um, will give them 00:13:42.780 --> 00:13:47.900 the gift of time with each other and they'd be able to create real relationships with one another. 00:13:48.060 --> 00:13:52.700 Uh, the other thing we thought was, we think this could be a really cool way, uh, a missional way 00:13:52.700 --> 00:13:56.780 to reach people because instead of having five locations around the city, we could have 15, 00:13:56.900 --> 00:14:02.320 1600 locations around the city, which man, you know, I mean, yeah, they're in homes, 00:14:02.320 --> 00:14:06.320 but I'll take that. I'll take that all day long. You know, we think reaching every person in the city 00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:11.480 starts by reaching every person in your circle. So we thought, man, let's, let's, let's leverage this 00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:16.600 tool and see what could come of it. Um, if you were to ask me, did it work? So we did this for six 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:22.860 months. My, my answer back to you would be like, not like we hoped it didn't, it didn't. And there's a, 00:14:22.940 --> 00:14:27.440 there's a couple of reasons why. In fact, there's probably a bunch of reasons why. Um, but what the, 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:31.660 the bottom line for us, what we walked away with was this, uh, number one, not as many people met 00:14:31.660 --> 00:14:37.340 in homes together as we hoped would meet together. Part of that had to do with, you know, we were in 00:14:37.340 --> 00:14:41.520 the middle of a pandemic still that that was a thing and how comfortable people, you know, allowing 00:14:41.520 --> 00:14:48.160 others into their homes. Um, secondly, getting families together, honestly, can be a little bit 00:14:48.160 --> 00:14:52.900 like herding cats as far as schedules and all that kind of stuff. We found that to be a challenge. Um, 00:14:52.900 --> 00:14:57.960 so because not as many people were meeting in homes together as we hoped we weren't more connected, 00:14:57.960 --> 00:15:03.440 we were less connected as a result of that. And that wasn't an overall win for us. And the other 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:10.740 thing that was a bottom line, um, uh, finding for us to the experiment was going from 52 weekends, 00:15:10.860 --> 00:15:17.220 52 opportunities for someone to come and bring a friend or a family member, uh, and reducing that 00:15:17.220 --> 00:15:24.220 down to once a month to 12, man, that just really affected our front door and really limited our ability 00:15:24.220 --> 00:15:29.800 to reach new people. Um, and for us, that's just, it's just not, this is not okay. You know, we're, 00:15:29.920 --> 00:15:34.320 we're driven by our mission to reach people who are far from God and people don't know him yet. 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.460 And so, um, you know, that's where we landed with those two things. 00:15:37.760 --> 00:15:44.280 Yeah. I can totally see going from 52 to 12 being like a drastic jump. Um, you know, it's, 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:48.780 it's funny. Like I had, uh, just a little bit, just a little bit. Um, you know, I had, uh, 00:15:48.780 --> 00:15:54.120 there, there's just some, some friends, like I've known some churches, um, uh, potential church 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:58.200 when it was a Flamingo road, I think down here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, they went through a 00:15:58.200 --> 00:16:04.080 stretch where it was, um, like different people were invited to the main building and then other 00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:09.640 people were invited to watch online. Like they rotated, um, if it's your Sunday, you come, but 00:16:09.640 --> 00:16:14.760 if not, it's others. And so it was like every other week. And, and so trying to communicate that 00:16:14.760 --> 00:16:19.780 and cast that vision, um, you know, Aridus is a good friend of mine. He was the executive pastor 00:16:19.780 --> 00:16:23.800 over at production. And so he would, he would tell me horror stories about how that, that was just a 00:16:23.800 --> 00:16:31.220 bad idea from the beginning. Um, but this, I think like is, is cast in a place of where like, 00:16:31.220 --> 00:16:36.020 there's, there's potential for this, right? Like, man, if we can get people to live missionally 00:16:36.020 --> 00:16:41.620 within their, their environments, if we can get people to catch a vision of being the church with, 00:16:41.660 --> 00:16:45.980 with their neighbors, of, of utilizing their circle of influence, like from a missional, 00:16:45.980 --> 00:16:50.600 from a disciple making standpoint, there's, there's a lot of like interest. There's a lot of 00:16:50.600 --> 00:16:56.580 potential in this idea. Um, do you, do you think they really understood the why? Did you think that 00:16:56.580 --> 00:16:59.980 they really, the people of your church, they catch the vision of that? Like, I don't want to out 00:16:59.980 --> 00:17:05.740 anybody, but did, did they see that? Or was it more of just the comfort of being able to watch church 00:17:05.740 --> 00:17:11.340 on their own at home? Well, I'll tell you what, Jeff, we spent a lot of time, um, considering the 00:17:11.340 --> 00:17:16.060 options and the strategy behind this and the wise and the benefits and the drawbacks. In fact, 00:17:16.060 --> 00:17:20.920 we had pages and pages full, uh, with our staff of what this could look like, why people wouldn't 00:17:20.920 --> 00:17:25.640 like it? How would we help them engage all that kind of stuff? And we tried to anticipate questions 00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:31.700 in advance. Um, then we rolled it out to our, our leaders and we tried to anticipate questions and, 00:17:31.700 --> 00:17:37.520 and drawbacks in advance. And then we spent an entire four or five week message series teaching on 00:17:37.520 --> 00:17:42.480 this and why, and explaining the reason and the shift and rolling it out and saying, here's, 00:17:42.560 --> 00:17:46.620 here's what we're going to do coming in August. We're going to do this and, um, and trying to get 00:17:46.620 --> 00:17:51.540 the heart behind it and then meeting with people and explaining it. And, um, did they get it? 00:17:52.060 --> 00:18:00.140 I think in general, something like that, it is, it was such a radical shift from what regular church 00:18:00.140 --> 00:18:06.460 is that it had to keep being explained over and over again. And like, so what do you, wait, what do you 00:18:06.460 --> 00:18:12.240 mean? What are we doing? And once a month, or this is what, this is just for this time. And what, you 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:17.420 know, like it, it got a little confusing for people because everyone's just ingrained like this church, 00:18:17.500 --> 00:18:22.280 this is what church is. And this is how it happens in America. Right. And we, this is the thing. 00:18:22.280 --> 00:18:29.480 And so the education of it, although we felt like we did a decent job of it, multiply that times five, 00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:34.940 it probably was necessary in order to really communicate what was going on and why. 00:18:35.280 --> 00:18:41.140 Yeah. I think I, Jeff, I totally agree with you in that. I think that the idea has merit and the idea 00:18:41.140 --> 00:18:45.640 has a lot of potential, but I don't think, I don't think, I think it's too radical of a shift for a 00:18:45.640 --> 00:18:50.820 church of our size and to do it like we did, which was like, Oh, here we go. You know, and in the 00:18:50.820 --> 00:18:55.120 season in the middle, still being in the pandemic. So I think that had a lot to, a lot to play into 00:18:55.120 --> 00:18:59.580 some things too. Um, I think this is the type of change that you either have to build to slowly 00:18:59.580 --> 00:19:04.520 over time with a core group of people who are bought into that idea and then just celebrate 00:19:04.520 --> 00:19:09.280 them and celebrate what's happening over time and let that, let that thing grow organically. Um, 00:19:09.280 --> 00:19:15.340 or if you're starting from scratch, maybe there's an opportunity to, to give this idea, uh, 00:19:15.460 --> 00:19:20.100 give this idea a run. Yeah, we're still, we're still a fan of people meeting and gathering. 00:19:20.300 --> 00:19:25.400 Um, in their, in their homes. And we actually see that as a part of the strategy for the future 00:19:25.400 --> 00:19:29.940 in areas of the city where maybe the location isn't right near them or something like that. But, 00:19:30.500 --> 00:19:35.600 um, for the entire church and for everyone, it, it didn't seem to catch on. 00:19:35.600 --> 00:19:40.860 You know, what's interesting, even with like planters and we work with digital churches and 00:19:40.860 --> 00:19:48.280 micro and in a lot of those fringe cases, um, digital church planting, that type. Um, and, and even like 00:19:48.280 --> 00:19:52.760 some of my, my coaching with them is make sure your people understand the vision, make sure your people 00:19:52.760 --> 00:19:58.720 understand the vision because you may, the pastor oftentimes is coming in with a very disruptive 00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:04.240 mindset, but that doesn't mean that the people that he's his high level leaders, his volunteers, 00:20:04.380 --> 00:20:11.200 her audience, that doesn't mean that they still see that vision. Yeah. You can tell them once, 00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:16.720 but there's for some of them, 20, 30, 40 years of this is what church is. And now you're changing 00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:22.580 that paradigm. Yes. I understand that conceptually, but my default is falling back towards more of a, 00:20:22.580 --> 00:20:27.980 you know, a consumer mindset or something like that. And so it's so important as you're doing 00:20:27.980 --> 00:20:34.780 these experiments to keep that, um, the, the, why in front of people like this. I know I, I, I love that. 00:20:35.100 --> 00:20:43.620 Um, let me ask you guys a question. Do you, how do you, cause so what I'm hearing is we experimented, 00:20:43.620 --> 00:20:48.880 we involved the entire church with the experiment. Um, it didn't work like we thought it would. 00:20:49.020 --> 00:20:53.400 We learned some lessons from it. We'll get into some of that in a little bit. How do you experiment 00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:59.000 without involving the entire, could you have done this like in a sandbox? Could you have done this 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:05.020 at a smaller level? Like what do any, do any idea what that would have looked like? I'm just curious 00:21:05.020 --> 00:21:10.840 because it's so massive with, okay, so we're like, we're going to shut down one campus out of our 00:21:10.840 --> 00:21:16.540 three and we're going to tell the theater campus that they're online for three weeks out of four. 00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:21.520 Like what would a, what would a phasing experiment possibly look like, uh, on this for y'all? 00:21:21.520 --> 00:21:29.160 Yeah, I think, I think had we approached it with, um, pitching the idea, um, there would have been a 00:21:29.160 --> 00:21:35.640 certain group of people that are really probably a little more missional minded. Um, and even those 00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:40.000 people who just have the gift of hospitality and, you know, they're just gatherers on their own and 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:43.760 they just have people at their house all the time. Anyways, uh, those are probably the people that would 00:21:43.760 --> 00:21:50.300 be like, yeah, I could give this a shot. And it had we given people the chance to opt in instead of 00:21:50.300 --> 00:21:56.780 just telling everybody you're all in, I might've been, I might've been a better move. Um, and then 00:21:56.780 --> 00:22:01.460 grow with those people. So I, I certainly think we could have, uh, uh, taken a slower path and, 00:22:01.460 --> 00:22:05.480 and experiment with a smaller group to see what could come of it. And I think that we still will 00:22:05.480 --> 00:22:11.080 going forward because there are people who loved the experiment and there's people who were like, 00:22:11.120 --> 00:22:15.140 man, this was great. I loved that we did that. And, um, a little kind of, you know, 00:22:15.500 --> 00:22:19.840 bummed out that we're not doing that anymore. And so, um, pulling those people together would be a good 00:22:19.840 --> 00:22:25.120 path forward. There's also a unique time for us, uh, in Philly still is a unique time for us in 00:22:25.120 --> 00:22:31.760 Philly, um, two, over two years later, and we're still facing challenges related to COVID and the 00:22:31.760 --> 00:22:42.460 pandemic. But, um, you know, as we were rolling this out, we're talking August, 2021, when we began this 00:22:42.460 --> 00:22:49.480 experiment. So, uh, well over a year beyond when the world shut down because of COVID. Right. And we 00:22:49.480 --> 00:22:56.700 were still in the heights of everything around us is different schools. Aren't normal. Everything is 00:22:56.700 --> 00:23:04.620 nothing was normal, nothing. And so, um, I think that those factors certainly played an effect into 00:23:04.620 --> 00:23:10.420 it, but it also gave us the opportunity to say, well, since nothing's normal, this is the time to 00:23:10.420 --> 00:23:14.920 experiment with something. What if everything's already broken, we're not worried about breaking 00:23:14.920 --> 00:23:19.900 anything. Let's just try it. Like whenever do you get a chance to just say, you know what, 00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:23.720 we're going to try something completely different than we ever did before. When, when could we ever 00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:28.080 have stopped weekly services and said, let's try what once a month looks like and tell you why 00:23:28.080 --> 00:23:33.460 and give you a chance to taste that and try it out. And I think it just kind of goes towards our DNA and 00:23:33.460 --> 00:23:37.600 the type of risks that we're willing to take to experiment, to try to do things. Everyone says they 00:23:37.600 --> 00:23:41.740 want to do things. No one else is doing to reach people. No one else is reaching, but they do their 00:23:41.740 --> 00:23:48.340 church is exactly the same as every other church. Exactly the same. Right? Like, and so I think it 00:23:48.340 --> 00:23:53.340 was time for us to put our money where our mouth was and say, well, all right, like we're dissatisfied 00:23:53.340 --> 00:23:58.800 as look, if you really put the pressure point on most pastors, they're dissatisfied with the community 00:23:58.800 --> 00:24:02.340 that's happening in their church. And they're dissatisfied with the people that they're reaching 00:24:02.340 --> 00:24:05.500 in their church. And they're like, we got to, we've got it. Something else has got to change. 00:24:05.540 --> 00:24:10.180 We got to do something about it. And we were like, well, if we're dissatisfied with that state of it, 00:24:10.180 --> 00:24:15.040 and we don't want to return exactly to what it was, then let's just break the box and, and 00:24:15.040 --> 00:24:20.020 strategically try something different over a calculated period of time with, you know, laying 00:24:20.020 --> 00:24:24.460 it out in a strategic plan. But, um, and through that, we, we definitely learned things and we'll 00:24:24.460 --> 00:24:31.000 take those learnings and we'll take what we experienced, um, into the next seasons that we do. 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:36.280 And I pull back, uh, from that season and there were some things that we walk away with like, man, 00:24:36.420 --> 00:24:41.160 ouch, don't ever do that again, that I feel like we learned. Um, but then there were some things that 00:24:41.160 --> 00:24:47.740 I walk away with and go, I thank God that we walked away with this because this is such a big part of 00:24:47.740 --> 00:24:53.340 our future going forward. Um, and so like some of the, some of the ouches was, this is, this is funny. Um, I 00:24:53.340 --> 00:24:59.000 legitimately thought that if I told everybody the dates each month and even put it on the, on the back 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:02.060 of their t-shirt, which we literally did, we gave people a t-shirt with all the dates on there, 00:25:02.220 --> 00:25:07.240 that those dates would be like sacred. And they, you know, there's, there's no way they're going to 00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:11.900 miss church on that day. Nope. I couldn't have been more wrong. I tell you what, so here's what we 00:25:11.900 --> 00:25:15.720 learned. People take every weekend as it comes and, you know, decide what they're going to be doing 00:25:15.720 --> 00:25:22.320 that weekend. Um, we learned that some people love, um, being in the building and they want every 00:25:22.320 --> 00:25:25.680 opportunity to be in the building. And we learned that some people love being online and they want 00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:30.700 to be online all the time. And we learned that there's a lot of people who like both and like 00:25:30.700 --> 00:25:35.280 the option of both and like the, the ability to be able to be fluid between both of those things. 00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:41.980 Um, in fact, it's funny, the, uh, the people who, who, uh, want church in person every week, 00:25:41.980 --> 00:25:44.580 it's not that they're going to be there every week. They just want the option 00:25:44.580 --> 00:25:49.680 of being able to be in person every week. They're only going to be there once a month, 00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:55.620 but they want that option every single week. You can't tell me which week I come. I come 00:25:55.620 --> 00:26:01.860 when I want to show up. Right. Exactly. Isn't that true? But isn't that, isn't that the day we're 00:26:01.860 --> 00:26:06.700 living in? Isn't that kind of culture? Like how we do everything has changed. It's, it's, 00:26:06.780 --> 00:26:13.480 it is a hybrid world and, uh, we do like having all the options. And so trying to pigeonhole 00:26:13.480 --> 00:26:20.020 everybody into one thing is honest, it's a little silly to do that, which is why on demand is so 00:26:20.020 --> 00:26:24.840 brilliant too. Like, let's go take advantage of those other 160, whatever other hours there are 00:26:24.840 --> 00:26:30.240 in a week for people to be able to connect and grow in their faith. And, um, and those things too, 00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:34.700 you know, so why just say it's just the one, just one hour. There's so much more opportunity ahead of 00:26:34.700 --> 00:26:38.900 us than that. So, um, that was one of the things we learned. We also learned that it's almost impossible 00:26:38.900 --> 00:26:43.120 to build teams. If you're only ever meeting once a month, that was tough. If you only see each other 00:26:43.120 --> 00:26:48.960 once a month, it's, it's hard to get some momentum going on a team, um, for in-person church. Um, 00:26:49.760 --> 00:26:54.460 but like I said, everything, everything's changed. Um, some positives though, is that because 00:26:54.460 --> 00:27:00.840 everything's changed, we're totally sold on hybrid church and, um, what that means for people and, 00:27:00.840 --> 00:27:07.100 and, and people's ability to move fluidly between an in-person experience and an online or digital 00:27:07.100 --> 00:27:12.240 experience and back and forth. I think that's a, that's a big part of the future. Um, we also think 00:27:12.240 --> 00:27:19.560 that online church needs to be platform specific. Like it, um, you can't just take what you do in 00:27:19.560 --> 00:27:25.560 the building and throw it online and think that that's sufficient because it's not, it's a, you know, 00:27:25.600 --> 00:27:30.260 it's, there's similarities between soccer and basketball. They both have goals. They both have a ball, 00:27:30.260 --> 00:27:35.500 but you play those games very differently. And I think that's how it is with, 00:27:35.500 --> 00:27:39.420 with online church and in-person church. Uh, they need to be different experiences. 00:27:39.520 --> 00:27:43.680 So that means for us, like we've got to be a student of internet culture, our creative director 00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:48.860 rack. I love this. He says, you know, he says, we know how to, we know how to create and have a great 00:27:48.860 --> 00:27:53.660 church experience, but when we're online, we also need to learn how to make good internet. 00:27:53.760 --> 00:27:59.560 That's how he says it. And I don't know if that's correct or not, but I think that, I think that the 00:27:59.560 --> 00:28:05.100 idea is right. Is that it also has to be good. It has to, it has to fit the platform that it's created 00:28:05.100 --> 00:28:10.380 for. Um, and then probably one more like positive takeaway is, you know, some people ask, they say, 00:28:10.440 --> 00:28:14.740 uh, you know, aren't you concerned that if you're doing an online thing that you're competing with, 00:28:14.740 --> 00:28:18.940 like all the other national ministries, you know, across the world, like, you know, 00:28:19.280 --> 00:28:23.400 in North point and life church and elevation. And, and I'm like, no, 00:28:23.460 --> 00:28:29.260 we're not competing with them. We have a distinct advantage in that we get to be hyper local. 00:28:29.800 --> 00:28:35.820 You know, when we say we're for Philly, we talk about Philly things. We make fun of Cowboys fans 00:28:35.820 --> 00:28:43.460 unapologetically because it's, that's, that is, that is a good godly Philadelphian thing to do. 00:28:43.720 --> 00:28:49.200 And then that's okay. Right. In our context that it works great. And, um, you know, we get to talk 00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:54.520 about serving our city and caring about things that Philadelphians care about. And ultimately we 00:28:54.520 --> 00:28:58.200 want to be the church that Philadelphia never knew that they had. We want to be that church family 00:28:58.200 --> 00:29:02.440 that didn't know they had. Um, and so the online experience gives us an opportunity to be able to 00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:06.060 do that and be hyper local at the same time. So those are some of the, some of the takeaways that 00:29:06.060 --> 00:29:09.860 we've had from all this stuff. My favorite part was making fun of Cowboys fans. Let's go. 00:29:09.860 --> 00:29:14.760 I got to tell you like that, that, yes, I lived in Dallas for about nine years and, um, 00:29:14.840 --> 00:29:20.640 they were not some of my good years in the grand scheme. Not a cow. I'm a Miami Dolphins fan. And 00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:25.440 so like the only people who get made fun more than the Cowboys are Dolphins. So, you know, I, 00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:29.820 I kind of liked that. We just feel sorry for you. Yeah, no, I, I, I'll take the pity. It's cool. 00:29:29.900 --> 00:29:34.500 Thank you. Um, go Philly. Like, uh, listen, I'll, I'll cheer for anybody over the Cowboys. 00:29:34.560 --> 00:29:38.640 That's it. Yeah. Very good. Let's go, Jeff. All right. Hey, so, uh, so much, so much good there. 00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:43.200 So many lessons. Let me ask this. Um, you said digital, you're learning that digital is different 00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:46.880 than physical. You're, you're creative directors talking about good internet. And that, that's a 00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:53.060 great line. Um, is there any practical have, have you, are you guys wrestling with that now? Like 00:29:53.060 --> 00:29:58.140 how is digital? What, what are you thinking about in the future? What are some of those tensions on 00:29:58.140 --> 00:30:02.320 how digital and physical really are different? Yeah. So you mentioned in the, in the B and I'll 00:30:02.320 --> 00:30:09.520 jump in here, uh, Jeff, that we, uh, have gone from five physical venue locations in the city, 00:30:09.520 --> 00:30:14.320 in the Philadelphia area to three currently right now. And part of that is been a strategic 00:30:14.320 --> 00:30:20.300 shift for us to make sure that we're moving our, our manpower and our staffing around to 00:30:20.300 --> 00:30:27.160 best support where we want to go. And so we staffed a full-time pastor over online and see 00:30:27.160 --> 00:30:34.060 that as a location and want to be able to support the people in that. And we shifted, um, my role 00:30:34.060 --> 00:30:39.220 from overseeing locations and leading one to just overseeing locations and creative and online 00:30:39.220 --> 00:30:44.660 to put even more, uh, intentionality and emphasis behind the strategy of what we're doing and 00:30:44.660 --> 00:30:50.560 supporting, uh, the team that's doing it. And so, um, I think for us really practically, 00:30:50.560 --> 00:30:57.560 we realized like, all right, this isn't, this is the future. This is the future for us as a part of how 00:30:57.560 --> 00:31:03.860 we church. And therefore we need to shift our, our resources and our staffing and our energy, 00:31:03.860 --> 00:31:10.160 um, and our processes around that. And so, so we've made those shifts, um, really practically. 00:31:10.880 --> 00:31:16.220 Also, um, we've decided, another thing that we've decided to do was to create a completely separate 00:31:16.220 --> 00:31:22.040 online experience than our Sunday one. And so that takes a lot of time and resources. Um, and so we have 00:31:22.040 --> 00:31:29.040 service plan for Sunday services, which we call Epic live. And then we have service planning for our 00:31:29.040 --> 00:31:36.600 online weekly episodes experiences, which we call Epic everywhere. And, um, and so we, we have to arrange 00:31:36.600 --> 00:31:42.900 everything we do strategically in those weekly, uh, things between our weekly live experiences and our 00:31:42.900 --> 00:31:48.040 weekly show of Epic everywhere. And, um, that's something we've had to learn and, and practically do. 00:31:48.040 --> 00:31:54.060 And it's afforded us a lot of opportunity to be creative. And so we find that is, is actually, it's 00:31:54.060 --> 00:31:59.600 fun. There's a lot of opportunity to be creative, creating the online thing, um, which gives you 00:31:59.600 --> 00:32:05.580 different opportunities than you would with Epic lives and, um, trying to lean into those and take 00:32:05.580 --> 00:32:12.620 advantage of, of those opportunities. Yeah. And so like, you know, pragmatically, you know, we think, 00:32:12.620 --> 00:32:16.580 like I said, it's not enough to set a camera up at the back of the room and, and send that to your 00:32:16.580 --> 00:32:20.300 online thing. It's like, no, we're going to, uh, we're going to record this early. There's going 00:32:20.300 --> 00:32:25.220 to be host scripts. We're recording the message 10 days out. So there's time to do all the editing 00:32:25.220 --> 00:32:29.100 and all that kind of stuff during the message. Wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry. Pause, pause, pause. 00:32:29.140 --> 00:32:33.160 You record the message 10 days out. Yeah, we're doing the, we're 10 days out on the message. 00:32:33.160 --> 00:32:36.820 And then we do the hosting the week of, and the reason, only reason we do the hosting the week of 00:32:36.820 --> 00:32:40.940 is because there was a time where like, you know, every other week the world was blowing up and 00:32:40.940 --> 00:32:43.640 there was something, something else in the news that we needed to address from online. 00:32:44.020 --> 00:32:48.640 If we did it, if we recorded too early, we'd have to rerecord everything. So, um, yeah, 00:32:48.640 --> 00:32:54.280 so we're doing the hosting the week of pulling the show together for each week. Um, and then, 00:32:54.340 --> 00:32:59.300 like I said, you know, like, you know, being a student of internet culture, it changes things, 00:32:59.300 --> 00:33:04.680 you know, so there, we call them episodes, you know, it's not just church services. Um, there's, 00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:09.900 we ask people to, to share instead of asking people to invite, cause you don't invite online, 00:33:09.900 --> 00:33:13.560 you share online, you know, it just, it just changes language. It changes how you approach 00:33:13.560 --> 00:33:18.600 things, it changes how you do things. Uh, we do one song, um, because I, I don't know, 00:33:18.620 --> 00:33:23.760 it's a little weird to stand up in your living room and sing to the TV. Um, and so, you know, 00:33:23.760 --> 00:33:27.620 we do one song and, and that works for us sometimes too, if we're doing like a closer or something 00:33:27.620 --> 00:33:34.280 like that. So it just, uh, being student internet culture and allowing that to then influence and 00:33:34.280 --> 00:33:39.220 impact how we make decisions, I think is an important, important part of creating something 00:33:39.220 --> 00:33:44.040 that, um, that will thrive when it's online. So I got to tell you, I have much more respect 00:33:44.040 --> 00:33:48.780 for you. Not that I didn't have respect before, but it is extremely elevated you being 10 days out. 00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:54.840 Thank you. On behalf of your creative department, your production departments and anybody else who 00:33:54.840 --> 00:34:01.800 works in communications. Thank you. Uh, that, that will go a long way, uh, in, in helping them 00:34:01.800 --> 00:34:06.360 do what they need to do like that. That's just beautiful. Your digital pastor, your online, whoever's 00:34:06.360 --> 00:34:12.580 like that. That's just incredible. Uh, I, I can remember hearing a sermon for the first time 00:34:12.580 --> 00:34:19.220 Saturday night, which didn't even go the direction that it was supposed to, um, on script and then 00:34:19.220 --> 00:34:25.240 basically having to refilm all the, all the, we used to, we would, I would pay a contractor 00:34:25.240 --> 00:34:31.060 to stay up overnight, Saturday night to Sunday to edit this thing out. And the fact that you guys 00:34:31.060 --> 00:34:35.160 are 10 days out, I'm stuck on that. You said so many other great things, but that, that's just 00:34:35.160 --> 00:34:40.540 incredible. Uh, thank you for that. Like that, that's, that's really good. Um, give me a ministry 00:34:40.540 --> 00:34:44.560 win. Okay. So we, we've talked a lot about what it wasn't. We talked a lot about the lessons 00:34:44.560 --> 00:34:48.460 that, that we learned from it. We talked a little bit about how it's influencing what 00:34:48.460 --> 00:34:53.280 we're doing now. What was something that was like, yeah, but this was cool. There's got 00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:56.500 to be a ministry story, a win, something in that, in this season. 00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:00.240 Uh, we both got stories, Jeff. Now you're going to tell it, you know, you asked the pastors 00:35:00.240 --> 00:35:06.600 to tell the stories. Um, one of my favorite moments was when we were actually able to, um, 00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:12.440 to host some baptisms and we did some baptisms during the pandemic, mass stuff, I'll, you know, 00:35:12.440 --> 00:35:18.360 try to do as much as we can. And then we hosted some when we began live again. And we've got to 00:35:18.360 --> 00:35:23.480 baptize people that their very first time walking into a physical building was the day they were 00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:27.640 being baptized. Um, because they've made it, they connected with us online, made the decision to 00:35:27.640 --> 00:35:31.400 follow Jesus. And, you know, we hear the stories from churches around, around, you know, that this 00:35:31.400 --> 00:35:36.760 has been happening and to be able to be a part of experiencing that is, is something really special. 00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:42.440 And to know that the difference that it's making in their life, um, far, you know, wherever they're 00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:49.560 at, um, we've had people going in from, uh, different places around the country, uh, the city, and even 00:35:49.560 --> 00:35:54.120 around the world saying like, Hey, can you baptize me? Or, Hey, I want to follow or that kind of thing, 00:35:54.120 --> 00:36:01.880 which is pretty neat. Um, we have, uh, we have a, uh, another cool story is, um, we've had, uh, 00:36:01.880 --> 00:36:07.240 Philly's a very high college city. Um, so lots of colleges, a lot of young people, young adults. 00:36:07.240 --> 00:36:11.800 And so we have a lot of college students, uh, as one college student, uh, had been connected to our 00:36:11.800 --> 00:36:16.360 church, but her mom back home in New Hampshire hadn't been connected to a church, um, especially 00:36:16.360 --> 00:36:22.840 during the pandemic. And so they were able to share the online experience together. Um, the daughter in 00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:27.960 Philly, the mom in New Hampshire, watching the same churches, church episode at the same time 00:36:27.960 --> 00:36:33.480 and have a shared experience together that brought their faith together. Um, it's such a special 00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:38.520 thing. And the daughter actually had, or the mom, not sure which one got connected to start serving 00:36:38.520 --> 00:36:44.120 online with our social team and our street team and, um, getting connected that way. And it's really 00:36:44.120 --> 00:36:48.600 neat to provide opportunities for people to connect, even though they're distance wise, um, they're 00:36:48.600 --> 00:36:51.560 having that same spiritual shared experience, which is pretty cool. 00:36:51.560 --> 00:36:58.520 Yeah. It's, it's neat to see the opportunity for, um, um, I don't know, digital missionaries. 00:36:58.520 --> 00:37:03.720 Is that what we're calling this now? Right. So for people to be able to share their faith digitally 00:37:03.720 --> 00:37:09.400 with, with the people that they love, um, just this past week, I saw a dad and a daughter. Um, 00:37:09.400 --> 00:37:14.840 the daughter had been connected to Epic and, um, her dad had walked away from church a long time ago. 00:37:14.840 --> 00:37:19.640 And, uh, so they started watching during the pandemic together, even though they lived in 00:37:19.640 --> 00:37:25.400 different places. And, um, and then, you know, uh, he gets baptized on the backside of all of this. 00:37:25.400 --> 00:37:29.400 And I saw them at church. I, and when I saw them, they had come to something called a welcome party, 00:37:29.400 --> 00:37:33.160 which is, uh, an experience that we have for people who are new to Epic, um, where they meet some of 00:37:33.160 --> 00:37:37.160 our pastors. It's like a zoom call kind of thing. Um, at any rate, I got to hear some of their story. 00:37:37.160 --> 00:37:41.960 And then he got baptized. And I'm just like, like, how cool is that, that this, that's her, 00:37:41.960 --> 00:37:47.640 that's his daughter's story now is that she got to be such an integral part of him making a connection 00:37:47.640 --> 00:37:54.120 to God and to faith again. Um, and it all happened online. I think that's the coolest thing. Um, 00:37:54.120 --> 00:37:58.120 you know, truth is that online church is the new front door. People are going to watch online before 00:37:58.120 --> 00:38:02.040 they ever come in person, regardless of who they are, whether they're a non-believer or they've been 00:38:02.040 --> 00:38:06.280 a believer for forever, they're going to watch online. And so what we put online really matters. 00:38:06.280 --> 00:38:12.600 Um, and another thing is really cool about it is, you know, the online church experience has, um, 00:38:12.600 --> 00:38:19.000 expanded our reach incredibly because it goes beyond buildings, um, borders and time barriers, 00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:22.840 you know, with the on demand thing. I mean, I don't know what it is about Thursday night, 00:38:22.840 --> 00:38:26.280 but people love doing church on Thursday night. Like that's a thing. So, you know, 00:38:26.280 --> 00:38:31.560 that we're able to leverage that for good, man, that changes the game. And then probably the biggest 00:38:31.560 --> 00:38:35.240 one, and this is probably the biggest, the biggest win. If this was the only thing that came out of the 00:38:35.240 --> 00:38:39.640 whole experiment and everything that we've been messing with lately, this would be worth it. 00:38:40.520 --> 00:38:46.600 So in 2000, people went to church once a week, average regular church to go to church, uh, 00:38:46.600 --> 00:38:54.360 once a week in 2019, that number had moved to 1.6 times a month. Um, then you take into account 00:38:54.360 --> 00:38:59.880 the pandemic. Did that help or hurt that stat? Well, obviously it hurt it. Right. And so the question is, 00:38:59.880 --> 00:39:06.440 can you make a disciple if they only ever engage with you and your content or your community once 00:39:06.440 --> 00:39:13.640 a month, can you make a disciple once a month? No. And so if our strategy is dependent on people 00:39:13.640 --> 00:39:17.720 engaging with our stuff more than once a month or showing up in our building more than once a month, 00:39:18.280 --> 00:39:24.680 and that's a failed strategy across the board, it's a failed strategy. So something has to supplement 00:39:24.680 --> 00:39:30.440 or change that. And that's what I think online church does. It creates the opportunity for greater 00:39:30.440 --> 00:39:34.680 engagement because yeah, you're only going to show up once a month, but man, I'm going to get you at least 00:39:34.680 --> 00:39:39.560 two more times that month where you're going to watch online, maybe three, maybe three, 00:39:39.560 --> 00:39:44.360 because it's on demand. It's in your pocket. You can pull that thing out. You can do it with a fridge. 00:39:44.360 --> 00:39:48.920 You can do it while you're at the gym. Like, man, that just increases the opportunity for discipleship, 00:39:48.920 --> 00:39:54.760 you know, at least fourfold, you know? So, um, that's, that's the game changer. That's the big win, 00:39:54.760 --> 00:39:59.960 I think for the church with leveraging online. Yeah. And, and even just pulling, pulling that same thread, 00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:06.920 uh, as you're opening up and exploring more in the digital discipleship side, now scaling church into 00:40:06.920 --> 00:40:13.240 different, um, different campuses, uh, different environments, uh, more aggressive in digital space, 00:40:13.240 --> 00:40:19.480 more even aggressive into metaverse and VR and some of those things, because now your discipleship 00:40:19.480 --> 00:40:26.840 system is in digital space, the opportunity to multiply these churches, but feed into a centralized 00:40:26.840 --> 00:40:33.160 discipleship. Now you're, you're talking about these church services really being the, the front door 00:40:33.160 --> 00:40:38.440 for, and I'm sorry, it's a church. Yeah. Church service or our, our church buildings are our virtual 00:40:38.440 --> 00:40:45.080 programming to really be the front door that leads into this discipleship structure that's operating in 00:40:45.080 --> 00:40:50.360 a digital space. No, I love the stuff that you're talking about here. Yeah. And, and Jeff, to be clear, 00:40:50.360 --> 00:40:58.040 um, the, the, we've been talking a lot about our, our, uh, Sunday experience, whether that's live or 00:40:58.040 --> 00:41:05.720 that's, uh, online, but of course that is not the only thing that church is right. That's one of the 00:41:05.720 --> 00:41:11.480 iceberg as one aspect of the church and everything else has been revolving around making sure people 00:41:11.480 --> 00:41:17.000 show up at this time on for this hour on Sunday. And so now we've expanded that to say, well, you don't 00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:22.360 have to, if you, you don't have to do that now, you can access a, uh, an experience made for online at 00:41:22.360 --> 00:41:28.040 any point during the week, but that's still just one show on the channel. There, there's needs to be 00:41:28.040 --> 00:41:33.560 a lot of other type of opportunities for connection and community. And, um, all the community doesn't 00:41:33.560 --> 00:41:37.720 happen by watching that together. It's usually not watched together. It's most of the time watched on 00:41:37.720 --> 00:41:46.760 demand anyway. Um, and so, um, for us, our strategy moving forward, um, it includes and innovating around 00:41:46.760 --> 00:41:51.320 and thinking through the best ways to build community online digitally to build community, 00:41:51.320 --> 00:42:00.280 um, hybrid to where all of, we have an online pastor, um, that pastors, everyone who is connected 00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:07.320 to us outline out online outside the Philadelphia area. Our other location pastors are not in-person 00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:12.200 pastors. They're pastors period, whether you engage online or you engage in person. So they're connected 00:42:12.200 --> 00:42:18.200 with people online and in-person. So technically all of our pastors are online pastors. And, um, 00:42:18.200 --> 00:42:22.280 if, if they live, if you live in their region, they're pastoring you, no matter if you attend 00:42:22.280 --> 00:42:27.560 online or in-person or a mixture of both, they're your pastor. And so our whole strategy is about 00:42:27.560 --> 00:42:33.960 connecting people, um, in groups. Our groups happen hybrid, um, kids stuff happens hybrid. Everything 00:42:33.960 --> 00:42:37.880 has to happen hybrid. Everything has to be run through that, even serving, providing opportunities for 00:42:37.880 --> 00:42:43.560 that, even serving community outreach with, um, in Philadelphia, there's ways for people to do that, 00:42:43.560 --> 00:42:47.480 or we want to resource you where you're at. And so we don't have all the answers. And I know a lot 00:42:47.480 --> 00:42:53.160 of churches are trying to innovate and learn in this. How do we do all these other areas? Um, we've, 00:42:53.160 --> 00:43:00.120 we figured out so far, um, a good track for us on the Sunday experience, our epic everywhere. Um, 00:43:00.120 --> 00:43:05.400 and we are leaning hard into, all right, all these other avenues. How do we, how do we make the most 00:43:05.400 --> 00:43:11.160 of that too? And can I bring it really personal to, you know, you guys asked about the winds before, 00:43:11.880 --> 00:43:20.760 um, I had, um, a family member, uh, a relative who, uh, lives in New Jersey, um, and doesn't do church 00:43:20.760 --> 00:43:29.080 ever really. Um, but saw one of our online things and decided to give it a watch. And, uh, 00:43:29.080 --> 00:43:37.160 her reaction to that was, wow, very different. Not only, she had only been used to Catholic. Right. 00:43:37.160 --> 00:43:41.640 And she was, she was so surprised, like, wait, this is church. This is like, I actually watched 00:43:41.640 --> 00:43:46.840 the thing and understood it and it made sense. And it made me want to ask more. And she then had 00:43:46.840 --> 00:43:52.040 follow-up questions, not about, can I come in person or all that, but she had follow-up questions 00:43:52.040 --> 00:43:58.040 about real life faith stuff. Right. Like about parenting and about, uh, you know, 00:43:58.040 --> 00:44:05.320 faith God questions and all that. And so, um, I think that online opportunities like our weekly 00:44:05.320 --> 00:44:10.360 services and other things open up doors for real life conversations to happen where the win isn't 00:44:10.360 --> 00:44:15.640 just to get them to watch it. The win is for, to get them to start considering their own personal 00:44:15.640 --> 00:44:19.800 faith and taking steps in that direction. And so I've, I've experienced that within my own family 00:44:19.800 --> 00:44:25.000 members. Um, and I know that that's happening, you know, times a thousand around. 00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.880 You know, what's interesting is, is like the whole for, I mean, for you, it digital was an 00:44:29.880 --> 00:44:34.440 experiment. Now it was a forced experiment as a result of COVID, but it was something that you had 00:44:34.440 --> 00:44:38.920 to do, you know, for churches that are out there listening, how many other stories like that we 00:44:38.920 --> 00:44:44.520 would be able to hear if we were experimenting and trying different things and not falling back into the 00:44:44.520 --> 00:44:51.640 the same laurels, the same processes, the same systems, the same weekend. Um, the weekend plays a role. Um, 00:44:51.640 --> 00:44:57.400 but the ability to do other things, to experiment into, to reach a different type of people, utilizing 00:44:57.400 --> 00:45:02.120 different methods, empowering different people and discipling in different ways. Yeah. Like there's 00:45:02.120 --> 00:45:08.120 an incredible opportunity for us if we would try to do something different and, and whether it was six 00:45:08.120 --> 00:45:15.800 months of, uh, celebration or sheer terror or some mix in between, uh, like it's, it's awesome to see 00:45:15.800 --> 00:45:21.240 a church that's, that's going for it. Um, and, and, and learn to maybe a lesson for the future. Well, 00:45:21.240 --> 00:45:29.400 let me ask like how, what does the future look like for, uh, for Epic and, and maybe how did some of 00:45:29.400 --> 00:45:34.840 this influence what that future looks like? What we talked about some lessons, immediate implications, 00:45:34.840 --> 00:45:40.440 or long-term implications. What are you finding? Yeah. Um, well, I think, I think one thing is that, 00:45:41.000 --> 00:45:46.200 um, this just underscores an idea we've had since the very beginning, since the days of the duct tape 00:45:46.200 --> 00:45:51.240 and the chewing gum and figuring out how to stream across to the other room, it just underscores 00:45:51.240 --> 00:45:56.920 this idea that everything's an experiment, right? And that, that gives us permission to try some things 00:45:56.920 --> 00:46:02.200 and whether it was a huge success or we were like, oh, that's a failure. It's a, it's a, 00:46:02.760 --> 00:46:07.240 however you want to describe that we tried it and it's a lesson learned and we're going to take that 00:46:07.240 --> 00:46:12.040 and it's going to make us better going forward to finding the thing that is most effective. Um, 00:46:12.040 --> 00:46:16.040 what would be a failure would be not trying. What would be a failure would be sitting back and just 00:46:16.040 --> 00:46:20.680 say, let's do what we think is always kind of worked, but we kind of have problems with it because 00:46:20.680 --> 00:46:25.080 we don't, you know, we think it could be better. We just don't know how, so we're going to do nothing. 00:46:25.560 --> 00:46:29.800 I would rather be on the side of, we're going to shoot for the stars and hit the moon and we're 00:46:29.800 --> 00:46:33.960 going to make progress and we're going to take a hill together. So I think that's part of it. Uh, 00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:39.400 I think the future for us is, I really do believe that hybrid church is the future. Uh, what exactly 00:46:39.400 --> 00:46:44.360 that looks like, you know, there's a lot of innovation to be done and there's a lot of 00:46:44.360 --> 00:46:49.640 lessons to be learned. And, um, and you know, the church as a whole is going to be better as 00:46:49.640 --> 00:46:54.040 a bunch of us, a bunch of different churches are innovating and playing in the space and 00:46:54.040 --> 00:46:59.000 learn from each other, uh, what some best practices are. So I think hybrid churches is the future. I mean, 00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:04.840 at the end of the day, our mission hasn't changed. It's still, we're on a mission to see every person 00:47:04.840 --> 00:47:09.720 in the city, follow Jesus, every single person. And that's because every person matters. And so 00:47:09.720 --> 00:47:13.640 we're going to keep innovating and keep learning and keep trying to pick up best practices from, 00:47:13.640 --> 00:47:21.400 from, from everybody we can get best practices from so that we can be as effective as we possibly can 00:47:21.960 --> 00:47:26.680 in accomplishing our mission. Um, you know, the old cliche, you know, it's, it's, it's the method 00:47:26.680 --> 00:47:33.000 changes. The mission stays the same. Um, but I think really being willing to, to lay your methods 00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:37.480 on the line opens the door for God to do things that we couldn't have come up with on our own. 00:47:37.480 --> 00:47:42.280 Awesome. So, so true. Hey guys, this has been a phenomenal conversation. Just talking about this 00:47:42.280 --> 00:47:48.760 experiment of shutting the doors and going online three weeks of four, uh, throwing some micro, 00:47:48.760 --> 00:47:54.440 some, some vision, some, some why in there. Uh, but definitely love, love y'all's heart, uh, 00:47:54.440 --> 00:48:01.320 for going for it. And, and the vision for hybrid, uh, moving forward, um, you know, a, a unified 00:48:01.320 --> 00:48:07.640 system going in and in between physical and digital, uh, strengthened by digital discipleship processes 00:48:07.640 --> 00:48:13.320 is a, is a strong vision for the future. I, at least I think so. Uh, well done. Hey, 00:48:13.320 --> 00:48:16.920 as we're, as we're landing the plane here, any, any closing thoughts, Justin, you want to go first? 00:48:16.920 --> 00:48:23.000 Sure. Um, you know, when we were, when we were planning this, we talked to everyone we could think 00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:29.400 of to try to gain some insight and try to gain counsel in, um, is this a terrible idea? We would 00:48:29.400 --> 00:48:33.960 ask that specific question. I think that we, we called you Jeff and we were like, Jeff, is this a 00:48:33.960 --> 00:48:37.880 terrible idea? Just tell us, be honest. Right. Can I tell you what my answer was? Cause I remember 00:48:37.880 --> 00:48:42.840 you asking me that question. Do you, I actually, I think it's a great idea. I've had a, I've had a 00:48:42.840 --> 00:48:47.080 dozen people tell me they were going to do it. None of them actually have the guts to do it. Uh, 00:48:47.080 --> 00:48:51.240 so if you do it, congratulations, let me know how it works out because a lot of people are talking 00:48:51.240 --> 00:48:57.080 about it, but nobody, yeah, to my knowledge, no, there may be a couple. And I know a lot of places 00:48:57.080 --> 00:49:04.200 did a push for, um, for, uh, for micro. I don't know anybody that closed the doors. Uh, and so you 00:49:04.200 --> 00:49:10.520 may be like the ones that, that I, I would tell and say, Hey, these guys actually did it. Uh, when 00:49:10.520 --> 00:49:15.080 everybody else was just dreaming about it. I don't know if we should be proud or like, nah. 00:49:16.040 --> 00:49:20.520 Listen, man, we're always learning, always learning. When we asked that question to, uh, 00:49:20.520 --> 00:49:27.480 to Warren bird, who, I mean, smarter than all of us put together. Um, we were like, Warren, is this, 00:49:27.480 --> 00:49:32.360 is this going to work? We gave him our best pitch. And he says, you know, you know what people want? 00:49:33.080 --> 00:49:37.000 They're going to want both. They want all of it. They want all of it. They want all every option. 00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:41.080 They want all the flexibility, maximum flexibility. And I think that's one of the key things that we've 00:49:41.080 --> 00:49:44.920 taken away from this. So we had to go through the process, get our scraped knees, learn that, 00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:50.360 learn it, but, but we have felt, all right, if, if we're going to try to create opportunities for 00:49:50.360 --> 00:49:55.400 people to know Jesus, every person city, then how do we create the ultimate flexibility for people, 00:49:55.400 --> 00:49:59.720 create the best online experiences, create the best in-person experiences, create a mixture of 00:49:59.720 --> 00:50:04.200 both and do it with the resources we have. Um, and so that's the challenge I think for every church to 00:50:04.200 --> 00:50:08.200 be able to think through their strategy, do it with the resources you have, do it where you're called to 00:50:08.200 --> 00:50:14.920 do. Um, but man, we would encourage people to not leave out online as a part of it and to be really 00:50:14.920 --> 00:50:20.280 strategic about including it and not making people feel bad if they watch online or they connect online. 00:50:20.280 --> 00:50:25.640 It's not a secondary less than, Oh, I couldn't get to the real thing. So I do the secondary thing. No, 00:50:25.640 --> 00:50:29.240 you did the real thing. Like you're connecting, you're growing, you're making steps, you're taking 00:50:29.240 --> 00:50:33.800 strides. So we never make people feel bad about that. We applaud it. We celebrate it. Way to go. 00:50:33.800 --> 00:50:38.920 So you came to church, you joined, you texted in online, came to church. And, um, that's something 00:50:38.920 --> 00:50:44.600 we learned. Flexibility wins in today's day and age. Kent, any closing thoughts? Yeah, I think I'd say 00:50:44.600 --> 00:50:51.000 this and just, you know, uh, talking to myself probably more than anybody, but to other, uh, pastors 00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:58.280 or leaders, um, who are, who are listening. Um, listen, I don't know. I mean, I've been in ministry 20 00:50:58.280 --> 00:51:03.800 plus years and, uh, this last two years has been hands down the most difficult hands down. No doubt 00:51:03.800 --> 00:51:11.800 about that. Um, uh, that said, I think the thing that's encouraging to me is that God chose us to 00:51:11.800 --> 00:51:17.080 lead right now. Like of all the times in history to lead and all the times to be a pastor, God chose 00:51:17.080 --> 00:51:21.720 us for right now. Last I checked, he doesn't make mistakes and that there was, there was, there's, 00:51:21.720 --> 00:51:26.920 there's, there's a good reason why he chose us for now. So he chose us to take on these mountains, 00:51:26.920 --> 00:51:31.640 to, to climb these hills, to take on these challenges. And, you know, I believe, I still 00:51:31.640 --> 00:51:38.440 believe that, you know, um, the hope of the world is the church and, um, you know, Jesus, Jesus is at 00:51:38.440 --> 00:51:45.240 work, God's at work. And so, um, to know that we've been tapped on the shoulder for, for this time, 00:51:45.240 --> 00:51:49.400 that's encouraging to me. It's like, all right, even in moments when I maybe don't believe in myself, 00:51:49.400 --> 00:51:53.880 there's a God in heaven who believed in me enough to tap me on the shoulder to lead right 00:51:53.880 --> 00:51:58.440 now. And so if you're a leader, just know, let's go. It's go time. Let's get it. 00:51:58.440 --> 00:52:02.920 Man, you, you, you just, you just preached. Uh, that, that may be one of the first times I actually 00:52:02.920 --> 00:52:07.080 got a sermon here on, on the church digital podcast. Like that, that was, that was, that was 00:52:07.080 --> 00:52:12.760 solid, man. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Listen, there, there is so much, um, you know, 00:52:12.760 --> 00:52:18.200 there's so much pivoting right now. Right. And, uh, it can be overwhelming. It can be taxing. Uh, 00:52:18.200 --> 00:52:24.360 but that's what, what, what truth right there, uh, God equipped you in this time to do what you're 00:52:24.360 --> 00:52:29.160 doing. And so thank you for sharing that. And, and with that, we're going to land the plane. Like 00:52:29.160 --> 00:52:34.200 this has been a, a fun time. Great conversation. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Kent. Epic church. 00:52:34.200 --> 00:52:38.120 Appreciate you all coming in. Yeah, definitely. It's been great, but we're going to end. Hey, 00:52:38.120 --> 00:52:42.040 this is Jeff, uh, with the church, digital digital church network and a whole bunch of other fun stuff. 00:52:42.360 --> 00:52:45.080 Thanks for jumping on the podcast and we'll see you next time here at the show. 00:52:45.340 --> 00:52:45.820 Y'all have a good one.